Nothing like a Good Massage.

Gathering More Stuff.

We are fortunate to have two recycle outlets in the area. They stock factory offcuts and all sorts of goodies for art and craft work. I wanted some pieces of Perspex for mounting my hand carved stamps on and I also wanted to get some interesting foam shapes for stamps or stencils as well. A large plastic garbage bag full costs $25, but I made the mistake of carting it around the  factory with me instead of loading it into a trolley and wheeling it around. By picking it up and dragging it around, all the pointy things like the corners of mount-board offcuts tore the plastic and I couldn't fit as much in. Still I did get a fair bit of 'stuff' including the Perspex, some very long heavy duty zippers, foam sheets with different sized holes punched in them (stencils) the mount-board and a huge quantity of coloured paper, balloons, sticky labels and goodies for the junior craft box. I spent a fun hour collecting up the bag full.

Seed Pods 2.

And that's all folks!

Seed Pods.

For many years now I have collected seed pods from around the country, adding them to an old wooden bowl full as the years past.  Noticing today that there were several falling apart and that the whole lot needed dusting I collected them into similar looking groups and photographed them. More to follow tomorrow.

News from the Past.

The coronation featured in this old copy of the Illustrated London News is that of King George V in 1911,  and the Royal Jubilee being celebrated is his 25th. The Star newspaper is dated 1935.

Still Clearing out the Old House.

                                                 I haven't seen any of these for a very long time.

 A lunch party for 7 today to welcome home one of the group who has been visiting India on a textile tour.

We had so much fun as she showed us all the goodies that she bought, mostly textile, but not all.

Old Leather Working Tool

I recently came across this tool and had absolutely no idea what its purpose was.  No-one else that I asked seemed to know either. After contacting our wonderful Melbourne Museum we were delighted to find out the identity of the tool. To quote the museum... It is a ‘glazing iron’ used in leatherworking and is described as follows:

These apparatuses were used hot after applying wax, inks, special polishes or heel balls to give the leather surface lustre, particularly within the soles and heels. This particular tool bears the tool manufacturers trade mark "ALS / Barnsley/ Sheffield / England". George Barnsley and Sons produced shoemakers' tools in Sheffield, England (1835-1990)