Bibliosophy Handmade

Tuesday Projects

This mess-of-a-project is from last week.....shaving cream marbling.

Extra mess.  Extra fun.  It's very easy:  Spray a layer of shaving cream in a shallow pan.  Drop liquid watercolor onto the shaving cream as desired.  Using a toothpick, swirl it around through the paint and cream to create designs.  Carefully press your paper over the shaving cream, you will see it soak up the paint.  Peel off, then scrape the remaining shaving cream off with a scrap of cardboard.  Your design will appear! 

Some of our finished creations; bright, colorful, and beautiful.  Just begging to be made into a collage, or used as a mat for another piece of art!

2014 Calendars

The 2014 calendars are in the works, and I will be accepting pre-orders now through September 1st.  After that there will be a limited number of both paper and tea towel calendars available in my Shop.  With a baby arriving right before Christmas, my last ship date will be pretty close to the beginning of December.  Email me at [email protected] to pre-order your desk or tea towel calendar.

Creating Again...

In many ways...

Little baby #4 has left me with little energy to create this first trimester, but headed into the 2nd we may be on the up-swing.  We did a little strawberry picking this weekend which yielded 13 pounds of fruit!  Needless to say, I spent the rest of the weekend cooking.

Strawberry Chipotle Jam, a new winner, and a start to Christmas gifts.  Planning gets to start extra-early this year, as #4 will be arriving the week before. 

A few simple ingredients, jars, and a boiling water canner, and you are set with this recipe.  Find the full instructions here.  I'm thinking I will pair it with a creamy shortbread, or cheese and crackers in a little gift basket, with Bibliosophy Handmade 2014 Tea Towels.

What summery foods have you been cooking up lately?  Any crazy-early Christmas planning?

New Stuff

A few new things that I've been working on lately....available now in the Shop!  Convo me if you want a dishtowel, they are ready to go, I just don't have them listed yet.

For Mom

I am offering a 20% discount on all items in my shop from now until Mother's Day; simply enter the code MOM20 at checkout.  Treat your own mother, or yourself Mom!  Subtle (or maybe not-so-subtle) hints to husbands are also good:)

Inside Oldfields

Views from inside Oldfields, the Lilly (of Eli Lilly Pharmeceuticals) country house estate, in Indianapolis.  Vintage 1930's.

Wednesday Pretty

Inside the greenhouse at Oldfields, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, from our recent trip.

May Day DIY

Please hop over to Going Home to Roost today to see the May Day basket DIY that my loveliest of friends, Briana Snyder, and I put together.  Hope you enjoy!

Vintage Kids Book Friday

Today I bring you Ameliaranne Keeps School, by Constance Heward.

Another great character filled tale from the 1930's, the Ameliaranne books were written over the course of several decades.  There were several different authors, beginning with Constance Heward. 

In this story, Ameliaranne ends up in charge of a private children's school, solves some problems that arise, and is overall very responsible.  A sweet story about being mature and accepting resposibility.  You just can't beat these old books.

And the very cutest of endpieces:

Please leave a comment with any great vintage reads of your own!

Vintage Kids Book Fridays

This is one of my favorite books.  Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr are the male counterparts to Flicka, Ricka, Dicka, with illustrations just as charming, and stories just as old-fashioned.  In this tale of the "Big Surprise," the triplets mother leaves for a trip, and the boys decide to plan a surprise for her return. They decide to get her a chair, and so, they work to earn every element of the chair. 

First, they volunteer to work for the local carpenter in exchange for his construction of the chair frame.  They proceed to the uphosterer, where they clean his workroom in exchange for his services.  And so on, through the linen drapers, and their nanny who sews the slipcover.  I love the lesson this teaches, and wish our society was still structured in a way that could make this possible.

Please leave any good vintage read suggestions in the comments, and come back next week for more of the same!