cornucopia

There are some things I just don't want to part with. I've spent years collecting the bits needed to make it, and ages working on the finished piece, and its all turned out beautifully. I know I'll never make anything quite like it again, as I have used unique antique and vintage parts to create it. Its sad to let go but brilliant that someone else is now enjoying it-like Pinochhios wooden boy it only gets to livw if you let it go. 

I feel this way about' Cornucopia', a pendant necklace made from the skeleton of a 1950's brooch:  all  in gold coloured metal, with an array of bright colours bursting out of every available nook and cranny of the leaf like frame.  The oldest material I've used is Victorian branch coral-lobster hot in colour and from Italy. There are vintage glass beads, semi precious stones, flowers and a general riot of the kind of colour that just can't help but brighten things up. I've used a mix of bold primaries and slightly more muted tones to keep it tasteful and complex, and to ensure it goes with absolutely everything. 

Want it? Go to the etsy shop Moth and Magpie by clicking on the etsy badge to the right. Or we could talk about tailoring something especially to your taste and colour preference, maybe even using your own old jewellery. Then, as well as it being something precious in itself, it will be extra-special to you right from the start, plus you get a bespoke jewel that you have helped to dream to life. 

Email ruth@mothandmagpie.com or call 07882509493 to discuss making something from scratch.

Love is blind - my latest eco-packaging

I just wanted to show off my latest eco - packaging! 

I boxed up the antique wooden cherub I was sending to Switzerland, padding it soundly with pages ripped from an Edwardian book. 

So far, so Ruth. Then the fun really began. 

I'd found a discarded brown paper blind outside an office in York.  It made really fun vintage looking packaging, which I sealed with gummed paper tape usually used for sealing picture frames. I've stamped this tape with my shop name to make it look more professional.  I wonder if my Swiss customer will guess the origin of the wrapping paper? The biggest giveaways are the stripy lines and the punched holes through which a string was threaded to operate the blind. Oh, and maybe this blog post. 

Just goes to show the sky is the limit. 

I'd love to know what you use and if you have any ideas of what else I could be looking out for!

vintage bag makeover craft

Old bag gets makeover. Read all about it. No, this is not an over-60s style transformation. I'm talking about the type you keep your personal effects in. I think we've all got a bag that we love that just isn't quite cutting the mustard anymore. The great thing is bags have just as much potential for being souped up as jewellery! I found this fab off white real leather vintage bag in a charity shop yesterday. I paid £7.50, which felt like a lot for a second hand store, but there was something lovely about the saddle bag type shape. And the interlocking ccs on the front oval look like the Celine label, I think [alas, not Chanel, but less obvious is GOOD]. As nice as it was with its 'nothing' matching leather strap, which was half an inch wide, and flat, and had a dull silver buckle for adjustment purposes, I wanted something a big more glam.

Enter the copper coloured statement necklace I found at the same charity shop last week, for £2!

'out with the old' snip snip and the strap is off...

I snipped off the leather strap, used pliers to open the circular jump rings at the end of the necklace, and closed them over the  metal semi-circles that had attached the original strap to the bag. Et voila! Bag transformed. Please try this at home. Its amazing what a difference a new strap makes. Try old necklaces and belts and even silk scarves. Maybe I'll try using those ropes with the metal ends they use for posh queueing next.

nail polish + curtains

I've been painting with sparkly nail varnish  [polish to any Americans out there] on sunbleached curtains. Alas, not gay hippy abandon, but an attempt at a sign for my luxury upcycled jewellery stall. I'll be showing my jewellery next Tuesday in York at a fashion show, where I'll be adorning the models and peddling my wares from a stall too. Get in touch if you'd like more details!

tubes II- mini hat box demonstration

I have dusty eyebrows.

My sofa is a different colour. 

This evening I took a saw to one of the 'rescued' cardboard tubes. Its more elegant and comfy if you saw whilst lounging on a sofa. Riskier too, perhaps. No matter. I am all intact. And I've got a mini hatbox too. Its more rustic shabby chic than Park Avenue glamour at the moment, so I'm not sure whether it cuts the mustard in terms of luxury packaging, but I've got that charming little sense of achievement glow going on, beneath the dust, so its all good. 

Two sections sawed off,
one longer than the other,
will make up the main bit of the box
-one will go inside the other

I cut out a section so the longer tube
would fit inside the other section.

Like so

The plastic lid made a good template for the lid and base
[made from cereal boxes so I had to use several layers for strength]

I tapped on the base and sawed a thinner bit of tube for the lid
[box upside down in this shot]

Using PVA glue and brown envelopes,
I papier-mached the base to the cyclinder to strengthen it

Neatened with a circle cut from an envelope

And I repeated the process for the lid...

Yes, the edges a rough, but its a box!!

A lick of paint and its getting there.
 Need to glue the inner tube in place,
 line the box, and generally make it pretty...

 Its amazing what office waste can be made into with a bit of imagination and tlc. Still, its all quite rustic looking and I can't help but think of Brie.  I quite like the effect though, and the idea of hand making my packaging from scratch. It might take me longer to make the packaging than the jewellery though, so its probably not the best plan...perhaps I'll need to settle for customizing recycled shop bought boxes. 

But what do you do all day?

It is a question I get asked rather a lot.

If I said that I swan about draping myself in silk, eating grapes and spending many hours in Paperchase, it'd only be half true.

 Much of the time I'm doing internet type things, plus making lists, painting, strategising, sourcing materials, doing hard things with numbers. Generally working towards launching my business [and my Etsy shop]in the late spring. But occassionally I get to create. And at the moment I'm in a glorious flurry of vintage jewellery assemblage. Well, a girl needs something to sell if she wants a real shop... 

These photos are taken looking up through the current chaos on my perspex desk- a 'knee's eye view' of my creative process, if you will.  Pliers in hand, I set about transforming broken heirlooms into, well, future heirlooms. It is actually 80% designing [fiddling with pretty stuff], 20% assembling. I've got 30 million projects on the go-they look like piles of beads and chains to anyone else-to me they are potential one-of-a-kind creations. Now and then I actually latch on to one and see it through to completion. And then my unique upcycled vintage triumph ends up in my Etsy shop. If I can bear to let it go, that is. And in goes another grape.

Sweet Spring

It was the Jewish spring festival of Purim on Sunday. Which I'm taking to mean that spring is officially here. That and crazy York birds (of the feathered variety) singing at stupid o' clock in the morning!

So, visions of pastel coloured macaroons, Japanese sakura blossom, evening sunshine, and the only time of year I will flirt with the idea of wearing mint green.

I've been tinkering around with some beautiful vintage lilac purple beads that I've just bought from Canada. They glow vaseline blue/purple when the light hits them, casting a sunset yellow pool of light, otherwise they are a cloudy moonstone blue. Love the way they change in the light.  They are actually from an old pearl necklace. Back then, to create an inner glow, they used coloured glass and even low grade real opal beads, which were then painted to resemble pearls. So next time you are about to ditch your great aunt's flakey pearl necklace, do see what lies beneath!! You'll easily be able to chip the paint off with your nail. 

My inspirations for this ring? Spring flowers, Gaudi, Monet's waterlilies series, Art Nouveau excess. It'd make a lush statement at a wedding or party, and if you are a red head or have a cool skintone, these colours are made for you. 

These earrings were made to match the ring, but are daintier, softer. The vintage purple curved shells somehow remind me of those oriental hats or parasols;  Geisha's crossing bridges in an idyllic scented garden. 

I'm not sure if I'll do more in this series. Who knows when inspiration will strike! I've popped them in my online shop, Moth and Magpie, so now I get to see if anyone else is searching for spring....

Book Haul-Not Afraid of Aardvark!

My latest find-a big stack of the most glorious battered antique books packed full of brilliant illustrations! Only 25p each, and enough to keep me in card-making material for the rest of my life. That'd be selfish though, so I'm thinking about running a vintage collage craft class/party. Then everyone can share the fun, whether its cards or art. See the tab at the top of the blog for more details.

'Not afraid of aardvark/hard work-
I've been writing my CV-can you tell?

The images are so old [well over 100 years]
that they dissolve when I cut them
if I'm not careful,
and the paper is musty and faded to a mid sepia. 

Its time travel.
What people believed to be true, how they presented the world;
 its a glimpse 'through the looking glass'
to a quirkier, quainter, and more inquisitive time.
Back then, cutting up books was for political rebels and madmen.
 Now a paperless revolution has been Kindled [ahem!}
and trees are more important than paper-its come full circle, baby!

Crammed full of sketches of peeved looking tribesmen.

So much potential...

To the rat-mobile...but had she paid her road-ent tax?

'Me, a poser?!Never'

Its a lot of fun leafing through the pages thinking up captions and scenarios for the different animals. 

Perhaps too much fun. 

You should try it. 

But not with library books. 

Although that'd be a great art concept. Hmmmmm, hang on a minute...I'm at the library now! Hold me back. Hold me back. Hold me ba... 

Vintage suitcases-Trunk Show

I was just thinking that I'd like some vintage suitcases. For one, they'd be the ideal mode of transport and display for my Mobile Vintage Craft Parties[see tab at the top of this blog for more details], and for two I'm having urges to decorate some with collage and/or paint. I had a pray about it all, and, a day or two later, chanced upon these beauties outside a shop in York. The staff were happy for me to take them, so I scooped all three up just before the rubbish men got there-perfect timing! They are now doing an excellent job of storing my card making stuff.

The smallest suitcase has a gorgeous faded rosy beige paper lining. I've filled it with my one of a kind handmade cards, and I'm guarding them with bears. 

The other, larger, suitcases are stuffed full to bursting with salvaged paper. This level of paper hoarding is quite normal [mainly among Wombles, admittedly]. Thinking about it, my mum always made sure there was a 'making box' too. She kept it in the kitchen, full of cereal boxes, newspaper, toilet rolls, anything we kids could use for craft. Ever since, I've never felt my home to be complete without one. And, although I've not checked, I like to imagine that mum keeps the family making box fully stocked, just in case!

Antique Collage Art at Pyramid Gallery

It can be tricky to find original art that is also affordable. Limited prints are a great way of collecting real art, for example. Only a handful of other people will own the same thing. However, if you want completely one - off unique, it gets a bit more of a challenge to buy on a budget. What I'm finding is that people like to frame my collage cards, and I think its partly because they know they are unique. So it seemed like a good idea to do some collages especially for display in frames. Here are three that I've done for Pyramid Gallery in York. I'm so pleased with them that its been a real struggle to let them go. Partly because I can't reproduce them. But thats the bittersweet allure of unique.

Moths Be Gone-Lavender Wardrobe Heart Craft

My guest stylist may be only 4, but boy does she have the skills!



This girl is multitalented; she also agreed to model for me-angelic!

I was planning to write about this lavender heart I made from vintage silk, so when Maya pointed towards my window, having quite independently found and arranged this vignette, I was delighted that it'd caught her eye too.




The patterned white silk is from an old blouse. I cut out a heart shape, stitched it to an identical heart cut from a plain ivory fabric, and stuffed it with dried lavender and pillow foam for shape. I want to make more of these with organic cedar shavings(you can buy them on Etsy.)I sewed the seed pearls on afterwards [think running stitch but threaded with pearls in-between stitches], and finished it all off with peach ribbon and a white iridescent shell from a Victorian necklace. Eat your heart out, moths!

A Purple Pride and Prejudice Vintage tea party....Papers For Kate

Kate, a wonderful American friend of mine, had a little New Year  splurge at Moth&Magpie, my Etsy shop, and she has kindly let me share our little collaboration. We decided to brainstorm using a blog, www.paperforkate.blogspot.com if you fancy seeing the design process!

Kate wanted a Pride and Prejudice theme, plus a vintage tea party vibe, with little purple highlights. In the end it sort of all blurred together!

Here are the finished papers....

'My dear Miss Bennett,
you must allow me to tell you
how ardently I admire and love you'

   

Vintage crochet, purple suede
and freshwater pearls...

The vintage tea party pages,
back-lit so the designs on both sides can be seen

Classical cameos

Mr Darcy's hat

Butterflies from victorian french love letters

The personal touch

Hand cut birds

More tea, Mr Collins?

  

Flowers, bows, butterflies,
pearls, lace and gems...

Purple prettiness

A personalised greeting

A cake is a cake,
but a cake on a cakestand...well!

Yours Sincerely