Incoming: Ephemera swap from Michelle

As I posted a couple of days ago what I have sent to Michelle, this is what I have received from Michelle a couple of weeks ago! A small simple box with lots of gorgeousness inside! Total beauty! There was this small package inside wrapped in tissuepaper (I love tissuepaper as you may know). Underneath was a bunch of glassine envelopes. My excitement was overflowing at that moment when I saw Dennison labels shining through! I might have jumped a little happy jump!
Inside the tissuepaper came some more happy jumping things. Two hands! I LOVE THEM!!!!! How amazing are those! Just totally! I have had them on my desk for a while, just to look at. But now I have put them on a shelf in my little cabinet on my desk where they look good too! They are called "Santos hands" and they look good just anywhere where I might put them. I feel really spoiled!
In the see through envelope are vintage Dennison linen tags. They were use for pricing clothes and linen in the olden days. Very special!
It's a total beauty, just everything. Can't wait tot start journalling again to use it all!

Incoming: Canadian paper swap

As a paperlover, I really love prints and vintage paper (ephemera). Jay from Halifax in Nova Scotia (Canada) has a same love of paper. She is a graphic designer who loves nature, so her work evolves around nature prints and the motto: Be Bold. I like bold statements. she has sent me this wonderful collection of paper! The owl print had to go up on my wall of black and white photographs to make a bold statement. I love this one! Oh, and yes, that blonde girl on the left with a toy guitar is me, taken in 1978. On the right is my daughter from when she was 2 years old. The papercrafted heart was a motherdays gift from last year :-)
Jay had sent me such beautiful prints! She also works as an eventmanager for autistic childeren. Can you believe it that care for autism is just not funded by the Canadian gouvernment? One of those children has made that red card with a bird on it, I think that's cool! Lots of ephemera to play with now!

Outgoing: ephemera swap to Michelle

Since I have discovered the world of Instagram, I have been meeting lots of wonderful people who love the same stuff stuff as I do! And how wonderful is that! More people who like ephemera and papercrafts. Like Michelle, who Instagrams over here, and has a shop over here. She collects the most beautiful Dennison labels (very jeaulous!). I wish I could go ephemera hunting with her. But she lives all the way in Portland Oregon. Well, that would be a long bikeride to the US!
While we were both posting stuff on Instagram, she asked me for an ephemera swap. I thought, what? me? Are you sure? Wow! And then insecurity set in. Do I have enough ephemera? What will I send in an ephemera swap? Is my collection worthy? I decided to draw a swallow on a vintage envelope and collect some stuff in envelopes for Michelle. Her favourite colour is red, and I have tried to find some nice stuff for her from my collections. Lovely old envelopes and postcards. The blue envelope has the same street on it as where I used to live as an art student! How cool is that! I love those old postmarks and stamps on the postcards and envelopes.
Thank God she loved it all!

Inspiration: Babyshower decoration

My bestie was heavenly pregnant of her third child, so my other bestie friend and I decided that it would be great fun to organise a babyhower! I got a bit carried away with seeing all these beautiful decorations all over Pinterest and I infected my friend with enthusiasm for the idea. So we checked out busy schedules and planned a date. We spent a day shopping for stuff with no big idea in mind except that it would be a boy. And we splashed out! We got totally carried away. Bearing in mind that I would do the decorating part and she would do the baking/cooking part (she is like a fabulous cook, put her in just any kitchen and she will splash out something delicious from a stove). We did spent a bit to much money in the end on pressies (so many lovely babyclothes).
After visiting the first shop we went into, we decided on really corny blue and white, but because we found a lot of turquoise colours aswell, the combinations of the colours were bright and happy instead of dull and boring.
We found great pompoms for nearly nothing that would make a bold statement just hanging there, garlands, tablecloths, plastic tablewear, etc. We didn't spent a lot of money on expensive decoration but just bought a lot of cheaper stuff, since we wanted to a full table that was decorated to the max!. My friend made lots of nice food and canopes (she even made chocolate hearts and stuff!!!) (they were yummie). I tried to make a diapercake, that was harder then I thought it would be, but made two in the end. It looked like a "welcome to your big fat gypsy babyshower" diapercake but it fitted the whole decoration nicely. Before the babyshower we raided our besties house and sent her shopping for an hour or so while we quickly decorated everything. She was blindfolded while coming back (and being really anxious with what we had come up with) and surprised her when she saw all this! It was a great succes! Mummy to be got really spoiled with all the pressies and had to spent all afternoon just unpacking and eating scrumptious cakes and chocolates. And last week she gave birth to a lovely little healthy boy, ofcourse totally due to our babyshower.

Incoming: Thrifting swap part 3

Remember that thrifting swap from over here? This is what Maliea sent me as a part 1 of her swap (she decided on sending it in two parts, that would give her more time for thrifing hunting!). Inside this small box the postman handed to me were these wrapped beauties. Wrapped in tissuepaper, which I love, yes I do love tissuepaper! A small note and three tissuepaper wrapped items.

I saved some of the tissuepaper. It's vintage tissuepaper since it is from the seventies and turned out to be from Maliea's gran!

Inside the first tissuepaper wrapped parcels was a stack of old books.Three American childrenbooks and a fifties cooking book. That one was my favourite I think! One book still had a library ticket inside! Inside the cookbook there were some more hidden treasures, some ephemera! How do I love ephemera.

The other small item was a bit heavy! on top of it was a small brooch of a little dog (like the one Maliea owns herself). Inside were two bronze or brass piggies.

And the last item were some vintage handkerchiefs and a sort of seventies collar (the bottom one). So now I have to think of a cool project to use the books and hankies for!

Inspiration: A peek inside my studio

I thought I give you a small peek into my studio. It's sort of almost finished now. So I'll show you the finished part of it. I case you are wondering what all the fuss is about, let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time there was this artist that became a nurse. Yes, she did go to art school and graduated nicely. And yes she did go to nursing school and became a RN. After several years of dating and living together the artist that became a nurse and her boyfriend decided to be really grown up and buy a real grown up house. But (there was a but of course), the house had to have room for a studio. They found this really old house which was in a bad state and it had a workroom (or shed as some might have called it) at the back of the house. But she didn't see a shed thing, she saw a potential studio! But then life became really busy, because while doing up the old house (which turned out to be a very fertile house), two kids decided to join the fun. And that room at the back of the house turned into a sort of shed again, full of sawdust, metal splinters and a home to a family of spiders and even some mice. So the artist that became a nurse ended up being a bit crafty in the computer room. But then boyfriend decided that enough was enough. The computer was nowhere to be found in that computer room at that time, as was the floor or the table for that matter. Everything was hidden underneath books or bags or thrifting finds. There was no crafty space left at the computerdesk. So he gave her a bucket and plaster and send her on her way. So she plastered the walls, sanded down the ceiling, rewired the electrics while boyfriend installed a really good heater. Ordered a new door, one without holes and gaps in it and with a great window to let in lots of light. Boyfriend isolated the floor so even feet wouldn't be cold anymore. And after all that (six months or so later, maybe longer) it was time to decide on the fun bits! How to decorate that studio!

And this is what it sort of looks like now. So come have a look inside my studio!

Inspiration: My studio: stuff I found again!

A lot of catching up to do! I've been busy finishing off my studio in case you wondered where I have been. Also busy times at work and a well needed little holiday time with the kids.
In between work, kids and a household, I managed to sort of finish decorating my studio. A lot of stuff came down from the attic where it had been hiding for almost 10 years! How much fun it was to rediscover my own treasures! Like this tin I once bought while I was first moving out of my parents home. A tin I have used during art school to keep my charcoal in (for drawing). I tried to clean it a little, but it's as clean as can be now. It looks better though in the picture than in real life, the colours come out better in the picture. I reckon it's really really old, like 100 years or so with a bit of imagination (I have lots of that), but in reality I think it's from the thirties or twenties or something as the design is a bit Art Deco.

I've found these toys at the thrift store some time ago and thought they were really funky and colourful. But they were hiding away in a bag somewhere waiting for the studio to be finished. This branch was at the attic. We found it in Italy a couple of years ago at a river, where we waded through while walking. My son found the branch to be exact and we sort of figured it would look good on the mantlepiece. But somehow we never did put it there in the end. Well, it travelled all the way from Italy to our home and is now residing in my studio. The garland was a Christmas present by the way.

I also found an old shopping basket in the attic in which I stored all my drawing supplies. And there it was! My inherited box of pastels! I got it when I was 15 or something when my great aunt died of cancer. She used to draw quite a lot and it was already an old box when I got it! And now almost 30 years later I have found it! (almost 30 years later, I'm not that old...) I'm always a bit scared to use it though, I have this voice inside me saying that it would be such a shame to use it. Maybe the pastels don't work anymore and fall apart when using it. But I still enjoy just looking at it once in a while.

I've found a whole box full of nibs for my dip pen! I knew I had these somewhere but I just couldn't remember where exactly. I'm so glad I have found these again! It was always such a please to draw with them, a long long time ago. Can't wait to start using them again some time soon. I even found a whole bottle of drawing ink.

And a stack of old books I once got from the dark alleys of the internet! They are postage stamps collectors books, most of them half empty, but some have really cool stamps inside.