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

Featured Gem 8
Real Photo Postcard

‘Joyce as a Fairy’

Date: Unspecified
People: Joyce
Studio: Broothorn Studio, Melbourne (active in Australia 1900s –1940s)
Postcard Back: “Joyce as a Fairy, at Mrs Fred Fairbairn’s Ball”

Featured Gem 7
Real Photo Postcard

‘Stick’em Up’

Date: Unspecified
People: Unidentified
Postcard Back: Blank

Notes: While I don’t really like guns at all (or even condone littlies playing with toy guns!), I think this photograph is brilliant despite it’s poor print quality.

The expression on the little girls face and her body language is so perfect. She’s the one that means business even if her gun is upside down! Her big brother(?) looks far less threatening.

This image is just begging for a dialogue. If you listen carefully you can hear them…

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!

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}