Crafty Manolo

Have you visited Alpha Stamps yet?

This rather fabulous sheet of collage images of dancing men is one of theirs, from the steampunk collection. The price varies slightly depending on whether you would prefer it in cardstock, clear sticker, or transparency form.

Not wild about dancing men? That’s okay. They have everything from bathing beauties and Mother Goose illustrations to bicycles and birds. And that’s just the tip of the collage iceberg!

They also carry rubber stamps, metal findings, buttons, charms, adhesives, stencils, glitter, ribbon, shrine forms, chains, tools, instructional materials, kits, and all sorts of other wonderful shiny things for the crafter.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go browse a bit and dream some pretty dreams. Or you could join me there.

Some people find an artistic voice at an early age. Others… do it a little later in life. Mrs. Delany, pictured above, is one of the latter.

That’s not to say that she didn’t have crafty leanings earlier in life. In point of fact, she painted, made silhouettes, embroidered, and even wrote and illustrated a novel entitled Marianne. She was a keen student of botany and zoology. She spoke French, played music, and met Handel. She married a man of sixty at the age of just seventeen, and  found herself widowed just six years later. Unfortunately, he had failed to update his will after his marriage, and the young Mary Grenville Pendarves was left with almost nothing to her name.

Forced to rely on the kindness of relatives, she lived with an aunt and uncle, then later moved in with a friend in Ireland. After nearly twenty years of poverty-stricken widowhood, she met and married an Irish clergyman named Dr. Patrick Delany.

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