Healing Gifts and Creations

Slowly I'm getting back the use of my arm without pain

each day and I am sure that the arrival

of a few gifts from sweet friends has helped to spur me on!

 Recently in the mail arrived this beautiful lace edged fabric card

attached to this lavender dyed pocket fashioned from

a lacey tray cloth and inside I found this

amazing pendant

created by Terri of Artful Affirmations.

A magnificent necklace full of the most

incredible amethysts in all shapes
and sizes

but what was truly amazing

were the charms including a Milagro of an arm

and etched words of "mend" on another

with a sweet metal heart.

 Just look at the beauty of these gorgeous gem stones

and crazy lace agets each one wrapped so beautifully

and painstakingly.

Terri I absolutely love and so much appreciate this and am wearing it

every day to continue the healing process of my arm.

Terri has an on-line class called "Soulful Adornments" teaching
 how to create a similar pendant - just check out the
button near the top right of this blog!

This extremely thoughtful package arrived from Judy of

JudithAnn's blog here in Australia.

Look at the sweet tag that would appeal to anyone who loves to sew,

the lovely pearl and brass buttons, lace, handkerchief, braid

and 

these really pretty flowers created by Judy herself.

Thank you so much Judy.  I am so grateful for your kindness

and friendship.  You know exactly the things I love.

So too does my very old friend, Sue, who lives in the same

State of South Australia as Judy.  She is always on the look out

for me for items I love to create with and never fails.

More beautiful vintage cotton laces, a hand crocheted edged

little tablecloth and this magnificent handkerchief

that belonged to her mother who died 

quite recently.  I am so honoured

to receive this precious

piece of memory

from her.

I've been busting to start creating again now that my energy has

returned even still with a little soreness still

so 

starting with some small items 

I decided to create

these corsages from some sari ribbons and other bits and bobs

from my collection.

as well as these fabric wrapped and wired beads.

My inspiration for these came from Sandy Babb of Quill Cottage.

Sandy has a wonderful tutorial on her blog

showing how easy it is to create these

in easy steps

and 

I am so glad I gave it a shot giving results like these.

I'm certainly not into jewellery making as such but I just LOVED creating these

with all bits of left over silks and laces.

So pop over to her blog and follow her easy instructions.

Thank you so very much Sandy.

I'm linking also this week to the What's It Wednesday over
at Ivy and Elephants Blog! Enjoy!

Hope to be back very soon with more creations from my studio.

I trust your week is turning out really well!!!

Thank you all so much for continue to follow and for your

kind and appreciated comments!

Love and hugs,

Suzy

Vintage Cabinet Cards, Photo Albums and artworks

 Most of us love to collect the things we relate to as an aid in

(photo saved from a house fire!)

 inspiring us in our creative works and just because we love them

 and these are some of my treasures sitting on our living room shelves

 and antique dressers

(purchased and gifted)

which I have used to create some works like these

and 

and

(a few of my fabric and paper journals here)

and some have also been gifted such as this

gorgeous Victorian collage

and

a beautiful garden angel and lace heart behind.

It's not everyday that a friend offers you the chance to purchase

two beautiful vintage photo albums.  These two particular

albums belonged to my friend, Glenda's, grandmother

and

as she has no children to hand them down to

she offered them to me

as 

she knew how much I enjoyed using these cabinet cards

in my projects.

 I think they are from the late 1900's and this one

is quite large.  I will share the photos of this one at some later stage.

Such a beautiful brass closure

on this one

 and this is the second smaller one.

 The tooling on this smaller leather one is also amazing

with its brass closure.

and just look at the gilt bevelled edged pages so thick and strong.

 These are just a few of the pages and photos it contains.

It is not just the Victorian history behind these beautiful cards - it is also 

the amazing garments, their textures of silk, satin and velvets these folk wore

as well as the exceptional quality

of the card and paper

which was used to create these albums.

 These albums were made to last - not just one lifetime but several

if they are looked after!

I consider myself very very lucky now being the owner of these two

magnificent leather bound photograph albums which I will treasure

in their original torn,

slightly tattered and stained form.

I'm getting closer to the time when I can sit and blog

and create again in my favourite room -

dare I say almost!

So thank you all dear blogging friends for continuing to visit during

my long absence of recovery.

I appreciate you all so very much and hope to be visiting you again before long.

Love and hugs,
Suzy xox