Handmade in Malvern: The Emerald Grove

Malvern is a gorgeous little town in the Malvern Hills. We often visit there to go to the antique market and car boot sale held at the Three Counties Showground.

One day, when checking my conversations in my Etsy account, there appeared an invitation to become part of a new consignment shop opening in Malvern, called, The Emerald Grove.
The idea behind the shop is to feature handmade items from the UK to support local artists and promote a greener footprint.
I was so excited and honoured, to be asked to be part of this venture!

So Friday, Jim and I made the drive from Birmingham to Malvern to deliver the first of my, Wee Lucky Penny Books, to one of the partners in the shop, Anne.
We got to meet the lovely Anne, had a lovely conversation, got to mooch around the shop to have a look at all of the lovely things, and a short trek about town, too.
All-in-all, a very fine day, indeed!

Anne and her co-founder, Julie have done a fantastic job working on the interior and exterior of their lovely building, as well as all kinds of hours spent there setting it all up, and establishing an organizational system of records and contracts, website initiatives, and on-line accounts.
The interior of the shop spans several levels - (I have pictured only part of the first level below) and is warm with old wooden floors and filled with colour from all of the delightful handmade goods!
If you are in the area, please stop in for a chat and a look at all of the fabulous handmade articles in the store. You won't be disappointed!

I leave you with some images of the shop, the goods, and the proprietor.

xxx

MaggieMy wee books are packed and ready for the journey to The Emerald Grove!

Approaching the shop on Church Street


The front of the shop

Left front windowRight front window

Hair Accessories from the Past for Today's Modern Girls

With modern design so much in vogue right now for home decor, who would have guessed that our modern young ladies would love a bit of vintage flair for the hair?
It seems no matter where we look today we see women wearing vintage-looking hair accessories that include feathers and net, buttons and rhinestones, velvet and satin and all sorts of vintage things!
Feathers bob on slivers of wire; bows adorn necklines and hair; mixed media corsages made with bits from the past combined with adornments of today, peek delicately from behind an ear.

Imagine my surprise when I received a little note from Tiffany, a young artist who had purchased some vintage buttons from my Etsy shop, EnglishPreserves.
Her note provided me with a link to a hair accessory she had made using one of the buttons!
I couldn't click it quickly enough! Here it is for you to peek at, too: GRACE

Tiffany's Etsy shop is called DecoNouveau and features all of her gorgeous hair accessories including: clips, headbands, bobby pins, and drops.

Tiffany is from Texas and creates her little bits of art by hand in her home using only the best materials - and some of them vintage - when she can get them.
She told me "I do most of my work while watching old classic and silent movies to get inspired. Sometimes I get inspired by everyday things -

"Flora" came from the appearance of a beautiful butterfly,which landed on my bike one day and went for a ride with me.
"Kimberley" (already sold) came from a shooting star I saw while up on my roof one night."


A bit about Tiffany from her profile:

I noticed that the vintage style of feathered and decorative hair pieces has come back 'in', but at such exorbitant prices! I try to make all of my work affordable for the average woman to look fabulous on a budget (I know it's tough, I am one myself!) without compromising quality or ethics. It's working out pretty well so far!

Tiffany names all of her pieces after family and friends, and uses friend for her models.
"Melody" is named after her mother (photograph at the top of this post) and "Hanni" is named after her step-grandmother who lives in Germany.


It's such a small world, isn't it?
Tiffany loves custom orders and wedding and prom season is upon us!
Go on and take a look at her unique and beautiful things - I know you will fall in love with them.

xxx
Maggie

The Winner Is . . .

My little give-away has ended and I was surprised to see that not many people entered, but that only meant that there was more luck to those who did enter!

Three people entered the give-away:
Isabelle from Suzy's Vintage Attic
Sunny from The Sunny Bower Art Studio
Mary Isabella from Daisy Bouquet

Isabelle won the draw, but since there were only three entries, I have decided to give everyone a little surprise.
So winners, please contact me with what you would like printed on the bookplates and with your contact information, including your address, to my email, englishpreserves[at]googlemail.com

Thank you for your participation!
xxx
Maggie

Lucky Me!

Lovely Ali, from 'Message in a Teacup . . . Tales from Betty and Violet' (http://bettyandviolet.blogspot.com/) has given me this creative award
and I am now giving it a go as to how to carry out my duties and honour others with it, as well.
So first things first; here are my seven favourite things:

• I love it when my husband says, "Mind how you go" to help keep family and friends safe on their journeys.
• I love memories of my childhood and memories of my children's childhood.
• I love the scent of spring flowers - lilacs and bluebells and daffodils.
• I love the tiny, yet strong, little forget-me-not blossoms, and beautiful wild violets, springing up wherever they choose, year after year.
• I love the beach at Lake Erie on the Ontario shore: the bon fires and starry skies at night, the water spray, the wild weather with wind that takes your breath away, the sand and sun and pebble beaches, the fireflies in June.
• I love the excitement at the beginning of a holiday knowing not what adventures are ahead.
• I love people who care about others and give of themselves.

Of course, there is nothing as wonderful as one's own family: our children and siblings and parents. This goes without saying.
This was so easy - - - I could go on naming things I adore, but I was limited to only seven!

I would like to share my award and pass it along to these lovely women:
Susan from Hometown Girl (she gave me a similar award when I first began blogging but I didn't know how to use it! Thank you, Susan!)
NatalieJo from Piccalilli Days
Sunny Bower from Vineyard Painter
Liz from The Washerwoman
Isabelle from Suzy's Vintage Attic
Elizabeth from The Brooklyn Clothesline
Phyllis from For the Love of Vintage
Lili M. from Lili M.

Happy Blogging and Happy Creativity!
xxx
Maggie

Meet Emily Lamb!!!

We have a new friend!
Meet, EMILY LAMB!!!
Yesterday, we made our first pilgrimage to Ellenden Farm, in Harvington, near Evesham.

Our mission: to feed a newborn lamb by bottle.

Emily is two weeks old and lives at the bottom of the garden in a penned area to keep her safe.
She has two small, but quite up-to-the-challenge, Border Terrier guard dogs, Millie and Bramble.
They run about like loons, barking at anything that moves, protecting their young charge.

The lamb's mum didn't have enough milk to feed the triplets she had, so the farm's owners were accepting volunteers to feed her at specific times during the day.
We couldn't have been more excited if the Queen herself were offering a personal invitation to visit her!

Emily Lamb has been named by one of the farm children, a young lady of eight years, who named her after herself. Her surname, is of course, Lamb.

My patient husband has volunteered to be our driver, to and from the farm, for our shifts.
Now, we do not live close th this farm; we drive about 45 minutes to get to it.
So it is no small feat to volunteer to drive two crazy women to the country to feed a lamb.
Jim kept making tidy little comments about mint sauce all the way there! But we were not dismayed; we knew he has a soft spot for all animals, and he was just doing a bit of teasing.

Upon our arrival at the farm shop, we were ushered into the kitchen area and taught how to prepare the bottle for feeding 'our' lamb. We prepared it, and off we went to her pen.
We could hear her calling to us as we walked the short distance from the shop to Emily's garden.
Once inside the pen, Katie got right to work with the feed.

Emily was hungry!Bramble watches as Katie feeds Emily.
He needs to know his charge is being fed properly!

It only takes Emily minutes to devour her bottle. She has a very strong sense of sucking - she could pull the bottle right out of your hand if you didn't have a strong grip on it.
We were told that lambs give their mums a hard bump before feeding, in order to get the milk flowing! We were glad she decided not to do that with us.
Being a very playful lamb, she scampers away when finished, and she frolics around the pen, so happy that she has been fed.
But she takes a moment for a snuggle and a kiss.
We will bring more adventures of Emily Lamb to you as she grows and our bottle feeds continue!

Just Wanted to Say, 'Hi'!

So many things to get done and where, oh where, is the time going?
I thought I would just stop by to say, 'hello' for today and say I am working on some new projects, have some exciting new finds from a visit to Malvern over the weekend, and will be posting more on the blog, and listing more on Etsy soon!

I listed these darling little cups from the 1960s:

I had an order for some custom mini-business cards that came out just fab!
And soon will list this lovely hand thrown pottery piece:Another order for some custom business 'thank-you' cards is still in the works,
but should be completed tomorrow:

And there will be more vintage buttons coming and some fabulous new graphics, too.

And soon the sewing will begin again and I have some new books to share and some new fabric and some vintage fabric, too!
Soon, soon, soon!

I Learned Something Today

The day began much like any other.
I was working on on the computer much of the morning while simultaneously cutting out some sewing projects.
I was anxious to get a Treasury to support craftspeople on Etsy, so that means a lot of waiting.

In between cutting, I was browsing about in the forums on Etsy and came across a title I couldn't resist; something about not bothering to look at the Front Page any more.
Curious about such negativity, I read what the author had to say and it wasn't at all what I had expected to see.

She was saying she was upset that her recently listed products weren't showing up in the little mini-treasury that reveal things recently listed. Of course, I had thought she was going to say she was tired of seeing the same sellers featured on the Front Page over and over again while she languished along with the rest of the thousands of unknowns, ad so would not bother to look to see if her work was there.

Trying to offer support to her, I commented, in the forum, that I never really pay attention to that space on the Front Page, anyway, and that I doubted it would impact her sales one way or another.

She corrected me and said she personally bought many items once she saw the artists work in the tiny space. And she also said she had discovered a lot of new sellers that way, too.
That was the inspiration for a plan set into motion immediately: my new treasury would feature only items from the recently listed window. Fresh and new today, I would see what I could discover if I were more observant.
And wow - I was amazed! She was so right!

I don't know how long I sat there, glued to the ever-changing screen revealing goods just listed from all over the world.

I saw items from the New Zealand, Australia, United States, Canada
Canary Islands_____Italy_______ Finland _______Manila
_

. . . and so many more!

I tried to be quick and not lose what I liked best, which wasn't easy since the items change every 15 seconds! So it was with speed that I clicked on items, scrolled down to copy the item's number, and then click open the tab for my Poster Sketch, whereupon I pasted the item number in the tiny box.
And eventually, the treasury, New Today, was created.

The lesson learned today was to be more open minded about other people's opinions and obeservations. We are not all the same and although we all do things our way and we think it best, sometimes, our way is not the best way.

There's a Chill in the Air

Please take a look at my Etsy shops when considering gifts for the holidays.
Sweet Scarlett www.sweetscarlett.etsy.com for all things handmade.
And English Preserves www.englishpreserves.etsy.com for all sorts of vintage items, just right for that person who likes something different for Christmas. I am planning on adding some new hat designs in time for Christmas gift giving, as well as some vintage bookplates that can be personalized with your child's name on them.

Brrr . . . we have had to turn on the heat in the house, it has been that cold here!

Now I am originally from Buffalo, New York, where our weather can be pretty terrible - I mean wind chill temps below freezing and snow storms that come across Lake Erie leaving us snowed-in and freezing!

So this is 'easy weather' for me now situated in the middle of England! Yet, it feels way colder than the temperature reveals; it is cold and damp in a way that cuts to your bones. Damp cold is on par with the bitter dry cold I lived with for so long.

So our heat is on and there is a nip in the air, and it feels like fall has arrived. You would never know it from the shops here. Instead, you would think Christmas was much closer than it actually is! The shops do not 'do' autumn. They skip right by it and steer directly into Christmas. I miss the Halloween and Thanksgiving displays and the festive atmosphere they encourage.

However, I did see some pumpkins in a vegetable shop on my way into the city today. They reminded me of home and of haystalks standing guard each side of doorways; and the scents of the leaves falling from tress in vivid colours of the season.

I can close my eyes and see the little children walking to school, kicking up the leaves as they walk along the sidewalks, or, as they return home from school, jumping in piles of leaves, left neatly for the town to cart away for mulching and composting.
Ummm, baking cookies seems like a good idea!

My sister Deborah, who lives in Florida, sent me a set of cookie cutters by Wilton. She purchased them in Joann Fabrics and made some chocolate ginger cookies from Martha Stewart's website. The set has maple and oak leaves in three sizes and some sweet little acorns in three sizes as well. I haven't used them yet but am thinking about baking some soon, soon, soon!

I have been busy preparing for a visit from some dear friends, Esther and Don, from the US who will be staying with us next week. We are so excited about their visit!
They live in Niagara Falls, New York and are already here in England as I type.
They are first taking a UK and Ireland tour and will be returning to stay with us on Sunday.
We plan on taking them to some of our favourite haunts in and around the Midlands, including Stratford and the Cotswolds. It should be so much fun!
More about their visit next week!

Cheers!
Maggie