Bits and bobs... francais

Like many of you, I have a bit of a 'thing' for all thing French, so for this Bits and bobs I am going francais.

What do we spy here?
 Some gorgeous old faded tricoleur ribbon, vintage blue lace, very old postcards featuring the Arc du Triomphe, an old perfume bottle that once held a concentrate of violets, a blue sparkly ring by Jacqueline Singh that my very good friend brought back from Paris for me on my 40th last year, a tiny bottle of the classic Chanel no.5, my very special Chanel brooch that I recently acquired (I finally spent my 40th birthday money after 11 months of thinking about it) and one of my handmade Paris pendants featuring an image from another of my vintage postcards.

Anything take your fancy? What is it about France? I don't know, just "something".
Can I admit to you that when I visited Paris for the first and only time (so far) in 1997 that I signed my name on the hand railing at the top of the Eiffel Tower? Call it graffiti if you will, but I think of it as my calling card and a promise that I will return :)

xx

ps sorry I have been so slack with the blog, I have been very under the weather. Feeling on the mend now though.

Also, Good Mail Club friends, I will be emailing you today!

Lacy lights

I couldn't help it and treated myself to a little porcelain tea light holder the other day at the Market.

It was made by Sally Cassandra and was only $16. She had all sorts of other things but these stood out for me. Lace has been pressed into the surface of the porcelain and show beautiful patterns when lit from inside.

So then I thought I might make a couple of little friends for it.

I used an old recycled jar and glued pieces of paper doily to the outside. I wrapped a wire with old buttons threaded on it around the top to conceal a bit of the screw pattern. I didn't take into consideration that the overlapped pattern would show up more opaque so I might re-make it and cut straight edges to see if that looks better.

Isn't the pattern on the wall pretty?

I also made a little lace wrap for one of my tiny bottles and picked some iceberg roses from the garden.

Quite pretty me thinks!

Imagine the whole mantelpiece covered in pretty tea lights, all white, different patterns. That sounds nice :)

xx

Lace pendant giveaway!

In a week's time it will be Molly's Maison's one year blogiversary so I thought I'd celebrate by having a little giveaway! Yippee!!!

Up for grabs is one of my handmade lace pendants on a black velvet tie. It is made from a vintage optometrist lens (see my last post) and the image comes fom my small collection of vintage French lace. These little guys retail for Aus$100!

So, how to enter:

• For one entry, become a follower and leave me a comment!
• For an extra entry, blog about the giveaway on your blog or post in your sidebar. Please leave me another comment to let me know if you do this :)

I will draw the winner by random computer selector (if I can get it to work - if not, by Molly dog selection)

next Wednesday evening Australian EST.

Good luck bloggies!

Lace lovelies

I've been busy making a batch of lace pendants for a local gallery, Handmark, who are doing a Mother's Day jewellery feature.

All the lovely comments from my previous post on these really inspired me, so thank you.

The images are all from a collection of vintage French lace samples that I was lucky to score off Ebay a few years ago.

I chose to do them in black, cherry red and a royal blue with steel chain and velvet ribbon.

If I can get my act together (don't hold your breath!!) I'd quite like to do a giveaway with one of these.

Have a great week friendly readers!

Paris pendants and a new idea

Well, so much for my weekend of gardening. The weather has been a bit pesky and I have felt cosy and productive inside. I have been trying to get these pendants finished for weeks now and yesterday I made quite a bit of progress. Just the chains to polish and attach to the pendants.

For those who haven't seen them in a previous post, they're made fom vintage optometrist test lenses, images from vintage Pairisan postcards and steel chain.

The Lace pendant below is one I made quite a while ago but am thinking of making a batch. I cannot decide whether to use the chain necklace or attach a satin or velvet ribbon....

Below is the velvet ribbon version...

...and this is the satin ribbon version...

What to you think? I'd love your opinions!