headache, pain, fever

I have a headache, Nick is a pain and Arthur has a fever..... I do actually have a headache and Arthur did have a fever earlier today. Anyways, not much to report on from this side of the woods. I've been tidying and re-arranging. North Melbourne is a dirty ole suburb, plain trees out front dropping leaves, furball of a cat mooching around the shop = dusting. Now there is a dirty word.
Other thought for today, why is it when the shop is quiet, people only come in when I have a headache, need a glass of water, need a cup of coffee and am busting for a toilet break? Yes it's true, all of the above at once.
I have put a couple of new things in our bigcartel shop. Thankyou for visiting, you can swing by there any ole time and I promise I won't be whinging.

cushions for sale

I have been busy sewing a few cushions, which by the time you read this will be up for sale on either our big cartel or etsy shops. I am having a dilema as to where to sell them online. Etsy is great but having a quick browse on there I have a personal opinion that alot of people sell things too cheaply. $20 USD is very cheap for a print of someone's artwork. Even if it is an unlimited edition. I guess if you're selling 100's of them it's not bad, but......likewise cushions. They mostly seem to hover around $25USD. But sorry my cushions won't be that cheap. These babies above are made of vintage flour sacks that are time consuming to source and hard to come by. Which in alot of cases makes them one offs as far as I know. The other is made from vintage children's fabric. I've only made three, one of which I'm keeping. So do I sell on etsy where they can't compete on price or over at bigcartel? Or perhaps I'll try both and let you know how they go. Then I'm like an annoying department store that places escalators in dumb places so that you have to wander around in circles, inadvertly seeing (and buying?) more products than planned. Damn those sneaky store designers.

easter eating

I don't come from an overly religious family, but growing up we always ate fish on Good Friday. Not a nice piece of salmon, or other white fish, but smoked cod it was. Yep bright orange, smokey piece of overdone fish complete with mashed potato and peas. No wonder the Easter bunny came on Sunday to ply us with easter eggs to make up for that dinner.
I still adhere to a no red meat policy, but tuna patties it will be tomorrow. As alot of Mum's out there would agree, you've got to sneak meat, fish etc into toddler meals....
In shop related news, we will be open this Saturday from 10-4pm, unless it's a ghost town and no-one visits us, then I will shut the shop early and eat the rest of the mini eggs in my pic above. And the vintage rabbit pull toys are up for sale on our bigcartel shop.

I've got the hump

Hrrrumph....I'm a little grumpy. I'm presently in the shop sewing cushion covers (or attempting), however I've got one of those fancy, fandangled overlockers. Yes I know I'm lucky but I really need to go do one of those classes. As the stupid thing keeps on un-threading itself and I end up with a tangled mess of cotton everywhere. It truly is frustrating. Gripe or hump number two for today is bad manners. We get emails here at Arthur's Circus, requesting items, information, prices etc. I pleasantly respond and quite often photograph items and email the info they require. So here is my gripe, you never hear back from them. I never expect anyone to buy anything (perhaps I should) but they never respond at all. No, thankyous, thanks for your time. Nada. It's the equivalent of a phonecall, telling them the info and they hang up in your ear. Does anyone else find that with emails today? There really doesn't seem to be a lot of etiquette.
Okay, I think I've calmed down now and can tussle with my overlocker again.
By the way, do you like my S&P shakers?

show and tell

Two posts in one day.....phew I must be bored. So here's a peek at the aforementioned cards / magnets I have made. These are a one of a kind handmade card with explorer magnet. There's 15 of them. The images of the explorers were gleaned from a mini book that had been floating around our place and was about to fall apart. Close up is my fave explorer, one mr Robert Falcon Scott. Anyone with a middle name of falcon sounds like an ace explorer to me. (although he did die whilst exploring the south pole in 1912). The maps are care of vintage national geos, sorry to say I wasn't that clever matching maps to explorers and their travels.

a little bed time reading

The last few days has seen me making some more badges and magnets, utilising images from old children's books. Alot of the time they have fabulous images and questionable stories that accompany them (for today). Hence I thought that I would share a few photos taken from the 10 commandments for children. Hopefully you can read the text. Whatever your religious beliefs are I'm not sure that I'm ready to read this one to Arthur at bedtime quite yet
Oh and I'll be adding a couple of new items / photos to our etsy and flickr sites today.

whole lotta love

Okay, it seems we've been pimping ourselves all over the internet. So if you haven't already had enough of us then many thanks go to Lucy at the design files, Jan at poppytalk and Nina, all for giving us fantastic coverage.
In other news I have decided to sell some of my photographs via etsy. Hence the above image which you may recognise. Its now up in ye ole shop and I'll get off my butt and stop reading everyone's blogs to organise some more photos very soon.

apartment therapy

The photo above is a recent addition to our online shop, but the big news of the day is that our home is featured on apartment therapy, so go ahead and take a peek inside our home.