HELLO! the Flora Bond giveaway winner is......

Thank you everyone for entering the giveaway for my last brooch! I put all your names in a hat and had my hubby draw the winner............and........the.......winner.......is.......

shrimpsaladcircus! YAY!

Thank you everyone for entering, will be having a spring giveaway soon. :)

A small piece of Me .......

Every week I will be listing pictures of me or my family with Flora Bond vintage spirit! This one is me in my 60's gray wool dress, Bright pink and gold 80's heels, and of course a load of vintage gold and black chains around my neck.

Flora Bond Giveaway! Feminine confection (( brooch ))

Yes! The last on Etsy was sold, and I have enough fabric for one more. One of my most popular designs. All you need to do is add yourself to my facebook fans and leave a comment under this post.

- 39$ value!

- There will be one winner

- Leave your comment with your email address

- Be my fan on Facebook

- If you do not have a facebook account, follow me on Twitter or this blog

- The links for facebook and Twitter on the side of this blog

- Ends Dec 5th.

- Winner will be notified within 24hrs

Wedding bib necklaces.... wear big!

Here are a few of my favorite wedding necklaces I have custom designed for wonderful weddings all over. I love working with brides to come up with a perfect design that balances well with her dress. Every design would be different depending on the neckline, length, color and fabric. There have been many brides lately that are doing a non traditional wedding, like wearing a gray dress with wedding colors like, green, gray, and silver.

Vintage hunting and a birthday

Took my daughter and her friends to my fav thrift store to look around and try on some fun clothes. The girls had so much fun trying on fur coats, 80's clothing, high heels, and prom dresses. I took some photos and this one is the shoes in front of the wedding dresses. I love the light pink ones with the bows on the back, too bad they were not in very good shape. :(

Jackpot!! New/vintage fabric for bib necklaces!!

Sometimes you just get lucky. This was my day, and I really needed it! Most of them are blue with flowers, I am using the cornflower blue fabric in my new necklace design soon to be listed. Also, I am adding some vintage clothing, just because my love for vintage clothing, and then could not pass them up even though they did not fit me, or had something like it. LOL

Fun and flirty, wear your flower bib necklace...

I am having tons of fun making up these collages! Here is another flora bond necklace paired with some fab couture for inspiration. A dress and boots from Modcloth and a wool pencil skirt and tee from Jcrew, I know Jcrew is very spendy, but this is just inspiration! Go and find something simular, but vintage! This is what I do. I found a nice soft purple wool pencil skirt the other day at the thrift store, and it is just perfect with a nice dressy tee and a bib necklace. You might even have something like this in your own closet!

What do I wear with my fabric flower bib necklace?

I get asked this all the time! Other than a plain tee and jeans, what can I wear with my Flora Bond bib necklace? well there are many options, here is one I quickly thew together for you. I love the color of this dress, and the color of the shoes. This is just some pieces for inspiration. You can buy the dress at Modcloth and also the shoes. I love Modcloth because they have many options in all price ranges and also some vintage clothing, You know I LOVE vintage clothing! My closet is getting a little overloaded with vintage, oh well, I might have to put some in my daughters room. Maybe she will love vintage clothing when she gets older if she has to see the lovely items in her closet ever day. LOL!

My Collection...... or new necklaces?

Here is my vintage apron collection, well most of them. A few met my scissors. LOL, I love the patterns and colors of them. My fav is the purple and green one found at the thrift store a few weeks ago. It is very unique, has a mesh purple fabric over the pattern. I am willing to introduce any of them to my scissors upon request. :)

New! Eccentric Luxury Chic Bib necklace

I LOVE, love making custom necklaces! This was a custom design for a lady in New York getting married in a few weeks and she needed a necklace to go with her dress. She sent me a photo and I came up with this design. This layout I had sketched out in my book about a month ago. So, here she is! (the necklace) I will be posting photos of the bride in the necklace soon. :)

Girls and boys...

So, the boys went fishing,

and the girls went shopping, (at vintage shops, of course)

My daughter is an artist!!

My daughter Kiah is awesome! She made lots of art at Tacoma art Museum's camp. She made fused glass, chandeliers (made of shrinky dink paper), and lots of other stuff. At home she makes purses, bracelets and necklaces. If you have any children, you should look into Tacoma's art mueums art camps, very fun and they learn alot about all kinds of artists and thier different techniques.

New Flora Bond OOAK key necklaces

I love making up these fun vintage key necklaces, Found a bunch of vintage feedsack strips of fabric in different patterns. Each one of the key statement necklaces will be one of a kind with fun vintage beads and fabrics. There will be many of them created, some more feminine and some a little retro.

Sunday food for thought...

Here is an amazing gluten free pancake recipe! I even fooled the hubby!!

We have tried to make them egg less, turns out OK. You can add 1/2 Cup egg sub. and 1/4 Cup apple sauce.

2 Large eggs

1 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

3 table S. melted butter

3/4 teaspoon Xantham gum

1 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup potato starch

pinch salt

2 tsp. baking powder

3 tsp. sugar or cane juice mixed in with the vanilla

1 cup fresh blueberries (optional)

First beat all liquids together in one bowl and the dry in another. Pour the liquid into the dry and mix by hand, do not over mix, just until combined. That is all! I think these are better than wheat flour pancakes. Oh, and this is my mother's recipe, I promised to give her the credit.

Fun finds!!

Purchased Much broken vintage jewelry in Seattle! Here are some of the pretty finds. Some them will be "baking" awhile in my studio until they are "ready" Oh, while I was gone my hubby, took some of my old windows down to the antique store and got me a credit for something else, of course, wait until I am gone and then get ride of something! He did get a credit for 40$, not bad, But they were not done baking yet!! do not worry, he was put in "time out" LOL

Vacation! is over :(

My sister is a curator at the Tacoma Art Museum and I got to see the Avant -Garde jewelry as many times as I wanted for freeeee! (I have a family full of artists) YAY! so I went three times, and still did not get to reflect on all the pieces. It was fun to watch the 4 min. video on Nancy Worden and her studio. Here are some things she said That I can relate to :

"when you don't have enough piles of junk, you have no vocabulary" (Hear ya sister, lets get my hubby to agree! LOL )

"When it's another countries junk it seems more exotic" (like my french beads from the 20's)

"You basically look at EVERYTHING like a potential bead." (like my "baking" spools of thread some day to be a necklace or bracelet, they are not "done" yet.)

Above is one of my favs, I love the chandelier glass that fells lavish, and the contrast of the old broken coke bottles. the poor maid and dusting the queen's sparkling crown. You must see this piece in person!

Off to Tacoma - Seattle !

Kiah is going to art camp at the Tacoma Art Museum and I am going to visit their exhibit :

Ornament as Art: Avant - Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection

Very, very excited!!

So excited I cannot write anymore, I must pack and get the heck out

Flora Bond Too!

I have two girls, One is 11 and the other is 20 months! They are so much fun! My older daughter Kiah told me that I needed to make some "necklaces for little girls, not just for mom's!" Kiah is very big for her age and Kimi (my 20 month old is very small for her age so I asked a very good friend if her daughter could be my model, she is such a cutie!

I have gotten many requests for them also, so I made up 3 new designs. One is still in the studio about 1/2 finished. Keep a look out! the 3rd design, it has more flowers and colors.

Another helper of mine...

This is my scary, but funky little gal. She is very retro with long eyelashes. I love the different vintage prints on her clothes. She has a cute steampunk hairdo and these big legs and feet, she is definitely not a Barbie, thank goodness!

Inspiration needed....

Here are some of my favorite pictures of items that give me color inspiration....YUM

Nature is a wondrous adventure of colors and textures!

Sometimes you need to outdoors for a good flow of inspiration. I love to look at the colors in nature and breath in some fresh air. Look at the color of this wild flowers, so pretty. The yellow roses smell like sweet lemons.

How sweet are these baby ducklings! they have the softest pail yellow feathers with a bit of darker yellow. How can you not love yellow when you see these darling babies. I am thinking three colors of yellow and light green Hmmmm. Just the color of something, texture, or design of something gets the creative juices flowing.

The very first...

The very first sale! I loved these vintage earrings I added a few beads and hooks, They had been sitting around for years, found at an estate sale. I remember rummaging through all this vintage jewelry not really caring, not knowing the amazing find in front of me. Paid $1.50 for them. Just to buy something because I was stuck there with my dad. LOL, Now I remember, this guy, kinda cute, was looking at the jewelry also, He had picked up these earrings and a few other things, set them down together and kept looking, I figured they must be really cool ( and I did like to flirt.). So I tried to snatch them and he noticed , "do you want these?" and I said yes, and did my pretty walk to the register. LOL, I do not remember if I got his number or not.

blueberryshoes: Etsy Tips For Newbies, Short and Sweet

blueberryshoes: Etsy Tips For Newbies, Short and Sweet

Here is great fast to read help on selling!

A new blog needs new photos of the studio!

Yes, I love vintage, I should take a picture of the rest of the room, because the rest is modern with touches of vintage. The photo below is my eating area with some modern and vintage prints in contemporary frames. The studio table is very contemporary/vintage , with clean lines but I sit in a cute painted vintage chair!

OK, I cleaned a bit for you, shoved everything over to fit in the photo. I open up all the old jewelry boxes to get my creative juices flowing. The favorites are on top, only the lucky designs get these!

Helpers are very important! My kids tend to just want to throw my beads, these two pretty ladies are a little more helpful. Maggie, on the left, loves her hair piece and is always willing to give advice.

A big pile of lace and trim are in a old hat box, baking in the studio until they are "ready".

Boxes of beads are waiting for their appearance! You look more organized when you take a close-up picture LOL!

I love the look of stacked fabric, I color coordinate them in stacks. They also happen to look pretty this way also. Little wooden lady in red and the milk man are having an affair (which I do not approve of ) and need to hide out in the studio. I might have to split these two up!