Christmas is Coming!

This Etsy treasury was created by my friend Claire of The Pin Factory; isn't it great?! I love the cosy homespun feeling you get from it, and all the objects look so lovingly created. It features my advent calendar garland with Fuyumi the bunny brooch (see below) too. Handmade decorations are far nicer than factory-made, and especially at Christmas, when it feels better for your soul to steer far away from all the bustling shops packed with harassed shoppers. Stay at home and make your own (with recycled materials if possible) decorations instead! Or if your talents lie elsewhere than the sphere of crafts, remember you can buy wonderful handcrafted and artist-designed objects of beauty (at great prices too!) on the wonderful Etsy!

I made an awful mess of our office where I work by making our team have a recycled Christmas... it would have been better I think if I didn't have such a large area to decorate. I used the empty capsules from Kinder toys and strung them on threads to make garlands; paper cranes; other plastic odds and ends decorated with sequins and stuff... it was quite eclectic!

Yes, Christmas isn't far away! The first signs have been around for a couple of months in the high street though of course (tins of chocolates and biscuits on ridiculous offers, tempting you to buy to "put away for Christmas"... haha! yeh right!) but now that seasonal feeling has come to our own house; I have finished and listed my second advent calendar garland with a bunny brooch on Etsy! The idea is that you put the bunny in the appropriate star pocket (each is numbered 18 to 24 - the seven days before Christmas) and then the next day, move her to the next pocket, and so on!
I made one last year and sold it on Etsy, and the one I've made this year is in shades of red and green with cream. It's on sale on Etsy now...

Click the picture below to see it on Etsy:

I hope this post has filled you with warm and cosy feelings, and not of apprehension and fear of the annual family get-together and the usual arguments...

It's 10 weeks tomorrow! :D

Joey xx

A Night Full of Stars - Etsy Treasury

Well, it's that time of year again when the days are getting shorter and shorter, and the night falls so quickly. In some ways, autumn and winter aren't my favourite times of the year, but they do have their advantages: beautiful autumnal trees in red and orange; Halloween; bonfire night; Christmas... and when the night sky is clear, you get to see the beautiful stars earlier in the evening.

All the wonderful handmade items in the treasury above remind me of the magical feeling I get when I gaze up at Orion (my favourite constellation... because I can actually find and recognise it!!), and make me wonder at how tiny this world is in the universe, and strangely, makes me feel quite safe and calm.

The treasury is on Etsy until Saturday, so please quickly click the picture above to see it for real!

Stay warm!
Joey xx

G h o s t s . . .

As its approaching Halloween (can you believe it?? Minutes ago it was still summer!!) I thought I'd indulge myself and go for a truly scary ghost theme for my next treasury. Click on the picture above to see the treasury for real, until Thursday 8th Oct when it will disappear forever). I love reading ghost stories and I went for images that evoked that feeling of chilliness I get when I reading, or listening to on audiobook, a story like M.R. James' "Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad" or Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman's "The South-West Chamber". Both of these stories involve bedrooms as the scene of horror which I find particulary effective because its something everyone can relate to; sleeping in a room with another (empty) bed in it (which I have done, and didn't like), and sleeping in a bed in which you know someone has recently died (which I haven't done, and I don't think I ever could).

The Literary Gothic is a great site; a guide "to all things concerned with literary Gothicism, which includes ghost stories, "classic" Gothic novels and Gothic fiction (1764-1820), and related pre- and post-Gothic and supernaturalist literature written prior to the mid-C20"

Spiders Infest!

This is my latest treasury (which you see here if you're really quick! It will disappear forever on Saturday...) and despite it's spidery theme, I'm not a particularly big spider fan. I don't hate spiders like I used to, and I can just about take a photo of one if it's not too big (and definitely NOT like The Marvelous A's massive spider!!). I do love cobwebs, especially the ones like in Damaged's photo, glittering with droplets of dew or rain.

I do generally like all insects, even though I'm not keen on getting close to many of them. I appreciate them, and especially the pretty ones like ladybirds and shiny beetles! If you care about insects too, you may like to join in with a Bug Hunt - organised by Buglife, the UK conservation charity. Click here for details: http://www.buglife.org.uk/News/
... but you'll have to be quick, it's taking place this weekend, Friday 2 October - Sunday 4 October 2009!

The photo below was taken by Mathew, my partner, who isn't scared to pick up spiders at all, and he wanted to get a pic of this one so he's the photographer as well (thank you Mathew!). However, this isn't really a true spider.

It's called a harvestman, or harvester spider, or daddy-long-legs (but not to be confused with craneflies which are also referred to as daddy-long-legs, but they are completely different... they've got wings!). The harvestman differs from spiders in a few ways but the most notable is that it only has two eyes, mounted on a tiny little "turret" called an ocularium. And neither do they spin webs. These things used to creep me out when I was a kid, and they still do!

More information on harvestmen on UK Safari: http://www.uksafari.com/harvestmen.htm

Sweet dreams (ie not of giant spiders!)

Joey xx