Seeing beauty everywhere

 

On a rather gloomy day I thought I would spruce up the font courtyard by sweeping away all the wisteria leaves that had recently fallen. As I swept, I noticed that the central stem of the flowers and leaves were quite similar to pine needles so I retrieved them from the swept up muddle of leaves to see if I could make a small basket or bowl with them. 

Laying them out in bundles reminded me of calligraphic strokes - isn’t nature wonderful!

 Who knew such beauty could be found in a pile of leaves ready for the compost!

Here's to 2026 and a new year of possibilities.

For many reasons we are quite glad to bid farewell to last year but we are excited to start this new year with positivity and a burning creative force. We hope 2026 will be a fabulous one for you all.

We have just begun a new series of gift tags for the lovely little store in Battery Point - Habeō. This will be the first drop of our 'Nature' series featuring hand stamped images on our luxe 36% cotton rag card stock. These are quite a generous size for a small sturdy gift tag and offer plenty of room on the reverse for a thoughtful message. 

We love using natural materials in our work so we were very pleased to have supplied 'Wild Island Tasmania' with our hand painted river stones recently and we are hoping to create a series of these including the iconic Tasmanian deciduous beech leaves. 

May the year ahead be an inspired, creative and healthy one for you all. 

A long time between posts!

 

The old saying 'How time flies..' is appropriate for us this year as many aspects of our life have needed to take priority. Unfortunately, this has meant that there has been much less activity in the Two in a Teacup studio this year, but we are still managing to produce a small number of our popular little products just in time for Christmas 2025. 

On our Bigcartel shop site there will be a limited number of our vintage paper baubles available and a small number of new Christmas tags coming very soon. Our regular stockists - Cuckoo in Cygnet and Wild Island Tasmania in Salamanca Place will have a range of our nests, vintage paper Heart and Swallow garlands and Heart stones and the lovley little Habëo store in Battery Point will have our special edition Christmas tags available.

As always, we hope that 2025 has been a healthy one for everyone and that the next couple of months in the lead up to Christmas are creative and full of lovely moments. 

We will be doing another blog post before Christmas with an update on any new products we are making, so until then Happy Spring and heres to renewed inspiration! 

Nesting

 

As the year unfolds we have found ourselves collecting and foraging beautiful gifts from nature on our walks on the mountain and also from our own small garden. We are lucky that many of our friends often drop lovely gum nuts, seed heads or moss that they have gathered and saved for us, on our doorstep. We realise, too, that we have developed quite a keen eye for natural treasures that might be perfect for our nests, so we often walk rather slowly to carefully observe the garden and bush around us! We always carry a small collecting bag where ever we go because you never know what you might find but only ever pick up what has fallen and no longer living if it is not from our own or a friends garden.

The making process then begins with sorting which of our finds will work well with the nest we are making at the time. I create a nest shape using the vines and twigs first, let it settle and then begin to weave in small elements to the nest. It always amazes me that each nest seems to have a definite mind of its own that determines which seed pods, dried flower heads, twigs and feathers it actually wants! This makes the nest creating process always interesting and ever changeable, which I love. 

The most recent nest (pictured above) measures approximately 25cm in diameter, so it is quite large. It is on its way to the lovely store at Salamanca Place in Hobart called Wild Island Tasmania.

The Christmas season is fast approaching!

We love Christmas and all that it is associated with - family, spending time with friends, the joy of gift giving and making special memories. We also know that it can sometimes be a stressful and somewhat complicated time, so we have tried to simplify things and make sure we have the time to concentrate on some of the more important aspects of Christmas.

This season we have intentionally created only a small number of new products as our family has had numerous health issues that have impacted our time and capacity to produce all our usual goodies. We have a new range of lovely simple hand stamped gift tags which feature gold eyelets as part of the luggage tag style and we have also updated our lovely 'heart stones'. For a couple of years we have made our 'tiny tags' which are perfect when you don't need to write a great deal or when you just need to add a little festive designer touch to a wrapped parcel. Recently we have been making some more of our signature nests and have been thrilled to send one across the country to Western Australia. Locally you can find them at the lovely store in Cygnet - 'Cuckoo Etc' and at 'Wild Island Tasmania' just up from Salamanca Place in Hobart. 

We will be making another post closer to Christmas but we hope that everyone has a calm, productive and joyous lead up to this very special time of the year.

xx

Winter

We often find that because winter in the southern hemisphere is in the middle of the year, it is a good time to be still, read, cosy up by the fire and generate new ideas. In Tasmania, we have been lucky, thus far, to have had some gloriously sunny, crisp days as well as a dusting of snow on the mountain. 

Recently we were fortunate to bring one of our large nests into a beautiful local store 'Wild Island Tasmania'. This store celebrates all things Tasmanian and has a nature and conservation focus in the artisan goods it stocks as well as their exhibition programme so we are feeling very lucky to have our nests there.

This nest measures approximately 28cm wide and is called 'Autumn Crown' as it has lovely bronze and orange tones as well as a central stone with a golden heart hand painted on it.

We have also been making some smaller nests ready for Spring and this Winter we are also trying to design some new Christmas products. It is hard to believe that before we know it the Christmas season will be upon us! 

Heading into Easter!

We are in the final days of a very beautiful Summer in Tasmania and we are excited that Easter is just around the corner. It is definitely one of my favourite times of the year because it means the Southern Hemisphere is in the full swing of Autumn. In Tasmania we are blessed with wonderful Autumn colours and gentle warm days as we brace ourselves for the winter months. Easter is usually one of our busiest times of year as we make our popular vintage book paper covered eggs and smaller nests for various stockists and for our own bigcartel store. This year, however, we will only be making a small supply of our nests and eggs due to my troublesome neck and back issues that have been plaguing me for the last few months. 

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Our apologies to those who have been waiting for new stock to arrive in our online store for Easter but you will be able to find a small number of our handmade eggs and nests and stamped stones at the lovely store in Cygnet, Tasmania - Cuckoo Etc. Keeping my fingers crossed that my back and neck start to behave so we can get back to some serious making again soon!

We hope you are all well and traversing this unstable time in the world with care and safety. xx

 

Tags and Reindeer!

 

These little birch twig reindeer have made there way to the lovely store Cuckoo Etc in Cygnet https://cuckootasmania.com.au/shop. We have made a family of reindeer with a little one and its 'mother', shown here, and a larger one as well. Created with birch twigs from our garden each one has its own unique character and personality. We really love using natural materials and bringing them to life in new ways.

 

 

We also had the joy of making a large order for the lovely store Hearth. Co in Palm Beach, New South Wales https://hearth-co.com/  . This is our second year of sending Christmas inspired gift tags and cards to this very special store.

We also have a delightful little local store, Habeo, in Battery Point https://habeo.com.au/  selling our small Christmas tags, so it is lovely to see them nestled amongst their other beautiful Christmas wares. 

It is wonderful and heartwarming to have stockists who truly support handmade artisan products. 

Christmas Lead Up

 As we head into the rush of the Christmas season my daughter and I are consciously slowing down this year. We have just completed a large box of our popular vintage paper baubles for our lovely stockist "Cuckoo" in Cygnet recently but we are now putting a hold on any other large orders just for this year. Due to back and neck problems I am not up to the intense workout they receive when making all our handmade products this year. We are, however, still selling through our online Bigcartel shop for smaller orders and we have just created a new lux gift tag using gold lustre paint gently echoing a Christmas tree shape, that we hope you will enjoy. 

I have also been making a family of quirky reindeer made from birch twigs that I will show you in our next post. There is something so special about a natural Christmas of handmade decorations and cards isn't there. We also have a small range of hand painted Christmas tree cards available online this year too. 

We hope the lead up to the Christmas season is a peaceful one for you. Look after yourselves and enjoy that lovely festive feeling that is beginning to take a hold on us. xx

Winter - thinking time

Winter has always been a good time to hunker down, take a moment to plan, recalibrate and recharge ready for all the new beginnings in Spring - just like much of nature does. This winter we have put our making on hold due to my ongoing neck and back issues, so I am hoping that this time will provide a chance to heal and come right! It may also mean that I need to change my creative output to something less problematic for my neck and back issues too I suppose. But change is often a good thing. 

In the meantime I have been able to document some site visits to the midlands in Tasmania where I have been commissioned to create a large scale eagles nest. More on this to come in future posts, but it has been lovely to work on a small watercolour 'diary' of this projects progress to date.

We hope those of you who are in the Southern Hemisphere are staying warm and toasty this winter and that everyone, where ever you are, has their creative juices flowing with inspiration. 

xx

Autumn Musings

As Autumn draws to a close in the southern hemisphere this month, we have been thinking about all the wonderful things we love about this season. The fire has begun to be lit each day as the temperature is dropping and the leaves we have collected on our walks are pressing under books. At the end of our street we have a large old Rowen tree which has been absolutely bursting with divinely coloured leaves. Our own garden has been covered in a carpet of golden leaves from our paper birch tree and the Virginia creeper put on a splendid crimson display on our deck. Don't you just love the colours of nature!

We are planning a thinking time about some of the products we create and are going to use winter as a time for reflection and hopefully feel inspired for some new ideas to make during spring. We will keep you posted!

More nests and egg making!

 

As Easter nears, our home studio is a buzz with nest making materials and old book papers as far as you can see! We are so pleased to be sending these little nests and book paper covered eggs to the lovely store in Cygnet, Tasmania - Cuckoo etc, in time for Easter. We've packed our 20 eggs of different sizes and papers carefully into a box ready for delivery and there are a few eggs available on our own bigcartel shop too. This time of year in Tasmania is a favourite of ours as the days are mild and the autumn light is beautifully gentle. And, of course, it is also a time when families have a small holiday and come together to celebrate Easter. We hope you are all looking forward to this lovely time of year and although we make easter eggs that are not made of chocolate, I can assure you we will also be indulging in some chocolate ones too!!

 

A New Year Ahead!

We hope that the festive season has been a healthy and happy one and that everyone is feeling relatively relaxed and in holiday mode now! The 'Two in a Teacup' studio is on our annual break and we are very thankful to all the lovely customers who ordered through our online shop and to those businesses who stocked some of our products in their stores. We have been so lucky to have continued support from our Tasmanian stockists: The Black Hen online store, Cuckoo-etc in Cygnet, Habeo in Battery Point, as well as our new stockist, Mr Wolf in Devonport. On the mainland we have some new stores who now stock some of our products including Town and Country Gallery in Yarragon, Victoria and Hearth Co. in Palm Beach, Sydney. We can't thank you all enough for supporting small, bespoke and handmade producers like us. 

We hope very much that 2023 brings you a very happy, healthy and creative new year. 

Gearing up for Christmas!

We are in the process of adding some of our popular products to our Two in a Teacup Big Cartel Shop site to be ready for those people who like to be organised early for the Christmas season.

There will be new stamped stones with images that are perfect for Christmas and we have just added a gorgeous large reindeer on a pale stone to the shop. We are also working on a series of shells including a seahorse for those having a beach holiday and who love all things beachy. Our special 'Heart Stones' are also a beautiful treasure to give as a gift to people you love and so we have been choosing lovely stones to paint with golden hearts ready to upload onto the shop. 

We are also busily creating our much loved vintage paper baubles and also introducing a new one that is diamond shaped. We have a large order to fill for the lovely shop Cuckoo Etc, in Cygnet, who are always happy to post anywhere in Australia and there will also be a select but limited range on our shop to purchase too. 

More 'Strings of Hearts' garlands are being made too for both Cuckoo Etc and our online store and we will be making text and music Swallow' garlands as well.

The divine Black Hen online store will also have some of our specially created festive nests later in the year and these will add a unique Christmas touch to your home or to grace the Christmas table.  

Lastly, we have produced a new range of gift tags for the lovely homewares store 'Habeo' in Battery Point and these will also be available to purchase from our online shop.

It never ceases to amaze us how quickly we race along to the Christmas season! We will keep you posted with updates both on this blog and also on Instagram. We have been a little quiet on Insta this year, but will be posting a tad more regularly leading up to Christmas.

Until then, stay safe and well.

Spring is almost here!

Our home city of Hobart, in the south of Tasmania, has been experiencing some wild weather over the last few days with rain and strong winds battering our garden. But nature is so resilient and there is evidence that Spring is just around the corner. As we walk our small cavoodle around the neighbourhood we are excited to see that there are bulbs popping up everywhere, blossom trees are flowering, dormant bushes are starting to burst into leaf and the sun is setting later each day.  Along with the changes in the garden the birds are all starting to build their nests - there is quite a frenzy of activity!

So we are taking inspiration from the birds and have begun creating a new series of simple nests with a heart stone nestled inside. We are also painting more of our individual heart stones for the shop. These stones come in various sizes and shades but all feel lovely in the palm of your hand and are beautiful to use in many ways around the home or as a keepsake for someone you love. 

We hope you are all well and looking forward to the coming change of seasons.

Easter Making

 

Over the last few weeks we have been busy making our eggs for two lovely local stores that are new stockists for Two in a Teacup. We have been creating our eggs for a number of years but each year we work on new variations using our vintage book papers and stamped images. 

Along with the eggs, we have also had some orders through our online store for our stamped stones with images from our series of rabbit and bunny stamps. We love the thought that these will be part of their  Easter treasures for families this year. 

We have also made many vintage paper garlands from swallow and heart strings to our music paper circle garlands and these are so lovely to hang or drape in the home. We have created a series of Easter Memory Strings which combine a collection of rabbit and bird images, text, twigs, feathers and a range of vintage papers all collaged and attached to a linen string. These are keepsakes that are made to last from year to year. 

So after a busy making period, we hope everyone has an Easter filled with lovely memories shared with family and friends.

Changing Seasons

Today is the last day of our Southern Hemisphere summer in Tasmania. It has been a beautiful three months of quite settled, glorious days on the most part and now we look forward to the colours of autumn. It always amazes me how quickly we can feel the change of season in the air - leaves just starting to colour, the sun less intense, the days shortening and the light through our windows starting its journey deep into the house as the sun starts to become lower on the horizon. We have started our annual collection of pinecones and kindling which always makes me feel like a squirrel getting ready for winter! 

As I write this post, my heart aches to think what the people of Ukraine must be going through on the other side of the world. On Kara Rosenlund's IG account today @kararosenlund she posted an amazing photograph taken on August 23, 1989 which showed 2 million people from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania peacefully holding hands to form a human chain. The chain spanned 600km across 3 countries and helped save the Baltic States. Such an amazing show of unity and strength of the people - if only there was something we could do to show Ukranians that most of the world stand with them. 

Hoping for peace in the world and that you are all well as we navigate the next change of seasons.

Festive Wishes

At this uncertain time in the world, where many are facing the continued difficulties of Covid-19, we just want to say that we hope you are able to find a small moment to breathe and hug someone close to you.

We wish everyone a safe and healthy Christmas.

Making Spoons

Recently I have been experimenting with collage and I have been making some 'spoons' incorporating my favourite vintage book papers and twigs. They are very much at the beginning stages but I have had so much fun creating these little spoons from repurposed card and papers.

Spoons have always been close to my heart. I have some treasured old spoons that were my mothers and I have lovely memories of spending time in the kitchen with her. I also have an old table spoon that was my grandmothers and I love that it is thinning on the edge from so much stirring. 

For me, spoons are metaphors for nurturing, love, sharing and generosity. 

I have included a photo of my experiments in spoon making thus far which you will see are unfinished but I thought you might like to see a progress shot. I am only at the beginning of this series of work so I am hoping to develop it further over the January holidays when I have a bit more time.

Collections - A 50 year old collection of birds eggs

 

Recently a lovely old friend of ours bequeathed me his childhood egg collection housed in a gorgeous old tin. He had been an avid young scientist as a boy growing up in Europe before moving to Tasmania and knowing my fascination and love of birds and their nests he thought I would appreciate them. How right he was!

A few have old labels that he had stuck on with sticky tape - old and yellowing now, but I rather like them. Most are small blue, white, speckled or brownish eggs but there is one large Black Guillemot egg which is rather extraordinary. From a medium-sized seabird found throughout the northern Atlantic coasts it has a rather amazing dark colouration on the base of the egg which also has quite a pointed shape at the narrower end.

These eggs are incredibly fragile and so at this stage I will leave them just as they were given to me - carefully nestled into the tin box with shredded red and old burnished glassine paper until I find a more suitable storage arrangement. I think I will try to research the different kinds of eggs that are not labelled and investigate what the bird and their nests are like which will be really interesting to do. Our local museum has some wonderful old egg collections that I may be able to use for my research. Do you have any natural collections that you treasure?