Dandelion and Olive

bunting giveaway!

For all you bunting lovers out there Bunting Boutique is offering you a great chance to get your hands on a 3m bundle from their ‘Small Classic’ range. It’s made from some lovely retro flower fabric and would be the perfect ingredient for any party, wedding, child’s bedroom or Easter bash you may have planned.

To be in with a chance to win all you have to do is:

LIKE Bunting Boutique and SHARE this post on Facebook.

Then leave a comment on this giveaway on Bunting Boutique’s Facebook page – easy peasy.

I will be picking a winner on Monday 25^th March and this giveaway is open to bunting fans worldwide – good luck.

BB x

sitting at my bench this week

I made some necklaces to replace some I sold on Etsy so thought I’d take a few pics at the bench as I went along.

Once I’ve cut the shape out with a piercing saw I texture with a tiny hammer I bought in New York.

Stars all soldered on and waiting for its chain!

Bluebird xx

grandma’s buttons

Couldn’t resist ‘Department’ (Hove flea market) on my way to work this week and I managed to snap up a rather lovely old tin of buttons.

I am loving the scenes of holiday destinations on the side of the tin!

Think I had better get to making some brooches and necklaces now!

Bluebird xx

the fairy tale fair

If you are in the East Sussex area this coming Saturday I would highly recommend visiting The Fairy Tale Fair situated in Patcham Methodist Church and you will not be disappointed. This whimsical themed craft fair is back this spring after the success of their first two fairs in August & November last year.

The fair is a real community event, welcoming families and all ages to come along and enjoy the crafty creations and treats! All of the stallholders are local Brighton or Sussex makers so it will be a great place to go to purchase handmade, one off gifts that you certainly won’t find on the high street!

We are more than happy to say that Bunting Boutique will be supplying some bunting again to decorate the venue and we are looking forward to seeing what treats we will find there.

Please check out their blog for interviews with crafters, location details and updates on shows.

BB x

Lovely Finds

I found some lovely doily treasures and a beautiful appliquéd tablecloth last weekend that I thought I would share with you. Its not often I come across some Irish linen doily’s which are very special and my coloured doily stash is slowly building now so watch this space as a new vintage doily bunting range could be coming soon.

BB x

Springtime!

I woke up this morning and went outside to drop No 2 son to nursery and I definitely feel like spring is coming. That may well jinks it and tomorrow we will have a snow storm but today I feel the warmth coming, yippee!!

The flowers above were a birthday pressie and as you may have guessed are not in my garden but on the kitchen table.

Bluebird xx

Creative Kids

Hello and Happy 2013! Unlike lovely Sue who has been posting this year I am slow, I feel as though I have been in blogger hibernation. But I have wiped the sleep from my eyes and want to tell you about a great xmas pressie I bought for my boys. I have a 7 year old and a 3 year old and I was reminded of Anorak magazine via Pinterest last November. Anorak is a wonderful kids magazine full of colourful illustrations, stories and it has a sister magazine called Ploc full of Alain Gree illustrations for all those pre schoolers and little ones – although having said that I’d buy it for me, so its for all you vintage kids book fans too! There are lots of pages to engourage drawing, writing and imaginative play, check out the great Monster pages from the latest issue, my son decided he wanted a mining monster and apart from spelling (not my strongest skill) he did it all himself without any promting.

Now I have to admit it is so lovely that I had to keep calm when it came to the kids colouring in and doing the quizes and at the point where we needed to cut pages out I bottled it and photocopied those bits as I couldn’t bear to rip into such beautiful pages. Maybe you will be a little more free and easy but try as I might I just cant bring myself to cut into those beautiful magazines! Below are some lovely images of the latest issue taken from the Anorak shop

Anorak have an oline shop where you can buy back issues, subscriptions, posters (see below) and other cute stuff.

If you have little ones I would definateley look into Anorak, we got grandma to buy a subscription for No. 1 son’s birthday. I will be back to share some pics from sister magazine Ploc soon too!

Bluebird xx

Bunting Sale!

If you have an event coming up that is calling out for some bunting why not head over to the Boutique’s shop and grab yourself a bargain as a lot of their classic range is now on sale. It’s great to mix and match the colours and patterns and they would look great at a festival or camping event, garden party, wedding or even just to decorate a special spot at home.

There are a couple of the vintage hankie bunting which has now gone on sale too, they have lovely subtle details and look wonderful when strung up, perfect for a barn wedding this coming summer.

Happy bargain hunting.

BB x

happy new year!

Happy New Year from all of us at Dandelion and Olive.

Thanks for all of your support throughout 2012 we have made some lovely friends and hope to keep growing our facebook connections.

Sorry for our slow start into 2013 its taken a while getting back into the swing of things but we hope to get back into gear now and start all those projects we have set ourselves for the new year.

BB x

Yummy Japanese craft books

A few weeks ago on a very grey morning a parcel I had been waiting and waiting for arrived on my doorstep. Inside was a treasure trove of crafty inspiration all the way from the East. My YesAsia parcel had arrived! YesAsia sell Japanese craft books on all sorts of subjects. They have an English word part to their site and although they don’t describe their books in English you can guess or choose titles you know are goodies. I have put in about 3 orders over the years and some titles are series I like and sometimes I just choose a cover I like.

I love Hello Sandwich blog and have lusted after one of her books, so when it popped up on the Home Arts section of the website it went straight into my basket!

I have a couple of these Come Home books, I’m not sure exactly how to categorise them but I guess interiors covers it best.

I chose the book below just from the cover and I seem to have a very cute recipe book (no idea of what it says) but the pics are super cute and there is some crafting towards the back.

Last but not least is this cute book with lots of small projects that use collage in them, it has loads of hand drawn illustrations and lovely adverts for cute looking shops.

Check out YesAsia if you have a love of crafty books, but beware they are very lovely so make sure you don’t over indulge!

If I don’t log in before the 25th then Merry Christmas from Dandelion and Olive!

Bluebird xx

handmade goodies

We have open studios at the moment as part of the Artists Open Houses. The christmas one is smaller than the May festival but it is a chance to close down the teaching studio for a month and sit around chatting to the public whilst sipping some mulled wine. I took a few pics last weekend so thought I’d show you some, lots are under £10! I haven’t captured everyones work yet but here are a few lovely things.

The beautiful collars in top image and the textile brooches above are all by Sally Cochrane. I have my eye on the top collar and a knife and fork brooch, maybe the polka dot one with pinky crochet edging.

The creatures above are by Mary Moo an artist who delights in making quirky creatures and bonkers boxes from salvaged textiles and objects.

The lovely needle felted robin above was made by Mia Underwood who wrote this book this year and has made a selection of felted and papier mache figures and animals and a selection of wonderful foxy scarves. Her robin making felting kits have flown out the door since they arrived!

Patrick Edgeley (Mr Bluebird) of course has some work too and this time of year those screenprinted letters are a best seller as they make great kids pressies and are light to post. Our boys have chosen one each for their room and one day soon they might actually be put up!

Lovely Sue of Bunting Boutique has these super sweet fabric stars, one of which hangs in our house all year round, I also bought a sweet paper garland from her too but it is yet to find a home in our chaotic home (still renovating and decorating).

Mary Fellows has her bright and breezy t towels, aprons and prints with us again this year and I love her cloud print.

Now for some Bluebird Jewellery, after a little chat with one of my students I realised I hadn’t catered to those brooch averse customers, so last week I made some vintage button necklaces to go with the brooches I made last month. I creted a few single button necklaces and a treble one too, i also made one with 4 but it was too ugly to contemplate so it lasted about 3 minutes before I cut it up, re fashioned it and have made a few singles from it. I have just realised I didn’t photograph my under a tenner work but hey-ho never mind!

No. 1 son also got in on the act and made some drawings and is now very excited at having made his first £6.00. The robot drawings were his best seller but the pizza is pretty cool too.

Come say hi if you are near by this weekend, Christmas Boutique at Cross Street Workshop, 14b Cross Street, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 1AJ

Bluebird xx

Its Christmas!!!!!!!

If you are on the sunny south coast near Brighton and Hove this December then pop along to our open studios. Lots of lovely mulled wine for our visitors and lots of lovely items to put on your lists to santa and to give to your loved ones! Come say hi.

Bluebird xx

diy christmas baubles

I decided to have a break from button brooches today and finally got to play with some honeycomb paper. I bought mine from here on eBay for only a few pounds each piece and as I love clashing colours I went for the 2 tone ones!

I had lots of fun playing with this so thought you might like to see too, I even made a little ad for Pinterest to draw in my followers!

Gather your supplies and tools like above, I also used some really nice thick brown card stock which we had in a drawer, any colour would do, choose what you like or you already have.

1. Design ideas that can be cut out of card to surround your honeycomb bauble. 2. Draw outline onto your card. 3. Fill in your design, mine is simple lines but go crazy if you like! 4. Cut out your card shape.

1. Draw a semi circle on the honeycomb paper, making sure the flat side runs alongside the honeycomb edge. 2. cut out your semi circle and glue to centre of card. 3. Cut piece of thin card 1 mm smaller than honeycomb semi circle and glue onto semi circle top. 4. Your pretty honeycomb is now attached on one side and you have a flat pack decoration.

Now it opens like above. I use a glue dot to keep it open. Then make some more! Then add some ribbon or ric rac and hang ‘em up.

I also made some plain baubles to hang all year round.

My advice is buy some cool honeycomb paper now and have some fun!!!

Bluebird xx

Vintage paper garlands

When I was out and about car booting a few months ago I stumbled upon some old Twinkle annuals that I loved as a child. This find led me to looking at other vintage children’s books, and when I found a batch that were falling apart and very unloved I thought – yes it’s ok to cut them up and see what new life I could give them.

The colours used in these books were so vibrant I thought some lovely paper bunting would be great, perfect to hang in my daughter’s room. I was very pleased with the results and started thinking how great they would look hung up at Christmas too.

I then started playing with a few other designs and came up with a sweet bird shape. After experimenting with this and my trustee bernina I soon came up with a sting of birds that bobbed about very nicely and made a very pleasing garland. It’s been great working with another medium and I will defiantly be exploring new shapes and designs in the New Year.

If you are interested in seeing the first peeks of new products when they come into our shop, Special offers and shows we are doing then swing by Bunting Boutique’s Facebook page and like us.

BB x

new patrick edgeley website

Here in the Bluebird house we have been busy and Mr Bluebird, who is actually a person in his own right, has re built his website. Photos were taken, words were written and spell checked and graphic designer inclinations were indulged to get it just right (with much rolling of eyes by me!) I guess the minute attention to detail is what makes a graphic designer good, but boy do they take things to the extreme!

The print above is the latest print to go up and will appeal to all those retro kitchen paraphernalia lovers out there.

Patrick has been talking of a new website for about a year so to finally have it up is great. I love how photos, especially on blogs are the edited versions of peoples lives. No piles of Lego in kids rooms, no dirty dishes etc etc, you get the idea. So although we managed to get lovely shots of the prints what you can’t see is the chaos around and the building site we were surrounded by, but I got a picture just for the blog.

Can you believe that this was the most photogenic place to shoot, the house was worse!

The website even has some pictures from inside Patrick’s studio.

So go see the new site and stock up on a few christmas pressies for some lucky people!

If you’d like to see Patricks work in the flesh, so to speak, and you are near London then get on over to Midcentury Modern Show on Dec 2nd (Sunday) in Dulwich . I have 2 FREE tickets for the first person to get in touch. To see images of last years show check out this post. Midcentury Modern is full to bursting with absolutely swoon worthy furniture but all out of my price range so no chance of being tempted, although it does make me yearn for a 1950′s home though!

Bluebird xx