Has the birth of my daughter made me super sentimental? Am I trying to relive my childhood? I’ve always had a tiny collection going, but lately it’s been a Holly Hobbie thrift store bonanza. (I’m talking original Holly Hobbie, not the revamped modern Holly Hobbie they’ve just introduced posing in the form of Holly’s Great Grand-daughter.) Maybe a bunch of thirty-somethings are tossing nostalgia out the window and having a big cleanup (lucky me!)!?

My first introduction to Holly Hobbie was when I was three. I ran through the dining room and a small Holly Hobbie porcelain egg that I had been given as a first Easter gift from my Nanna and Papa fell from the hutch and chipped. My parents weren’t strict, but to this day I still remember being told not to run in the house after that incident. The egg still sits on my desk as a warm reminder of my childhood and the first house we lived in.

I have seen a few Holly Hobbie references out in blogland recently, so it’s nice to see I am not alone and that Holly Hobbie holds a special place in many a seventies child’s heart.

Amy at Inspireco talks of a Holly Hobbiesque miniature garden {here}. Oh to have had a Holly Hobbie magazine!!! (Holly Hobbie aside, you really should take a peek at Amy’s beautiful and inspiring blog. *sigh* it is all so so pretty!)

I have a few Holly Hobbie thrifted sheet sets that I am saving for some bags, patches and other sewing adventures with Eloise in mind (that’s a pillow slip behind the doll in the photo above). I recently came across some lovely totes over at Noodles and Doodles that have combined similar fabric with bright girly colours. She’s done a gorgeous job. Very inspiring!

And for some other thrifty Holly Hobbie finds, over at Colorfool she found some Holly Hobbie buttons (check out all the other lovely buttons too!) and at Bella Dia a 1977 tea towel!

There’s so much out there and I’m finding at least a piece a week….so I think I’ll have to get selective…something I have never been very good at!

Featured Gem 6
Real Photo Postcard

‘Little Bo-peep has a Very Tiny Sheep’

Date: 19th October 1907
People: Unidentified
Postcard Back: My Dear Boy Blue, Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and hope you will not be rushed with work tomorrow, with love from Bo-peep. Addressed to: Mr Boy Blue, 98 Hope Street Brunswick, Victoria.

Notes: One from my collection of fancy dress costume photographs. Young Bo-peeps costume is fabulously detailed but I think the thing I like most is the very small sheep. How absurdly out of scale!

I wonder if she was in costume for a reason. It may have just been a novelty photo…but she could have been off to a fancy dress ball or something equally exciting!

I think I am a bit of a stickybeak. I enjoy reading and collecting old letters, diaries and postcards. Not only is the language often beautiful or indicative of the era, but the handwriting is often elegant and is such a dying art form these days. Even on this simple postcard, the flourishes of the uppercase letters are just lovely. (especially the D and W)

Don’t you just love the message? I like the way she has underlined her ‘name’. I wonder if ‘Little Bo-peep’ and ‘Boy Blue’ ended up happily ever after? I love messages laced with romance and intrigue!

For the past few weeks I have been very busy with work and it’s been hard to find some breathing space (read: blogging time). It’s wonderful that my freelance business is going so well, but fitting in anything else in between Eloise and work is sometimes very difficult.

I have also had family visiting from interstate for the best part of the month. First my little sister who I miss dearly (Kelly you HAVE to start a blog), and then my wonderful folks. We’ve had a brilliant time and Eloise has had an absolute ball getting up to mischief with Aunty Kel and being thoroughly spoiled by Nanny and PaPa. I hate living so far away from them all and yearn for the day we live closer again. Without the internet, instant messenger and ichat I don’t know how we’d survive living so far apart! I am incredibly lucky we get on so well, share interests, love creativie pursuits, love a good coffee and chit chat session, love shopping and hunting down a bargain…the list is long and we often try and cram too much into our visits together. It sure gets tough sometimes without family close and the phone gets a good workout to try and make up for that.

I have a lot of blogging to catch-up on. New images to post, postcard swaps to show and tell, thrifting/op shopping finds galore. It’s great my family enjoy these pursuits. Lots of laughter. We fitted in a LOT of shopping and we encourage each other terribly! My Mum is great at tempting me: ‘You can’t leave it there for 10c!’ she’d say. Hmmmm how else would I have ended up with this…

For those interested it was published in 1979 by Gaylemot Publishing.

I finally sent off my postcards for a swap initiated by Nikki-Shell. I procrastinated about this for weeks and I was hit with some pretty ferocious stage fright. This is my first official group blog swap! There were no themes or rules except that it had to be handmade.

Ingredients: 2 vintage postcards, a handful of vintage buttons, an old spool of rick rack, inkjet T-shirt transfer sheets, calico, thin copper wire, scrabble tiles, a tag punch, various card stock and some acid free glue.

I used the image from an old postcard, purchased from a lovely lady in the UK. It only arrived last week and I was itching to use it immediately. I confess, I am in love with vintage paper moon photographs. I only own two, so not quite a collection just yet! I scanned it in and did a few tiny adjustments including adding a subtle background using a selection of my own background textures and some brilliant brushes created by Jason Gaylor (initially discovered via Dooce, but reminded about them by a recent Craftapalooza entry).

I then printed the image onto T-shirt transfer paper and ironed it onto some calico. I like the HP transfer sheets as they give a soft matte painterly effect.

I had a few near disasters along the way. Glue everywhere, curling postcards, buckling, puckering transfers (I have a love hate relationship with glue. I am not a particularly neat crafter and I’m also impatient!). I also personalised each card by using a scrabble tile that corresponded with the swap participants initial. I then of course panicked that I’d posted the card with the wrong scrabble tile to the wrong person so please let me know if this is indeed the case!

Aside from all of the above, I really did enjoy getting my creative teeth stuck into something! It’s inspired me and I am really happy with the results. Fingers crossed they all arrive at their destinations in one piece!

{click here to see the FRONT of the postcard}
{click here to see the BACK of the postcard}

Thrifting again today. It’s too much of a temptation when I have to go ‘up the street’ for groceries anyway. Rohan’s been on leave the past couple of days so besides catching up on some sleep (day light savings ending has been a killer in this household… ‘Eloise 4.45am is NOT time to start the day!’), it has been a good opportunity to get out without the little one in tow!

Look at this fabulous book I scored!

‘Ideas For Decoration‘
by Robert Seguin and Marthe Seguin-Fontes
Published by Evans Brothers Limited
Great Britain, 1977

It’s a wonderful resource and gives very detailed ‘step-by-step analysis of the decorative artist’s progress’.

Have a peek here at the contents page for more of an idea of what’s inside.

Motif themes include flowers, leaves, trees, birds, butterflies and insects, fish and houses. It talks of how to research and create motifs and patterns of your own and possible decorative applications for them (eg. bags, pendants, tiles, ceramics, fabrics, quilts). It is bursting at the seams with inspiring content, ideas and gorgeous motifs.

I will try and pop up my other thrifty finds soon. I’ve had a bit of a good run lately and it has left me on an op-shopping high! I am making the most of it as no doubt one of these days described in this post by Hillary on Thriftcraft is lurking just around the corner!