I’m dreaming of a simple Christmas

Being fifty-something, I’m old enough to decide what Christmas looks like in our house.

And so it came to pass that when I gingerly peaked inside the Christmas storage boxes a couple of weeks back, I saw nothing inspiring.

There were all the usual suspects collected over the years … shiny baubles, hanks of tinsel, tiny wooden nutcrackers, hang-from-the-ceiling foil stars, santas in almost every iteration you can imagine and trails of sparkly tree lights.

This year, I found it all a bit average … a touch tacky, bordering on gaudy.

So I closed the lid and resolved to have a different type of Christmas at our house. Just this year. Because I can.

I’ve been dreaming of a simpler Christmas with thrifty objects, hand-crafted decorations and a calmer, less consumerist approach. I’m thinking re-purposed, vintage, found objects (as opposed to Made in China, plastic, over-priced, mass-produced).

I’m not sure about the real meaning of Christmas, but I’m certain I won’t find it in those dusty old boxes in the storage room.

Most years we spend $30 on a real Christmas (maybe even $50 for a ceiling scraper). This year the family Christmas celebrations have rotated their way to other households and we won’t be hosting a gathering, as such. There will be less action than usual here over the yuletide. It seems over the top to buy and decorate a tree for what will basically just be Mr P and me. Instead, we will do without the mess and the fuss and see that the money finds its way to someone deserving.

As for gifts, we’re only buying for a handful, mostly via Kris Kringle arrangements. I’ve pledged to shop local, hand-crafted, re-purposed and/or vintage where I can.

Wonder Boy (the Economics major) will tell me I’m not doing my bit for the economy. I’ll tell him not to fret … I’ve done plenty over the years, and I’ll make an effort to rev-up productivity in the new year.

Instead of under the tree, we’ll stack our gifts on the fireplace hearth (it’s summer downunder) beneath this: our Christmas mantle decoration I made by over-printing vintage book pages, their ribbons secured to the mantle by my vintage brass lady bell collection.

The closest thing to a tree in our house will be this trio of thrifted pots I dressed up with fallen pine cones and (more) vintage book pages. Post-Christmas I have plans for the pots in the herb garden.

And today I fashioned this simple door wreath from rose prunings from our garden. Not bad for an incidental gardener.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here.

Simple Christmas. Just the kind of Christmas I’m dreaming of.

Because I’m fifty-something and I’m wise enough to understand that Christmas is different for everyone.

And different from year to year.

And because I can.

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Adventures into upholstery #1

Nov28

Being fifty-something means I’ve spent half my life not knowing how to upholster.

I’ve got an upholstery itch I need to scratch.

My planned upholstery course (yes, it’s on my Bucket List) has been cancelled for the second time.

Sad face.

So, I’m grabbing the stapler gun by the horns and teaching myself. (Holy button-back chesterfield!)

What could possibly go wrong?

Don’t answer that. I’m giving it a go anyway.

I present my first project. We bought this chair around a decade ago (that’s at least how long I’ve been procrastinating about upholstery), had it stripped back and re-glued.

Then we stuck it under the house while I went in search of an upholstery course. As you do.

We all know how that turned out.

Fast-forward to last weekend. I dragged it out from its dusty hidey hole and thrust it front and centre into my first adventure in upholstery.

My initial step was to refinish the frame … and what a stunning old oak frame it is. Luckily, Mr P is an expert of sorts in French polishing and he agreed to supervise my first foray into applying a shellac finish.

Lots of sanding, lots of shaking and five coats later, I’d achieved the glossy finish I craved. Too excited to snap pic’s at this stage. Sorry.

Now for the fabric. Keep in mind that we hadn’t kept the springs or webbing or drop-in seat for this one (if there ever was one) … though there were thirty or so salvaged upholstery tacks captured in a tiny plastic bag strung to the chair leg.

I had no idea where to start with the upholstery elements. So where did I turn? YouTube, of course. (What did we do before YouTube?)

There I found hundreds of DIY upholstery tutorials carefully explaining the ins and outs, the tools, the tips, the tricks of the trade and the traps for young players.

It feels like I’ve already gleaned a bucketload of upholstery wisdom.

I have no intention of turning this blogpost into an upholstery tutorial. That would be presumptuous.

What I am going to do is show you what’s possible with a few hours of curious and furious YouTube viewing.

I learnt how to measure a pattern, cut plyboard, apply batting and even how to use one of those super high-powered staple guns. Turns out we already had one of those in the shed. I’d been too scared to use it (it makes a helluva noise and you’re talking to someone who may or may not have sewn right through her finger with a sewing machine. Twice. You get the picture.)

It was just one of many fears I faced up to on the journey:

braving the big box craft mega-store for supplies
courageously selecting a fabric that goes with nothing else in our home
sharing the man-cave space with Mr P.

There was no looking back.

Here’s the finished result:

I think it turned out not too bad (notice the original upholstery tacks) … for my first late-blooming adventure in upholstery.

I have a loooooong way to go. It’s far from perfect. There are plenty of things I could have done better and differently, but I’ve got my initial journey under my belt and it feels pretty damned good.

I’m already planning my next upholstery adventure; it will take me into entirely new territory (via Air YouTube, of course).

I’m heading into the wild for adventure #2, exploring a more rustic aesthetic.

Curious?

Don’t worry. I’ll send you a postcard and let you know how it goes.

Wish you were here.

Partners in crime (comrades in rescue?)

Nov25

Being fifty-something doesn’t mean that date night isn’t interesting.

Quite the opposite. Take last night for instance.

Mr P and I headed into the city (on foot) for an Indian meal. As we readied to cross the highway we noticed a long (very long) piece of timber moulding on the footpath, obviously displaced from a truck as it screeched to a sudden stop at the traffic lights (Mr P says I’m jumping to conclusions).

Perhaps it slid from a car rooftop as it slowed (not enough) to navigate the corner (more conclusions, says he).

It looks like cedar (a giant leap, says he).

There and then, we made a pact: if it’s still here when we return, we’ll carry it home.

On we went, to the Kahn Curry Hut (No. 2) where we enjoyed Chicken Madras, Lamb Szabsi, Saffron Rice, Garlic Naan and a bottle of local Pinot Noir.

Perfect.

Out we headed into the fresh night air, for our usual after-dinner on-foot journey home.

As we crossed the highway, we could see our prize was still there, on the footpath for all the world to see. Though it was dark now.

We took one look at it, one look at one another, and sprung into action … he at the front (steering) and I at the rear (puffing) we hefted the timber up under our arms and made for home.

It didn’t escape us just how odd we looked, wandering down the road, late at night with this long (very long) plank of timber suspended between us.

It felt like a wicked collaboration of sorts and we jollied each other on with maniacal laughter.

In the distance we could see the dim (Dickensian) light of the local Irish pub and the telltale cloud of smoke signalling the smokers huddled on the footpath outside.

On a normal night, we would stop in at Irish Murphy’s for a nightcap. Tonight was not normal. We doubted we could trust these ne’er-do-well smokers with OUR prize so we decided to walk nonchalantly through the huddle, without making eye contact, and hoping for the best.

Of course, we looked more Three Stooges than nonchalant. Possibly, we whistled as we went. I couldn’t be certain. Still, there wasn’t a comment from the gallery and we walked on (just a little faster).

At the next corner, we opted to turn off the main road and head for the cobbled laneways that thread their way through our neighbourhood. Their tight twists and turns demanded mathematical precision … lucky Mr P was at the helm, yelling directions back to me in the rear, in the manner of a farcical slapstick comedy skit.

We had one more main road to cross. We waited on the curb (forever) for a lengthy break in the traffic to enable us to sprint across with our prize.

(Surely there’s an arcade game based on this exact same scenario.)

Finally we reached home and carried our loot into the garage for closer inspection under lights.

Even better. It DOES look like cedar. It’s a fine piece of timber.

Now, we don’t consider ourselves criminals. (Hell, our friends would probably describe us as tiresomely straight.) We see this as a rescue of a found object. We’ve saved it from the inevitable … those (other) drunks making their way home from the city would have thrown it on the road to be smashed into tiny splinters by gargantuan truck tyres.

We reasoned that it more than likely would have ended up over our front fence anyway, like so many finials and fence palings do on such Saturday nights.

Indeed, we have done a good deed for the community (and the planet) by rescuing this item.

Still, if you see us on Crimestoppers, captured on CCTV, mum’s the word. OK?

You know nothing.

Imagine the intro’: Inebriated fifty-something couple walks the plank in the urban jungle

Then they’d zoom in for the mandatory close-up of me looking furtively (OK, guiltily) over my shoulder. I knew I should have reapplied my lip gloss for that trip home.

Then another close-up of me laughing maniacally. If I’d thought ahead I could have applied some dramatic Cruella Deville style red lippy to help with that shot.

While I wait (drapes drawn) for the constabulary to knock on the door, I will, of course, make some enquiries to see if I can track down the rightful owners.

If I can’t unearth them within a few days … I fear it will be too late.

Mr P has plans to split the loot and “launder the money” if you will.

He’s already measuring to dissect the plank up so it’s unrecognisable as several of these masterpieces:

Hob-knobbery at the local church jumble sale

Oct24

Being fifty-something, I love discovering a foraging opportunity close to home.

And so it came to pass that I hurried along to the local church jumble sale, just a few doors down from my own, arriving expectantly at the advertised start time.

Alas, the early bird had beaten me to the worm.

There were sold stickers plastered on all the best bargains … an antique dark wood hall stand ($65), a vintage wooden dresser with barley twist detail down the front (also $65) and some gorgeous depression glassware that I didn’t have the heart to price-check.

I figured it was still worth a poke around.

I managed to snaffle up a few little goodies … a couple of vintage books and a tiny blue Aussie pottery rabbit.

And the millisecond I noticed this, an idea began hatching in a crafty corner of my brain.

I asked the stallholder for a price and waited. And waited. And waited.

He carefully turned my latest find over, ran his finger along the edge and held it up to eye height as if to check it was even and square. He pondered silently, wrestling with some inner dilemma.

Finally, he turned to me, looked me dead in the eye and said “one dollar”.

“Sure,” I smiled (with relief), pressing a gold coin into his palm and dismissing his offer of a plastic bag with a single wave.

I was out of there.

Once home, I double-checked to see what I had.

Obviously, it’s a wooden fence finial, a post topper. Right? Nothing more. Nothing less.

I’ve seen plenty of these. We live on a busy street in an older part of town where there are a lot of period homes and fancy wooden fences. Our street is a main route out of the city for many late-night and on-foot revellers. Fairly regularly, on a Saturday or Sunday morning-after-the-night-before, I’ll find a finial or two and maybe a clutch of fence pickets in our front yard, assuming the merry passers-by have grabbed them from a nearby property before throwing them over our fence.

As you would.

I know how hard it is to get matching fence parts so I always take a wander back up the street, towards the city, find the fence where each piece/s belong and return them. It’s quite satisfying.

But I had something different in mind for this finial find from the local church jumble sale. A couple of coats of paint, a layer of wax, a pair of old keys and some twine, and it’s become my new door stopper, referred to by others in this household as: “The Big Knob”.

Jack Sparrow (Pirate Cat) is still a little wary of it.

And I have no idea what was going through that stallholder’s mind when he was pricing this for me.

I think he was probably taking a lend of me.

And I fell for it … bizarre, over-dramatic hob-knobbery in the church hall.

Hit me with your ribbon stick (climbing back into the craft saddle)

Sep14

Being fifty-something, I’m nothing if not persistent.

The horror of my near-death-by-scrapbooking experience is slowly fading. So much so that last weekend I climbed back into the crafting saddle … boots and all.

Inspired by the lithe young gymnasts at the London Olympics, I resolved to attempt a gymnast’s ribbon wand as a gift for my Great Niece, Miss E, for her third birthday.

Photo courtesy Singapore 2010 Youth Olympics Games on http://www.flickr.com

In fact, I decided to triple up the fun and make three ribbon sticks so Miss E’s siblings, 4-year old Miss A and 1-year old Master S, didn’t miss out on the fun.

I checked out some online DIYs, and it all seemed easy enough, so I took a deep breath … and gathered my materials.

Wooden dowels, ribbon (3 metres for each), screw-in eyelets and “spinners” – I upcycled mine from some old swipe card clips. You can also source spinners at fishing tackle suppliers.

I sprayed the dowels (each about 30cm long) with silver paint. No such thing as too much bling.

For each dowel, I screwed in an eyelet, split the ring on the spinner to attach it to the eyelet before threading the ribbon through the other split ring and stitching it firm.

I sealed the long end of the ribbon by holding it a few centimetres above a flame, for just a few seconds.

Tadah! Three ribbon wands, not quite of Olympic proportions, but certainly fun enough to entertain three little cuties for a few hours. I added a book and sweet little notelets, a hand-made card and I was satisfied with another crafty gift, wrapped and in the bag.

Well, not quite satisfied.

I was feeling pretty comfy in the saddle so I risked another project (without dismounting). Remember all those vintage Fowler’s Vacola jars my sister K presented my with? I upcycled six of them into Candles in the Wind … one for each of the ladies at the birthday celebrations, each complete with personalised leather initials/motifs.

That’s six Fowler’s jars down. Ninety-four to go.

The ribbon wands were a hit with the little-uns at the recent family birthday gathering.

Even Master S got in on the act to give us a ribbon wanding performance.

Not all went perfectly to plan. Seems the girls had caught some of the fencing competition during the Olympics broadcast … because there was a little light-hearted hit-me-with-your-ribbon-stick action. No one was hurt. Yes, there were tears.

And one of the eyelets kept finding its way loose under the pressure of all that twirling. Miss E got very adept at just twisting it back in and getting on with the show.

Some of mum’s “good” glue would fix it for good.

A little crafter in the making.

I think she got it from her mum (my niece E) who created a fabulous birthday cake for event. How clever is she?

Here we are (me on the far left) blowing out the candles with my fellow birthday buddies at our annual August/September birthday celebration.

That’s fifty-three down … and many, many more to go.

(And if you haven’t got “Hit me with your ribbon stick” playing in your head all day long, I have failed. Hit me. Hit me.)

In the frame – a stranger’s memories

Aug29

Being fifty-something doesn’t mean I get it right every time.

Quite the opposite. And because I’m wiser (with age, of course) I’m more aware when I get it wrong. Always after the fact.

Obviously, I should have asked for help (or joined a support group) on this one earlier.

Much earlier.

Here’s how it unfolded.

A couple of weeks back, I unearthed this huge vintage atlas at the local book fair. By huge, I mean the pages are almost A3 size and have those gorgeous muted colours typical of atlases printed in the 1960s. Love at first sight.

For just $2 I snavelled it up, dreaming of flawlessly executing all sorts of crafts, many inspired by this post I shared a while back.

I lugged the big, bound beauty home (I’d been schlepping around the neighbourhood without the car) and settled in with a cup of tea to explore the pages. (Is it just me who spends hours exploring atlas pages?)

Inside I found a secret. Between pages 52 and 53 was a clutch of flowers and foliage carefully placed between tissue paper.

They’d been there for some time, pressed flat and dry and fragile and precious.

I wondered what made them special. Perhaps they were a travel keepsake or a memento of a special day or a special place.

I wondered who had placed them in this big, bound beauty and why they hadn’t retrieved them.

I couldn’t stop thinking about them.

Yes. I had been ambushed by a stranger’s memories. (I am a serial ambushee, it seems).

Any clear thinking person would have returned the flowers to the secret spot between Pages 52 and 53. Where they belonged.

Not me. I felt an urge to preserve the stranger’s memories.

I grabbed a frame from my box of second-hand frames. (Why the surprise face? Doesn’t everyone have a box of second-hand frames?)

I schlapped on a couple of coats of white paint and some white wax then arranged within the frame the stranger’s flowers, over a piece of the original tissue over a guillotined page of the atlas.

Feeling chuffed, I stood back to admire my work.

Now wasn’t that a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot(!) moment?

I was struck by two things:

1. I had shown more care and respect to a stranger’s memories than I ever do to my own (mine are unashamedly unsorted, unloved and left to their own devices to ambush me unawares).

2. I was teetering on the edge of the abyss of something terrifying … scrapbooking.

If any of you has anything to offer up to explain/resolve Number 1, I’d love to hear from you. Particularly if you have a psychological bent … surely there is a syndrome that covers this. (Memorünchausen Syndrome by Proxy springs to mind.)

As for Number 2, please grab me and pull me back from the abyss (fast and firm).

Recognising that I’ve betrayed my own memories in favour of those of a stranger is frightening in itself, but not nearly as daunting (or irreversible) as becoming a scrapbooker.

Be careful what you wish for (a cautionary tale of upcycling)

Aug12

Being fifty-something, you’d think I’d have learnt to keep my big mouth shut.

When I went public on this Nothing Like a Candle in the Wind blogpost about my fetish for Fowlers Vacola jars, I should have known I’d get more than I bargained for.

And so it was.

My sister K responded with an offer of an entire Fowlers Vacola bottling kit, which was gathering dust in her garage.

When Mum passed away in 2005, K was voted the Sister Most Likely to Bottle and accepted the challenge of stewardship of Mum’s preserving kit.

It’s eight years on. The urge to bottle hasn’t kicked in for K (or any of the rest of us) so I now have guardianship of the Fowlers Vacola manifest … with the family’s blessing to do with it whatever I feel best.

Obviously, that means upcycling.

The challenge is on … I have the big sterilising pot (or, as we refer to it: “the cauldron” – we love a witchy reference), a bag full of multi-sized lids, clips, rings, instruction booklets, tongs, bands and the bottles/jars. More than one hundred of them. Yikes! That’s a lot of candles in the wind.

I have a mountain of upcycling ahead of me.

Here are my first two projects. You will notice, I have picked off the “low-hanging fruit” to begin with, while I give some thought to how I can make meaningful use of ALL those bottles.

#1 Fowlers Vacola Upcycle – Rhubarb ~~Pot~~ Cauldron

This makes perfect sense in our family. Mum and Dad were mad, keen gardeners and always had a thriving bed of rhubarb under cultivation.

Rhubarb is undergoing a resurgence in the foodie world. I checked with the horticulturist at our local nursery and discovered that rhubarb is a very pot-friendly vegetable (yes, it’s technically a veg) and that there were seedlings in season, ready-to-go.

Mr P drilled some drainage holes in the base of the cauldron, panel-beated the lid out into a saucer shape and I planted it up.

There we have it … an upcycled cauldron of rhubarb-in-the-making. That’s the original colour of the cauldron (no repainting required) and I’m already loving the pop of colour in the wintry garden.

#2 Fowlers Vacola Upcycle – Tall, tall candlesticks

This simple project took care of four Fowlers Vacola metal lids and helped me upcycle these two turned wood “pieces” I picked up a couple of months back at the Ballarat Trash and Trivia Market for $1 each.

Let’s call them wooden legs, just for the family in-joke reference … see The Peculiar Language of Families.

Mr P evened the wooden legs with a saw. We then screwed two larger Fowlers Vacola lids to the bases of the wooden legs and two smaller Fowlers Vacola lids to the tops.

A slap of undercoat, a swish of Dulux Antique White, a light sand to add some distress detail, a coat of white wax and these 55cm-tall babies were ready.

With a couple of chunky white candles ($2 each at the $2 Shop … amazing, because very few things in the $2 Shop actually cost $2) these make quite a statement in the hallway.

I’m pleased to have made a start on this over-sized upcycling project that has inveigled its way into my life. It’s an elephant I’m going to devour one bite at a time. I will keep you posted with my progress, bite-by-bite.

In the meantime, be careful what you wish for.

My $4 verandah update

Aug7

Being fifty-something, I’ve learned to watch the pennies.

I try not to waste our “hard-earned” on transient and superfluous fluff that inevitably ends up in landfill.

As regular readers will know, we’re heading towards the big “D” word. Downsizing.

That means readying our home for sale. It’s a humongous task and we’re chipping away at it slowly.

Ever so slowly.

We’re in familiar territory; we’ve been chipping away at renovations here for over a decade!

The experts tell us to concentrate on making a positive first impression, so we’ve been tidying the front yard and entry-way to our 100-year old house. There’s a discernible domino effect. When we replaced the straggly lavender hedge it was impossible not to ignore the tired looking wicker chairs masquerading as a front verandah quiet spot.

An update was in order.

We’d already allocated a big slice of the budget to another update project at the other end of the verandah (more about that later). This would have to be a shoestring job. That’s why I’m calling it an update, rather than a makeover (don’t want to get your hopes up).

So far, it’s cost us just $4 … and we’re pretty chuffed with the results.

While Mr P set to sprucing up the wicker with a coat of sprayed on white paint from a part-used can in the shed …

I went “shopping” in our own backyard and found a half-round hall table languishing in neglect on the rear deck. Mr P gave it a once-over with the spray-gun and it looks like new.

I resisted the urge to go contemporary (a pop of bright colour here would look brilliant!) But this is a fairly formal looking area and, for resale value, it’s safest to stick with something congruent.

So botanicals it is. On that note, I located a tired topiary pot plant hiding behind some shrubbery.

Fresh cushions were definitely in order so I looked to goodwill for inspiration and found four hydrangea-themed placemats ($2 total) and a botanical style display plate ($2).

I fashioned (that’s fancy talk for the four straight rows of machine stitching I laboured over) the placemats into two cushions, reusing the foam from the old cushions.

For a $4 outlay, we have an updated “quiet” area on our front verandah, a perfect retreat for a summery evening. And hopefully a more impressive entrée to the property for any would-be buyers when “D’ time comes.

Can’t wait for that lavender hedge to grow and complete the vignette.

Nothing like … a candle in the wind

Jul15

Being fifty-something, I grew up in a house where bottling with your Fowlers Preserving Kit was de rigueur. The backyard was full of fruit trees and mum made sure they lasted all year long.

I’m not a bottler myself, but I still can’t go past a Fowlers bottle (or jar). I found this one a couple of months back in a thrift store. For the princessly investment of $1 it was mine.

I love the slight greenish tinge to the glass, the sleek utilitarian lines and the chubby rim at the top. It has an almost industrial feel.

I’ve been trying to work out since, what to do with it. I toyed with upturning it over a special knick-knack (been loving all those glass domes I see in the décor style shots) – but it’s very tall and the thickness and quality of the glass make it highly refractive so it’s hard to focus on what’s inside.

I’ve had tiny porcelain birds nesting on top and inside of it.

I’ve had it filled with garlic cloves and stuffed with lanky blooms.

Then I had a light bulb moment.

Given the materials left over from this project, I imagined the Fowlers jar could make a great candle … an outdoor candle where the glass would protect the flame from the breeze. A candle in the wind.

I cut a long wick, attached it to a wick holder, centred it in the jar with a couple of taped-together bamboo sticks and poured in melted wax to half-full.

Easy-peasy.

But plain.

Very plain.

It was trés boring (even for my tastes).

Then I saw this blogpost about jazzing up a jar by Alex over at Hello from Tassie.

Have you noticed I get a lot of inspiration from Alex? I wish she was still my neighbour … then I could pick her über-crafty brain any old time.

Alex used string and a clay shape to embellish a (Fowlers!) jar as a gift. I didn’t have any clay shapes but … another light bulb moment … I did have some old leather. Really old leather. I mean really, really old leather from a vintage railway worker’s bag that was not repairable, but with which I couldn’t part.

The leather inside the bag was pale and unweathered compared to that on the outside.

I hand-drew a couple of motifs and cut – just using scissors – a bird and a heart shape, one from each of the leather types, then strung them from the chubby rim on some furry, jute string (that looked a little nest-like by the time I finished).

With my princessly investment still at just $1, and using a few materials I already had at hand, this is that simple, inexpensive craft “holy grail” I’m relentlessly searching out.

I could be a tad biased, but I think it’s a bottler. (For my overseas readers, that’s Aussie vernacular for “it’s a beauty”.)

Can’t wait for spring evenings on the deck and giving this bottler a trial.

Tardy teacup candles (and the crappy end of crafting)

Jul6

Being fifty-something, I’m seeking to extend my craft repertoire as fast as possible. (While I’ve got time, right?)

I’m looking for easy, quick, inexpensive craft projects … least-effort-for-maximum-impact.

Yes, I’m lazy.

I’d been thinking about teacup candles for a couple of months, browsing through the odd online tutorial, mostly coveting all that vintage china and moody lighting potential.

A few weeks ago an invitation arrived for my niece S’s 25^th birthday celebration – a tea party, a leisurely afternoon of sipping tea and nibbling ribbon sandwiches.

Perfect!

S had stipulated no presents but a hand-crafted-from-recycled-materials-Auntie-type-gift would surely get me around that?

I picked up these two gold-toned vintage china duos at the Ballarat Trash and Trivia Market.

I had already decided to upcycle the remnants of this HUGE triple-wicked candle that Mr P had souvenired from the props department on one of his TV commercial shoots. It’s seen us through several late-night soirees on the deck but its time has come.

I needed wicks and little metal wick holders. There were plenty available online but time wasn’t on my side so after a morning at the farmers market I braved the BIG scary shopping plaza where I knew there was a BIG craft store. (For a mostly window-shopper like me, “braved” is the correct verb here.)

I searched and sought up and down the aisles, eventually finding what seemed like the solo staffer – she was behind the jump, tapping away on a computer keyboard. I explained what I was after.

Still relentlessly tapping, she said: “We don’t stock those.”

“Are you sure? Candle-making is a very popular craft,” I ventured (resisting the urge to add “according to the blogosphere” or “are you sure you spelled candle correctly?”)

“If it’s not in the computer, we don’t have it,” she rebutted, eyeing my vegie-laden shopping trolley suspiciously.

There was no offer of where I might head to find what I needed. No alternative. No plan B.

So this is what they mean by bricks and mortar retailing … a brick wall.

No wonder it’s in its death throws.

Once again, I found myself at the crappy end of crafting … where I don’t really know what I’m doing, I don’t have what I need (don’t even really KNOW what I need) and am not sure what to do with what I need when I do eventually get it.

This is when I often throw crappy, half-baked craft projects into the bottom of the spare room wardrobe, never to see the light of day again.

Not this time.

I phoned the OTHER BIG craft store (an even braver move, because this one is a MEGA-store) to check their stocks.

“Yes, we have a great range of wicks and wax sold separately or in kits. Why don’t you come out and have a look and we can take you through what we’ve got?”

Brilliant. I did.

Unfortunately, there was a gaping crevasse between the promise of the phone conversation and the reality of the instore experience.

Floor-to-ceiling racks of stock but few staff to help me explore it.

In time, I located a customer service desk and was directed four aisles down, where I found nothing wicky or waxy.

I returned and another staffer directed me to another aisle: “We don’t have much but what we do have is in aisle six beside the googly eyes.”

I found the googly eyes alongside curly polyester hair extensions for dollies and tiny wire spectacles (presumably for those googly eyes).

But nothing waxy or wicky.

I braved (yes, braved) the counter and asked the staffer to show me. She was right … beside the googly eyes and hidden BEHIND the tiny wire spectacles was a single row of packaged wick and a solitary packet of wick holders.

“Is that all you have?” I queried.

“We also have these,” she offered, in the next aisle. “These” were kits for making tealight candles. Do folk actually make tealight candles?

I knew right then, that I wasn’t going to get the advice I needed here. This wasn’t customer service. There was no generosity of spirit. No choice. No smile. No apology. No empathy. This was modern retailing at its worst. Without specialist advice from someone who knows his/her stuff, I might as well buy online. I should have left myself a wider window.

I grabbed what the MEGA-store thought I needed and headed for Google.

Google came through for me (doesn’t it always?) with a brilliant choice of bloggers and videographers sharing their tips and specialist advice on making teacup candles.

Next time, I’m going online-all-the-way, including buying my materials, so I sidestep that crappy end of crafting all together.

The end of the tale? I didn’t get my craft on in time for the tea party (that was entirely my own fault). I grabbed some gorgeous flowers for my niece and had a fun afternoon sipping tea and nibbling ribbon sandwiches.

But I have since done the teacup candle deed. And it wasn’t crappy at all (once I got organised). It went like this:

Chopped some wax off that BIG old candle and melted it in nested saucepans (I used old ones, including a fave vintage glass Pyrex one).

I used two bamboo skewers taped together to secure each wick in the centre of its cup.

Poured in the wax and … voila! … teacup candles. Inspired by leftover wax I got adventurous and grabbed a couple of small crystal jugs from my collection and gave them the candle treatment, too. (Getting candle-cocky by this stage.)

These will be keepers.

Next time I catch up with my niece S, I have a lovely present for her, achieved in the most part with the help of Google and the blogosphere. (I’m even guessing she might read about it here first, which would be quite fitting).

That’s the brilliant, non-crappy end of crafting that makes it all worthwhile … giving.

Can’t wait.

being fifty-something

the good, the bad and the brilliant

Category Archives: craftiness