Missouri Botanical Garden Green Art and Craft Show

This weekend, November 13 and 14, Secret Leaves will participate in the Garden Gate Shop Green Art and Craft Show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. The event will run Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the upper level of the Ridgway Visitor Center.

If you've never been, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a wonderful place--one of my favorite places in St. Louis. And the gift shop, the Garden Gate, lives up to the standards of the rest of the garden. Beautiful plants, books, stationery, bath and body items, home and garden decor and more, expertly curated with a garden theme.

At the Green Art and Craft Show, I am focusing on affordable items and lots of holiday goods: gift tags, gift wrapping accessories, gift boxes, gift bags, etc. Here are some of the items Secret Leaves will offer:


Christmas stamp cards


An assortment of gift tags


Muslin gift bags perfect for small gifts like jewelry, candles, soap, etc.


Vintage Paper key tags


Gift enclosures and place cards


Greeting cards, stationery, journals, notebooks and more...

My friend Jen from Angelina Accoutrements will be there too, offering her lovely recycled cashmere pieces:







Lots of other vendors will be plying their recycled and eco-friendly wares, including jewelry, sculpture, handbags and more. I hope to see you there!

Sharon

Around the studio today

Here are some photos from around the studio today. No beauty shots, just some snaps of how it looks right now.

Wide shot of the studio. Click to view larger.

Bookcase full of old books. Some I will keep and some will be made into journals or other projects. That's the leg of my tripod extending into the picture.

Top of the bookcase with two small collages, one completed and one in progress. I found the two small polka dotted feathers on a walk yesterday afternoon.

Bulletin board

 

Recent purchases.

Piano rolls.

Three shoe boxes full of dirty old postcards from a railroad company in the early 1900s. I use these for the Vintage Index Card gift tag sets. (The boxes are cool too.) 

Vintage sewing patterns

Office supplies, vintage and otherwise. Many thanks to my sister for the thumb tacks, brads, etc. in the cool vintage boxes.

Stack of old ledgers from the turn of the century. From a dry goods company down South.  These are 10" x 14" each and very thick, filled with beautiful handwriting.

French titles.

Stack of old atlases, photo albums and a bundle of letters from Cecil Quackenbush to his mother. He was a rounder and a rambler--traveled around the West and Southwest picking up jobs as a movie extra in early silent Westerns, a ranch hand and a laborer. He wrote faithfully to his mother in Indiana wherever his ramblings took him.

And finally, Ellie, the (other) love of my life.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour. A memento of my life and studio at a singular moment in time.

Sharon 

Country by Mail - gorgeous Swedish style

We would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our customers. We recently filled an order for Maria at countrybymail.se. Maria is the proprietor of a gorgeous Swedish web store by the same name. We were so thrilled when our products showed up on her site, because they were so beautifully styled and photographed. See for yourself:

These Take Cover Journals were selected for Maria's store with her soft color palette and French-influenced style in mind. We think they fit perfectly with her look!

Here are a couple of other Secret Leaves items on Maria's site:

And finally, some of her other beautiful items:

If you have not visited her site, do yourself a favor and take a look. And if you are reading this from Sweden...buy something for gosh' sake!

Sharon

Around our studio

Here are some shots from around our studio.

Stack of recycled paper for Scrap Journals.

Really old books

Made by hand.

Stamps Good

Spiced Grapes

Old books...are you beginning to detect a theme?

(Very) old German paper

Stack of Take Cover covers waiting to be bound.

Scrap Journal stack with props

We heart old stuff.

Sharon

Ephemera Eye Candy

This post is all about assorted ephemera eye candy. I know we are not the only ones who are ga-ga over this stuff. So all of you vintage ephemera junkies out there--enjoy!
This vintage baby book is on loan to us from my sister, Sheila. It has the most beautiful and incredible illustrations. There is a handwritten inscription on the inside cover that says,
"Dec. 25th, 1889, Our Little Ollie, Grandma Rich"

Stack of Scrap Journal pages ready to be bound. That is an old travel trunk in the background, complete with its original luggage labels. Inside it has a full set of bakelite-handled brushes, shoe horns, nail files, etc. How cool is that??!!!













Beautiful endpapers in an old prayer book
Some old daggeurotypes in my dining room cabinet. I love the shattered one. She is the first one I ever bought. Note the hand-tinting on her face.
Stack of Scrap Journals
Recipe for Layer Cake, Devil's food cake, White Solid Cake (solid cake?)
Stamp Note with old letters in the background
Detail of Chansons de Bilitis Scrap Journal cover

Cantilevered


Vintage sheet music and old keys on Ephemera Album covers
Cigar Box kit contents
French Hen nestled among recent ephemera finds
If you would like to see more assorted ephemera, I recently posted a bunch of new shots on our Flickr photo stream.
Sharon