Just got lucky with some crafty finds and online book shopping!

I don't really spend much time and money 'shopping' (or do I ?)...but last week I chanced upon a rare find at the Japan surplus shop in my area. Its a vintage Clover knitting set. At first I thought it was just an envelope purse, then to my surprise it was a very neat set of knitting needles! The colored ones are plastic, and the gray ones are aluminum. There's one tunisian hook also, a size 5mm, which I'm sure I could use. As for the knitting needles, I actually have similar ones already, mostly Tulip brand...but for such an affordable price, I wouldn't pass up on this Clover set!

I also bought a pack of used sewing notions and supplies, which included an almost finished crocheted table runner made up of squares with a spider stitch pattern design. Its a lot similar to this free pattern from Red Heart, but more detailed and delicate. I have to finish the other triangle motif at the end, so I could display it. I want to hang it at the side of the shelf, which is adjacent to my working table. Its quite an nspiration :)

As for online shopping, I seldom buy stuff online, but this time I went on a shopping spree....heheh. Actually, I bought 4 books from The Book Depository, when they had a 24-hour sale last March 5. Books on sale are listed every hour until it sold out...I was hardly able to follow the books as they sold out fast (and I had to sleep!), but I managed to buy some. Except for the Wheat-Free Cooking book...I bought them for future gifts. All 4 books amounted to only $27.31 and that includes free shipping! I think I got the best value with the Oxford Illustrated Children's Dictionary, which was only $8.28 then. Even without a special sale, all books are reasonably priced. If you want to get email notification on their offers and special sales, just register on the webiste at: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/

Gift wrapping tips - for crochet items

The other day, I saw on TV an artist sharing innovative ways of wrapping gifts. He is the well-known international artist, floral architect, Rachy Cuna.
I don't have any photos of what was shown on TV, but I saw that another blogger shared the picture below showing what was demonstrated by Rachy in another venue.



So pretty and interesting, but I might not be able to duplicate it. He used handmade paper, raffia, sinamay ribbon, gold paint, banana leaf, and many more, most of which can easily be bought cheap at Divisoria. I don't go there though, so if I buy materials at the mall, its not going to be cheap. Anyways, I got some tips from Rachy, and the inspiration to make gift-wrapping a challenge and a gift in itself.

Using materials that I already have, I came up with two gift-wrapping styles.

"Doily Wrap"
I used leftover handmade paper (use any size bigger than the item to be wrapped), abaca twine, and a tiny crocheted flower. I just rolled the paper together with the doily, tied it with twine, made a bow with the twine, added the little flower, and tied a small card:



"Peppermint Stick"This one shows how I wrapped a crochet hook.

More steel for crochet projects

And I don't mean wire to crochet with :p

Just my luck, I got a lot of metal the other week from two different sources.
One was from Malaysia, from Lily. She was so kind to buy me these, since I don't know where else to buy it. My favorite Tulip steel hooks:


The other came from China, which my son bought for me. More than a hundred pairs of magnetic snaps!
He didn't have much time to buy other craft supplies for me, though. Besides, the fair was for wholesalers. He did get a lot of catalogs and I just drooled over it :p


I'll be adding these snaps to my online store soon... (Don't worry Yasmin, I had not forgotten that you needed these too.)