Twilightspells Beautiful Teacup Candles and Eco design

Kreativ blogger award for me!

2009-08-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

Lovely Verity from joiedetea has given me a kreativ blogger award! Thanks so much, Verity, I really feel honoured! The requirements of the award are to list my seven most favourite things.

1. My husband Luke is my most favourite person in the world ever

2. My family and friends, in Germany, Australia and all over the world. Cos' where would we be without all the important people in our life, right?

3. Nature! I love being outside, surrounded by nature. So inspiring!

Image by CountryDreaming.Etsy.com

4. All things Vintage, especially tea cups of course!

5. Travelling. The world is so big and exciting and it always calls out...

Image by SoZeSoZe.etsy.com

6. Books. I love to read a good book!

Necklace by NewPrehistory.etsy.com

7. Food. I live to eat good food;-)

Felt pattern by umecrafts.etsy.com

Now it's my turn to pass the award to seven other people. Hmm, I have to admit that I have been pretty slack when it comes to reading blogs. I just never get around to read as many as I would like which makes it difficult to choose seven people. I choose four people with wonderful blogs. Three of them are my most faithful readers

-Fran, who makes great dresses and has a crazy, quirky and unique blog.

-Anna, who makes the cutest jewellery and has a wondeful blog, full of beautiful photos and colours.

-Shannon, who is a great sewer with a very good eye for colours and patterns and a fabulous blog full of nice sewing projects, other artists work, food...:-)

-Tasha, who not only makes beautiful jewellery but also has a great blog where she inteviews other artists, amongst many other interesting and pretty blogposts.

I'm looking forward to reading your posts, girls!

My own christmas-in-July gifts

2009-08-04T02:20:00.000-07:00

I decided to treat myself to a few Etsy-goodies lately. It IS called christmas in July after all! First I discovered lovely Verity and her Etsy shop joiedetea. She sells some great tea blends, I couldn't resist and got myself some organic Vanilla-Rooibos tea. The tea tastes great, soo much better than what I normally have to get from the supermarket! It arrived very nicely wrapped and with instructions on how to use it. Fantastic service:-)

I have a soft spot for loose tea, it reminds me of the big tea shops in Germany my mother would take me to. My parents both love tea and we would often go to buy more. I remember the big shelves in the shops, filled with biiig tea containers from floor to ceiling. Fun :-)

Then I spotted a 24-hour sale at meringueshop, and again I could not resist (dangerous, maybe I should ban myself from logging into paypal, or so)

I had bought a wristlet as a gift before and really wanted one for myself. I opted for a champagne-coloured one, beautiful and sophisticated colour that goes with everything. My parcel arrived, and I had gotten an extra wristlet! How great is that? I love surprises like that:-)

Grand Opening!

2009-07-28T18:15:00.000-07:00

My new Etsy shop is open since last friday and I will keep putting my new felt jewelry up. I offer free shipping for the first five customers and I'm thinking about another offer.. stay tuned!

Meanwhile you can enjoy browsing through my felt rose chokers. I'm also working on some new designs, I want to introduce some cute little brooches that I can sell relatively cheap. I will ppst photos very soon!

Almost ready to launch!

2009-07-22T23:12:00.000-07:00

This is how my kitchen looks like at the moment:

I have been working on a wholesale order for a lovely Lady in Brisbane who is opening her shop on August 8th. (I have just realised that I don't know how her shop will be called! I will catch up on that straight away)

I do love my tea cup candles . Do you get that with your work that you look at it too much, and you don't really see why it's special anymore? I am so used to making the candles that it has just become an everyday thing. But lately I have been getting those aha-moments(Do you call them like that in English??) I will look at my candles and think "Yeah, these do look really cool. I'm awesome". Clearly a sudden attack of utter modesty!

I have been a busy bee today, just finished taking the first batch of pictures for my new Etsy shop. Tomorrow will be the Grand Opening, free shipping for the first five customers and popcorn for everyone (Well, you have to imagine the popcorn but the thought is there).

Would you like to take a sneak peak at some of the new chokers? I think they do look pretty good, even if I do say so myself. (modesty as we speak!)

Gone with the fairies..

2009-07-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

Next time I'll snatch up a treasury on Etsy I'll dedicate it to all things fairy. I like the idea of another little world out there, with tiny people living in flowers and trees that wear dresses made of flower petals. For afternoon tea they could visit their friends that live in a giant tea cup and eat strawberries that are as big as their heads.. Welcome to my vivid imagination!

Have a look at some of my favourites

Jewellery box by jimjenkins

Teapot by Lawatson

Necklace by Plumevine

Hair piece by Whichgoose

I'm revealing...my new stuff!!

2009-07-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I am very excited! I know I have been talking a lot about my new designs lately and I bet you have all been thinking "What is that girl up to"?!?

Well, after lots of trying and glueing and sewing and cutting and swearing I am finally ready to reveal the first pieces I am planning to offer in my new Etsy store soon. I am a bit nervous, what will you say.. will you like it?? Let me know you thoughts. Any ideas on what else I could do? Anything I should be doing differently? Love it? Out with it! I wanna know what you think. Here we go:

I am using eco-fi-felt for all these designs. That is a type of felt that is made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. Clever, huh? Some of the lace is new, some is upcycled from a certain pair of pyjamas The little beads are also upcycled from an op-shop find necklace. For now I have been focusing on the rose chokers but I am also working on butterfly brooches...necklaces etc.

What do you think?

Shop op til you drop!

2009-06-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

I hit the local Op-shops in Sydney last Saturday. I am very happy to report that I discovered Newtown as my new Op-shopping mecca. I was out hunting for lace to use in my new felt and lace jewellery(ideas) and boy, I was lucky. Check out my finds

I found this beautiful pink and blue lace

which are actually two sets of pyjamas!

I'm not sure who would want to wear lacy pyjamas, they must scratch terribly! But the lace is gorgeoues. I also found this little piece of lace which is soo pretty! The photos don't really do it justice, it shimmers really nicely in the sun!

This is my backyard in the afternoon sun, with blue and pink lace on the washing line. I know, the grass needs mowing. Any volunteers? ;-)

I also found this cosy jumper, it will keep me toasty on these cold winter evenings.

A very succesful Op-shopping trip. What were your best op shop/thrifty/any other finds lately?

I want a new outfit!

2009-06-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

I love browsing Etsy, can never get enough of it! I just looove this dress, I'm obsessed with it! Shannon from Rabbitandtheduck featured it on her blog a little while ago, that's how I discovered it. So nice!

Dress by Janebonbon

What necklace would you put with it? They are all so gorgeous!

By Itspamdemonium

By StarOfTheEast

By Calexandra

Get a happy!!

2009-06-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

Something to make you laugh today.. I'm still laughing! Check out this website: engrish.com. It is a huge collection of photos taken around the world of very unique use of the English language. Have fun!

feel the felt!

2009-06-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

I have been looking at a lot of different felt designs on Etsy lately to see what is already out there. I have come across some beautiful, crazy and amazing pieces. I thought I'd share some of them with you

Isn't that Tangerine tree fabulous? Like a little piece of the mediterranean life.. *sigh*

by Intres

I love this little felt statue, she has such a nice feel about her, how she is floating along, together with the three bluebirds. I wonder where they are off to..

by Feltathome

This necklace is so gorgeous, don't you love how it goes perfectly well with the black dress?

by ElenaMakesThings

Last but not least these adorable baby boots from Pedrosprout. They are just soo cute!

A step back, and two steps forward..a new Etsy shop!

2009-06-19T00:44:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been thinking about where I want to move to with my business. I do love making the tea cup candles and I'm not planning to give that up. But they are a product that I can't really promote outside of Australia as they are expensive to ship overseas, they usually are one of a kind, and it is a bit of a game of luck to find new tea-cup supplies when I need them. I have also been wanting to do something else which is more creative for a while.

Now I have been playing around with felt for the last few months and I love working with it! I have been focusing on making mobiles, and I have been trying a lot of different techniques, designs etc. Even though I still like the idea of mobiles, I didnt really seem to get anywhere with that either. The last bits just weren't falling into place, no matter what I tried, if ya know what I mean.

image by: http://www.pasadenacarealestatehomes.com/

Now I have decided to take a step back, leave the mobiles for now and try something different. I came across the idea of combining felt and lace, and suddenly there was a whole new world, what an epiphany! Hehe:-)

I made some nice little butterflies, still with the idea of turning them into mobiles. Once the first one was done I just knew they had to be brooches. I have never planned to go into accessories or jewellery but it looks like that's where I'm heading to at the moment. I think I'll see where the working with felt takes me to. It seems to have a bit of a mind on it's own.. I have all these ideas for brooches, hairclips, chokers, oh Dear! Here are some of my first attempts of the felt and lace mix.

And while I have really started to design new pieces this time I have also decided to open another Etsy shop for my felt design.

After lots of brainstorming with Luke I have decided on a name. Aaahh, the most difficult thing! How would I ever decide on a name for a child, it takes me ages to decide on a brand name!

I wanted something a bit playful, and very beautiful. Something that goes with TwilightSpells, as that will still be my main business name. Something that sounds like the ocean and the beach, like a big garden full of tropical flowers, like a place full of magic, a bit mysterious and exciting.

Gee, I don't think the easy way, do I!!?? For a while "Twilight Sailing" was my favourite. But can you imagine how many companies out there offer sailing trips in twilight?!? Far too many, and I am not having my business name confused with a bunch of middle aged upper-class people in stripey clothes!

But, I did decide in the end *drum roll please* my new Etsy shop will be called FarAwayTales

There is nothing in the shop yet, I might get round to writing the Shop Announcement tonight.

How do you like my new name? I hope you aren't disappointed after all my huffing and puffing over what the name shall incorporate:-)

Here another brooch with a red butterfly that I made this afternoon. You have to excuse the bad quality of the photo. By the time this one was finished daylight had almost disappeared

Thanks for bearing with me through this long post, I hope I haven't bored you;-)

Erotisch Victorian Beauty

2009-06-13T00:33:00.000-07:00

I made this treasury on Etsy last week. It has expired by now, but I'm very proud of it :-) I've been wanting to make a treasury about some of the beautiful and sexy, victorian items on Etsy for a while. Something different.

Everyone I put in seemed to really like it which is great. It IS a bit daring , after all. ;-)

Manly market

2009-06-08T01:14:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I did my first market, at the Manly Arts and Crafts market. I got the a stall offered spontaneously at the start of the week and spent all week frantically making candles, trying to organise paper bags, making price tags etc.

The market wasn't the biggest success in terms of selling but lots of people passed through, admired my candles and picked up business cards. I did cause an unexpected reaction in two elderly Ladies who were shrieking in shock when they spotted my candles "Oh, this is terrible! You have ruined these nice cups! I would NEVER do that to my Royal Doultons!"

Not that I am selling anything from Royal Doulton anyway, certainly a very strange and very passionate response to my products ;-)

I am looking for a market that features purely handmade products, or at least with the focus on handmade. A lot of markets in Sydney seem to be more general and allow handmade and pre-manufactured products alike. I have heard about the Kirribilli market and am going to check it out next weekend. It sounds pretty good.

two cheeky stars are sparkling in the sky...

2009-06-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have been busy working on designs for my felt mobiles that I'm planning to put into my Etsy store soon. Well, as soon as I am finally happy with the design that is! And that might take about 500 years. I'm very demanding when it comes to my own work!

I do like these two cheeky little stars up there. They kinda made themselves, decided if they wanted to be boy or girl, what hair they liked, etc. The one with the long blond plaits is the girl, obviously (I hope) although she currently bears a definite resemblance to a certain french cartoon caracter with stripey pants. Do you know who I mean? Check it out here. But don't tell her, she might be offended...

I am planning to put the two stars together with a moon, once I have finally decided on their designs. That will be my first mobile. I have tons of ideas for more mobile designs: flowers, cars, dinosaurs, kittens, leaves.. you get the idea!

Here are some more pics of the stars, front and back, when they were playing hide-and-seek around my laptop. Like the little star-boys hair? ;-)

Anyone wanting a cookie? Sorry, they are almost gone!

2009-05-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Shannon, I hope you are reading this because it's all your fault! Ever since you mentioned the magic word "Peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies" in this post there has been this little voice in my head popping up now and then to shout out:

"Peanut butter!" "Chocolate!" "Cookies!" "Go!" "Make!"

I tried to be good. I tried to do all my shop work, house work, and eat salad. I tried to ignore the voice. Some people might call it schizophrenia, I call it The Inspiration. The Inspiration was taking over, nothing I could do.

I looked up recipes on the internet, and I came across a great recipe on Taste.com.au. And, Shannon, are you there? I just looked up your blog and noticed that you had posted a link to your cookie recipe. Guess what? It's exactly the same recipe that I found! Isn't that funny?

I am now leaving the land of German baking behind me. It's a good land full of cake recipes with fresh fruits and little fat. We don't know peanut butter. You can almost add a piece of cake to your five Everyday servings of fruits and vegetables.

Look where I am now, baking peanut butter cookies! And I like it. Hello, new land of heavy, gooey, yummy recipes. You are very good to me! I think we will become good friends.

This is my version of the recipe. I have altered it slightly, according to the instructions of other readers in the original recipe.

3/4 cup of smooth or crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 cup of self-raising flour
1/2 cup dark choc bits

Method
Preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly grease two baking trays and line with non-stick baking paper. Combine peanut butter, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, flour and egg in a bowl. Stir in choc bits.

Roll teaspoonfuls of the mixture into small balls and place on the prepared tray. Press lightly with a fork. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until light golden. Leave to cool on the trays then place into an airtight container.

I really wouldn't use more then 3/4 cup of peanut butter, rather a bit less. And 1/2 cup of brown sugar is plenty for me. Try it out and see what you like. But, beware: These cookies are highly highly addictive!

I go and have another one. I think I deserve it:-)

Finders Keepers market

2009-05-17T18:53:00.000-07:00

Image by andreasmith, taken from finderkeepers.com

Luke and I went to the Finders Keepers market in Sydney on Saturday. It was great! The market had a wonderful selection of high-quality art and craft work with some delightful goodies to discover. I really enjoyed looking at everyones work and their fantastic stall displays. The market took place at Carriageworks, an old Railway Yard. The building is really impressive and has an old-style warehouse feel. A band was playing really good music and it was a warm night, we were actually able to sit down and enjoy the atmosphere without freezing.

I had a really nice time and I'm looking forward to do more of that soon!

I was on the Esy Front page!

2009-05-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

I solved the mystery of the over 500 views of my "Golden Glamour" tea cup candle -I was on the Etsy front page indeed!! How exciting! :-) Check it out

And I missed it, how sad :-) But I'm still very happy. I did a a search at the flickr group for Etsy front pages and voila, there I was. I sold the "Golden Glamour" cup the very next day. Luckily I do have a few of them and I have relisted it already. Find it here

Check out my new cups and my new housemate

2009-05-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

I have been listing a few new cups lately. This one is called Loveheart. The saucer makes the whole set look so gorgeous, that one was a lucky find.

This one I called Golden Glamour. I listed it last night, and this morning it had over 500 views! Maybe it was on the Etsy front page..? I don't know but I have to find out!

Check this out. This little guy has moved himself in to keep me company. I met him for the first time when I visited the bathroom.. Unusual spot to meet your new housemate, I know, at least he is not demanding when it comes to choosing his room...

Yes, that is a pink toilet brush next to him. Lucky I'm not scared of lizards! If he had eight legs instead of four I would have probably run eight miles by now..

I'm back! Helloho!

2009-05-07T21:01:00.001-07:00

I am finally back in Bloggingland again, after a month of slight madness! Although I have to admit that the whole move went really smoothly. We had a leisurely drive up to Newcastle where we stayed with Lukes family for a while, and our furniture arrived in Sydney almost undamaged. We put it in storage(first floor!) for a months or two and got it out again six days later as we found a house very quickly.

Now I've gotta say that we are pretty damn good in finding houses considering that the Australian rental market is VERY BAD if you are on the tenant side of things.

This is it, the new house. Where my finger is pointing at so cheekily. It is a half house.

Our new home ticks a lot of boxes. As you can see, it is a house, not a flat. We have two bedrooms, one of them will be my TwilightSpells Studio. Doesn't that sound fancy? :-)

This is going to be my "Studio". Nevermind the mess, the rest of the house is all tidy. I'm getting there.

The cups have all found a spot already

What else? Wooden floorboards! Yayy! No more yucky carpet! The bathroom is nice too, about 50 years younger than the last one.

And we have a nice little garden where I'm sitting right now, enoying the sunshine. The one big disadvantage about our house is that it is a bit cold and dark. Certainly good for the hot summer days, but if I don't want to wear three jumpers and uggboots at the moment I have to go outside now and then.

Which I'm not too sad about :-)

I better get back to my shop, I have just reopened TwilightSpells and I'm planning to add A LOT of new tea cups soon. Time to get working!

big events are right ahead

2009-04-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for a while, I know! We have some very major changes coming up in our life. Exciting changes though: We are moving to Sydney over Easter!

It is all happening very quickly, as things always tend to happen in our life. Luke has been offered a job in the feature film industry (He is a 3-D-Animator) and he will be working on Happy Feet 2! Of course we cannot let such an opportunity slip away. We had been thinking about moving to Sydney for a while, seems like it is meant to be..:-)

We have family and friends in the area which is a great start. And we have lots of plans, starting from finding a very nice place to live over getting a pet (if I'm lucky:-)) to me maybe doing TwilightSpells full time.. we will see... It is all very exciting!

I may be blogging a little bit less over the next few weeks as we will be in the middle of moving cities, but I'll try and update now and then to keep you posted.

Also, check out this gorgeous Vintage broche that I bought on Etsy from firstfan (I know, the picture is a bit small, I hope you get the idea :-))

Being inspired by...

2009-03-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Felt

Lately I have discovered felt as a new material to work with and I love it! I have ordered some great felt from Feltcraftstudio which I'm very pleased with.

At the moment I'm workig on felt mobiles which is great fun. Take a look at the few things I've tried so far (they are constantly evolving until I'm happy to carry one idea further)

I started off with these little flowers, and even though I believe they are a bit simple they were great to start with, now I'm going from there

Now the flower shape has become 3-dimensional

And that is my little car, isn't he cute? I'm very pleased with him, but he might go from 2D to 3D too as he is a bit heavy to hang up. He needs some substance, that cheeky little guy

What do you think of my creations?

Anna from muchlove has tagged me, something to blog about very soon ;-)

Stitches and Craft Show

2009-03-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

On Friday I went to the Stitches and Craft Show with Franziska and Anna which was great! The show was really interesting, I discovered some fabulous artists and got inspired to try a few new things.

It was hard to decide on what artists to show, there were so many great ones! But I managed to decide on two. The first one is Ink and Spindle who hand-screenprint the most fabulous fabrics! I so wanna get some, I just have to decide on a project.. and find the time:-)

photo by ink and spindle

Aren't they great? I especially love the skeleton key fabric on the top!

The next one is gayeabandon, who I have already come across on Etsy a few times. She makes the most gorgeous things from recycled wool jumpers, what a fantastic idea!

photo by gayeabandon

I couldn't resist putting up this picture that lovely Anna sent to me yesterday. It shows me, all smiling beause I discovered some great tea cups! Unfortunately not for sale :-) but the tea cosies were even better, such great work. Check out the comment on top of the photo, it made me laugh :-)

In case you can't read it, it says: "Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosy.. doesn't try it on" (by Billy Conolly, Comedian)

Etsy meetups, mock-up stalls and earthquakes

2009-03-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to my first official Etsy Meetup which was great fun! I met some really nice poeple and got to see some great artwork. Now I just need to make a lot of money so I can buy heaps of stuff from the talented people out there :-)We are looking to have another meet up in about four weeks which will be good, I'm looking forward to it!

I have been listing a few new tea cup candles in my Etsy store lately, I especially like this one:

I have called it Bamboo Garden. I have only two of them, if you would like to check it out click here

I am planning to apply for a new market in Williamstown. It will be exciting to give markets a try. But first I need to send my application in. Because the committee wants to see a photo of the potential stall I decided to do a mock-up stall in my garden. This is how I'm planning to set it up (obviuosly with a different tablecloth)

Let's hope they approve my application! I quite like the look of the three steps, I think it suits my candles really well. Do you want to know how it looked like UNDER the table cloth? Take a sneak peak

Hehe, it was a mock-up stall after all.. Again, if I end up going to the market I will obviuosly get myself a proper display instead of random chunks of wood. But it was fun to set it all up, very creative, that's for sure!

And then we had a little earthquake on Friday night!! Unbelievable! I was sitting on my dining/work table when the whole house suddenly started to shake. Our house is very old and a bit wobbly anyway, when you shut the front door the toothbrush falls out of the bathroom cabinet, basically...

So I was thinking that I had maybe knocked the table a bit hard.. but the walls were shaking for about ten seconds and there was a rumbling sound. I was just sitting on my chair, staring at the moving walls in disbelief, wondering whether I should do something, like hide under the table or so. But before I could make any definite choices the whole thing stopped again.

Later I heard about it on the news. Apparently Melbournes strongest earthquake in 36 years.

Hell, I didn't even know that this country gets earthquakes!! I'm from Europe, a continent with very little tectonic activity.

Bushfires, drought, earthquakes.. what comes next??? Maybe I'll wake up to some volcano activity tomorrow.. or how about a hurricane? They are having one up in Queensland right now.. Or what about some serious flooding? I think that would be appropriate after that long drought. And the Eastcoast gets already flooded fairly often...

I wanna go back home!

I've been tagged!

2009-03-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by Franziska from Lyptis! How exciting, I'm feeling all popular :-)

These are the rules:

"Take the 6th picture of your 6th photo folder, post it on your blog and write about it!"

There we go! Now, the problem is that the 6th folder doesn't actually contain photos. If I followed the rules I would have to post a picture of Luke's concept art for his first 3-D movie. I actually tried to upload the drawing, it's pretty cool! Unfortunately it didn't work, the picture is not the right size or the right format, or something weird that I don't understand anyway.. It has to do with computers after all :-)

Nevermind, I bent the rules a little and opted for the 5th picture of the first folder :-) seriously, I have a lot of photos floating around but a lot of them are not that exciting or they are photos of people which I don't want to post without their permission.. but I think this one is a worthy alternative:

I'm the person in green ("I wear my sunglasses at night"-YEAH!!... i'm so bad, excuse my slip into middle-class pop songs!). Under the red hat is my mother, camera at the ready! That photo got take in November when my mother and sister came to visit me from Germany for our wedding. We went to the Botanical Garden in Cranbourne (quite nice actually), a paradise for my family who love to investigate plants and everything nature.

I thought I show you another photo from the day at the Botanical Garden:

This is my nutty little sister who dislikes too much heat. As it was a fairly hot day she was wrapping up in this huge blue scarf. Not sure if it fullfilled it's purpose of keeping her cool but it certainly drew a lot of attention :-)

Now I should actually tag six other people but I don't really know any other bloggers well enough yet so I have decided to stretch the rules even further and let people decide to be tagged. If you read this post and you would like to take part be my guest :-)

I'm off, listing another tea cup candle in my Etsy store. I might post about it later!

Etsy Mini Meetup

2009-02-23T02:40:00.001-08:00

On Saturday I caught up with Franziska from Lyptis and Anna from muchlove . It was great! So much fun to meet some other crafty people and talk Etsy all afternoon! Both girls are lovely and very talented artists. Franziska makes beautiful dresses that are stunning in their simplicity, great everyday wear with a special touch!

Anna makes such pretty and cute jewellery, her pieces are so playful and sweet. Satisfy your inner girl with beautiful, sweet images and nice colours!

I had a great time with you girls, hope to see you again soon!

Being inspired by...

2009-02-20T15:39:00.001-08:00

Roses and Frangipanis..

I love roses, they are my most favourite flowers ever. Recently I have also discovered frangipanis and have fallen in love with them. On my personal ranking scale they come straight after roses :-)

This huge print hangs on our bedroom wall, I love the look of it! It's one of the first things I see in the morning and it always makes me smile. I'm afraid the photo I took of the print is not that great, I hope you get the idea :-)

My wedding bouquet was made just of cream coloured roses, it looked great together with my dress! I made the bouquet by myself, it turned out really nicely. Just the safety pin I had to use to fix the florist tape gave it a slight cutting edge look :-) luckily it wasn't really visible..

I found some fantastic rose prints on Etsy, check these out:

This gorgeous print is from gardentreasuresphoto I love the bright pink colour of the rose

This is a greeting card from LandscapesWithin . I'm always amazed by the beautiful and intricate shapes of roses..

This beautiful, subtle print is from SusannahTucker, a fellow Melbourne Etsian

There is my other love, frangpanis. I recently bought myself a little frangipani (a Donald Angus frangipani) on ebay, hehe:-)

Well, it doesn't look too exciting at the moment.. Here it is, currently next to out front door. (And you can also get a glimps of our sad and dead lawn..)

But one day it will hopefully look like this (the frangipani, I mean. Don't know about lawn..)

photo by frangipaniworld.com.au

or this

photo by tropicamente.it

I found two wonderful prints on Etsy

This one is from Kirsty2715

And this one from creativedesignz

Hope you got all inspired too by some of these photos! Have a great weekend!!

Etsy Finds

2009-02-15T19:05:00.000-08:00

Luke got me this beautiful print from Tummymountain for Valentines Day. I have been eyeing these gorgeous little drawings for quite a while, and now where I finally got one I think I need more of them ;-)

"There's room for one more"

I love the happiness and simplicity the drawings have about them. It's like images of a daydream, of happy places, far away and yet so close.. This picture will go into my new creative corner, sure to help me daydreaming of new, exciting and creative adventures!

I have also stumbled across BlueLadore , an Etsy seller who has the most wonderful Vintage supplies. They are treasures from an almost forgotten past, full of stories and inspiration. I got two of the little fairies and leaves and some tiny golden keys. Aren't they gorgeous?

I wonder where these little keys would lead me to..maybe they fit into an old, gnarling trunk hidden away in a dusty attic... and once opened release some wonderful stories..

handmade help

2009-02-12T16:21:00.001-08:00

Some lovely, crafty Melbourne Ladies have started handmadehelpsout.blogspot.com. They post all Etsy and Ebay listings that are set up for the bushfire appeal, and lots of other great information how to help out. I have just put the tea cup above up on Etsy for the bushfire appeal. Find the listing here
It is amazing to see so much compassion and help everywhere. It seems like everyone in Melbourne and the rest of Australia is doing something to help these people that have lost everything. It always amazes me to see how such catastrophes can bring out the best in people And it is good to knwo that we all can do a little bit to help out.

Being inspired by...

2009-02-12T03:27:00.001-08:00

a blank space.. Well, you probably wonder why I have posted these not overly pretty photos of a messy room up here: This is going to be my creative little corner of the house! It is part of our second bedroom, half a room basically. So far we have mainly used it for storage (as you have probaby noticed).

I'm very excited about turning it into my own little space, and I have already started! A few days ago we have cleaned everything out and went to IKEA where I have bought myself a rug.

I'm going purely by what feels nice for this space, not thinking of what I might like longterm or what would look particularly good together, I just let it happen. It's interesting, definitely very creative!

This is my new rug, I love the happy, simple pattern on it!

I have bought this fabric, also from IKEA . I'm going to tun it into a curtain to separate my corner from the rest of the room. It is another happy, simple, cute pattern.

Recently I have found these beautiful cups at the Camberwell market. I bought them to turn them into candles but I cannot make myself to give them away. They look soo pretty with their pastel colours! Obviously they will go into my creative corner ;-)

Bushfires

2009-02-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

photo by ABC news

photo by dpa

On Saturday I went to the Sisters market in Brunswick together with Katrina from Belsizesquare . She had a stall there selling some of her handmade goodies and lots of cool stuff from her Online Patchwork store and I used the chance to try and sell some of my tea cup candles. I will add a photo of our stall as soon as I get hold of one.

I really liked the market, there were lots of high-quality handmade goods from very talented atists. The fact that we didn't sell much was due to the weather that kept everyone inside.

We have had some days of terrible weather lately, but Saturday was the peak of it all with temperatures up to 47 degrees!! When Katrina and I left the market it was like we were being cooked alive. The aircon inside Brunswick town hall had already given up and the market closed down early but the weather outside was unbelieveable!

I haven't come across anything like it. It wasn't just this unbelieveable heat, a hot and very strong wind was blowing hard through the empty streets and there was dirt everywhere in the air. But the most horrible thing was the colour of the sky, it was like there was no colour left. Everything had turned grey. There were very few clouds and the sky was just..grey. It's hard to describe. It had a real apocalyptic feeling about it, very scary! I found this photo on flickr to give just a little idea

Only later I realised that it must have been smoke from the bushfires that covered up the sky.

Victoria has been hit by the worst bushfires in history. The extreme heat this summer allowed the fires to spread out quickly and burn out of control. And Saturdays heat and wind were just too much. Within hours, the fire had reached a range of remote communities, people had no chance to get away. Whole towns have been wiped of the map and many many people have died..

It is horrific to hear the news, the stories of people that have escaped but lost everything they had, that have lost family and friends. .

I have made a donation to the Salvation Army bushfire appeal this morning, there is also the Red Cross appeal which has been set up in associatin with the Federal Government. If you can donate, even a little bit, please please do so!

Being inspired by...

2009-01-31T21:58:00.000-08:00

Lavandula

From now on I would like to share some of the things and places that inspire me and write a weekly post about my inspiration..

Lavandula is a beautiful Lavender Farm in Hepburn Springs, we went there last weekend and really enjoyed it. They have a lovely shop where their Lavender products are sold and for a small entrance fee you can have a look at the whole property.

The place has a really nice feel about it, it is like a peaceful oasis in a hectic and busy world..

Here the lavender is hung up to dry

This little corner looks like a great place to chill out

A little statue, I love the wrought-iron wings!

Another spot to hang out

And that is Luke, strutting through the Lavender fields

(just to clear things up, he isn't the one with the pink hat!)

It's so-o-o hot!

2009-01-30T15:40:00.000-08:00

I'm melting away! The last two days have seen Melbourne insanely hot with temperatures up to 45 degrees! Today is supposed to be relatively cool, only about 38...
I spent the last two days trying to survive the heat with a wobbly fan (Yeah, right!) Yesterday I was hiding in Chadstone shopping centre, only to find out that the aircon wasn't working properly in their biggest stores.
When I was walking through a strangely dark Myer store (I assume they turned the lights off to keep it cooler) I made an interesting discovery: There was this box with Belgian Chocolates but it looked somehow odd (couldn't really make it out in the darkness).
When I went closer I realised that the chocolates had turned into one big brown chocolate lake! I sooo wish had had my camera with me to capture that. But I still can't upload photos until tomorrow ;-(
To add a bit more of a challenge to one of the hottest days on record, public transport completely failed to work yesterday! I spent three hours on the road, just to get from Glen Iris to Chadstone and back.
I sent an email to some friends and family in Germany, telling them to enjoy their winter, and that summer is not always what it's cracked up to be. This morning I had a reply from my mother that went like this: "Why don't you enjoy the heat while you can? Surely your house is nice and warm now and your clothes will dry in no time!"

I leave it at that for today and go to bang my head on the table...
...

I can't upload photos...:-(

2009-01-28T02:27:00.001-08:00

I was planning to do a great, inspirational post about my recent trip to Lavandula, a beautiful Lavendar farm, but unfortunately I can't upload photos at the moment. Someone who may enjoy anonymity today went over our download limit this month..and if I try to upload photos my computer is so slow, it is almost working backwords.

I'm planning to do a post about something that I find inspiring once a week from now on, with nice photos. I will start with Lavandula once our internet works at normal speed again...:-)

Other than that I have just been trying not to melt, with around 40 degrees today! It is insanely hot in Melbourne at the moment!
And our car is making a strange rattling sound, who knows what that means..apparently the fridge also rattles, maybe they just don't like the heat..
I better go, I might try to climb into the freezer and snuggle up with the frozen peas. Sounds quite attractive actually... ;-)

Ladies and gentlemen, my candles are being stocked at...

2009-01-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited, since yesterday some of my most beautiful tea cup candles are being stocked in Melbourne city centre at "Lady", a pretty little Boutique that stocks some great local fashion labels, and now also some tea cup candles by TwilightSpells:-)

photo by ladyboutique

Lovely Petrova who runs "Lady" also has her own fashion label. Take a peek here . (And, pssshhht, she was also on Project Runaway last year...)

If you want to check out her shop go to 237 Flinders Lane, down Scott Alley. It is a fabulous little store!

These are some of the candles I made for her shop, 15 in total. This is the largest order I have had so far, it was a total fragrance-overload.
In the end most surfaces in the kitchen were covered with a thin layer of soy wax, including the floor and I was staggering through a huge mess, frantically hanging on to the saucepan with wax in my hand, numbed by the ovepowering scents of Vanilla, Rose, Frangipani, Chocolate, Lavender... It was an exciting experience! I loved every minute of it, I didn't want to give any of my pretty little tea cup candles away!

New cups!! New cups!!

2009-01-17T19:44:00.000-08:00

I have been busily Op-and market shopping over the last two days and I found some little treasures that I would like to share. Firstly, I picked up these two gorgeous little japanese cups yesterday.

And today I went to the Camberwell market which proves to be better every time I go there, it's great! Check it out if you are in the area, it's a great market for all sorts of Vintage finds. If you are good at batering you can get some real bargains. If you are not good at it, like me, you still get good stuff.

First I found this pretty little cup which is made by Villeroy&Boch. I feel specially attached to it already, just because of where it's made. Villeroy& Boch is a German company that does beautiful, exclusive China and other household things that are being sold worldwide.
My grandparents lived very close to where they manufacture and also knew the owners personally. Needless to say that every single piece of china in their house was made by Villeroy&Boch. And even though the design has changed quite a bit over the years (I used to eat from plates featuring detailed farming scenery in bright red and blue) I still feel a little rush of joy and sentimentality when I spy the well-known print on the bottom of a tea cup. This is my little piece of V&B for today

Also found this classy looking English cup. Like it! So nice and stylish and Vintage :-)

Found two of these flowery English tea cups.. They will make great candles.

And look what I also picked up: Saucers that match the two japanese cups I found yesterday. How lucky! They look so nice together.

That were my most exciting finds for now, I might finish here and sit outside to enjoy the sun for a bit. I've been so busy doing bits and pieces on my little cup buiness since I have gotten back from holiday that have hardly done anything else. Well apart from the usual, working, household and so on. I might have some Vanilla icecream now, mhmmm, sounds like a good idea :-)

photos from the Great Barrier Reef

2009-01-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

I also promied earlier to post some photos from our recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef, truly great indeed!

Lots of little fish and someone snorkeling in the background

Reef formations and yellow fish

More yellow fish

And this is me, going shark-hunting with a pink noodle!

My first attempts to make paper

2009-01-14T21:56:00.000-08:00

I had a little go at making paper today for the first time. It was all very earthy and back-to-basics and all that stuff. That's at least how it felt like when I was digging my hands into a bucket full of grey paper mesh to shuffle it onto a frame that I made by myself from old tights and a wire hanger.

Here you can see my "work station" (aka bench in front of our house) with the two very homemade frames at the front. I used the green bucket to mix the paper and water before I transported it to the big tupperware container. From there I somehow shoved it onto the frames.
Don't you love tupperware!? I'm so amazed that they do tupperware parties in Australia too, I have always thought that was such a german thing! Not that I have ever been to one...

anyway, back to paper:

I took the next picture just now, the paper has dried and actually doesn't look too bad. It's not quite as dark grey anymore. When I took the first picture the whole thing looked just like felt!

It's still very thick but I don't think it is too bad for my first attempt.. more to come soon!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-09T19:53:00.000-08:00

Hey, I'm back!

I wish all of you a very happy 2009!!! May at least some of your dreams come true, and may the New Years Resolutions last for a bit longer than the first two weeks of the new year...:-) I know how it's like!

I have just come back from a fantastic holiday in Tropical Northern Queensland. Aahhh, such nice weather! I like the tropics, just right for me!

We got up to some exciting things too! The highlight certainly was a snorkeling trip at the Great Barier Reef!! It was just amazing, all the different colours, beautiful fish.. I think I even saw a reef shark for a few seconds.. well, it was a very big, grey fish, I assume it was a shark.. Luckily reef sharks are harmless, or are supposed to be at least :-)

If I knew where my husband keeps the disc with photos we took at the reef I could post some but it looks like I might have to wait for him to come home. :-)

What are you plans for the new year? I have quite a few: Ready? Here we go:

1. Develop more products for my shop
2. Start selling on markets
3. Open another shop where I can charge in Australian dollars
4. Post regularly on my blog (this time I REALLY want to try :-) )
5. Get a regular income out of my shop (That would be awesome)

just to name a few...

Have a look at these two nice cups I'll be listing shortly in my Etsy store

christmas sales..

2008-12-13T04:01:00.000-08:00

The christmas shopping is fully going now, started a bit late but now I've had a few sales over the last few days. I like it :-) Thanks to all my customers who have bought from me so far, I consider myself very lucky to have such nice and appreciative customers!
Check out my "Dragonheart" tea cup, above. I have just listed it in my Etsy store . It's a gorgeous, golden cup, but the saucer almost tops it, both look quite Vintage to me. Hope they will find a good home:-)

What strange weather it was in Melbourne today! So much storm and rain, I can't believe we are officially having summer.. It's Luke's birthday tomorrow, I hope we will get some sunshine.

I'm off to bed,
nightie night.

discount for Aussies

2008-12-06T19:34:00.001-08:00

The recent downfall of the Australian dollar is quite shocking, I wonder what that is heading to.. But on the other hand, if I keep worrying about it it probably won't help my store either. I hope that people keep on being interested in buying handmade, one off, and/or recycled pieces.

But since the only currency I can list in on Etsy is US$ it makes it a bit hard to offer fair prices to my Australian customers. And so far, most of my customers have been from Australia.

To make it a bit easier I'm offering a discount of at least 25% in my Etsy store for all Australians.

Just choose "other" as payment method and I will send you a paypal invoice with the discounted amount. Or my bank details, if you prefer to pay by bank transfer.

Happy christmas shopping!

Great Ocean Road

2008-12-02T23:53:00.000-08:00

Sadly, my Mum and sister had to leave yesterday but boy did we use the time well! They got to see quite a bit of Australia. We did a trip along the Great Ocean Road and were very lucky, we got to see so many animals. Check out the photos:

First we saw an Echidna, just beside a car park where we had lunch. Apparently you hardly ever get to see them in the wild. And there it was, digging in the ground for ants, ignoring us. We got some great photos.

Then we discovered these wild kangaroos that were just hanging out in someones front garden. Crazy!

And last but not least we saw a few koalas sitting in trees by the road. This one was so close to us, we could have picked it up if we had wanted to. It was a lucky day.

my wedding

2008-11-29T21:36:00.000-08:00

I haven't been on here for quite a while. I'm planning to post at least twice a week from now on. I hope I can live up to that!

But I do have a good excuse for being slack: I have gotten married!!!

On November 22nd was the big day. We had a small, intimate wedding with just 25 people in total. It turned out soo nicely! The celebration took place in Ocean Grove, that is a small twon by the sea. We had rented a big house where most of our family members stayed with us.

Even though the planned garden wedding didn't happen (storm and rain) we found a very suitable venue with the living room. We had such a great day with everyone, it couldn't have worked out any better!

In the afternoon we managed to sneak out to the beach between to periods of rain for some photos and I'm glad we did.

I don't want to bore you any longer, have a look:

Yes, I did wear a red dress! I always wanted to get married in red and I'm so glad I did. Everyone loved the dress, especially the groom was very impressed when the well-kept secret was finally revealed.

My lovely friend Katrina did the greatest job with my hair. Here we are, getting ready for the ceremony:

She also made our wedding cake! It looked soo pretty, covered in roses. Not to mention the taste. I'm lucky I had such good help for the day. Here it is:

We had such a great day, I wish I could relive it again without all the stress and nerviousity beforehand. I'm also very glad that my mother and sister were able to come all the way from Germany to spend this special day with us. They are still here and we did so much over the last few days. I'm going to post a few photos of our recent trips to the Great Ocean Road and Phillip Island soon.

Here one last wedding photo, a funny one, of (almost) all the guests (someone had to take the photo)

Floating candles...

2008-10-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

I'm really keen to get some more new products happening in my shop. Especially with christmas coming up it will be good to offer some different products. I have just started experimenting with floating candles and am quite happy with the results so far. I just have to find a way to streamline the process of making them a bit better. This is how they look like so far:

I have to play a bit with the colour, same as with my melts. They will be up very soon as well, i have been playing with them for a while and they are ready to go up. I just want to try some different things with the colour, I hope it will work out.

Busy week so far, doing all sorts of things. And it is COLD again in Melbourne. Sooo annoying, i wish it was back to warm. Apparently, the four-year-old I'm looking after didn't quite understand about daylight savings (the clocks got changed to summer time in Australia on the weekend) and his parents explained to him that it is summer now, that's why the time is being changed. He understood that.

Consequently, he dressed himself in shorts and T-Shirt on Monday morning. Unfortunately, it was about 10 degrees and rain. He is not very impressed with summer this year!

Here is a photo of the new Queen-Anne dressing table for our bedroom. I picked it up at the Camberwell market for a song, such a great find! (please ignore that horrible carpet, one day, when I have my own house I will have beautiful wooden floorboards..:-))

my new stuff

2008-09-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Hiya everyone,

I'm back, I'm pleased to announce that all colds, coughs and similar annoyances are finally gone and I'm back to health. (That little stomach bug i had during my short stay in Sydney two weeks ago is not even worth mentioning...)

I am crazily busy at the moment, trying to add lots of new cups to my Etsy store. I found some lovely cups while i was out and about shopping. I seem to get more and more picky with choosing my cups, i only wanted the nicest stuff!

There are also a few things to organise for my upcoming wedding (excitement, excitement!!). We are getting married in November on the Great Ocean Road. It will be a very small, very informal and personal little celebration and we are very much looking forward to it. But even though it's going to be small there is still a bit to organise.

Then we had the pleasure of having to get our car fixed this week. I thought it didn't sound promising when the car made an asthmatic coughing sound and than kind of died. In short, we needed a new battery and a new Alternator. And don't ask me what that is because i don't know and I'm not even sure if i spelled it right.. But we have a new one now anyway!

Anyway, wallet a lot lighter and car in recovery we decided to spend even more money and booked a "delayed" Honeymoon over New Years Eve in Port Douglas, yippieh!! That's right on the Great Barrie Reef and i can't wait to go snorkeling! And lay on the beach! And just hang out! And and and.. It should be good!

Anyway, i better start adding some photos.

I took a few photos of the soy wax melts I'm going to put into my Etsy store shortly. I'm still testing them.. with the weather being so nice in Melbourne lately i have the doors and windows open all the time and any scent would disappear quickly, makes testing a bit hard.

There are my little heart melts, they just need some colour i think.. but the scent of the essential Lavender oil is very nice!

Actually i wanted to add a few more pics of today's finds at the Camberwell market but I'm a bit tired now, i might just go to bed..:-) and admire my new dressing table in the bedroom, photo follows soon!

Nightie night everyone! See you soon!

stilll coughing

2008-09-04T03:29:00.000-07:00

After five days I'm still coughing and probably sounding a bit french when speaking since my nose is blocked. Not that there was much of a chance to recover over the last few days, there are always these unexpected things coming up, for example tuesday: After 8 hours of running after Kids AND lots of talking (Kids just don't understand that you might want to rest your voice, they never do it after all!) all I wanted was to go home, lay on the couch and finally shut up.
I wish.. I got home, my fiance Luke was running around between house and electricity meter trying to read it and explaining everything to me. That was very nice of him to sort that all out, I was just so tired.. then he was going to cook dinner, I rang his sister as it was her birthday. We had a quick, nice chat but my voice was getting less and less, the cough increased.

I finished talking, Luke said: "we don't have any water"
Me: "What??"
Luke: "There is no water coming out of the taps."

More running around between house and meters, gentle turning of the water meter tap wich did absolutaly nothing. Strangly enough the meter was measuring water usage although we obviuosly didn't use anything!
Call to the water company, they were going to send someone out. 15 minutes later a guy with massive torch turned up and checked out the meter. Turned out that there had been some repair work on the main pipe that very morning and the clever person that did the job connected our water pipe to the meter of the unit next to us and theirs to our meter!!!
We did have water again but it left us with the following questions:

-Who pays for what water usage from now on?
-Why wasn't our water turned on?
-Does the person that conducted the repair need glasses?? OH YES!!
-What happened to that evening of silence i was planning on?

We cooked dinner(now we had water again), we ate, we were discussing holiday plans in Queensland... as you can see we did all sorts of stuff that night, just being quiet i didn't manage...

I'm over colds and flus!

2008-08-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

The last day of august already, isn't winter offcially finished tomorrow??? Or is that later on in september? The last couple of days have been quite mild here in Melbourne, there was definitely a whiff of spring in the air.. Smiling, I tucked my cold-and-flu tablets deeply into the bathroom drawer, surely I wouldn't need them again before next year... last night I got them out again as my nose is completely blocked, my whole body is aching, I'm coughing and there is this general under-the-weather-feeling. I'm spending my Sunday at home on the couch.
And I wanted to go to the Melbourne Etsy seller meet-up today!! Not much point, coughing and sneezing at everyone. I hope I can make it to the next one!
Some things have been happening in my Etsy-store, I've had four sales so far! I'm very proud *beaming with pride* That's definitely a start.
Apart from listing new cup candles and shopping for more cups (there haven't been many tea cups around lately, I must have bought them all!;-)) I'm also working on some new products. I'm currently experimenting with oil burner melts and hey, they are turning out nicely so far. They will be made with pure essential oils. That is going to be my little aromatherapy line.:-) I can't wait to put them up in my shop, just have to do some more testing etc.
I would also like to do some more mosaics, I love making mosaics! Just the process of cutting up glass is so annoying (one day I have to put up a photo of me in my protective gear cutting up glass, looks like I'm going to perform surgery!) and it really makes my wrist and hand hurt. I know there are tools to make the whole thing a bit easier, but they also cost quite a bit. Eventually, eventually..Rome hasn't been built in a day after all.
I'm off now, I will try to kill this cold. First I'm going to drown it in tea and then burn it with hot steam. And if that fails I get the herbal tablets out! That might scare it to death.. well, you can always hope.
Hope you are all well and healthy, see you soon!

it's been a while

2008-08-02T05:20:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone (hope I have a few readers)

It’s been a while since i have posted on my blog. Don't know what happened to the month of July, but it's gone. I've been busy working on my Etsy store and I’m now offering custom-made teacup candles where you can choose your favourite fragrance. I have heaps of fragrances available, and they are SO GOOD! Who would have thought that you could put the lovely scents of coffee, chocolate or blueberry cheesecake into fragrance oil. YUM! Now I’m waiting for my first sale, still. Just made my shipping costs a bit lower since they must be a bit of a turn-off, shipping from Australia is so expensive! I guess we are a long way away from everywhere...

My fiancé Luke and I have just been away last weekend to visit his crazy, lovely family up in Newcastle near Sydney. It's been a big weekend with a 70th birthday, a massive family breakfast, lunch with both grandparents, playing with his little cousins and so on.
I also have a cousin of mine currently living in Sydney which is nice. I'm not the only one of my family on the other side of the world.
I went to visit her for a day and we took her two little boys to Balmoral Beach in Sydney, built a big sandcastle that should be able to withstand all sorts of attacks, had fish and chips for lunch (Balmoral seagulls had their fair share too) and enjoyed a lovely day. The Kids must have liked it too, when i was about to leave her three-year-old old looked at me like he couldn't believe it and shouted out in German: "Willst Du etwa sson dehn?!?" Translated and under consideration of his three-year-old slang/dialect it would sound like "Do you leally wanna do home aleady?!?"
Now I’m back in Melbourne, soon back to my nannying work. Yep, can't escape the Kids. But where else would all that great inspiration come from...? :-)
Saying that I better make my way to bed for some inspirational sleep, spent all afternoon sorting my tax stuff out, YUK! But I’m almost over and done with it now.

See you soon, dear readers and have a good night...

Product photos

2008-07-08T16:34:00.000-07:00

I finally had a chance to get out my camera and get creative....I love the atmosphere. I was trying to capture that real feeling of cozy twilight magic. I am in the process of designing a flyer and I think these lovely shots will steal the show.

news on the teacup front

2008-06-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

I went out on the weekend to do some shopping, for my business of course:-) Any excuse is always good to go shopping!
After scoring some great factory outlet bargains for myself (I love bargains!) we stopped at a big Op-shop on the way home and I found some beautiful teacups which will be turned into candles shortly. What a succesful find, this shop! I have to check out the North of Melbourne a bit more, since I"m living South-East i don't tend to go there very often.
I will upload some photos of my new teacups very soon so you can have a look at my lucky finds.

a bit about me

2008-06-21T23:33:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Twilight Spells!

My name is Ruth (my passport tells me that I’m 26 years old, must be right;-) ) and I am the person behind the whole idea. I am originally from Germany but currently living in Melbourne, Australia with my fiancé. Sometimes love really takes you to the other side of the world.. :-)

Melbourne is a fantastic city that offers lots of creative inspiration, although it surely takes a lifetime to get used to the local weather and it’s sudden changes!

I have travelled lots and lived in different countries over the last few years. That has taken me through a lot of different jobs including Paediatric Nursing, Childcare, Kiwi grading, Fruit picking (You’ve got to try everything when you are on a Working Holiday in New Zealand- it was great fun! ;-)), Live-In Care Work, currently I’m a Nanny…

I’m quite passionate about Natural Materials and Recycling, not surprising I guess, having grown up in a German household with it’s four different bins plus all the extra specific Recycling :-)Add a general love for special Vintage/Second-hand pieces, the desire to try all sorts of Arts and Crafts, and the idea for Twilight Spells was born.

About a year ago I started making my first mosaics and was hooked immediately. I especially love working with stained glass, I’m fascinated over and over again by the beauty of light falling through the glass and making it sparkle…

Then, a few months ago I came across soy wax for the first time. I was curious about this different type of wax I had never heard of before and was looking for more information. I learned about all the benefits of soy wax ( I didn’t know that “normal” wax is a by-product of crude oil, not a very appealing thought there!) and couldn’t wait to get started on making my very own soy candles.

And suddenly there was the idea for my Vintage Twist tea cup candles... I have always liked these pretty, old English style tea cups, I just never really knew what to do with them since I’m not much of a collector. But as candles.. Yeah, that seemed like a great idea! I hope that you will enjoy my tea cup candles just as much as I do!

I spend a lot of time hitting the local Op/Charity shops, markets, Second-hand places… All my cups and mosaic candleholders are bought second-hand and therefore recycled. The glass I use for my mosaics are off-cuts from a glass cutting place. I try to reuse and recycle as much as possible in my products.

If you have any questions, thoughts, ideas or just want to chat please get in touch, I’d love to hear from you!

I will start selling some of my products shortly on: www.twilightspells.etsy.com
Have a look if you like...

Thanks for checking out my blog!

Regards,

Ruth