A sparkly treasure

I hardly dare tell you, because you will probably shake your head and exclaim, not again, surely not again! I'll whisper it, shall I? I entered a giveaway over at Jeanie's blog, and yes, I won her giveaway! I was so delighted, I really was, because the beautiful gift she was offering in her giveaway was a gorgeous sparkly bracelet. I love making jewellery bits and pieces, but I have to admit that I don't have much patience when it comes to proper beading, I am more the kind of string-it girl. But I admire people who can bead those wonderfully intricate patterns, and Jeanie is most definitely one of them. When you visit her blog, do click on the link to her jewellery creations, you'll be amazed at what she can do with teeny beads.

Here is the sparkling beauty which arrived on my doorstep -

I love that shade of blue, it is stunning, and the sparkle is quite amazing, but I couldn't quite capture it in the photos. It looks fabulous when I wear it, and the sparkles it throws off when it moves, just makes me smile.

Thank you so much, Jeanie, it is a beautiful piece of jewellery, and I know it will give me so much pleasure every time I wear it.

Toodlepip, xxx

Tag Tuesday Challenge - Vintage Sewing

What a great theme for a tag! It had me rooting through my vintage sewing supplies as soon as I read it. But of course, as usual, things turned out very differently from what I had set out to create. I blame it all on the Graphics Fairy, lol. I wanted to use one of her images of an antique dress form on the tag. And then I saw gorgeous old scissors on her image collection, and all of a sudden, vintage sewing had gone steampunk!! Can you imagine, me having even a hint of steampunk on a tag? Guess there is a first for everything.

So I created a faint background of a vintage Coats Threads ad and coloured the dress form slightly.
I created a skirt out of the antique scissors, silvered them with the Clear Star Gelly Roll pen, made a necklace out of vintage hooks and eyes, and a belt out of vintage poppers. Added a little flower made from antique lace trim, some MOP buttons, and a little ruffle made from vintage McCall's dressmaking paper. Oh, and a teeny little vintage sequin.

Here is my "Vintage Sewing " gone-slightly-steampunk tag -


I had oodles of fun with this one!

Toodlepip, xxx

Every Inchie Monday Challenge - WINGED

Look, look! I am almost on time with this one! Could even be that somewhere in the world it is still Monday. This week's challenge is "WINGED", and there were so many possibilities. I thought about birds, bees and butterflies, cherubs and angels, but in the end I decided to use an image of the Faerie Queen ( from the Graphics Fairy, of course ). It took ages to cut out the tiny image! And even the finest German glass glitter looks like rocks on these tiny things.

I photographed the inchie on 3 different backgrounds again, do tell me which one you prefer -





Had a bit of excitement first thing this morning. Last night, I PLACED my very first geocache, appropriately called "made by fair hands", a handmade swap only cache, and a very dedicated geocacher went out and found it by torchlight at 11pm! I was thrilled to bits. And yes, I know, you all think I am totally doolally, lol. You could be right..............

Toodlepip, xxx

Going GREEN

It is time for the Cottage Colours Party again, and this time round, the colour prompt is "GREEN" . Perfect for Spring, of course, and I probably should have gone outside and photographed all the beautiful Spring greens, those delicate shades I love so much. Instead I went through my stash of bling, and boxes, and books and bits and pieces. This is what I came up with -


I think I'll start with a bit of bling -


I love this cross -


and the pale green beads on this vintage rosary -


This beautiful antique book from 1866 has a gorgeous deep green and gold cover, I especially love the spine -


I know these pages aren't green, but I just had to show you a teeny glimpse of the inside of this lovely book -


Old postcards -


A beautiful old French box, possibly a glove box -


I love the tiny gold design on this rich green background -


This faux shagreen box is also from France, and came with these cute hat pins -

The deep green velvet lining is soooo luscious!

And then there are the buttons, green buttons in every shade and shape -


And of course French buttons on their original card -


And I'll finish my GREEN post with another bit of sparkly yumminess, a small length of gorgeous trim, with tiny beads and sequins -


I hope you have enjoyed taking a look at a little bit of green prettiness.

Toodlepip, xxx

Catching up with Every Inchie Monday - RHYTHM

What was I thinking? I am only just getting my inchie in before the next Inchie challenge is due tomorrow. What with birthdays and anniversaries and geocaching and..... hmm, what else can I think of, lol, I had almost forgotten that I hadn't made my weekly inchie yet. But I am having a lovely quiet Sunday morning, DH and DS are out walking the dogs in the Firehills, so I have some time to finally get my itsy bitsy inchie done. The theme was "RHYTHM". I chose to show a drum and drumstick, because I find the steady rhythm of drums quite hypnotic. Well, not exactly that sort of drum, more the sort of African drum, but I wanted to make the inchie 3-dimensional, which I could do with drumsticks ( toothpicks ), but not with hands.

Here it then, better late then never, eh? -



Perhaps I had better start thinking about tomorrow's inchie challenge straight away, and try and be ready on the day.............. sure, like thats gonna happen, lol.

Toodlepip, xxx

Just tagging along

Yes, you have guessed it, more tags, lol! My darling husband got me a Big Shot for my birthday and my boys got me some embossing folders and die cut thingies, and I finally got round to trying it out yesterday. It is so much fun! I couldn't resist embossing a couple of tags and also making some small decorative ovals, and you can't just have the bits lying about, you gotta make something, right?

But I am going to start with a tag I made a few days ago, just because the sun was shining, and I needed to see some bright Spring colours -


I used a scan of a vintage French seed packet label for the image, punched a pretty border and used a few little bits to embellish the tag. Happy, sunny colours, aren't they?

And then there are the embossed tags. On this first one I have also used the pretty oval die cut to frame the lovely little image -


The next one will surprise you a little, I should think, because it is so different to what I normally make. I had tried an embossing folder on a white tag, and I really liked it, so I decided to keep it all white. Can you imagine, me making a totally white tag? Well, I did make one, here it is -


I can see myself having oodles of fun with this little machine. As if I didn't have enough other stuff to do, lol.

I hope you are all having a grand weekend and are thoroughly enjoying doing whatever it is you are doing. Toodlepip, xxx

PS -

Hmmm, I really need to add something to this post. I have had such lovely comments from people, some have asked me questions, and I would dearly love to answer them, but when I click on reply, up comes the dreaded "noreply-comment@blogger.com", and then of course there is nothing I can do. It seems such a shame, and I would urge anybody to have their email addy on their blog profile so that you can be contacted. It would make me feel heaps better, and I don't want people to thinks that I am being rude not answering their question.

Having said all that, lol, of course sometimes I just forget to answer, and then you can give me a cyber kick up the butt and shout at me, lol!