Buttons....

In my recent post about my collections I was about to launch into photos of my button hoard when I realised the scale of it. I've subsequently started to have a clear out and tidy up of my things and have made a resolution to use or throw away the mountain of things I have that I never use (.... famous last words) Anyway, along with a few jars of colour co-ordinated buttons I have these three tins and it reminded me that my collection was added to a couple of years ago when I inherited my Great Aunt Lilla's sewing things. Along with the hundreds (yes, true) of dress patterns she left I also have her button tins. The old Kodak tin is full of black buttons and nothing else but black buttons as Lilla worked in a factory making police uniforms. As she was 96 when she passed away you can imagine how old they are. I can even remember Lucky Number chocolates as a child so want to keep that tin regardless of whether it has buttons in it or not. The Quality Street tin was inherited when my Mum passed away and the box below belonged to my Nana before it passed via Mum to me.

It made me think that most button hoards probably start this way by being passed down the generations. In a previous sort out, when I singularly failed to dispose of anything, I must have co-ordinated the buttons and decided to stash all the ones semi -attached to cards in this old box. I can't bring myself to use any of them. It's seems wrong to detach them from their home. If I could think of a way of incorporating the whole card into something that would be easier.

I have picked out a sample of my favourite ones to show you below. Some are vintage and some are new, bought just because I liked the shape or colour. The black selection shows some modern ones that I buy every time I go to Hay on Wye. There is a shop there that buys them in Nepal and brings them back to the UK but the glass ones are old. The black and gold glass buttons were bought in a junk shop about 25 years ago. At the time I broke the shank from them and made them into earrings. I used to think I was the bees knees in them. Of course they were really heavy and hurt my ears something chronic but I loved them. They've not been used as earrings now for many a year but I could never bring myself to part with them.

This lot includes some little oddities, some again that I could never part with like the lime green ones that look very 30's to me but I think the time has come to be ruthless. I am going to throw the bulk of them into a tin and take them to a charity shop or the tip. Either that or I need to use them in something or find them a home with another button obsessive out there who has an obsession worse than mine...... is that possible?

More book things... sort of

I found this a few weeks ago and 'bookmarked' it. I liked it mainly because I thought it was great animation and a fabulous way to trail a book. It also makes me think of Gina, one of my fellow Postman's Knock chums. She will know why but I'll give you a clue - it's word number three!!

Collector.... Hoarder.... Magpie..... Obsessive?

When I casually threw out the comment in a recent post about whether anyone wanted to share any of their collections I didn't quite expect the response.
Thanks to Niminy Fingers,Jee and Me, Third Age Musings, Ticking Stripes,Kitsch and Curious and Things to Make and Do for taking up the question and responding in resounding fashion. Looking at all of your 'collections' really made me think whether I am really a collector at all or just someone with obsessive 'must have' tendencies when I spy certain things?


I never collected anything as a child or teenager so this thing came late to me. It started with an article in a newspaper about ten years ago. It told the story of Jools Holland's brother who, whilst touring with the band, spent the spare daytime hours visiting the charity shops in the towns they toured in. His objective was to find and buy Ladybird books and I was really transported back to my childhood by this notion and started to keep my eye out for them in the same sort of place . Before long you realise that you are going out of your way to travel to unknown places just to visit charity shops and have a scan on the shelves.... well, over a period of a few years I bought hundreds and almost have a full collection of the titles I want. They sit in crates under the stairs jostling for position with my husband 's Eagle and Dan Dare collection of books and toys. I don't even look any more as the older ones have long disappeared from the charity shop shelves . I have specialist Ladybird publications, work cards, posters and even a large number printed in Welsh but I no longer look for them. The Holy Grail for me would be a copy of 'Learnabout Farming' which was listed but supposedly never published. I've never tracked down a copy but if anyone sees one.......

By the time I stopped searching for Ladybirds I realised I'd started something else. By then I'd started picking up books by certain illustrators, not going out of my way, but buying them if I saw them. I love illustrations by Edward Bawden, Barbara Jones, Brian Wildsmith or David Gentleman. This little collection below is a mix of King Penguins and other books I choose just for the covers or end papers and internal illustrations.


The moth book cover was designed by Enid Marx and the woodland flowers cover is the work of Clifford and Rosemary Ellis, the designers for many years of the covers for the Collins Naturalists series. I am a pushover for any book with interesting covers. I can't tell you what type I look for. Sometimes, the book just shouts out to me and I have to bring it home with me.

I have been so interested in what other people have blogged about. I do wonder why we suddenly start to pick up similar things, before long realising we have quite a hoard of them, so I started to try and gather some of my bits and pieces. To be honest I buy a lot of things thinking I am going to incorporate them into something else, chickening out at the final moment, unable to use something I've grown quite fond of. That's the problem with these tins. They were bought to be carriers for small books relating to the product or the image but.......

The same goes for my collection of shorthand books and this lovely shorthand medal. I have lots of these things. Why? I don't understand shorthand but I love those graphic marks and the fact that someone was awarded a medal for their prowess with it.

There is a common theme through some of my things. I am a bookaholic. I've already owned up to keeping my eye out for certain illustrators. I currently have an interest in finding Fontana Agatha Christie covers from the 70's but an ongoing passion is anatomy and first aid or nursing books. I have quite a few St John Ambulance manuals and it is fascinating to see the changing illustrations as the 20th century progressed. My 'Ship's Captains book of First Aid' has some very strange illustrations in it. Innocuous at the time of printing but not very PC these days. I dare not show you for fear of offence....

I'm not averse to picking up the odd jigsaw either but it usually has to have those gaudy handpainted covers from the 50's or 60's. I'm very fond of my Coronation jigsaw and picked up the other Royal one in a charity shop for £1 only a few weeks ago. I think I was swept away on Royal Wedding fever at the time.... These get made up and dismantled and live under the cupboard too with our Dan Dare jigsaws from Woolworth's circa 1950's.

When I took these photographs earlier I thought the 'Buttons' jigsaw would lead on to some photos of my button hoard, inspired by the photos at Kitsch and Curious. When I started to look in my shed for the tins I have them stored in I realised that they could make a post all on their own. It's also made me focus on what I have! Will I ever use it? Doubtful. So why keep picking it up and hoarding it? Now that is a question I would like an answer to!

Up, up and away!

I went on a brilliant automata making workshop yesterday and came home with a flying horse! My photo does not do him justice but he flaps his wings and is ready for take off. It's only a simple thing but I can't stop giving the handle a twirl every time I walk past. Although he's only a first attempt I'm still going to paint him and make him look more finished. I've left the wires long so that I can remove them and then trim them when I finish him to my liking.

I didn't know what to expect from the workshop but I took along a template to work with in case we needed an idea. The template is a free download from artist Ann Wood who makes great papier mache creations and has some lovely templates to work with. The first thing I did was scale it up and attach it to some card. I could have made it in wood but I was taken with this dog automata made by the workshop leader, Toby, and thought card would probably be the medium I would work with again anyway.

Even though I opted for card we were still encouraged to use tools for speed so I cut the pieces using a treadle operated fretsaw which I could not get to work smoothly. I kept telling myself it was just like using a spinning wheel, except I spin sitting down and could not get the action right standing up. I used a handsaw to cut the bases out of plywood. It was hard! Plus, my left handedness meant I was always in everyone's way when I needed bench space. I smoothed all the edges of my pieces on a belt sander and sanded my finger at speed as well. Trust me to be the one to test whether there were plasters in the first aid kit.

I drilled holes in the base, screwed them together, made my wings and wired it up and hey presto, I nearly fainted with pleasure when I turned the handle and it worked. I rarely go to a workshop and actually take a completed thing home with me. I love to absorb the process and then do my own thing but there was no escaping it yesterday. Toby was committed to everyone taking home an automata or a kinetic sculpture. I'm so glad he was so insistent about that.

This is a puppet mask that Toby made and of course, I had to know how he'd done it, already making plans to make one for myself! The shape of the face was made by putting some fine scrim over someone's skull and then sticking a structure of brown gumstrip over it before building up the face later. I asked my husband if he'd be my model and whether I could put clingfilm on his head to papier mache over. He was reluctant, pointing out the possibility of suffocation.... and then he suggested I use the wooden hat block I used to use for feltmaking. Ping! Lightbulb moment! Of course, that's perfect. It's already set up on the side to start.....

I went along to the workshop with a chum from my art course as we both had half term and this is what Ann made. There was lots of driftwood there we could have used so she found this great piece and made the body of a vulture. She is going to give him large card wings and I think he will be fabulous. Similarly, one of the chaps on the course also made a bird. Here is his pelican eating a fish. He has a way to go but the idea really works.

This was Toby's first workshop and it was great to be a guinea pig. I have not used tools as such for years and it was physically exhausting as well as mentally tiring. You are constantly assessing and re-assessing, making small changes ..... and wondering where you put the pliers....

Toby is now going to run another workshop in September making paper models and paper automata. Surprise, surprise, I said 'Put my name down now!'

Broad -bodied Chaser

These magnificent insects spend 1-3 years in the larval stage under water and emerge to survive one brief summer when they have to mate and ensure the cycle starts all over again. Sadly, this beautiful Broad-bodied Chaser will not be leaving any such legacy as my husband found him this afternoon, prostrate on the grass.

I'm afraid I have a bit of a 'thing' for dead birds and insects so he brought him back for me and I 'posed' him on the leaf much to my husband's amusement. What will I do with him? I don't know yet but I will look after him most carefully. He is too beautiful to be left to rot and I will probably draw him first before deciding on his final resting place. A sad reminder of the transitory nature of things but too wonderful to ignore.

Tilting at windmills

Beautiful animation and inspiration. Enjoy.

Wedding Collection

Thank you all for the e mails and responses to my comment about putting some of our collections on line. Lots to read about at Things to Make and Do and Jee and Me so I thought I ought to pull my finger out and show some of my wedding postcards and photographs as promised. I think I started collecting them after reading an article in a magazine where the interviewee had a wall full of unknown people's wedding photographs. Somehow the idea that they had had postcards made of their special day that were now no longer wanted made me want to give them a home, so I went to my 'dealer of choice', Albie, who runs a fabulous bookshop selling postcards in Tenby. This is a few of what I've bought over the years, never spending much money, but making the choice based on the looks on their faces or the setting of the photograph and the outfits.

The top one is a favourite, taken in the back yard after the ceremony. When I bought it my husband was reading 'Ethel and Ernest' by Raymond Briggs so that's who they are to me. Ethel looks young and naive and I'm not sure if Ernest is perhaps a little bit older than her, but look at the gentle love on their faces, compared to the gormless look on one of the bridesmaids. The couple below are called Clifford and Rose - well,to me they are- and I think they look like a couple who will be married for ever to each other. That frock doesn't do much for her but I think he's smitten. I love that shy smile on his face....

Now I think these two are a couple of toffs . He has an all knowing, self -assured yet cheeky grin whilst the lady below looks hesitant and not at all sure she's doing the right thing. I've never been completely sure whether the gentleman is her husband or her father giving her away. In close up her flowers and dress are lovely but there is such a serious look on her face so I'm not too sure of her feelings about the whole affair.

As you can see, I have a little mini collection of them and the last one is another favourite. I always imagine it's a wedding I might have been invited to. See that grumpy faced girl at the back with the unflattering hat, gripping the posy with grim determination.... yes, that was probably me in a former life.....

By chance I had to go to Tenby this afternoon so I called in to see Albie and tell him about the blog posts and people's interesting collections. He sold me some more postcards - although I shouldn't make that sound as if I was an unwilling participant - but I did not look at the wedding ones this time. I was looking for a couple that might do service in a few Postman's Knock ideas. It means I might have to go back again.... what a shame..... not.