Tell me a story, Grandad

I love the story of these letters so I thought you might like to hear it too! A customer ordered them as a christening gift for his granddaughter. The maps are of parts of Limerick, Galway and Dublin that show the place where Sarah lives and the exact places where her parents are from (which are also the places where her grandparents live). The cute paper on the 'A's adds a little bit of a baby girly feel and I like to think it represents the countryside in between the cities. If you ever went on long journeys as a child to visit relatives and spent a lot of time looking out the car window at lambs in the fields, birdies in the trees you'll know what I mean! The letters were framed after this photo was taken. I'm sure that Sarah will cherish this gift from her Grandad, that tells her a little bit about her own story, for many years to come.

Little bottles of love

 

A few years ago I met a lovely man and as a Valentine's Day gift I made him a ribbon message in a bottle. After a while he asked me to marry him and I said yes*. I'm pretty sure that it was the message in a bottle that caused him to overlook the fact that he likes tidiness and I have an ability to spontaneously create untidiness at the drop of a hat! Well, at the drop of a hat and some shoes and a handbag and probably some books and bits of ribbon and....

So that was the beginning of the ribbon in a bottle idea. I can't remember why I wasn't satisfied with making a little scroll of paper, but drawing a ribbon out of a bottle to reveal a secret message just seemed right.

After trying to write on ribbon with lots of different types of pen I really wasn't happy - it smudges and runs and generally just looks messy. Eventually I got a notion that typing the message might work so I asked around to see if anyone knew where I might get a typewriter. Somehow I ended up with five of them! I tested them all out and I liked a little vintage Hermes Baby the best  - it also looks cutest and packs neatly away in a matching case.

I've created quite a few customised ribbon messages for people in recent months for birthdays, weddings, christenings and even one for someone joining a silent monastic order! They're somewhere between giving a card and giving a gift, yet a combination of both. I love making them and I hope that I'll have some enquiries for customised messages - I think a marriage proposal in a bottle would just be fantastic!

*Some facts and even whole aeons of time may have been omitted from this part of the story :-)