Bless you!

Chez Terez tissue cozies from AMH Folksy Flannels collection

Achoo!

Bless you!

And bless my soul, aren't these the cutest little tissue cozies you have ever laid eyes on? 

Last week I decided to take my shears to my beloved Anna Maria Horner Folksy Flannel fat quarters and to start cutting. Once I started in to the butter soft fabric, I couldn't stop.

Before I knew it, I had cut 16 fat quarters into 6 pieces each and after a few hours of ironing and folding, came to this:

Chez Terez State of Affairs II

 32 down, 64 to go! All the hard work is done--the measure/cut/fold/ironing. I just have to stitch the sides up and pop in the tissue packs. Consistent with my wanting one of everything in ever color, I want to keep 16 for myself (greedy girl). But instead I will show poise and inner calm and have them available at the Holiday Bazaar in one week. One week! Oh how time flies!
 

"Dancing" deer

I love the above little guy--it reminds me of home. Little houses printed on dawn colored solid with, wait, look closely, little white deer. Precious!
 

Diamond Mine print in pink

They'll be at the sale, $3.50 each or three for $10. Be prepared to be bowled over but cuteness at this sweet stocking stuffer (or keeper) idea.

Can't wait.

XO Terez

Sunday morning and the Christmas Eggs

Celtic stained glass heart from SewardStreetStudios on Etsy

Oooh how I love Sunday mornings. Especially brilliantly sunny Sunday mornings when the temperature outside is falling and I can snuggle deeply into the down and drift off for a few extra minutes.

Eventually I drag myself to my favorite chair: le chaise lounge:

My first grown-up furniture purchase!

Nestled right against the living-room radiator it reminds me of napping in front of Mamacat and HH's wood stove back home. It even makes the same clink-clunk-clanks as the metal expands and retracts with the blasts of hot steam and when it settles in after cooling off.

I finally made my way to the kitchen to get ready for Challah-Bailey's-French-Toast brunch guest of honor the Fabulous Anne T and to whip up some pumpkin-walnut-cranberry bread for a later visit with C &P across town. I opened my eggs and came across this:

Christmas eggs!

Well, no, they really weren't staged like that, that WOULD have been a miracle, but yes, they were stamped with little dates, Dec. 24. Hurrah! Puts me in the spirit already.  Hope your Thanksgiving weekend-kick-off-to-the-holiday was wonderful.

XO Terez

 

Printing press: on a Chez Terez scale

Do It Yourself! [2000 PLUS stamp kit]

I can't pinpoint when my love of type and letters began.

I think it may have been when I learned to read the "Sam" books in Mr. Thompson's preschool class:

Sam the Lion from the Sam Books

Sam the Lion had a friend named Mat (one T!) the Mouse and another named Sis the Snake. [An aside: my baby brother is named Matt and his best friend is Sam and my brothers and nephews and niece all call me Sis. Go figure]. I just called Mamacat to ask her about the Sam Books and guess what? You can download them all online for free.

I digress.

I love print. I love printing. I love arranging letters and impressing them literally on the paper. Hence my love of typewriters: 

Olympia Deluxe typewriter from HH

And gold foiled gummed letters:

Gold foiled gummed letters

During my highschool hey-day I decided to start self publishing a Zine using my dad's blue Smith Corona, clip art and Kinkos called Aseret Pages. I wish, how I wish I would have saved a copy. I even listed in in Fact Sheet 5 for all you zine-sters out there.

This blog sort of takes the place of Aseret Pages, I suppose.  I love how easily I can share photos and ideas and call up Mamacat and ask her did she see my latest project but it is electronic and kind of ephemeral and not permanent like print. But that's ok. Because for my other insta-print needs I'd like to introduce you to:

2000 Plus DO-IT-YOURSELF TRADITIONAL STAMP KIT:

2000 Plus DO-IT-YOURSELF TRADITIONAL STAMP KIT

It comes with two stamp blocks: one for one line (perfect for a website or blog address) and one with five lines (perfect for a return address or mini message).

Blog stamp

I've started stamping my packages and envelopes with it and it is verrrrry satisfying.

Stamp with purpose!

And for longer messages there's always the Olympia Deluxe Pink Typewriter:

Longer messages

 XO Terez

Candy dish earrings

Candy Dish resparkle earrings

With 9 days to go until the Open Study/Holiday Bazaar, things are in full swing at Chez Terez.  Lately I've been fascinated by the refashioning/resparkling of vintage jewels into new modern pieces. After working in the studio today I realized all my creations were starting to resemble confectionary delights...for the ears.

Don't these remind you of gold-foil-wrapped chocolate eggs?

Speckled Egg earrings

Peppermint candies?

Peppermint Stripe earrings

Cinnamon red hots?

Red Hot II earrings

A candy dish too sweet to eat?

Sweets for the sweet

Smooth melt-a-way rounds?

Peppermint Twist earrings

Minty non-pariells?

Mint Green Goddess earrings

Cherry hard candies?

Hard Candy earrings

Sweets for your sweet {or yourself!}....

Freshly wrapped, delivered to your door. Up in the Etsy shop!

All wrapped up

XO Terez

Walk to work Wednesday

Here comes the sun

Let there be light

Ray of light

   

Evening glow

How the banner came to be

Ethel at her perch

'Terez?!' you exclaim. 'Where did you get that fantastic blog banner?'

Well, settle down. I'll get to that. But first I want to introduce you to someone: Ethel, the proprietress of the blast-from-the-past-time-warp-spectacular: Irvings's Toy & Card Shop.

Irving's on Harvard in Brookline

Ethel Weiss, 95 (!), is a Brookline treasure. She has been running her toy and gift shop for over 70 years. Yes, 7-0. Seven decades. Not much has changed here. The penny candy is now 10, 15 and 25 cents, but that's about it.

Ethel employs just one: herself, and she doesn't take credit cards. Her cash register has punch buttons and makes a satisfying whirl-click-ring as she tallies your purchases.

Staff of one at the register

You can barely make out the numbers but my last spree at Irving's (named for her late first husband who opened the store with her in 1939) set me back a whopping $15.62. Ethel remembered me from last week when I came in to purchase two packs of gold foiled, gummed 1/2 inch letters.

If you've seen the packaging for my shop, you know I adore gold.

I found the letters in a dusty cardboard box/treasure trove. The letters were $1.99 a set, plus tax.

You know when you pick up something and realize you may never get a chance to restock it? I kept thinking about the letters. And the card shop. And the cute little red foil hearts I left behind. I realized: another trip was in order:

Gummed foil hearts, letters, stars

Two more packs of letters, two packs of hearts, three packs of 2" gummed foil silver stars and one pack of six-vintage die-cut red arrows, one conversation, five photos and $15.62 later, I was in business.


I dug around in the box of letters until I spelled out C-H-E-Z--T-E-R-E-Z. A few photos later, sprinkled with some magic performed by TheKimKitch's KRR via Photoshop and we had it:

Ta da!

I love it. Don't you love it? I love opening up the blog and seeing the letters gleaming back at me. Big! Bold! Brassy! Classy!

Back to Ethel. I purchased all of her letters. "Do you want me to get you some more?" she asked. "I would," I said, "but where on earth can you still find those?"

"Oh I know someone who deals in vintage office supplies," she said. "He sells his late father's store's inventory. We go back 70 years."

XO Terez

Resparkling

Daisy Chain

You may have noticed: I am a jewel junkie.

Some day I'll take the time to write about how this came to be (thank you Grandma Helena and Grandma June) but I want to take the time to do that right. So for now, please observe:

Upcycle Jewelry Fixings

This is what came in the mail yesterday. Four pounds of broken bits of floatsom and jetsom.  'Bah! Terez! What are you going to use that junk for?'

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Tiger Beads

 Ooooh tiger-stripey beads. Hmmm. A little gaudy now, for sure. But I see potential.

Blackberry Patch

Mmmm blackberry patch. Reminds me of the thickets that grow wild all over Oregon. Reminds me of picking juicy berries right after college with Angela-Girl, the summer that she stayed with us, and the cobbler and vichyssoise we made with cod (remembered fondly as one of our Top 10 Meals of All Time).

Moonglow

Ahhh. Moonglow beads. Plastic? Sure. Means they are lightweight and I can cluster them together for high impact but low pull on the earlobes.

Coral Field

Coral fields. How I love red!

This is the state of my studio:

Chez Terez State of Affairs

Stay tuned.

Walk to Work Wednesday*

*with a few Saturday walk photos thrown in for good measure:

Courage II

Red shadow

It's not easy, being green

Angel wings

Golden fingers

Triple threat

Three-peas-in-a-pod

So remember a few weeks ago when I told you about the sewing box that came in the mail?

There were some wonderful beads and baubles slipped in extra by the terrific Etsy seller LookWhatIFound.

I had been eyeing these green beauties for some time, not sure what to do with them. Split them up? Sell them as components in three different pair of earrings? The more I thought about it the more I realized they are more like three-peas-in-a-pod (per earring).

Sometimes you make a pair that you just can't part with, and this is one of them. Nope. Sorry. NFS. Not for sale.

And oh how I love them! So lightweight and pretty~they are my current favorites in my jewel box. And now I am on the hunt scavenging for broken vintage necklaces to add to my vintage bead stash. More to come...

By the way, they looked great with my unplanned ensemble today that I like to call: Triple Leopard Threat

Triple Leopard Threat

Hee hee! KRR caught this photo of me while I was digging through my two leopard bags (daily carry-alls in the fall for me) wearing a--you guessed it--leopard print sweater.  The green globes worked nicely with this getup, don't you think?

XO Terez

PS. I was given this awesome Teresa Barbie for my birthday many years ago by the Chicken Lady. Looks a little familar, eh?

Teresa "Wild Style" Barbie c. 1997

In the A.M.

This is what it looks like at 6 a.m. at my house.

This is what it looks like at 6:15 a.m.