I found this bowl at the flea market but I can't find anything about it. The bowl is really thin white glass and the design is done in black and gold. It looks a lot like pieces by Georges Briard (you can see samples of his work on flickr) but my bowl is unsigned.

Lovely Clusters

Some of my cards have been featured in the Lovely Clusters Autumn/Winter 2012-13 Catalog. The catalog is really beautiful and when you see the fabulous photographs, you really want to buy EVERYTHING! I can't believe my photos made the cut.

You can see the Lovely Clusters website here and my cards are available in my Etsy shop here.

Talk Like a Pirate

September 19th is the official "Talk Like A Pirate Day" Aargh! I did this illustration a few years ago.

Tea in the Garden

At one of my craft shows, I was approached by a woman who commissioned me to do a tea party collage for her daughter's birthday party. She backed out after I had completed it so, I gave it to a very special little girl-my niece-whose family has just moved into their first house. It's now in her brand new bedroom.

The collage combines acrylic paint and handmade papers on canvas. It's the largest thing I've done at 16" x 20". The quote is from a song by Raffi.

Another Flea Market Sunday

I can't believe it's September already. What happened to August? One good thing about starting a new month is that the first Sunday is the flea market at Pasadena City College. Sometimes I find a lot of goodies, and sometimes I don't. Yesterday, I found lots to buy. One item was this cute vintage book. It was originally published in 1960 and is called "Corkey's Friend". It is one in a series by Cecelia and Jean Hinde. Corkey's friend is a mouse named Slim (Corkey never actualy makes an appearance in this book and I'm not entirely sure what kind of animal Corkey is since I haven't seen the other books). In this story, Corkey is sick so Slim rides around town on his stick horse and buys gifts for his sick friend at the candy store, pet store and toy store. I was attracted by the cool palette of olive green, teal blue and melon.

Vintage Stamps

I love anything with vintage postage and when I saw these stamps, I snapped them up. I purchased them from an Ebay seller living in Croatia and the only thing in the listing was that the stamps were from Austria. After about 2 hours of searching the internet, I discovered that my stamps are not regular postage stamps, but tax revenue stamps and they date from the 1850's. These would have been put on a document to show the taxes were paid (on items such as tabacco or alcohol). I particularly like that they are black and white although some of them come with a pale green or pink tint. Every country had these revenue stamps and lots of them are very reasonably priced for collectors. The original documents with the stamps tend to be a little more expensive but still very affordable considering their age.

This next image is a French document from 1898 showing a revenue stamp on a document. I had purchased it awhile ago but never thought about the stamp on it since I bought it for the beautiful handwriting.

Little Travelers

These two have traveled quite a ways to visit me. The bird is made of vintage fabrics and wears a jaunty acorn hat. She was made by Ann Wood from Brooklyn, NY. You can see more of her creations here. The little mouse came all the way from Chile! He is needle felted and travels with a tiny leather bag and knit scarf for cold nights. He was made by Johana of Felting Dreams. You can see more of her adorable animals here.

New Artwork

I've been working on some new collages and am quite pleased with the way these 2 came out. These are collages on canvas using acrylic paint, handmade papers and miscellaneous vintage ephemera.

Reader's Digest Covers

I've said in previous posts that sometimes I DO judge a book by its cover and these Reader's Digest are the perfect example. At the moment, I really have no interest in actually reading these but the patterns on the cover are what attracts me to the books. My local library book sale room is an excellent source of vintage Reader's Digest books. They hold all the ones from the 1950's and 60's for me and charge me 25 cents a book. Here are a few examples of what I've bought.(Yard sales are a good source too!) These covers are popular for crafting but I can't bring myself to cut up a perfectly good book.

Patchwork Culver City

This past Sunday was the Patchwork show in Culver City, California. Since most of set up was on Saturday, I had time to walk around the show and check out cool stuff. The booth next to me was MandaLanda who did super creative things with vintage books and book pages. Even their booth walls were covered in vintage type. Another eye-catching booth belonged to Make Shop Live who specialized in recycled and repurposed goods like the bottle cap magnets on the left. Cute felted toys filled Jenny Smith's booth. I gave the "Best use of Kraft Paper" to Klai Brown's creative booth. It was the perfect background for her ceramics. Melissa Renzi had a display of her collages and last but not least, this adorable owl onsie® from Random Nicole (one of the fearless leaders of Patchwork!).

Patchwork Santa Ana

Yesterday was the Patchwork craft show in Santa Ana, California. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and the crowds were out. We had a great location in a corner spot.

My booth mate, Gilded Moon sells beautiful jewelry (I bought a pair of earrings at the show last weekend and have my eye on another pair!)

Here's my table stuffed with cards, bookmarks, notepads, paintings and a few more miscellaneous items.

After the last show, I decided our booth needed some jazzing up so I made bunting. I saw bunting on a blog by South African artist Heather Moore (etsy shop skinny laminx) and thought that it looked really quick and easy, which it was. At a local quilt shop, I purchased for $10 a pack of 42 pre-cut pieces (Moda, California Girl) with the edges pinked. I simply cut each piece down the middle and had enough pieces for 3 strands of bunting. I pinned and sewed the fabric onto 12 foot lengths of twill ribbon. It was an easy one night project. Here's the result:

I like to walk around the show and check out everyone's booth and product but I rarely have the chance. Before the show opened I snapped a few pictures as people were setting up. Here are a few of my favorite items and displays. 1. Beautiful necklace made from vintage parts by Bazaar Latino (I purchased one from her etsy shop just last week)

2. Eye catching display from Bazaar Latino's booth mate Hephzi Creations. I love the way she lined the vintage suitcases with fabric to display her jewelry.

3. Huggable dolls from Imaginery Friend. (You can reach her at Girlalwaysfallin@aol.com)

4. Cool things made from vintage items- like these paper art dolls. I love the one in the middle with the sheet music skirt (darn, I think she sold!) These are from You Are It and you can see more at www.sewsweetnsimple.wordpress.com and at missvickyb.blogspot.com.

Two weeks until Patchwork Culver City! More show inspiration to report then.

Craft Show Product

Since my first craft show of the year (Patchwork Long Beach) is this coming Sunday, I thought I'd make some items using my new collages. I've done 6 different note cards, and a few decorated Moleskines with matching bookmarks which will be sold as a set. If they do well at the show, they'll debut in my Etsy shop in a few weeks.

Spring Craft Shows

It's time for the spring craft shows and so far, I have 3 scheduled. Patchwork Long Beach on May 20, Patchwork Santa Ana on May 27 and Patchwork Culver City on June 10. These are all great shows with music, food trucks and way too many cool things to buy. (It's a wonder I make any money!) You can find out more about all three shows at patchworkshow.com. I did this new promo postcard to hand out and I think it came out pretty well.

Alain Grée

I purchased these cute blocks and matching box from Etsy seller Pomme de Jour. She lives in France and finds all sorts of fun vintage fabrics, books and bric-a-brac. She also makes things from her finds, like these blocks made from illustrations by French author and illustrator Alain Grée. You can read about him and see many of his illustrations on this website www.alaingree.com.

Pomme de Jour has a blog, ebay shop and boutique (as well as her etsy shop) and often sells books and other Alain Grée items. Check it all out at www.pommedejour.com.

Monsters Rule!

I don't know why, but I have a thing for monsters. Cute ones, of course. A few years ago, I did a monster carved from an eraser and I made these cards.

Recently, I finished this Monster Matching Game featuring 12 different monsters. It was fun to do but really time consuming cutting out 24 squares for each game, laminating the squares, and cutting them out again. I also created a "meet the monsters" card with a description of each monster. For a few weeks, I was thinking up monster names.

The really cute green and blue monster figures were purchased from Etsy seller Happy Moon Belly. I sent Jennifer at Happy Moon Belly a picture of my original eraser stamp and she made a custom big green monster for me. The little blue guy with the heart was so cute, I couldn't resist him. You can see more of her monsters and beasties here. Both the monster cards and the game are available in my Etsy shop.

Vintage Sand Pail

This adorable tin sand pail was originally a promo giveaway for Safeguard Soaps-free with a certain amount of soap purchased. It's is sooo cute! It shows children on safari with a lion, elephant and kangaroo. The colors are so bright and the illustrations so retro. The inside and bottom is pale aqua. I believe this dates from the 1960's or early 1970's.

Janos Kass, Part 2

In addition to children's books, Hungarian designer Janos Kass also designed postage stamps. The following images were designed for the International Year of the Child in 1979.

These stamps were purchased on Ebay for a few dollars and are fairly easy to find. One hint- don't search for Janos Kass-instead look for Magyar (Hungarian) stamps, or Year of the Child.

Janos Kass, Part 1

I discovered the Hungarian artist Janos Kass on Kristina Klarin's blog and since then, have been searching for some of his books to buy. Janos Kass(1927-2010) was a graphic designer, artist, animated film director, printmaker, and book designer. I followed Kristina's links and saw several books on this Japanese website but with the yen-dollar exchange rate, they were a bit expensive for me. Another link led me to this Hungarian website and I ended up purchasing several children's books. The website is both in English and Hungarian with prices in Hungarian forints. You can pre-order out-of-stock books and they will answer emails in English. The following is one of the books I purchased. I have absolutely no idea what it's about but the illustrations are so cheerful.

books.