I was browsing Flickr the other day when I stumbled on the "Commons" section. This is basically a section for institions, such as archives and libraries, to post up the photos they hold in their records.

Looking at the one for the UK's National Archives, the first thing that caught my eye was this;

 Three skeletons at the piano by The National Archives UK 

Clearly at some point in 1892 a gentleman thought of lining up a couple of skeletons and taking a photo, and then registered the photo with the Copyright office (because clearly you don't want anyone else to steal your skeleton snapshot). 

Have a nice evening everyone.

Marlowe & Seymour

Once again browsing Wikipedia for things to blog about, and it appears that today is the anniversary for two important (or possibly just interesting) events.

Vintage Christopher Marlowe Book by FlossysTreasures

On this day in 1593, the writer Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer. There has been a lot of controversy about his death, as he had recently been brought to court after a warrant for his arrest was issued. The actual charge isn't known for certain, but is believed to be heresy. He had been told to report to the court every day until they could speak to him, but he was never formally tried or questioned (as far as records show) before his murder. An inquest was held at the time, and ruled that he had Ingram Frizer was innocent on grounds of self defense, he and Marlowe had been arguing and witnesses said that Marlowe had dealt the first blow.

But there is some controversy around this as Ingram and his two companions were connected to England's network of spies and informers, there is even some belief that Marlowe himself was part of this network. What actually happened will never be known, but you can visit the plaque set up in St Nicholas churchyard in Deptford, he was buried in an unmarked grave so the proper site is unknown.

Tudor Doll Queen Jane Seymour by MrsTiggywinkleDolls

Today is also the day that King Henry VIII married his third wife, Jane Seymour, in 1536. Jane had been a lady in waiting to both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Henry's previous wives. Anne herself had been executed a mere 11 days before. Jane went on to give Henry the son he desperately wanted, but died 9 days later.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Vintage Book Love

I had a surprise yesterday when I sold another vintage book. That makes it four book sales in less than two weeks, and in all honesty I've done bugger-all marketing for The Bibliophile in recent months except for put the link on here on occasion.

Last night's sale was a small copy of Shakespeare's play "As You Like It". I thought that today I might spread the sale love and point you towards another vintage book shop on Etsy.

The Comedies of Shakespeare by EAGERforWORD

This shop is another one full of vintage books in varying conditions. I chose this Shakespeare one to feature because of yesterday's sale, but there's plenty of other titles from famous names including Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Plato

Happy Sunday everyone! We're having a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, which means that I also have Monday off :)

Despite my bad dentist luck this week my bank account is starting to feel a little bit healthier as The Bibliophile has had a few sales! Not sure how that's happened as I've been focusing on Creative Classics recently. If any of my purchasers are reading this, thank you for your support as you've helped cheer me up massively :)

My most recent sale is a book about the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, Plato! He was the student of Socrates, and the teacher of Aristotle.

Be Kind Typography Poster by TypePlace

A decent number of Plato's works have survived over the years, including his Socratic Dialogues (literary works involving discussions on a variety of topics, the main character in these is often Socrates) which includes "The Republic", a discussion on justice and the way to create a "just" city-state (Greece was not a united country but rather a collection of cities and their surrounding area, it's like treating London and Manchester as two different countries).

Love Print Poster by SacredandProfane

If you're interested in philosophy then Plato is generally a good place to start, along with Socrates and Aristotle he is considered one of the found fathers of Western philosophy. Hopefully the person that bought the book about him from me will enjoy it.

Have a nice day everyone!

Last Match

Today is the last match of the Premier League season here in the UK. My team, QPR, were relegated a few weeks ago as it was mathematically impossible for us to survive, but we still have to play our last game against Liverpool this afternoon.

I actually resigned myself to us being relegated before it happened, we've struggled in the Premiership and I've found it difficult to get behind and support a team of players who, for the most part, don't seem to care about the club. Hopefully over the summer we can get rid of the dross and bring in some talented players that are eager to don the hoops and get us promoted.

Football A4 Typographic Print by GarrardPrints

I stumbled on this shop by accident recently and saved it ready for this blog post XD Along with the football print above there's a whole range of customisable prints for birthdays, weddings, or general home decorating.

Have a nice day everyone!

Tea Addict

On my Etsy shop "About" section I list myself as a "Tea Drinker" and on my Twitter page I noted myself as a "Tea Addict". It's not even midday and I've already had 4 cups of tea this morning, I think I have a problem XD

That said, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, so if I'm going to have an addiction it might as well be a nice "safe" one.

Make Tea Not War Tote Bag by ceridwenDESIGN

I should probably buy this bag and proclaim my addiction to the world XD

Have a nice day everyone!

Botticelli

Once again I've had to go searching on Wikipedia to find inspiration for a blog post. This should have been done much earlier, but I went in to Richmond to buy two week's worth of food, so naturally that meant that everything else has been delayed this evening.

Today is the anniversary of the executions of George Boleyn, Francis Weston, Henry Norris, William Brereton and Mark Smeaton, who were all found guilty of treason by committing adultery with Anne Boleyn.

It's also the anniversary of the death of the renowned Italian artist Botticelli. One of his best known works is The Birth of Venus, which depicts the goddess Venus (aka Aphrodite) standing in a clamshell, retaining her modesty as best she can with her hands and her long hair.

Botticelli's Venus Illustration Bookmark by nextlola

And another Italian has done her own version of it! This cute little shop has bookmarks, postcards and stickers with original artwork inspired by some of the great masterpieces in art.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Rug

For Christmas my Mum bought me a lovely purple rug. It takes up quite a lot of space in my room, but it adds a splash of colour to the cream carpet and cream walls XD It does however seem to develop a lot of loose fluff every time I hoover it. I'm not sure if this is an indication that I'm not hoovering it enough, or hoovering it too much.

Considering how useless I am at housework I'm leaning more towards not hoovering enough.

Wool Felt Stones Rug by lovehoneysuckle

I love the cute little feet in this rug! Even if they do only have 4 toes each XD Still, the stones look very real, but they're actually filled with synthetic filler, so nice and soft on your feet!

Have a nice evening everyone!

DVD Review - Pixar Short Films

My Youngest Little Sister celebrated her birthday back in January. She has decided that she would like to work for Pixar one day, so I bought her two DVDs of Pixar's "short films", the little specials that they show before their main films and some of the extras they've done over the years. She's already watched them, obviously since her birthday was months ago, but since I was home this weekend and hadn't seen them yet we decided to watch them together.

Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1 from Amazon

The first volume starts with their older work, computer animation from 1984! I must admit, this was a year before I was born, and I'm stunned at the quality of it. Computer animation has come on a lot over the years, especially over the past decade where it seems to have raced forward in terms of quality, so I genuinely thought the first film was actually from the early 1990's. That was, however, until we got up to "Tin Toy", while animating toys and backgrounds was fine it appears that animating babies was incredibly difficult. YLS did warn me about the "freaky baby" in it but even I wasn't prepared for how terrifyingly bad it was. I think that's where the difference has been over the years, animation of people is now far, far better than it used to be.

Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2 from Amazon

The second volume contains more recent work, including "Presto" (which was originally shown with Wall-E) and "Day and Night" (which was shown with Toy Story 3). There's also "Cars Toons", several short films involving the characters from the Cars franchise, and Toy Story Toons which have the characters from Toy Story. I must admit that I found volume two to be a little more tedious, I'm not a big fan of the "Cars" series, although the Toy Story ones were quite funny, but I would have preferred more of the proper original works. On the other hand the final one, La Luna, was absolutely gorgeous.

If you know someone who is a fan of Pixar's work then I would recommend these DVDs for them. The first volume effectively showcases the work that led to Toy Story, which was a ground-breaking movie in it's time (which makes me feel SO old XD), while the second shows some simply beautiful artwork and animation, as well as the usual lovely storylines that Pixar are so well known for. I am amazed that they can get so much across on screen with little or no dialogue.

Have a nice day everyone!

Cambridge shop

I'm back in Hertfordshire for the weekend.

My parents live very close to the Hertforshire-Cambridgeshire border. Unfortunately you can't search for "Hertfordshire" as a location on Etsy, but you can search for shops in the city of Cambridge itself!

Bluebell Blossom Earrings by lazygiraffe

This shop is based in Cambridge and has lots of pretty, delicate pieces of jewellery. There's some lovely stacking rings with necklaces and earrings.

I would write more but I'm tired.

Have a nice evening all!

French Vintage

When I was a little girl my parents always used to take me on summer holidays to France. At one point they owned a cottage in Brittany, which we visited every summer, and during our trips out there we'd often visit the Brocante (vintage/antique) Fairs that were dotted all over the place.

While probably goes some way to explaining why I love nosing around french vintage shops on Etsy.

Vintage French Kitchen Canisters by petitsdetails

These cannisters are adorable! There's lots of french vintage housewares in this lovely shop based in Paris, yet another thing on Etsy that I'd love to buy if I had the money, and a house to display them in!

Have a nice evening everyone!

Switzerland

Today's blog post was inspired by my Dad, who has had to spend most of his Bank Holiday weekend travelling as he flew out to Switzerland yesterday morning and will have to fly back tonight, it's a very quick jaunt.

While it's proving to be a decently sunny weekend here it appears Switzerland is not enjoying the same weather, the photo he sent me of Lucerne showed some very unhappy grey clouds surrounding the mountains. I'm sure the place is lovely to look at when the sun is out, but when it's like that everything looks a bit miserable.

This of course means that today's shop is from...Switzerland!

Swiss Army Toiletry Bag by Ecolution

This shop is actually pretty amazing, if you read the profile of the owner, Sylvie Thiel, she explains that she needed a business that could be run while she and her partner travel. Thankfully it appears that felt doesn't take up too much space! There's bigger bags and passport holders as well, worth having a look especially if you need to get something for a bloke!

Have a nice day everyone!

Sunshine

Today is Cinco de Mayo, the Day of the Dead. But today I've spent most of my afternoon strolling around Richmond Park, looking at deer and seeing the bright green grass.

So I'm in a cheerful mood and thinking about death on a day like today seems a bit miserable. I'm going to give you some bright yellow instead!

Bright Yellow Mothers Day Card by Lori411

Have a nice evening everyone!

Etsy Interview - RockyTheZombie

Happy Thursday everyone! I hope you're all having a good week :)

Today I decided to have a change from my usual shop feature and actually interview someone! Obviously normal interviews involve sitting down and talking to people, but that involves far too much human interaction for me, so I settled for emailing some questions instead.

My guinea pig for the first Etsy Interview is Rhi of RockyTheZombie. Currently running the shop from the spare room of her home in the lovely English town of Southsea, Rhi screenprints the designs herself with water based inks on to t-shirts from the eco-friendly company Earth Positive. Her designs involve cute zombies, puffy vampire clouds and cupcakes.

Baby Zombie Pirate T-shirt

How did the idea for your shop come about?
I began selling t-shirts that I had handpainted myself a few years ago on ebay. There used to be a huge DIY clothing community over there, and my MySpace page started gaining fans like crazy. I'd heard about Etsy and thought it would be a much better place for my shop to be. So I went for it, and although it was slow at first, eventually it picked up speed and is capable of bringing in a very good wage as long as I dedicate my full attention to it.

If you were given £1000, with specific instructions to invest it in your business, what would you spend it on?

I had to think about this for a while, as there are so many things I would like to buy. I would probably buy a whole heap of paints, brushes, and blank canvases. Although my shop is primarily clothing; it's painting and illustration where my true love is. But maybe that would be more for my enjoyment than strictly business? Most things I buy are to do with the business anyway, but I actually do need  to invest in some better photography equipment for my product pictures. Oh.. and the newest version of Photoshop & Illustrator, in fact those two alone would eat over half of that amount.

Red Rose Swirl Acrylic on Canvas

 

What one thing would you buy from your shop, as an outsider?

The paintings and prints. I love buying art, and could easily fill every wall in my house up with pictures.

Circumstances recently pushed you into turning Rocky The Zombie into your full time job, if you had had more time to prepare for such a transition what would have done differently?

Not really, in fact it was my full-time job in the beginning. I only went and got a job alongside it because I thought that was a good idea (it wasn't). It was always in the back of my mind to eventually come back to this, and it just happened a lot sooner than I thought it would.

Zombie DJ & Skull Balloons Set of Two Kids T-Shirts

 

Describe your "Yay I got a sale!" dance (everyone has one).

Remember Beavis and Butthead?... I am cornholio!

 

And finally, give us one tip for all the other Etsy sellers out there.

Work your frickin butt off! The rewards are incredible, and I'm still sometimes a little amazed at how far I've come. I've no business education or qualifications, and I learn from trial and error, blog tutorials, and youtube! I probably have some odd ways of doing things, but it works perfectly for me. So don't let anyone ever tell you that 'you're doing it wrong', because you're probably doing it better than they would be. I've always held the belief that you really can achieve anything you set your mind to, if you'll only take the steps towards doing it. You'll find your way as you go, as every circumstance can open up a new opportunity.

Black Zombie Canvas Tote Bag

Thank you very much to Rhi for an awesome interview! If you're looking for a gift for someone who has an affinity for both cute and horror, you definitely need to visit RockyTheZombie.

Have a nice day everyone!