HAPPY EASTER

In the southern hemisphere Easter is accompanied by the changing colours of Autumn leaves and gentle warm breezes as the days shorten and we say goodbye to hot Summer weather and brace ourselves for the Winter months.

It is a time for special family moments, baking, easter egg hunts, hope and opptimism. In the Two and a Teacup studio we have been making lots of nests and our special eggs covered in vintage maps, book papers and old sheet music for the last six weeks. Traditionally, since my children were very young, we have dyed hard boiled eggs using onion skins, herbs and ferns from the garden. The joy when the eggs were unwrapped to reveal the shape of the flower or herb is a very special memory.

There are so many different ways that eggs can be dyed and decorated so here are just a few suggestions to try.

The traditional dying technique uses brown and red onion skins wrapped tightly around a fern frond, flower or herb held against the egg and boiled gently in a 'bath' of onion skins. This process creates rich, earthy coloured eggs which can be finished off by gently rubbing with oil to give a slight sheen. These eggs are perfect for a natural Easter style and look superb nestled amongst autumn leaves, decorated with a tiny feather tied around the egg or placed in a handmade nest amongst twigs and moss.

Other natural dyes can be made using beetroot or, to turn the eggs a lovely shade of blue, red cabbage with white vinegar can be used. See this month's Country Style magazine for further details.

It is also rather lovely to simply paint eggs with gold, silver and bronze paint for stunning 'lustred' eggs. Writing Easter messages onto the eggs surface also looks fantastic.

                                 

Children love to use wax crayons to draw patterns onto the hard boiled egg surface which can then be soaked in edicole dye or store bought easter egg dyes. The wax dye resist effect is quite magical for children and looks fabulous when dry.

These three eggs were painted by children using colours brushed on first and then decorated with gold paint using a small brush for finer detail over the top.

We hope you have a very special Easter - Joyeuses Pâques.

Eggs and Nests

We have been making nests and our vintage paper covered eggs for some time now and we are forever heartened that they are still one of our most popular handmade products.

The aged patina of the papers and maps combined with the simple and beautiful egg shape is a constant joy to work with and moulding and shaping the foraged vines into nests continues to fascinate us.  Both processes are quite meditative. We love the way each nest takes it's own shape and with the addition of feathers, moss, fern fronds, twigs and berries each nest is quite unique.

Our eggs and nests are currently available at Gather Handmade in Hobart and The Black Hen in Deloraine and the eggs are also available on our Bigcartel store.

collections

My daughter and I are part bowerbirds and part serious collectors so we are writing some posts throughout the coming year about collections - ours and those belonging to others. The first 'collection' post starts with the letter 'S' 

                         Suitcase:

Who doesn't love an old suitcase? Such wonderful recepticles in which to store all manner of things in an easily transportable and stackable way! Each case full of memories and stories - the holder of our secrets.

We love the way suitcases open up a new world when the lid is opened. After a quick search on google and pinterest we found so many wonderful creative ways that artists have used suitcases in their work. The next photographs are just two extraordinary examples of suitcase art.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/314970567665385139/

http://laughingsquid.com/memory-suitcases-paintings-on-old-luggage/

In the photo series "Memory Suitcases' by Israeli artist Yuval Yairi, she has painted images of faraway places onto old suitcases. Yairi has then placed the painted suitcases in different landscape settings and photographed them.

I have always loved the cover of this beautiful novel with the richly painted suitcase ready to travel. 

So many ideas to think about! Imagine finding some old suitcases at the secondhand store and transforming them using mixed media like paint, old maps, stamps, letters and photographs. It would be wonderful to create a 'small world' inside a suitcase for a child to play with and explore - a tiny dolls house or perhaps one side could be a room and the other a secret garden. You could make a suitcase into a large book that folds out when the case is open or divide it into sections to store tiny treasures or collections. We will be on the lookout over the next few weeks to find a small case that we can transform into a unique art work.  In the meantime our own collection of favourite suitcases continues to bring us joy as something beautiful to look at as well a being a wonderful storage solution!

A New Year Ahead

Adopt the pace of Nature

Her secret is patience

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

With the excitement and pace of Christmas now behind us it is time to contemplate a new year and the promise that it brings. Like many, holidays allow us the time and space to re-assess and re-invent aspects of our lives. For our family, it is the time when we are away on holiday, away from our everyday lives, that we seem to have the time to think about new directions. 

This quote always reminds me to slow down and go for walks in the bush and the local parks, beachcomb and collect small treasures from nature - be present and notice the beauty around us.

We have just returned from our annual stay at the beautiful Bay of Fires and have loved being able to stroll on the beaches and stare out to sea and the horizon. It is also a time when our creative juices fire up. 

Two in a Teacup has a few new ideas underway for the coming year which we look forward to sharing with you in the coming months. We hope 2016 is a year full of promise for everyone.

Trust

“It’s impossible, said pride, 

it’s risky, said experience, 

it’s pointless, said reason, 

give it a try, whispered the heart.”

 ~unknown

I love this quote. Sometimes we talk ourselves out of trying things - we come up with many reasons why it wouldn't work, or we shouldn't try - but we need to follow our heart and take that leap as often as we can.

We can smell Spring in the air!

We have always had a fascination with birds nests and the precious little eggs they house and so we are excited that Spring is on the way. You can smell it in the air and the birds are beginning to look very busy.

We have been making a range of handmade nests for a while now and use nest and feather images in our range of small cards. We have always meant to spend more time drawing nests, feathers and eggs  and so this week, with Spring almost here, we have begun to experiment and we will post some of our preliminary drawings on our next blog post.

Our hand made eggs come in all different sizes and the image below shows some of our latest eggs almost ready to send to our newest stockist, the beautiful store “Tomolly” situated in the country town of Millthorpe in central NSW.

Just look at these gorgeous little eggs from an old vintage image - so sweet and delicate.

Nesting/De-cluttering

                                                    Pinned from etsy.com
                                                 
I have recently read a delightful article about the current obsession with minimalism and the need to get rid of ‘stuff’ to achieve the fashionable look of a spare and minimalist interior in our homes. The article, written by Dominique Browning in the New York Times, presents a different view to this trend and I have to say, I like some of what she says! She argues the case for keeping, rather than getting rid of, the collected ‘things’ we have accumulated during our life. That is to say, she is not espousing for everyone to be a hoarder but simply stating a case for keeping our most treasured and collected objects as mementos of our life’s journey. She writes that she has “somehow transmogrified myself into my stuff”. She believes that this actually happens. “We were meant to be together, and the cells from my sweaty palms, or the eye beams from my covetous gaze, will reside in my things forever”. For this reason she hopes to pass on her ‘treasures’ to the next generation in the family. I particularly love her analogy of our homes with birds nests. 

Browning continues:  “Nests are full of twigs, bits of fluff, string, moss and bark. Stuff birds take home and fit to the shape that accommodates their lives. Some birds even press their warm bodies against their stuff as they are making their nests, molding them to the shape of their breasts, so that they feel like … home.  A home that is uniquely theirs and uniquely beloved”.

                                                                 pinned from slate.com

We live in a home that is a bit like a birds nest and we are currently in the process of trying to de-clutter a little but Dominique Browning’s insights have reminded me that throughout this process of sorting through one’s ‘stuff’ there is a reason that we have accumulated these objects, books, stones and feathers, shells and mementos. They are what makes our home distinctly ours. They are the tangible (and intangible) treasures of our life’s journey and we still want them to be a part of our lives. They bring us pleasure and a wealth of memories to share.  All this, of course, means that the pile of ‘keep’ items is a tad larger than the ‘get rid of’ pile.

                                                                Pinned from nytimes.com