News for May 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Emporium Proprietor continues to do a lot of Volunteer Activities. When presented with a volunteer opportunity, our Proprietor asks herself, “What would Grammie Do?” The answer is always clear.

We support the following non-profit organizations and awareness building campaigns in our communities:

 

 

 

 

Seasonally, we offer Discounted Tickets to the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, with special rates for groups of people who are in school, and for elders and seniors. Please contact us with these requests!

 

 

 

And we are also please to introduce a place for you to express your interest in doTERRA Essential Oils  ~  From there you may also request Wellness workshops or private consultations.   As our friends over at Mrs. Greenbalms Healing Salves tells us, “the plants remember Paradise.” And as musician Laurie Anderson tells us, “Paradise is exactly where you are, right now, only much, much better.”

 

We are also continuing to offer our Letter Writing workshops at libraries and bookshops around the San Francisco Bay Area and on the East Coast. Stay tuned for upcoming class schedules and ways that you may participate or purchase supplies.

July, 2014

Yesterday was July 14, Bastille Day and we acknowledge this with our annual singing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. We also acknowledge that there has been little activity on our site for some time.

We thank you, dear reader, for your patience as the proprietor of the Emporium has made many transitions throughout the last year.

We have been renovating the studio and find that we have some stock left that readers may be interested in, namely the Tarot of the Tailors, a divination deck of cards, shown below.  If anyone you know collects tarot cards or is a seamstress, this is a fine gift. Please contact the proprietor if you have questions about this wonderful, unique deck of cards.  We offer them  on discount, now at just $8.00 each plus shipping.

Please be in touch with us. We want to hear from you.  Thank you for your support!

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Costume Academy 2012

Malvena Pearl’s Emporium participated in the Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild’s Costume Academy as a vendor this year on Sunday, March 4.

Jan brought her amazing, costume jewelry to our table and Ais helped us out a great deal with set up and customers. We had caramels from Bequet Confections, lots of printed inspiration, some hats, The Tarot of the Tailors and a nice selection of Mrs. Greenbalm’s products.

The other vendors were friendly and as always, gracious and fun to work with.

A hearty “Thank you!” to everyone who helped us out and who stopped by to say hello!

interior design project: custom pillow covers

We recently put in a request to the elusive batch of House Elves to do some overtime, assisting with the pillow covers for a client’s sofa. The client provided all of the materials and requested biased piping, using a cashmere blend that will match her sofa. It turns out that the House Elves were on sabbatical, so the Proprietor completed all the sewing, research and musical accompaniment selection, herself.  Soon, the House Elves will return, but until then, I’m on my own. With some limited assistance from Hercule, who eats his dinner in the Malvena Pearl Studio and sometimes naps there, this project is now COMPLETE. And as my thesis mantra became, Done Is Good.

Any road, here are pictures that Mr. Acorn was kind enough to take for us.

NOTE: The musical accompaniment that assisted in the completion of two pillow covers are listed below the photographs. Happy New Year!

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Music that helped me complete this project:

The Band (the brown record)

Mel Torme sings Songs of New York

Frank Sinatra Songs for Lovers

Robin Williamson Songs of Love and Parting

Bruce Springsteen Unplugged

Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown

Mr. Cinders (1983 revival original cast recording)

K.T. Tunstall Live in London 2010, in which KT does her impression of an audience member: “MORNING LOVE. I’M OFF TO WORK, NOW.” in her Biggest most Boring Voice, ever.

Love is the best medicine

We are happy to announce that the Emporium’s Etsy shop will now feature organic body and skin care products by Mrs. Greenbalm. These healing oils, salves and tonics are created in Bend Oregon by Martha L. McCook. Our proprietor swears by these gentle products. Please visit our site to find our selection. As Martha believes, “love is the best medicine.”

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“Why are you selling tattoo care products on your web site?” I have four pieces of body art. Mrs. Greenbalm’s is the best product I have found to take care of them. Many people in my family have tattoos. Many friends of Malvena Pearl’s Emporium have tattoos. My uncle Louis Ira Robbins had a tattoo parlor in Maine for many decades. His mother was Malvena Pearl and she proudly showed me photos of my uncle at a tattoo competition in the 1980s.
I support small businesses and I met Martha (creator of Mrs. Greenbalms) at the Tattoo Expo in San Francisco, when I got my first tattoo.

Costume Academy in Berkeley

March 7 was the annual Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild Academy, held in Berkeley. The Greater Bat Area Costumer’s Guild offered three class sessions at the spacious Judas Magnes Museum. Costume enthusiasts joined up to take classes on 18th century shoe recovery; makeup and hair techniques for both the Victorian era and the 18th century; sewing tips and tricks; ribbon embroidery; advanced crochet techniques; and several hat embellishment classes. One class offered students a chance to make a reticule out of an ostrich egg and fabric.

Vendors and instructors from as far off as Fort Bragg, Sacramento and Watsonville, California came to sell their wares and students exchanged fabric, shared books, findings, jewelry and patterns.

And at lunch my group had a little birthday celebration for Amy and Mia!

I took Lynn McMaster’s class, “Millinery: Flowers & Net”; Kendra Van Cleave and Bridgit Bradley-Scaife’s class on sewing tips and tricks; and Bridget’s class on Hair in the Crinoline era. The attendance was really good and the location was great. We had room for the many class offerings and the vendors lunch were held in an auditorium.

Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild

Shop the Emporium

Malvena Pearl’s Emporium: Services and Products

We sell ephemera, jewelry, costume accessories and other fine goods on our esty.com web site:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/malvenapearl

And we offer these other custom services to you:

Beadwork and Garment Repair Service:
We repair beaded jewelry, beaded trim on garments and we do mending or repairs that require fine hand-work. Small or complex jobs are right up our alley. Drop us a note.

Custom Orders:

We work with you to design and produce custom orders for bonnets, cravats, fichus, capes, jackets, vests and other garments that you need. You may be attending a dance, a ball, an historical reenactment event, a retro-themed party, a fair or a convention. We’ve created and re-styled contemporary garments into the full range of costumes from the Victorian era through outfits inspired by science fiction, comic books, Japanese anime and fantasy literature.

We also make custom beaded jewelry designed to accent that costumes you already own.

Custom Made Hat Boxes:

Beth Woolbright creates hand-decorated hatboxes to suit all of your vintage hat storage needs, made to your specification. Have you got that special someone to shop for, who really needs a beautiful container, decorated by hand, to suit her fancy? Or if you need a dapper hat box, created in a vintage, gentlemanly fashion to store your beloved’s derby, fedora or pork-pie hat, then Please do send us your requests!

And remember to visit the Malvena Pearl etsy site to see our goods today!