One Chicago teacup

After saving ourselves last weekend, we started out in earnst to this weekends estate sale set in a gorgeous location over looking a gorgeous lake. The house itself was in a bad state - sadly to the point were it would be cheaper to tear it down and rebuild rather then mend, but had amazing views overlooking the water - you could just imagine how such a view would wake you up in a morning and make you feel right with the world. This sale had been advertised for a number of weeks and its one of the largest sales we've been to yet with plenty to be had and we came away with a number of things but we're rather well mannered in just picking things we really have a need for. 

With honeymooning in Chicago and falling for the city how could a girl not walk away with this little souvenir tea cup and saucer. They both feature pictorials of famous places to see - all of which we visited bar the Buckingham Fountain [although it is right by where the Bean now sits] and our hotel was by the Marina city. It most likely dates from the 1960s as Marina City - the two corncob like buildings were completed in 1964 and were a big deal architecturally in their time. A quick wash and its shined up well. Joe also spotted some Transformer toys which we grabbed to and altogether we only spent $5. A perfect amount for a lazy Saturday morning in my view. 

Have you found any vintage finds lately?

Hooped

Surprising, I learnt a lot about cross stitch from this project and sometimes you just need that little challenge to make you a better crafter. The design was one I found in my grans house when we were clearing out her things. By the sizing of the canvas it appeared to be perhaps intended as a cushion cover but I wanted to give it an update. 

In addition, I believed this project would be relatively easy to do, all I planned to do was reuse a pattern printed onto canvas as a template to sew it upon a piece of material. In reflection I'm a bit of a tight stitcher so pulling out the canvas one line at a time wasn't easy and resulted in picking at times the thread as well as the canvas. Insert at this time a rather unhappy crafty face. I was peed off with this sewing for sure, all the holding and the picking had really dirtied up the piece and I was on the verge of throwing it out. But it's a wonder what a soak in some warm water and washing up liquid will do and I finished the sewing off using an embroidery hoop for framing. While its not the best piece I've ever done, its nice and starts to fill up one of our blank walls with lots of hoops somewhat alike this;

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Notes to a former version of me

While I have a love hate relationship with faceache [yes yes I really do call it that], in it's favour its a great way to socially document occasions. I've had a faceache page since 2005 and in hindsight a lot of life changing events have occurred in that seven year space. Yet in 2005 I wasn't an overly happy person, I was in my first year at university trying to find my academic feet while madly enjoying Newcastle and student culture nevertheless wildly unsure of myself and my future. If only I could of told myself these little things;

1. Seven years down the line while you might have two degrees you still won't know what career you want for the rest of your life but maybe that's okki - at least you're still being honest with yourself, not being pretentious, falling for the first job or being big headed with your degrees.
2. Be prepared when you're friends ditch you because they get boyfriends or you move be it back home or further afield. You'll learn the hard way who your true friends are. 
3. Then always remember you are worthy of friends. You always put in the effort with them, it's them who are loosing out.  
4. When you're bored and meant to be writing out your MA dissertation you'll start what's known as a blog and carry on doing it, and you'll make lots of nice blogger friends.
5. You'll never be as skinny as you were at university - while all the walking and the pasta paid off on your figure its good to eat. Embrace you're hour glass figure. 
6. You will still have the same battles with the parents, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place but you'll start to see you have to start doing things for you and learn to live your own life. Yes you both might end up being hurt by actions but life is too short not to start living it.
7. There are decent men out there, and one of them will change your life around, he'll treat you like a princess, spontaneously buy you flowers, treat you to yummy meals and ask you to marry him.
8. You are a hell of a lot more stronger then you ever give yourself credit for, your determined and you're strong. You'll get yourself through a two year long distance relationship and deal with all the hassle and misconceptions that come with one. 
9. One death will create and spur on your addiction for collection vintage powder compacts, you don't need to understand why or how, you just will. 
10. Going on from that thread, you'll start wanting and collecting old things, things you'd once turn your nose up because it was old.
11. The Backstreet Boys will still be one of your favourite bands regardless of loving metal and drum and bass. Oh and they'll still be together but you still won't have seen them live even though you've loved them for 16 years. 
12. Get more tattoos when your at university, you have the spare cash and you have a great tattooist on your doorstep.  
13. You will still ask too many questions, you'll always want to know why something is like it is. But people like you for that. It's a part of you.
14. Oh and you'll move countries, to America, but I'm not going to tell you why - I don't want to spoil all the fun. 

If you could tell anything to a version of yourself, what would it be?

Reflection - Long distance relationships

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world getting to wake up with my guy every day. Yet I wasn't always this lucky. It took two and a half years of living in a long distance relationship [LDR] and their challenges to get where we are today. Since overcoming those hurdles I've always wanted to write a reflective piece about LDRs and how we made ours work. I'm never going to say they are easy but their are ways of making them easier.

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What I always found hardest are the misconceptions that everyone else apart from the couple seem to have about LDRs. These people become dead set on asking you about how you deal with trust, potential lying and the all too common belief that one person will cheat. I have always held  the belief that if a person is hell bent on cheating they will do so regardless of distance. As for trust - you choose to let someone into your world, it's your decision. Trust comes naturally - when you find the person you want to be with, you trust them no matter what. Predominately I think you can only understand an LDR and the mind set for living in one is to have experienced one personally.

We managed to have tonnes of fun together. We found ways of having fun "dates" by watching the same films together, swapping funny videos and playing games on MSN. You don't have to stop having fun because you're not together physically, and I always kicked butt at 3D tic tack toe. 

You should also come friends with your post office. I always loved sending Joe surprises in the mail, although trying to keep surprises for upwards of two weeks because of the slowness of international mail was testing. We'd send random things - books, postcards to Joe sending me flowers. Again I had to deal with negativity - my mother always thinks something has to be up for a guy to send you flowers. I despair. 

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At the heart of an LDR is communication, COMMUNICATION, COMMUNICATION. Which I know for guys is sometimes hard. You both need to be open and willing to talk about the situation and how you're feeling. Its OK to tell your partner you miss them, hell it's even OK to cry. We text'd constantly during our LDR, we talked on MSN daily and skyped every so often. But that's what we needed for us - I needed that level of communication. Some people need lots of communication, some people need only a little. You need to find the balance for you.

Ultimately you'll have to make plans for an LDR to end. Either one or both of you will move and you'll live happily ever after together. Although it's rarely that easy. For us, we had to make the decision who would be willing to move countries. It came down to money and practicality. I was in a job that I wasn't happy in and living at home, Joe had an apartment, a career, a cat and a car. Yeap I moved. We had the extra challenge of visas but the process of making the jump to living together is the same. 

Every day will feel like a holiday, I often felt nervy that I'd wake up and it was a dream. You'll feel the luckiest person in the world because you knew how hard it was being apart. But you have to learn to respect the other person and their space pretty quickly, being in an LDR we all become use to doing things in our own time, at our own speed, and to have someone jumping into your life is daunting. I knew all about Joe's gaming habit but being in his apartment and seeing how many hours he plays was a shock. You'll see their habits, how they leave their socks on the floor, ask you to always get his Pepsi. You'll either love their habits or you'll hate them. Luckily for me I see Joe's habits as part of him and I wouldn't change them - he spends hours gaming so I spend the same hours crafting.

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It took us over two years to live together, at times it was horrid, I missed him like crazy and I was scared of loosing him to an American girl. Nevertheless I loved him and I was determined to get us to this point and I'm glad we took the risk. 

Now its your turn - have you ever had an LDR and would you like to talk about you're experiences here on my blog? What helped me was reading stories about other people who were going through what I did. Or do you have any questions about how to deal with an LDR? Leave them in the comment box and I'll do and answer post soon!

My somewhat rustic crafty UK map

So on Monday I left you with the hint of me drawing out maps of the UK for a spur of the moment project. I get a lot of my inspiration through the Crafts and DIY pages on HelloCotton, and a lot of projects on there have been featuring wall art based around a persons state like these gorgeous pieces that the Rookie Seamstress made. I thought I'd take it a step further by personalising it for myself into creating a map of the UK with a few extra details.

The project is easy to complete after spending most of Monday afternoon playing with it, additionally you only need a few bits and bobs [two pieces of material, buttons and thread] and you don't need to be a sewing wiz. I started off drawing out a map of the UK, simplifying the edges somewhat to make it a little easier to cut out, in turn you could print a map. 

After giving your pieces of material a quick iron, cut around your map and use the paper as a template to cut out your country/state. Once you're done with the cutting, lay your landmass over your background material and position as you want it, either tack or pin the two in place. Now you can either be neat and use a sewing machine, or do what I did just sewing with a haphazard running stitch around the countries coastline in a complementary thread - I choose yellow to bring out some of the flowers.

Once you've sewn all the way around you could finish your project here, but I wanted to make my map a little more personalised and here is how the buttons come in. You can use as many or as little as you like [although the size of your map will effect how many looks good]. I choose to mark were I was raised, my university city, the capitals and some of the places we're I've been on holiday using a separate style and coloured button for each. I then finished it off with a little key to explain them.

And that is pretty much it.  I finished mine using a canvas reusing the method of glue gunning the material like I did with the memory board project. But you could additionally frame it.

I'm geekily really pleased with this project and I'd love to do some more in the future, perhaps of my home county, Joe's home state or life here in Michigan. Such a fun way to mark where you're from.

Lin Bren - for the 1940s lady

Let me introduce one of the rare occurrences of buying a compact and actually being able to find enough information to date it. Thankfully that information comes from the compact itself - not only do we know the manufacturer as Lin Bren but through the patent number we can find it's approximate date. The patent number [2425540] which is engraved beneath the mirror dates to 1947-8. So here we have a compact for the post war American lady. 

Lin Bren in turn was a leading American manufacturer, not only of compacts but an array of matching fashion accessories. Predominately creating matching sets which this compact no doubt was a part of - these sets normally consisted of a purse or clutch bag. Appearing to be produced of leather, it's made of broadcloth material and came in a section of colours [of course matching the bag] of at least green and black.

This compact came to us at a steel of $6.50 on eBay - especially for it's condition which in intact, clean and complete with it's original branded puff [I just love the chosen font they used for Lin Bren across the ribbon] and sift. Its has a fair substantial weight and build to it, it was defiantly made to last and most of all, I love that right deep red colour.

Collectors Club - Polo Shirts

Another Tuesday another great addition to the bloggers who collect series. Today we have one of blogspheres great writers - Melissa who writes over at So About What I Just Said. I've been following and reading Melissa's blog ever since I started blogging myself in 2009, so I'm more then over the moon that she asked to partake. 

I'm not even sure when my obsession with polo shirts began. A few years ago, I was shopping at The Salvation Army one day. My eyes fell upon an entire rack filled with every kind of polo shirt you could imagine. I was smitten. Right there. Just like that. A mere 30 minutes later, I stood in the check-out line with a mountain of 12 polo shirts in my wheelchair basket. My little red head barely peeked out over the stack of polo goodness. It was, hands-down, one of the happiest days of my life. I can't really explain their allure or their tight hold over me. Polos just give me a certain swagger. The colors pop just like my personality, and they make me feel sort of sophisticated.

Imelda Marcos had shoes. I have polo shirts. It just works. I've learned not to question it. My polo collection stands at around 20 currently, in every color and design, from red to blue to purple to orange to stripes; I hope to find some polka dotted ones soon. There is no limit to my shame, or, I suppose, lack thereof), to just merely marvel at the artistry that went into producing such a magnificent garment. I now have enough that I can wear a new one every day of the week if I want. Sometimes, much to the chagrin of my family, I do. I display my polo pride proudly. 

But shouldn’t we all be like that? When we find a piece of clothing that suits us (no pun intended), we owe it to ourselves to revel in it. Because it’s not often that we can get so happy, so purely giddy over a piece of fabric. Clothes may make the person, but in the end, we end up putting our own spin on them. Our clothes ultimately become reflections of our personality. So tell me ... what’s your fashion passion? If I of all people was able to discover mine, I’m sure you are too. I’d love to hear about it.

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Remember if you too want to feature your own collection, old or new however large or small just leave a message in the comment box below with a way to contact you!

A weekend in April

Drawing out the UK map for a crafty idea I have, surprise flowers from the boy, Smokey and her cat claw thing- her favourite thing in the entire world, French Bread with icing sugar and syrup made by the boy, vintage 1985 generation one transformer.

For us, we had a bit of a lazy weekend, watching too much telly, playing too many games on the Wii, eating take outs and drinking margaritas. I think how windy and cool it was made us pretty much stay in, plus it was a pretty quiet week on the estate sales front so we're saving our energy for next weekend.

But the weekend started off amazingly well when Joe came home with a huge bunch of roses for me as a total random act of loving. They are some of the most gorgeous roses I've ever seen - pinks, reds, oranges and yellows and they actually have a smell to them. He even brought a vase seeing we lack common homely items. On the note of love i'm getting sick and bored of some of the issues of having to deal with [say family members] when it comes to me moving - apparently moving for love isn't the thing to do. I'm just getting to the verge of just wanting to remove that hassle for good. They always have the ability of making me feel shit for moving to be with Joe. What would my Monday be like on LOTS without a rant?!

Anyway .... I've been drawing out maps of the homeland to create my next crafting project which I can't wait to show and tell you all about. Finally getting word from the Student Loans company that they finally understand why I'm not earning money yet in America [seriously they have been one of the biggest hassles since moving]. On Sunday we went for a wander to Target which then became another trawl for the newest editions of Transformers [yes yes those toys again]. There's even websites which allow people to upload their latest sightings of the newest toys - it's a big craze. Saying that I don't mind Transformers to a point, merely because I enjoy selling the spares on eBay like the photographed generation one from 1985, complete some of these figures can go sky high on prices.   

How were your weekends? 

What cats do when your not looking

Ever wondered what your cats get up to when you leave the house? I've often wanted to set up a web cam to watch our two terrors to see what they do for entertainment. Lately I've come into the living room to find Ed has pulled old crisp packets from the bin, she's sitting in a tote bag or my hair ties are all over the place because Smokey loves to play with them. Yet I didn't even have to leave the apartment for this secret habit of Ed's to come out. Apparently she surfs the internet and I'm pretty sure Ed's surfing for a mail order kitty husband.

Projects - finished and in progress

So I waste my mornings on the internet, working on my blog and catching up with everyone else's while checking up on our eBay auctions and generally poking things while thinking about thinking about doing the housework. On my afternoons I productively waste my hours either reading or crafting. So I thought I'd show you a little round up of what I've been making lately;

FINISHED;

This was an embroidery transfer I picked up on the cheap from JoAnns featuring dog roses, butterflies and dragonflies. I ironed the transfer onto some linen which possibly wasn't the best material to be doing it on, I think evenweave may have been a better choice. I couldn't get the hang of doing "proper" embroidery on this material so I made up my own version, doing mostly back stitch outlining everything then adding some lazy daisy chain stitches in the butterflies and French knots in all the flower centers. It's not the best sewing project I've ever completed but it's pretty all the same and I even managed to frame it myself again. 

WHAT I'M SEWING NOW;

What I'm currently working upon is a circular flower piece which I brought over from the UK. It was once my grans which appeared without any colour guides or threads so I've made the colour choices as I've gone along. Because of it's size I'm figuring the canvas was probably intended as a cushion cover but after cutting it down I'm using the printed canvas as what's known as waste canvas to cross stitch the design onto a piece of fabric. Although the design is really simple I'm hoping sewing it onto fabric will add a little something and I'm aiming to frame it in a sewing hoop.

STARTED BUT SOMEWHAT FORGOTTEN;

After finishing the first crochet blanket I really wanted to make us another to throw in the car to use for picnics when we go out on our drives. After getting really into it I stumbled back into cross stitch and it's sadly taken a back seat returning back in my knitting bag. I think I'll have to befriend it in the forth coming weeks seeing we have some plans for BBQs in May and being summer soon I hope to be outside a lot more, although it's way off being finished.

STARTED BUT COULDN'T FINISH;

This was a freebie needle case from Cross Stitcher magazine with roses and leaves in blue and red, I was really excited about this because I needed somewhere to store all my needles and what's better then a freebie?! Said freebie didn't include enough thread, so as the image shows it's come to a halt. A few emails back and forth with the magazine and some threads are on their way over to the states. Fingers crossed. Saying that it's the first project I've done sewing onto felt through soluble canvas which makes it a little tricky to know if your restitching into the correct hole.

LINING UP THE NEXT PROJECTS;

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Another design from Cross Stitcher magazine which I'm longing to start. I'm constantly attracted to dragonflies after having one tattooed on my shoulder [they are a totem symbol for good luck]. The actual pattern is called Libellule which is French for dragonfly which is so cute! I love the simplicity of this piece and I have all my materials lined up with some sandy coloured aida and metallic brown/red thread. Now just need to finish off everything else first!

I'm also saving up all the glass jars we come across while cooking for storing our home made jam [or jelly as they call it in the States. My mum makes strawberry and raspberry jam throughout the year and it's something I'm determined to do myself especially because the boy loves a good peanut butter and jam/jelly sandwich. Plus home-made jam always tastes so much better especially when all you're using is the fruit and sugar.

What are you all busy crafting at the moment? 

Emrich Compact

I'm a lucky girl in having a guy that has an amazing eye for finding compacts. He often finds ones that are different, rare or plain lovely. He became a regularly in a store near us in metropolitan Detroit and I've been told he pretty much brought everyone they had so we went for a visit back in January. While there was a lot of pill boxes there was only this powder compact to be had, so of course it had to come home with us. Its a rather small [2 x 3 inch] yet sturdy golden brushed fabric like coated compact. 

Opening it up reveals a bright golden metal colour with the brand mark EMRICH marked under the mirror. As a brand EMRICH is rather hard to investigate, only after having a great look around the compact did I see the marking of "Germany" on the underside of the opening clasp. A google search reveals suggestions of a possible manufacture in West Germany yet no details of age or manufacturing history exists, at least not online.For now this is another mystery compact.

Prim and proper with Ernest Jones

I've always been a bracelet girl more then any other kind of jewellery girl, so when Earnest Jones gifted me this shiny sterling silver hallmarked bracelet how was I ever going to decline? What's more LOTS is even etched into the side - not large enough to see unless you're close up but meaningful all the same. It is however a set up from my normal pieces of jewellery - I'm typically a cheap bead bracelet kinda girl and the posh jewellery I have remains my engagement and wedding rings and a couple of inherited pieces. Nevertheless its a cute, simple little piece and it's already made a couple of outings. Maybe I'm growing up?

Ernest Jones is a jewelers that we always kept in mind when considering the rings for our engagement and wedding and their range of products is always expectational. The busy bees there are currently busy launching their 2012 Spring/Summer themed range of products which in part is a collaboration between H.Samuel and Ernest Jones. Smashing and mashing up the past with the future, taking old designs and remaking them, the new ranges from Mighty Brights to Twirling Twenties features something for everyone.

It's this sense of theme that I love the most nevertheless you can rebel and run between the categories. What's more, they are aiding the internet savvy among us with their new Facebook Ap in creating virtual wishlists. Anyone that knows me, knows my eBay account is filled with huge lists of wish lists of vintage powder compacts. Wish lists really are an amazing aid to help pick gifts, especially for those among us who aren't the easiest of people to buy for. Not only does the Facebook Ap allow you to virtually store your wish list, but it also offers you the chance of winning your five selected items so it's certainly worth a little play.

But what would I choose?! Considering my buys from the estate sale at the weekend regarding sewing and etiquette it would have to be the 1950s. So here's my pick of the Flirty Fifties theme, an era of "all things prim and proper". 

9ct white gold diamond swirl pendant

Pequignet ladies' two toned bracelet watch

Jubilee cultured freshwater pearl bracelet

Silver pearl heart pendant

18ct yellow and white gold lemon diamond halo ring

Nevertheless I'm not sure what the etiquette police of the 1950s would say of my choices!

This is a sponsored post.

Detroit Riverwalk

The RenCen [GM world head quarters], the state park, old boat rope things, lighthouse in the state park, glass artwork, Canada over the river.

The Detroit Riverwalk runs for five and a half miles, and will eventually run from the Ambassador Bridge through downtown to Belle Isle. It's purpose is to help with the ongoing reinvention of Detroit by drawing people into the city. To a point it works - people are certainly spending time there, but whether they are then going downtown is another matter. We spent Saturday afternoon there, walking around the state park [the only park in the USA located in an urban area] spied a lighthouse, saw fancy arty maps, the RenCen building [the General Motors world head quarters] to the Hart Plaza. It was nice seeing a river that was greeny-blue in colour rather then the normal brown river water colour of the River Humber that I grew up with, it also seems a good place to go fishing with the amount of fishermen perched over the fences or going up and down in boats.

This river in fact has a key place in Detroit and American history. With the introduction of prohibition in 1920, smugglers took advantage of the location of the motor city to Canada. In places the river is less then half a mile wide and with the adjoining lake of St Clair, 75% of all liquor entering the USA came across the Detroit River into America from Canada. And how did it come over - well through many ingenious ways including a pipeline, dragged under boats, through cable systems and even one daring skater pulling a sledge full during a rather cold winter when the river froze. By 1929, illegal liquor was worth $219 million dollars to Detroit. If you're interested here's a pretty interesting article about the river's role during prohibition.

With parking free there's no excuse to blow off some cobwebs with a walk along the river and see a different view of the city. There is also a place to hire bikes which we're certainly hoping to do once it gets a little warmer - we're even thinking of hiring a tandem which would be interesting to see us on!

Where are your favourite places to go for a breath of fresh air?