Brugge in Belgium

I recently spent a magical few days in Brugge, Belgium with my husband to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  Now all I can do is long to go back to this wonderful old town.

This is the Bed & Breakfast we stayed at on the outskirts of town.  We just hopped on the bus in the mornings and then

 spent our days sight-seeing in town, doing all the things that tourists do.

Like going on the boat ride....

And taking a ride in one of the many horse drawn carriages.

We at nibbled on chocolates bought at one of the dozens of shops offering fresh made and delicious Beligan Chocolates.

We fell in love with the many bridges, which is where the town gets its name.

And we were awed by the architecture and history of the town, with many of the buildings dating back to the 13th century.

Oh yes, I am definitely longing to go back again!  I fell in love with Brugge. 

ANTIQUE CHRISTENING DRESSES AND BELGIAN LACES

I was recently in the fabulous town of Brugge Belgium, or Bruges in English, also known as the "Venice of the north" due to the many canals and little water ways that run through out the city.  It is a town filled with wonderful restaurants, lovely architecture dating back to the 13th and 14th century, shops of homemade chocolates that fill the air with their sweet scent, and shop after shop of gorgous Belgian laces.  Ah, now those are the shops that really caught my eye, and captured my heart!  Laces and chocolates, could there be anything more divine then an entire town filled with two of my favorite things!!  One shop in particular turned out be my favorite since it offered antique laces, and it is where I discovered these gorgous antique christening gowns.  They are from the 1700's, are in pristine condition, and are created with handmade laces.  The first one is made with the finest softest Needle lace or Brussels lace and took 12 years to make, the second one with Bobbin lace and a mere 3 years of work to create it.  They both were exquisite, and I timidly asked the price of both.....hoping, just hoping that perhaps the shop owner would quote a price that I might just be able to handle.  But alas, they were too much for my budget.  At $3700 each, I knew that I would have to be happy with just a photo of them!  Not able to take one of them home with me  (would I have been able to choose between them anyway???), I decided I must have a yard or two of old lace.  I found a gorgous Brussels lace, (sorry, couldn't get a picture of it), made with little 3 dimentional flowers that had tiny bits of cotton padding tucked inside of them.  Gorgous, lovely, beautiful beyond description!!  But again, too much for my pocket.  At $790 per yard, I had to leave it behind and simply let it be something that dreams are made of !

SATISFACTION

Once in a while I take a good look around me and feel the need to change things or improve on them.  Sometimes it could be nothing more then putting a bit of order into my home, or getting all the dust bunnies gathered from the corners of the rooms.  Recently my Etsy shop is the place where my need to change things have been focused.  I took a good hard look at my photos' backgrounds and decided I had to find something else that "spoke" to me a bit more.  So with much trial and error, I finally found a couple that really please my visual senses. 

One is a pale pink that I really like and depending on the natural daylight on any given day, the shade of pink is lighter or darker.  I like how it turned out for these garters.

I also like this background, made with a vintage bridal image that I just love.  It is perfect for my "Victorian Brides" series of bridal garters, which are made with fine laces and ivory silk satin ribbons, kept rather simple and not over stated, but refined and very elegant, befitting that gentle era.

It is fun to try out new backgrounds, change things around in my shops a bit.  Now I am always on the look out for other images to use, and am trying to improve my shop photos in the process.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE!!

I can hardly believe that it has been several months since I last posted. How could I have let the time slip away like that?  There was a big family celebration to prepare for, and as always with things like that, they take up more time then one expects.  Then my sister flew over from the states to spend some time here with me, and we had a glorious week together!  So many times I would like to roll back the hands of time and relive our days together all over again!  Here is one of the places that we visited - a 600' tower right on the banks of the Rhine River in Düsseldorf.  From above I zoomed in with my camera to capture someone's funny artwork of stones in the sand below.

Here is a view of the Rhine River from above!  I love how it snakes around in curves and bends, so interesting to see its path from above.
 

And another view from the many glass windows of the tower.
 

Here is the city itself.  This is the promenade along the river, and part of the "old city", while the newer more modern buildings are the background.
 

 And the tower itself, which should have been the first picture that I wanted to share, but as usual blogger and me did not quite get along as we should have been and I uploaded the photos in the wrong sequence. :-)  The first one shows a zoom in from below, and the last picture is how the tower looks from below in real distance.  A looonngg way up! 

I have missed being here on blogger and sharing a story or two with one and all, a few pictures added in for the visual fun of it all.  I have been busy sewing garters and keeping my shops full of new and lovely items for brides-to-be, so will share some of the latest creations in my next post.  

I hope this finds everyone well and enjoying your summer days!  

~Debby

Artistic Affaire Moulin Rouge!

Through a friend I was pleased to find out about Artistic Affaire, a wonderful weekend long event hosted by Kim Allistar Caldwell and taking place this week in California, starting today on St. Patrick's Day.  I won't be able to attend the event in person, but I was happy to create two garters to be part of the raffle!  Letting the Moulin Rouge theme of the event inspire me, these are the garters that I happily sent off to California and which are now waiting to beautifully grace the legs of two lucky ladies.  I had to show several pictures of the first one just to get all the details in!  Done in plus purple and gold silk ribbons, it has hand pleated ribbon across the front, two bows with vintage glass buttons, and on the back a hand embroidered bow as well as a beaded tassel!  Oh la la!!  The second one is also made of plum purple silk satin ribbon, french style black lace, and the front is adorned with a silk ribbon flower, black feathers and a Swarovski crystal.  I hope they will be well recieved.

Take a peek at Kim's blog post about the event, you will wish that you were in California this weekend!!  Keep it in mind for next year, she hosts this event each year, with a different theme each time.  Have fun all lucky participating ladies!

http://artisticbliss.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/10/moulinrouge.html

Spring is making itself known!

I guess Cody has not yet felt the first stirrings of spring time, he would much prefer to just lay by the window resting his head on the blanket, and dream of all the things that he used to do. He is no longer as active as he once was,  (but then who is!!)  and he suffers with arthritis now even though he is not yet 7 years old.

What he probably did not notice while he dreamt the day away, is that the first crocuses have bloomed in the yard, wild little flowers that sprout up here and there and yet none of us know where they came from!  I am not a gardener and haven't anything near to a green thumb, but I make sure that these little beauties do not get destroyed when the men in the family are out with the mower cutting down anything and everything that gets in their path.

I am sadly lacking that green thumb, but I have been making flowers come alive in my little corner by the window not far from where Cody sleeps, working some magic on old 1920's ribbons, creating these newest Ribbbonwork compositions.  I wish I had more hours in the day so that I could spend a bit more time on the very thing I love best - old silk ribbons and what they can be folded and stitched into!!  Lovely Victorian Ribbonwork.

Wishing you all some lovely hours doing what you love best, indoor or out, and hoping that spring time is starting to make itself known where you live.

Time spent with an old love!

Sometimes it is nice to take a break from doing what it is that we do all the time.  For me it was taking a couple of days off from making garters.  I spent a delightful few days going back to my passion for Victorian Ribbonwork and created these lovely flower appliques.  I used original 1920's Double-faced silk satin ribbons for the rose, the cabachon rose and the ruffled roses, as well as some of the buds.  And for the other buds I used a lovely vintage pale lilac silk ribbon with a small design in it.  The calyxes and the leaves were made from vintage french wired ombre green ribbons.  And all flowers are stitched to crinoline, just as it was back in the 1920's when ribbonwork was so popular and ladies attached little appliques similar to these to their lingerie, pillows, night caps, garters, well... you name it, and there most likely was some kind of ribbonwork on it!  Oh my,  how utterly feminine!