Thread Den Market Day- August 9th

You can catch me with a selection of fabulous buttons & vintage craft supplies as well as my handmade creations at this great market next weekend. There will be a host of other creative folk there too as well as some fabulous vintage treasure to get your hands on. It's indoors too, so come along and say hi!

Thread Den Market Day

Sunday August 9, 10am-2pm

Hand-made - Melbourne Indie Design
Vintage clothing & bric a brac

Join us for the first ever Thread Den Market Day, undercover at Lithuanian Club. So don't let bad weather keep you away!

There will be over 50 market stalls, activities for the kids and great door prizes. Entry via gold coin donation.

It's also your first chance to buy tickets for Thread Den's Spring Fashion Week show - Killer Queen.

Details:
Sunday August 9, 2009
10am-2pm
@ The Melbourne Lithuanian Club
44 Errol St, North Melbourne

Contact us for more details:
93295305
info@threadden.com

My Creative Space

In my creative space today- a bunch of fabric scraps cut up and ready to be made into fabric baby rattle / teething / tag toys like the ones at the bottom of the pic. I stuff them with the less interesting vintage buttons. One of these will be going to our new little nephew too in his welcome to the world pack.

Also some lovely red riding hood fabric covered buttons I got on madeit ages ago and am determined house today.

And on the floor of my creative space.....


my best ever creation! :)

My Creative Space is hosted by kootoyoo- pop over there to see more inspiring creative spaces :)

Upcycling vintage wool skirts

I've spent my weekend giving vintage wool skirts a new life as funky little scotty dogs.
This particular wool is awesome as a softie as its so textural and tactile, not to mention the gorgeous colour.


I was also inspired by this beautiful blog to carve some rubber stamps and have given my little scottie dogs a matching wee scottie dog stamped tag. It's so much fun carving stamps! Takes me back to lino cutting days at school. For those of you in Melbourne, I got most of the supplies from Melbourne Etching Supllies in Fitzroy and the inks from a seller on ebay.

You can find Mr Scottie Dog for sale here :)

My Creative Space

I'm feeling very blue this week.

I know I'm depressed when I eat Tim Tams for breakfast.
Winter is getting to me- I'm spending the majority of my waking life wondering why I ever left Port Douglas and trying to scheme up ways to get myself a free month in tropical paradise.
A place where the kids can run around nude and free instead of rugged up and shivering in front of the heater needing constant entertainment. I seriously cannot play one more bloody game of UNO!!!

So it's fitting that my creative space is a day late (I actually only just realised it's Friday..) and that in my creative space today is a pretty blue tuxedo dress. I'm making two, one for Charlie and one for the shop. I'm using the gorgeous Russian doll tape I got from Amy over at Badskirt and some of my gorgeous vintage trims and buttons I have hoarded. It's designed to snap closed all the way down the back for easy dressing of squirmy little ones. The snaps I'm using a lovely vintage pearlised cowboy shirt snaps which I've been dying to use.


Well my fingers are now freezing and I can no longer type, back to dreams of mango daquiris and warm blue seas....

My Creative Space is hosted by kootoyoo- pop over there to see more inspiring creative spaces :)

I love... Tea Cosies!

This is my newest tea cosy... given to me by my wonderful mother in law- bless her.
I love it! There is something so wholesome and comforting and well, cosy, about a tea cosy.

And there are just so many different designs out there- it appears you are only limited by your imagination!
Here a few I found that I just love...

From Biddy Bags.... Super cute cupcake tea cosy.

From Knitvana this gorgeous cat and other great quirky patterns.


And from Santa's Postbag this kinda creepy Santa Claus cosy.

Do you have a cool cosy?

My Creative Space

It's a gloriously gorgeous day here in Melbourne, so my creative space today is outside in the garden. We have a lovely north facing garden with a grape vine that lets the sun in in winter and shades us in summer. It's just lovely.
Escher's at kinder, Charlie's asleep and I have a cup of tea, some almond cakes and my gorgeous new chair I brought off ebay and picked up this morning. $50- what a score, its so comfortable! It will eventually find it's home as a feeding, book reading chair in Charlie's new room.

Whilst enjoying the winter sun & getting some vitamin d, I'm packaging button hairpins and fabric covered badges for the next market.


My Creative Space is hosted by kootoyoo- pop over there to see more inspiring creative spaces :)

Cheeky Little shop

I finally have my wee shop up and running...
Still many more items to add, but spare time continues to elude me!

Little Red Dress

Okay, this coming week I am determined to get through some of the half finished projects on my desk!

The first of which is this little red dress. I needed to redo the neck because it was too small. Now that that's fixed I thinks it's turned out pretty good!

It's reversible, with a cute vintage seersucker fabric on the inside and a I added cute brooch, which I made from a fabric yo yo and a vintage button.

One down, ten to go... :)

My favourite yummy easy winter spicy soup

Ingredients:

2 Cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 tablespoon tamari or soy
1 teaspoon miso paste (optional)
1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce
1 star anise
1 teaspoon grated ginger
noodles of your choice ( I like quinoa soba or udon) prepared according to packet instructions
a handful of:
snow peas or sugar snap peas
bok choi
shitake mushrooms (fresh or dried)
small cubes of tofu (optional)
bean shoots
chilli flakes, chopped corriander, sliced spring onions & fried shallots to garnish

Method:
Prepare your noodles.
Gently fry the ginger & star anise in a tiny bit of oil, just to release the flavour then add the stock and bring to the boil while adding the sauces & miso paste.
Be sure to stir in the miso paste properly otherwise you will end up with lumps at the end.
Once boiling add the veges except the bean shoots.
After 1.2 minutes add the tofu and then the bean shoots.
Cook for a further minute or so.
Place noodles in the bowl.
Pour over soup and top with garnishes.

Wa La!! So quick and easy and ymmy and good for you!!

You can mix and match ingredients- and play with sauces and flavours but this is my current favourite mix- enjoy!

Market Day Success!

Well, I had a wonderful day at 'Round She Goes' yesterday- thank you to everyone who came along- especially those who said they had seen my blog and came just to find me & my buttons! Special thanks too to my little shop assistant Georgie (pictured above) and my big shop assistant Cate, who very generously offered to help and get paid in frocks & buttons!

The day was a great success personally and the market as a whole was spectacular. The Camberwell Civic Centre was a fabulously glam venue, much larger than I imagined and very very busy! Adam though for sure I would spend all the money I made, but I was very well behaved and just come home with one perfect item- a gorgeous Arabella Ramsay leather hooded waistcoat... I love it!

Charlie had a fabulous time pulling the buttons out and leaving them on the floor and crawling into our neighbouring stalls- though she was thoroughly exhausted by the time we got home!


Lots of people asked about buying buttons in bulk etc after the market- if anyone is interested, don't hesitate to email me, or watch this space for info on future markets, thanks!