Instead of joining in on NaBloPoMo I didn’t post once during November…in all honesty that wasn’t my intention! I have had to keep telling myself ‘the blog is for me’ ‘don’t stress’ ‘it’s meant to be fun!’ to try and ease my anxiety over not posting. I am just not very good at short quick diary like snippets of interest!

I did complete my Christmas Postcard Swap, and although 10 of these cards are winging their way around the world I fear some may not arrive at their destinations in time. I am crossing my fingers and toes! I have a good excuse though….I had a little drama and I decided it was the perfect time of year to get my wisdom teeth yanked out in the hospital….really NOT NOT good and I still cannot feel my chin over 2 weeks later! (Is that normal? It is driving me a little crazy!)

I don’t think the photos do the postcard justice as you can’t see the subtleties and textures in the papers. The doll is printed on some translucent paper and she is holding a little book attached with a split pin that contains five pages of vintage Christmas snippets from my collection of greeting cards and photos. I love the sentiments in the old style verses.

I unearthed an interesting book in my local secondhand bookshop the week the postcard sign up was announced, so I have had ‘vintage cards’ on my mind for months! It’s a fascinating book called ‘The History of the Christmas Card‘ by George Buday and was first published in 1954 by Spring Books.

That’s it for tonight! I may not have been blogging but I have still been thrifting so I will post about some of my favourite finds over the next few days. I also want to share some of the gorgeous swaps that I have received including the most delicious bundle of goodies from the lovely and talented Pyglet who must be very close to giving birth!! Thinking of you Dani and thank you so much for the unexpected treats!

Hello there! Happy Spring! I have let things slip here much to my distress. I’ve been working like a crazy person, suffering one toddler bug after another and just generally struggling to keep on top of everything. But here I am, back where I belong!

This month I have taken on the $99 Thrift Challenge being run by Apron Thrift Girl. I must say it’s already day 6 and although I have bought a few bits and bobs I haven’t really struck gold yet. I hope to have better luck as the month wears on so stay tuned. Any excuse to do a bit of second hand shopping!

I did find this photo in one of my favourite haunts on Monday. I was on my way home from a handover meeting after pulling an all-nighter and I felt like I deserved a little reward (I am way too old to be working through the night anymore! Erghh!). Flipping through boxes of old postcards and photos this image just stood out amongst the awkward poses and stiff expressions. It’s so candid and natural. Quite an unusual composition for it’s time. Unfortunately it’s unmarked. I wonder if someone clever could date it by the style of sewing machine? I am not sure what that thing is in the foreground on the right. Any guesses?

It was lovely to come back from holidays last month and find so many lovely postcards waiting in my mailbox. They were all so different. Lots of inspiration and varied techniques! Click to view: nikki-shell {postcard:blog}, pyglet whispers {postcard:blog}, Tiny Happy {postcard:blog}, Natasha Fialkov {postcard:blog}, MissyMuh {postcard:blog}, Applehead {postcard:blog}, Tiff Fendick {postcard}, Phantomcrimes {postcard:blog}, Maggie Grace Creates {postcard:blog}, Annette Sheaffer {postcard}, Natalie Willis {postcard}. You can also see more —->here

I’m home from a lovely but waaayyy too short holiday visiting my folks in New South Wales. Rohan had a conference in Canberra, so after spending a couple of days there, Eloise and I tootled three hours up the highway to the Blue Mountains. It was wonderful to catch up with family and see Eloise run around in the house where I grew up. Although it’s still another month until Spring, the trees had started to blossom and the wattle was abundant with fluffy flowers (sorry Dad, couldn’t resist!).

In Canberra I caught up with my childhood friend, Narelle. She cooked us the most delicious dinner and Ellie got up to mischief running around the house with her boys. We’ve been in and out of contact over the years and have both moved interstate so it was wonderful to catch up and still feel so familiar and comfortable like no time had passed. To me those are good friendships. It’s such a shame we live so far away! Narelle does the most gorgeous floral designs. Have a peek at her website Brave Botanics.

While in Canberra I discovered a shop called Pepe’s Paperie and it was stocked with the most stunning selection of notepaper and accessories. I bought a couple of small boxes of tiny fancy paper clips packaged in small drawstring bags by le the des ecrivains. I also bought some stunning file folders by Cavallini & Co and was sooooo very tempted to get Eloise a set of these flash cards. I had to work hard to convince myself that she didn’t need to know ‘W’ was for wig-wam just yet. I also couldn’t resist a couple of gift boxes by Hipp…just because they were so pretty.

There were goodies in my letterbox upon my return including this lovely card from the talented Gwen at bugheart.

Apologies things have been so quiet! I have lots of posts ready to whirl once I get my act together (and my photos!). I have postcard swap thank-you’s to do and I owe a lot of emails. If you have emailed or commented lately hang in there, I will reply. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your feedback!

Erghh! Lightening! It’s been raining on and off constantly since I got back. (Not the best light here for photography!) I’d better press ‘publish’ and turn off the computer…just in case…

After thoroughly enjoying Nichola’s last postcard swap I jumped at the chance to join in again. What I hadn’t bargained for was the busiest working month since Eloise was born. Working from home of course has pros and cons as it’s nice to have the extra cash, but horrible horrible HORRIBLE to have no time for myself! With a toddler ruling the roost, working from home really translates to working nights and weekends and I am exhausted! (hopefully this also explains the low level of activity around here). In ten days time I’ll get a breather and a chance to get stuck into some of my own projects and a couple of swaps. I cannot wait! (yes yes yes Sabine I would love to swap!)

Thirteen of these cards are now ‘winging’ their way around the globe! If the last swap was a struggle with glue…this one was a debacle with scissors! Apologies if my ‘cutting out’ is a bit tragic. I blame the fact that I’ve misplaced my ‘good’ scissors and that I was sitting in really bad light, really really late at night (ie. early morning). Maybe they have a more homemade handcrafted look because of it? Hopefully not just bad execution! I used this photo {click here} of a six year old girl taken on June 22nd 1898…108years ago almost to the day. Other ingredients: a mix of vintage and reproduction papers, buttons, eyelets and some 3D foam tape.

Embarrassingly I still haven’t done a ‘public thank you’ for the swap in May. Thanks again to all the lovely and talented girls whose work I was lucky enough to receive, they’ve been on display since the day they were delivered. I love looking at them all together! So inspiring and all so different. Click to view: nikki-shell {postcard:blog}, pyglet whispers {postcard:blog}, Cheeky Beaks {postcard:blog}, Buzzing Bee {postcard:blog}, Kitty Baroque {postcard:blog}, 6.5st {postcard:blog}, Red Instead {postcard:blog}. You can also see more —->here!

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}