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.

York Vintage gets real!

*YORK...THE PLACE WHERE DREAMS COME TRUE*

Its only been a couple of weeks since I opened my new online Etsy shop       

York Vintage  but already something very exciting is developing: 

no less than a pop-up shop at The Flax and Twine on the Shambles, York's oldest and most historical street. 

I'll be selling some great unique vintage and antique objets d'art, plus some carefully selected items of vintage furniture. The grand opening is next Friday evening [7th June] so do pop along if you fancy a browse. 

Can't quite believe this is happening, very excited to have my own real life retail space right in the heart of historic York. Excuse me whilst I pinch myself - again.

Ow - its real.

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.

a terribly British fashion show on the lawn

Bright young highly toned gym-thin things walk arm in arm along a catwalk laid around the rim of a long silently inky rectangular pond.  Behind them is a green green lawn and many finely manicured, dark box hedges, 15ft high, imposing like Easter Island faces. Behind them, giggling and scantily clad models change quickly into sequined evening wear. You'd be forgiven for thinking I've time travelled back to the roaring twenties, and it WAS all very Great Gatsby, but I'm just describing an outdoor fashion show which I got involved in through York Does Vintage, in the spectacular grounds of Heslington Hall campus of York University. 

I'd come, by bus it must be noted, with my stall full of upcycled vintage jewellery. I was given a round table in a lovely white marquee, but must admit to spending most of the night watching the fashion or bedecking myself with glorious 30s peach silk loungewear from the lovely vintage stall next door. I also came away with the most fabulous old parasol, which will look just as good as the centerpiece for  a vintage wedding stall as it will shielding my pale English complexion from the much anticipated summer sun. Maybe one day I'll show you...

• 

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.

Scavenging Haul : birthday soup

How much can you buy for 80p these days? A bar of chocolate, perhaps.

Well, today I got a whole lot of vintage lushiousness for my pennies.

Two beautiful porcelain roses...

recycled american forest animal folder separators...

and a Little Bear 2nd edition from the 1960s

-yet more bear-faced chic!

                                        
                                        

   What will I do with them? 

  Do I have to be that practical? 

The roses will be fab for prettying up my black shiny kitchen-here they are perched atop my fridge- and will make great props for photographing my remade vintage jewellery; I should probably sell the book but I might just transgress and cut it up for the most adorable handmade cards, and as for the folders...they might just lure me into some filing. Or I'll just turn them into cards too. Mwah ha ha evil laughter. 

Nothing is safe from my scissors, nothing at all. 

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....

A few of my favourite things-slate to pearl

...raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens...

 Well, I think whiskers on bears are more fun and gloves are less scratchy than both woollen mittens and kittens. Indulge me whilst I show you a few of MY favourite things instead!

1.

2.

3.

4.

1. silver plate of shell petals on an antique marble dish, antique Welsh slate milk bucket cover. I love the heavy hard sound of the shells and how cold they are when I bury my fingers in them

2. iridescent vintage trochus shells and thrifted soft satin thread ready for crafting-too good to disturb

3.upcycled battered and tarnished silver bangle-Victorian paste button, big shiny real pearl pendant, taupe feather plucked from a duster

4. birth of venus re-imagined; silk throw by John Rocha, mother of pearl shell for caviar, brooch made from freshwater pearls, Georgian cameo, shoe leather and glue soaked looroll. An in-convenience truth!

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!

anything but pink

Have you noticed how mums sometimes start colouring their entire life in pastels, the colours of the newborn? Their baby's wardrobe hues spill over into their homes, their fashion choices, even the colours of their makeup! It is a powerful testament to how strongly were are affected by the colours that we look at every day. 

I am able to report that two friends who have recently become mums have rebelled against this norm. They have cried, in unison 'anything but pink'. Both are doting mums of adorable little girls. They are both tasteful, intelligent and thoughtful.  Incidentally, they have never met each other. 

Sarah, one of these rebellious ladies, asked me to create a card in honour of a newborn [you guessed it, another girl]. The plea was, of course, 'anything but pink'. There were also mentions of somehow making it relevant to a belly-dancing Turkish mother and an Egyptologist father. I imagined that the mother, fresh from childbirth, would not want to think about belly buttons for a while, so I focussed on creating a child friendly but slightly exotic card out of vintage papers with the little girl's name on the front and collage hieroglyphics spelling 'congratulations' inside. Either the sleep deprived new dad will love it, or he will cry 'anything but pyramids'.

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.