My op-shopping month or so has...

                                                            ... had a Japanese theme...

After a bit of googling I established that this Kokeshi doll is not in fact standing in a rather short shelter, but wearing an 'old fashioned straw raincoat'! A Japanese tourist souvenir.

England had gonks. Japan had Kokeshi.

I know which I'd rather collect.

I could seriously get into these.

If you go look at this blog you too will start to covet Kokeshis.

I found a whole load of other Japanese style junk too

Washi paper craft book

Bookmarks.

Pen and pillow cases.

And I found another kokeshi. At the op-shop price of cheap on Trademe. Isn't she lovely.

Signed on the bottom. I love her demure expression, eyelashes and the sakura on the front.

Sharing my op-shopping prowess at Sophies.

Giveaway day! now closed!

Want a chance to win loads of different kinds of crafty giveaways?

Course you do!

Want to find more cool crafty orientated blogs?

Course you do!

Do what I'm doing and join in this.

Go on. Then I can (hopefully) win more stuff!

                                            Giveaway day linky do-dadery at Sewmamasew.

                                                     Thanks for the heads up about this Deb
                                                       (great giveaway on her blog BTW)

                                                               Ok. Here's my contribution...

1. Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule. Key sewing/blogging guru. For inspiration.

2. A rik-raked, spotty egg shaped pin cushion. Essential sewing tool and possible fertility charm.

3. Possibly the best vintage sheet in the world. (Just the one.I'm keeping the other. It would be maytrdom to give away both.) Material (if you can bear to chop it up).

(all thrifted, but immaculate)

and YES, I'm quite happy to post overseas.

To win simply tell me in the comments how ace my blog is what the best handmade gift you ever received was and why; and make sure I can contact youvia your comment or leave an email address. And then scoot on over to the Sewmamasew blog to enter all the other giveways (sharpish as they all close on Dec 16th).

                                             Giveaway closes/Winner announced on Dec 16th.

It was to hard to chose, so many amazing handmade gifts, so i did the random number generator thing and the winner is Amanda from City Girl Gone Costal (hey Amanda, great blog, me follow!)

Op-shopped Christmas #2

Thrifted tins. For every occassion. Christmas included.

Caption anyone?

Always makes me wonder (and worry) what the photographer was doing to 'make the kiddies smile'!

Usually contains all the chrismas decos' that Claud makes at playcentre out of beads and baked playdough, that I'm going to keep forever.

My personal faves (I have a pair). Cake tins.

Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria.

I haven't been but it's on our list for next time we have a northern hemisphere christmas.

Sharing at Sophies

DIY doll house bookcase

AFTER

BEFORE

Daggy dolly house with do-up potential

                                      GETTING THERE

Hey Tiki!

AFTER

 Bookcase.

Another fine dolly-house marae do-up!

Neat bookshelves, where the books don't flop over all the time.

It is a happy day for my tidy loving heart.

Sharing my creative renovative space here

I'm a Giant Challenge- Doll House Do-Up #11 (The christmas special)

A week to go, a year's worth of doll housing to do!

You get the idea where I'm going from this photo. But it's going to take a while to get there. And a lot more glue. We will have shelves, cupboard doors that open, and a wee curtain to screen under the sink.

Little sticky velcro dots for burners. A chopped up bit of op-shopped randomness for dials.

and a hinged oven door that actually opens is the plan.

Another excuse for fimo food (turkey!)

I tracked down an actual doll-house shop in Christchurch this week, in someones garage. Sadly it was full of pretty naff Victorian stuff, though I quite liked this pottery vase and mini wooden spoons.

I went there looking for a fridge. The woman offered me a brown cupboard and while I ummed and ahhed and then politely declined I was thinking "that thing? Even I could make a better fridge than that thing!"

And the cool thing is, it's no idle boast now, I know I can, and I will!

(Just not right now. I have a year or so until Claud get this monster, and I have a birthday and Christmas to plan, and a small child who thinks they don't have to go nigh-nighs until it's dark ie 10.30pm most nights this week)

The quilt is also a work in progress. I might have finished it by now had I not mistaken the required size of 'yoyo'. The maker I got is way too small, but instead of buying another I've decided, in the interest of thrift to just persevere. So this too is going to take a long while. The wee size also demanded an ultra fine fabric, so I've used an opped silk shirt (red) and pillow case (white).

ps I know a yoyo is supposed to have a hole in the middle, and be round, but they're too tiny to be easily manipulated, so we will have, eventually, a quilt of puckered-up-monkey-bums iced-gems instead!

It's nothing if not unique this dolly house I tell you!

The only other real progress is in the bathroom

                                 Yes, still waiting for the modeling clay to dry. But I got a teeny tiny rubber duckie!

                    So yes, not a lot happened here. Thought I'd fob you off a Christmas special instead.
                   Just because the doll house is unfinished, we can't let the girls miss out on Christmas can we?

Christmas lunch anyone?

Tree and nativity? Check.

Warm hearth

With stylish Christmas/all year around deco above the mantel piece a mini version of Emily Henderson's awesome one!

Front door

and best of all?

Presents!

Merry Christmas Roz!

Ok, ok, I'll try and achieve something by the 15th, the challenge end date.

(And then I'll have a go at finishing it sometime in the 2012...)

See thee next week x

Op-shopped Christmas #1

Have yourself a vintage little Christmas...

I'd just forced my horder husband to part with the naff tree top angel this week, when the op-shop father christmas smiled down on me and said, "Max, you've been a good green op-shopper all year, here's your reward".

A vintage, made in Japan feather angel, 20c.

I have a thing for Flensted mobiles. While this is not Flensted, it is still a cool danish mobile, and vintage to boot. 

A pretty foil wreath, another recent find (3 cheers for the good old Lincoln Road Salvo's)

Ikle pixies. 50's maybe?

Guarding the advent calender from maurauding Claud's who has totally got the hang of advent gifts from little drawers now!

And a nice 50's looking number from the box of cool glass baubles I found earlier in the year.

Bambi-babycham-esq table centre piece.

Sharing at Sophies.

I'll be back next week with my Christmas tins!

The advent of advent

                                                                    December 1st, Hurray!

 Claud and I will be putting up the tree and the deco's today; and she's already opened the first drawer in her first advent calender-awwww! I made it earlier in the year, if I remember correctly from an idea originally in that not usually a stylish craft mag, NZ womens weekly!  My version, by virtue of me being a northern hemisphere-er down south, with christmas at midsummer still feeling not quite right even after a decade, had to be both white and feature snowflakes (like most of my favourite christmas decos). Matchboxes (approx two years of firelighting supply!), double sided sticky tape and stamping-hinting at my Blue Peter craft origins! And that bloomin Martha Stewart snowflake punch again!

I was always mad about the advent calender as a kid myself, though I was fussy and turned my nose up at cheap tasteless chocolate, my preference was for glitter and cute pictures. Always shared with my younger sister Miranda, it was always a good day when it was my turn to open the little door! Making my kid an advent calender is a christmas tradition I've started this year. I'm already thinking of next years-Christmas doll house, with miniture doll-house-y stuff gifts, of course, or perhaps this retro inspired number.

It was good to start early with this calender as it's taken me most of the rest of the year to find things both cool and very very little to put in each match box. Making it also extended last Christmas into January which is no bad thing in my book!

                                                            My Christmas Creative Space