My Very Own Little Treasure Shop ..

Hello my dear friends,

this is one of those little posts I wanted to write forever ago and it slipped my mind but after spending time in my studio to tidy it up, I remembered it and so here is this post!

A few months ago my older daughter Ashleigh told me that she was looking for something she needed whilst working on a crafting project and she thought she might find it in my studio.

She went in and looked through drawers and boxes all filled with all sort of treasures ... too many to name them all but here are some of them ...

... there were all sorts of bits and pieces gathered together in drawers, boxes and old muffin tins.  From lace, ribbon and trims... vintage and tarnished plates, sugar bowls and cutlery ... old glass jars and vintage jewellery ... lots and lots of vintage doilies and old linen ... old tattered books and music sheets ... all sort and sizes of cigar boxes ... vintage and new fabrics and so, so much more.

 

She told me that as she was looking around and then thought to herself: " Gosh ...Mom would love this place!" ... only to realize that it was Mom's! We both had a giggle when she told me this.

And today I realized that she is right ... I love my studio and I am so fortunate to have it with all it's treasures especially forgotten ones and all it's mess too ... and it is messy again right now!

And this is one of those treasures ...

... a little while ago I had one of those days where I 'found' a treasure that I had totally forgotten about. Way back in the closet, behind baskets of wool/yarn and fabric there was a picture I had bought years ago in a thrift shop. I had already given it a makeover so it was just lovely, waiting to be hung. I think I might have I have shared this already once before but just to make sure I will do so again now.

It is a wood dove with her nest.

 

I can't believe that I forgot all about this lovely picture! There I am looking in thrift, second hand stores and antique stores for the right picture for the master bedroom and it was hiding in the back of my studio closet all this time ... waiting to be re-found!
Like I said earlier ... I am so fortunate!

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

Have a peaceful and creative day.
Yours,


Karen B.

Now Listed ..

Hello my dear friends,

this is just a short post to let you know that the Valentine's fabric is now listed in my Etsy shop and to apologize for the misunderstanding of when I was going to list it.

I often publish my posts just after midnight, so it is very early in the morning of the day I want my post to appear, so it is ready to read for all my followers that are around the world.

In future I will make sure that I also include the date so there will be no misunderstandings of when I will be listing something in my Etsy shop. I hope I didn't cause anybody too much inconvenience this time.

And last but not least ...

I am so behind with answering to your e-mails and comments right now. I will try and get back to you all as soon  as I have a little more time.

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.


Karen B.

Valentine's Tag Fabric ..

Hello my dear friends,

I was surprised to see that the Valentine's fabric in my Etsy shop had sold already and it was only 7 am in the morning. I was happy that you liked the lovely fabric just as much as I did.

 

For those who missed out the first time and would still like a panel of it ~ I still have 5 more panels and I will listing these in my Etsy shop ...

... tomorrow morning at 8 am ET.
( Feb. 26th)

So if you would like a panel, now is the time to get it! After that it is all gone! The store hasn't got anymore of it and won't be getting any more due to it being a fabric from 2007.

One little note though ...
 

... unfortunately I won't be able to reserve any panels and it is one panel per customer please ~ it just makes it fair for every one. I hope you understand this. I would like to please every one and make every one happy and I try hard but some times it's just not possible.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have  a peaceful and creative day.
Yours,

Karen B.

Of Wool And Fabric ..

Hello my dear friends,

sometimes it is best when you don't 'pop' into a store ... have you ever thought that?

I have a few times after leaving said store with bags of goodies. Last Friday morning was one of those days. I had headed out to the store where I bought my Valentine tag fabric that I used to make my lavender sachets with, to see if I could find it there still.

The store is called Lens Mills and it is a store that sells clothes, household items and other stuff and especially fabric and yarn and lots of it too! You need a fabric that no one else has in town ~ they will most probably have it!

I have to walk through the aisles with my hands firmly at my sides and my eyes only looking for what I came for or I am in trouble. I will pick up a bit of this beautiful fabric and maybe some of that one too and the same goes with their aisles of yarn/wool too. I kept my thoughts together when I was at the fabric section and only got what I am came for even though some of the fabric just had my name all over it especially the Christmas fabric and that should have been it but then I got stuck in the yarn department and became weak and didn't leave with empty hands.

I just couldn't resist picking some beautiful yarn/wool up and this time it isn't meant for my felted nests but for other creations I am planning on making later this year, so stocking up with it now is good so I have what I need, when I need it. (Does that make sense?!)  ... Did I say planning a moment ago?! Well that was my first thought but as we were waiting for a nasty winter storm  that evening and it was all yucky outside my fingers needed something to do so I already started my project but I am not going to tell you what it is yet apart from that it is something wintry and useful when it is cold outside.

And this is what I couldn't leave behind from my visit ...

 

... beautiful colored yarn/wool ...

...and I could have bought so much more of it because it comes in so many amazing colors too ~ I think 64 colors or color combinations in total!

 

And then I found this ...

 

 

... super soft year/wool with mohair!

 

And it's in a lovely mint green color, which no matter what I try won't show on my photos for so unknown reason but I can tell you it's as pastel mint green as it gets. A shame you can't feel how soft it is ... heaven!

And here it is!

 I was very lucky when it came to finding the Valentine's fabric that I was searching for.

 

 

 

It is a RJR fabric from their line 'A Special Occasion' 2007.

I was able to pick up the last panels they had of it and right now 2 of those panels are listed in my Etsy shop.

Each panel has 24 tags and not one is the same as the other. You could make sachets from them or use them as quilt labels if you wish or anything you would like to really.

 

 A little tip for you ... I used a Pigma pen to write my little messages on mine.

 

 It was so nice of you to stop by and visit me again here at Todolwen ~ thank you!

 

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day.

Yours,

 

Karen B. 

Christmas To Come Giveaway ..

Hello my dear friends,

you won't believe this ... Christmas has just been and I am already working on Christmas to come!

Maybe be it's because it still snows here in Ontario every other day (our last snow storm was just two nights ago) or it's because I wasn't able to concentrate much on Christmas creations this past year with everything that going on in my life ~ I am not sure.

What got me actually started was a short visit to our local Goodwill store one morning where I found some lovely cotton yarn in a light gray shade spun with a silver thread ... so beautiful! 

Late that evening sitting down in my favourite place in our dining room and wanting to relax, I thought of crocheting one of my little flowers just to see what it would look like and then found myself not wanting to stop in the end. I must have crochet for at least an hour and 25 flowers later it was 1 am in the morning and it was time to go to bed.  

I seemed to be so 'hooked' on crocheting my tiny blooms, that after waking up the next day and after making a coffee and turning the wash machine on, I found myself in the same place as the night before again with my crochet hook and silver yarn happily working away. I am actually thinking of turning the entire ball of yarn into flowers ... I wonder how many it will be?!

I am also already playing with a few thoughts of what I am going to use all these little pretties for and I think they will become a part of  this years home made Christmas gifts ~ but that's all I am going to 'give away' for now.

I would also love to design a little crochet star this year. I know there are some of them out there already and I had tried out a few but there was always something I didn't quite like about them. Right now I am not happy just yet with my design. I am hoping to finally be able to do a little 'Christmas in July' this year and that is where I will share it, if I get it right.

And last but least ...

... how about this?

A giveaway with a little twist!

Who ever guesses how many little crochet flowers I am able to make from the lovely yarn will receive one of my Christmas creations that I am going to make with them. I will draw the winner in the first week of July and if there is more than one correct answer I will put all those names into a jar and draw the final winner from there. The winner will receive one of my creations just before Christmas ... I just thought it would be something neat to do!?  Oh ... almost forgot! If the is no correct answer all names will go in a jar and the winner will then be picked from there.

 And this is the twist ...

... for the winner it will be a surprise Christmas gift because I am not planning on sharing what I am going to create with these little blooms until just after Christmas. I know it's quite a while away between starting this giveaway, announcing the winner and then actually mailing the gift to them, but I am in love with the idea. Why? It's almost like being a child again, waiting all year for Christmas to come and then to see if there is a surprise waiting under the tree.

There is one tiny rule to this giveaway though and that is that you are a follower of Todolwen ... that's all!

So ... if you would like the chance to win something small and neat for Christmas, just leave a comment on this post.


The giveaway is now closed!

 I have created this button for my giveaway and it will be on my right sidebar until July.
I am already so excited about this and I hope you all think this is a neat idea too. Now I better get my skates on and decided on what I am going to create for this giveaway.

Please note ... this giveaway is now closed!

Thank you for visiting me here at Todolwen again ~ it is always so nice when you do so and it would be lovely if you would pop back again some time.

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.

My Valentine's Day Gifts ..

Hello my dear friends,

this year my daughters and I weren't going to do anything really for Valentine's day and then we all started to create our gifts almost last minute. You have seen my creations already and today I am sharing the gifts I received from my daughters.

This is the gift my daughter Ashleigh made me for Valentine.
 It is so sweet and will taste great too because it involves as you can see ...

 

... lots of chocolate and candy and I love how she use the sweet stuff wrappers in her message!

" Happy Valentine's Day!
Dear Mama, I just want you to know how amazing, excellent and beautiful you are. I would need more than 10 fingers to count all of the reasons why I love you and wouldn't trade you for all the money in the world! I love you!"

 

And this is the gift my daughter Caylagh created for me ...

 

 

 

A sweet little card with a loving message ...

 

... some wishing dust to make my dreams come true...

 

 

 

... and the cutest way to send a little message ... in a clothes peg!  Again just so neat and lovely!

My heart is so full of joy right now and I wish you that yours is too!

 

But that's not all I wanted to share with you today.

I don't know what it is like where you live right now but this is what it looked like last night around 11 pm in SW Ontario ...

 

 

 

... another Winter storm with lots of blowing snow again. It seems Spring isn't just ready to slowly start appearing and Olde Man Winter is sure not wanting to leave us just yet. One thing I do really like about this weather is that it is actually as bright as it is in the photographs late at night.

 

 But that's all for today. I am off outside now to clear snow from driveways again.

 

 

 

Almost forgot ...

 

... some of you lovely bloggers had asked me who the maker is of the fabric I used for my lavender sachets. I am sorry to say that I threw the offcut with the name of the company in the trash so right now I don't know who and where it was made. But ... I will go back to the store in a week or so and try to find out for you. So do pop back some time and visit me here at Todolwen. Hopefully I will have the name for those of you that would like to know.

 

 

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day.

Yours,

 

 

Karen B.

 

 

My Valentine's Day Creations ..

Hello my dear friends,

for this year Valentine's I wanted to create something practical for my daughters but I wasn't sure what that should be. I remembered some fabric I had bought last Spring but never used it. It is such a neat fabric and it's actually is meant for Valentine's day too, because you see the fabric was printed with vintage Valentine's card images that can be written on and then cut out and then used if that is what you wanted to do.

 

There were two ideas I had for these 'tags'. Idea #1 is to make a heart shaped pillow from lovely dark red fabric and embellish it with lace and a tag just like a lovely box of chocolates or # 2 is to make lovely lavender sachets out of them.  Now I just had to make my mind up which one to pick and in the end I decided on ...

.. sachets filled with lavender.

It was nice that everything that would be needed was at hand in my studio and the most neatest thing about making these lovely smelling sachets was that the lavender I was gong to use ...

 

... was lavender that was left over from my daughters wedding last year and that made it extra special for me and them too.

Unfortunately I had one little problem when I started to create my little gifts though.
Because of the cold and spending a lot of time outside clearing snow, both of my thumbs had tears at their tips, smaller ones but quite deep and very painful too, so it took me quite a bit of time to work on my sachets since some of the sewing was by hand. The slightest touch and I was in so much pain. In the end I had to bandage my thumbs and one of my fingers up and then things were a little better but my gifts were a day late because of this.

This year I went all out with the traditional look of valentine with little silver hearts and lots of red in my design and I love it!

I made six lavender sachets in total ~ three for each of my daughters and this is how they look ...

 

Last year I was actually a little unhappy after I bought this fabric because I didn't know what I was going to do with it but now...

 

 

 

... I am so happy I did buy it after all!

 

To complete my gifts I needed something nice to give them away in and that's where Michaels came in to this project again. They had the most beautiful Valentine's boxes ...

 

... which were perfect for the job.

All that was needed now was to write a tag and decide who gets which sachets ...

 

 

 

... add some pink tissue paper and done!

 

It is lovely how much joy a piece of fabric can bring ... me creating with it and my daughters, who loved receiving my creations from it!

I hope you are well my dear friends and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day.
Yours,


Karen B.