New And Old Treasures To Share

Hello my dear friends,

I just love to share my treasures with all you lovely bloggers out there and I  love seeing all the wonderful treasures you find!!

Today I would like to share a few older findings and a few new ones. Most of them are vintage or antique and one of them is a new store bought item.

I am so lucky to have found these little Victorian coin purses ~ there are so many possibilies which I could use them for.

Do you like the little stars?

Can you believe it, these stars are actually sweet water pearls! ~ yes, I did say "pearls".

I found them at Michaels and I fell in love with them. They are "made" by inserting a piece of star shaped plastic into a clam and nature does the rest!!

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I love old tarnished silverware ~ especially old small spoons!

It is the detail on the handles that captures me and makes me buy them!

Believe it or not but this is the ONLY pincushion I have ever bought so far even though I get such a buzz out of making pincushions ~ I don't really collect them.

Ah yes ~ you can never have too many baby shoes. These are one of my favourite pairs. I found them at an outdoor market last year and at first I had only found the one shoe and I was happy with it with the thought of turning it into a pincushion, but then the gentlemen that was selling them told me there was another one out there. I had to look through a huge amount of stuff stacked, packed and shoved onto and into shelves but I finally found the other shoe and now they are one of my treasures that I love to look at ~ and I am not turning them into pincushions anymore.

This is a little treasure I found over the last weekend. This little saltshaker drew my attention to it because the glass is so crisp and perfect where the top is completely corroded from the salt and just makes it look very special!

My final new find were these two little old tatty vases. I found them at a church sale I visited over the weekend. I love their shape and how old, tatty and tarnished they are and I know exactly what I am going to do with them ~ yes, you all know too!

I hope you have enjoyed my treasures and I will be on the lookout for all of yours when I head into blogland the next time.

And last but not least ....

... time is running out to sign up for my giveaway.

So if you haven't put your name in the basket yet ~ off you go!

http://todolwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-very-first-wee-giveaway.html

I hope all you lovely bloggers out there are well and happy.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

Little Violets and Sweet Baby Dresses

Hello my dear friends,

it has been such a busy weekend for me again. Yard work, decluttering (yes, I am still at it) and treasure hunting were only a few of my tasks I had given myself over the week and ... I did get time to create, which was great.

I crochet more of my little violets and tea stained them again.

Little glass beads made the center of these pretty flowers.

Now they were complete wee flowers ~ what to do with them?

And after looking through my craft room I found what I was looking for ...

baby dresses !!

I had bought this set last year or maybe even longer ago. It is a vintage christening dress with a matching coat. These pieces are beautiful as they are but a little something was missing ~ tags!!

This is such a lovely dress with all the details.

And this is one of the tags I made for it.

The quote says:

"Wonder of wonders,

so soft, sweet and small".

I think that the tag complements the dress with the delicate colored violets.

And this is the other part of the set - the little coat.

This tags quote says:

"Babies are such a sweet beginning".

These would look so pretty as a wall decoration in a baby room.

Like with my other little baby dresses, I made the hangers myself and embellished them with ribbons that drape softly down but don't cover anything too much so you don't miss any detail on the dress or coat.

I have more violets left over after this creation and also a few new ideas of what to do with them but I am already thinking of which others flowers I could make too. We will just have to wait and see!

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

Two May Giveaways!!! Almost Your Last Chance To Enter!!!

Hello my dear friends,

just a short post about some giveaways that are coming to their end.

First there is the lovely Kimberly's from "Art Joy Stuff ".

http://artjoystuff.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-may-giveaway.html

And this is the lovely gift she is giving away!

Next there is the wonderful Lori from "Katie's Rose Cottage".

She made this lovely bag that will be the gift somebody with receive.

http://katiesrosecottage.blogspot.com/2011/05/cottage-charm-giveaway.html

And last but not least ...

my first wee giveaway ~ which ends June 2nd!

http://todolwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-very-first-wee-giveaway.html

Don't miss out on a chance to win one of these prizes, so why not pop over and leave a comment if you haven't done so already!

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

A Creation From The Past

Hello my dear friends,

today I would like to share a creation of mine that I did a few years ago. I am a lover of primitives and of the old. I have many of them in my home and I have made many primitives in the past but I don't really do so anymore. I think you get to a stage where you are happy with what you have. Actually I am happy enough to even downsize and declutter my primitives and I also find I have changed my style a bit as well.

This is one of my past primitives creations.

It is a "Canadian Pledge and Anthem" book.

I found the pledge on the Internet one day by chance and had the idea to make this book.

I had stained the pages and then printed on them. The book is decorated with painted fabric maple leaves.

It is made from an old book that has been stiffened and the pages have been glued together to stay in place.

I don't display it anymore (downsizing and decluttering) but I am sure it will be used one day again.

Ever since I have found altered art I feel I have found something I have been looking for. I love altered art because it isn't anything specific you have to use or style you have to make ~ you just make and use what ever you like and that is fantastic!!

I hope you are all well and have had a good weekend.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

My Busy Weekend ~ Part 2 ~ A Shopping I Did Go!

Hello again my dear friends,

apart from yard work and staining my crochet flowers I did get a chance to go treasure hunting as well this past weekend. We decided to head out to the lake and on the way we always drive past a few second hand stores and antique stores where we always stop and look in.

And I am glad we did!!

I found this flag in a antique store in Parkshill. It will be a gift for my husband, who you know is British and a retired soldier from HM Forces. I am planing to frame it and it will go into his new office once it is finished. ( I hope he doesn't read my blog and see this!!)

I also found these old army buttons. There are from the Royal Canadian Air Force and are made from brass. I am not sure what I am going to do with them, but they are just something I knew I had to have and I will use at some time in the future.

My other find was this vintage dress form. It is my second dress form and to tell you the truth I haven't even finished my first one yet, but the price was so good that I just couldn't walk away from it!!

And my last find of the weekend was this spool of rusty wire. I am thinking of making birds nests when I look at this but I am not quite sure yet.

I spent the rest of my weekend in my basement sorting through boxes of things that I hadn't seen in a few years. I can't believe how much stuff  I can let go of these days without feeling a loss. If I were to do that a few years ago I think it would have been a little problematic for me.

That was my weekend in a nutshell! I am hoping to be able to do some serious creating done this coming week.

And last but not least ...

don't forget to sign up for my first wee giveaway if you haven't done so already!!

http://todolwen.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-very-first-wee-giveaway.html

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

My Busy Weekend ~ Part 1

Hello my dear friends,

the weekend has been nice and busy for me. I got a lot of work done in my yard since it didn't rain which was great. I cut my lawn and fixed what needed fixing after our flood.

We did have a few visitors while I was out there. We have a bunny family that comes to stay and eat and this is one of the parents and the baby. I hope you can see the baby, since it is small and I couldn't get any closer without scaring it away. (It's behind the rocks next to a tuft of grass)

This is the view of my back yard seen through my dinning room window.

I did get a little time to work on a few new ideas I had. Remember my post on Friday about me crocheting my own little flowers? I did make quite a few of them and then I looked outside and remembered my little wild violets on my lawn, so I decided to try and make some.

These are my little violets in the beginning ...

here they are freshly tea stained ...

 and these are my wee violets after!

Aren't they just darling?!?!?! I didn't want to go out and buy purple yarn, so I decided to dye or rather tea stain my flowers. Can you believe it? I just used raspberry tea and a few drops of blue food coloring. Some of them I just dried as they came out of the dye, and some of them I rinsed out which ended up giving me more than one shade of purple. Other ones I just tea stained with regular tea for an old look. I really like these and I think I already know what I am going to use them for.

I also tea stained some of the pansies I made.

This was the first part of my weekend ... I have more to share with you later.

See you at part 2!

There Is Still So Much Beauty Out There!!

Hello my dear friends,

it is true, this world still has so much beauty to give. I would like to share a few photos I found on my favourite newspaper website "The Daily Mail" ~ Friday's addition. Again I have no rights over these photographs ~ I just think they are beautiful and want them to be seen!

These were taken here in Canada by the photographer Michael Poliza at Point Hubbard, Hudson Bay. The snow had melted early and Spring brought thousands of purple wild flowers to life. This happens once in a lifetime ~ to capture a polar bear sitting amongst Spring flowers!

I think that these photos are amazing and beautiful and I hope you enjoyed them as much as I have.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

What's On My Worktable At The Moment

Hello my dear friends,

These are some of the items I have on my worktable right now - new boxes from the "Bath and Body" store in our mall and this time they have 6 compartments to work with. It's so nice I found them again. I wonder what they will turn into this time?

Right now I am thinking of painting them a color less bright ~  off-white, beige or maybe a pale blue (I am not a bright pink or green person).

'New' old baby shoes. I picked them up yesterday at an antique store and they just look so neat and worn - just the way I love them!

My collection of pansies that I have gathered from old doilies in the past, in all their colorful glory!

I am also working on crocheting my own pansies and other flowers in more subtle colors. I do have a pattern from a book but I am also trying to design my own right now. Hopefully they will turn out OK.

I plan to be very busy in my yard this weekend if it doesn't rain again but hopefully I will have a little time to create something new as well which I will share with you next week. There are a few ideas in my mind that I will have to note down in my little booklet so I don't forget them. Maybe one of them will come to life this weekend.

And last but not least ...

This is our cat Alexia. She is one of our two cats. Lexi is a "real" cat with everything that comes with it and she is so precious to all of us and we love her dearly.

Have a peaceful and create weekend,

Karen B.