It is Christmas Eve.....

... and I would like to wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season. Have a stress free and happy Christmas, and may all your wishes for the New Year come true.

Thank you so much for being there for me this year and especially recently when I had that horrid health scare. I am so thankful for all your well wishes, for being the kindest, most wonderful friends. I'll update you after Christmas, when I get some more results, but I am feeling a lot better. 

I haven't seen my craft room in weeks, all my best intentions went out of the window along with my muse who is spending a few months soaking up the rays on some exotic island it seems, grrr, so there will be a few Valentine gifts winging their way to some special people in the New Year instead of the planned Christmas pressies. 

I have been spoilt with some beautiful gifts and some wonderful giveaway wins over the last couple of months, so I will have A LOT to show you, when normal blogging commences again after the festivities, yay!!!

Until then,  have a wonderful time, enjoy being with loved ones, and be safe.

Lots of hugs and Christmas kisses to you,

toodlepip xxx

A quick update

I have been away for such a long time without any explanation, I feel really terrible about it. I don't often write about personal problems on the blog, but I have had so many wonderful friends checking up on me, I thought I had better assure you all that I am still alive and kicking, lol. 

It is a bit of a health issue which has kept me away. A few weeks ago, I was feeling so dizzy all the time with constant chest pains etc, and that frightened me enough in the end to overcome my dislike of going to the doctors. Turned out I had extremely high blood pressure ( 210 over 110 ) and rapid heart beat, and the doc seemed a tad concerned, yikes! An immediate ECG showed the heart was ok though, apart from the rapid heart beat. He put me on some blood pressure pills immediately and arranged for me to see a cardiologist a few days later. He thinks heart is ok, but cholesterol is high, so now I am on an interesting mix of pills and a no salt, no fat diet, well, as low as possible, some you just can't avoid, even with the most careful attention. I am feeling somewhat better by now, but just haven't been in the right frame of mind to get crafting or blogging. So there you have it, my love of food is probably what caused it all. Hopefully, with the very strict diet and pills, I'll be back to normal pretty soon.

In the meantime, big hugs to all of you, and I hope you stick around for when I give myself a kick up the butt and get crafting again.

Toodlepip xxx

Beautiful Broderie for Blissful Whites Wednesday

For this week's Blissful Whites Wednesday post I had a rummage in one of my lace boxes, the one with my little broderie anglaise treasures. They are mostly from France, trims which have come from mantle covers and antique nightdresses, bloomers, underskirts, saved by these thrifty women of old when the rest of the garment was worn out. Whenever I pick up a piece at a brocante or vide grenier, I have to marvel at the amazing workmanship. You'll see from the photos that some of the broderie anglaise is quite large ( mostly from bloomers ) and some is so tiny and incredibly delicate that it is hard to imagine how anybody could have stitched it, probably by candlelight, firelight or perhaps an oil lamp -

Thank you so much for visiting, I still haven't managed to get around to all the blogs on my reading list, but I will try my very best to catch up with you all.

In the meantime, hop over to TIMEWASHED for this week's Blissful Whites party, and check out all the other lovely WHITE links.

Toodlepip xxx

Jewels white, jewels bright

Goodness me, I almost forgot about Blissful Whites Wednesday! I haven't had time to do anything on my blog lately, not entirely sure why, lol, but I have a lot of reading to catch up on. Very soon, before it gets even worse. Anyhoo, when I realised today that it was Thursday and not Wednesday, I almost panicked. I couldn't come up with anything white for the overdue post but a handful of jewellery which I quickly grabbed and took some pics of. Thats all I have for you on this late Blissful Whites Wednesday post. Must do better in future, lol.

So here you go, a few randomly picked up bits of white and sparkly jewellery from my stash -

Pearls, can't ever have enough pearls -

Pearl and AB crystal bead brooch  in front of a pearl and deep blue bead necklace -

Big mother of pearl beads necklace -

Brooch with sweet little pearl hearts and rhinestones -

Mother of pearl brooch -

Beautiful Victorian heart shaped rhinestone belt buckle -

Small rhinestone brooch in a pinwheel shape -

And a really grand  beaded lariat necklace with gorgeous tassels -

I am linking this post to BLISSFUL WHITES WEDNESDAY over at the TIMEWASHED blog.

Almost weekend, my dear bloggy friends, have a good one! Toodlepip xxx

Crafting instead of listing

Why? Because the weather is still horrid, dark, grey, raining, and the light just isn't good enough for taking photos of little treasures for the Etsy shop. So I am getting on with my crafting instead. Which, I have to admit, is much more fun anyway, lol!

This is another little project completed on a rainy day, an altered Art Deco silver plated cigarette case, well tarnished, but then some of you gals quite like the tarnish, don't ya? 

The tricky thing about altering this cigarette case was the thinness of it, there wasn't much room for 3D stuff, but I managed to get a couple of tiny frozen Charlottes in -

Still got itchy fingers, and as it is still chucking it down out there, I am just going to carry on with the crafting. I promise, as soon as the weather and LIGHT improves, I'll get on with the brocante finds!

Toodlepip xxx

Getting into Christmas

You probably know that every week, I try and get a tag done for the challenge over at the Tag Tuesday blog.  Well, I get most of them done, it just gets a wee bit difficult when we are in France. In addition to the weekly challenges, Carolyn suggested a Christmas tag swap, and approx. 22 of us took her up on it. As we got back to the UK on the weekend, I was able to play with my craft supplies and I finally finished the 5 tags yesterday, yay.

And here they are, in no particular order -

Tag No. 1 -

Tag No. 2 -

Tag. No. 3 -

Tag No. 4 - 

Tag. No. 5 - 

And a 6th one, for a friend -

I am definitely in crafting mood at the moment, but unfortunately that also means that I have had very little time to visit blogs, arrgghh! I will catch up with you all though, I promise. In the meantime I would like to thank you all for your lovely comments, which are so very much appreciated, and also give all the sweet new followers a big welcome hug. Thanks, gals.

Toodlepip and hugs all round today, because I am feeling all soppy. xxx