It may be Thursday, but.....

I am still in Blissful Whites Wednesday mode because we finally had a couple of hours of sunshine this morning and I managed to take some photos, woohoo! Not that they are great, lol, because the one bright streak of sunlight kinda messed up the pics, but you'll see for yourself, and I am not complaining, I was so happy to see a little bit of brightness. I hope you can enjoy the little treasures despite the odd pics.

I had totally forgotten that I had had to leave one little box of linens behind when we left the cottage in September. The car was packed to the hilt, there wasn't room left for a matchbox, lol. Anyhoo, I came across this little box yesterday, and was delighted to find a couple of things which I had looked for at our home in the UK and thought I had lost. Duh.

Firstly, there was the gorgeous 1950s petticoat, every time I look at it I want to go into a 'GREASE' dance routine. The vendor had told me that this petticoat had been part of a wedding dress, it certainly is pretty enough -

Also in the box was this lovely panel, probably a little curtain for a small window -

I adore this style of doily, thick and tactile and three dimensional -

This table runner or mantlepiece cover is so gorgeous, embellished with crocheted roses and leaves -

And last but not least, this amazing large round tablecloth -

Thank you for coming by to visit! Toodlepip xxx

Hello from France

We are still happily snuggled up in our little cottage in France. With the fire blazing, it is so cosy and I just love sitting in front of the fireplace, toasting my tootsies whilst doing a little bit of crocheting.

As I have mentioned before, there are no vide greniers or brocantes in our area at this time of the year, so to get my fix of old stuff, I had to go to the charity shop in Etang, which opens a couple of times a week for a few hours and is VERY expensive indeed. They got wise to the fact that all the Dutch tourists who love this area pay whatever price the shop puts on things. Grrr.

Didn't find very much, but a few things did come home with me. Amongst them was this wrecked bead tree thingy, which had lost its pot and was very sad looking -

But, I loved the glorious aqua colour of the tiny beads, and thought it would be a good idea to take it apart and use the separate 'branches' in collages. Me and my good ideas, lol. It took ages! Have you ever tried to unravel one of these? But it was worth it in the end, because I ended up with a bunch of gorgeous beaded leaves -

Pretty, aren't they?

I also found two quilted pillow covers, not very vintage, but oh so perfect for the cottage. They might have been part of a bedroom set, but I am using them on the settee, because they are so snuggly. Well, when I say 'I' am using them, I mean, the doggies are, because they sure know how to make themselves comfy ;-). I love the rose pattern, and the pieced border around the central panel, and even the back of the pillow covers is so pretty -

I have to leave the other bits and pieces for another day, the last couple of days have been very grey and dark again, there just isn't enough light coming in to take pics. Which brings me to the weather. Wintry, lol. We did have a couple of nice mornings though. A while ago, we had this lovely sunrise -

and a couple of days ago, after the snow had all but disappeared, we had a very hard frost overnight, which turned the world into a white, glittery and kind of spiky wonderland. Every tree, every blade of grass was covered in pristine white needles. It was a real delight taking the dogs for a walk first thing in the morning -

Every frozen puddle had to be investigated, -

jumped upon, -

and nibbled -

whilst I was admiring the beautiful countryside -

Brrr, cold! After that, it was quite wonderful to come back to a blazing fire and a cup of tea, lovingly prepared by my wonderful DH. 

I am delighted to welcome some new followers, I hope you stay for a while and enjoy the posts. I am very happy you found your way here. And of course a big thank you to all my 'oldies' for visiting, I appreciate you being here so much.

Toodlepip xxx

Today is GROW YOUR BLOG Day!

 Vicki is an amazing person. Last year she came up with the wonderful idea of the GROW YOUR BLOG day for all those bloggers who are just starting out and don't have a million followers. And today is the day when we all get to visit those bloggers. Vicki has spent hours and hours working up the list with links to the blogs. Thank you so much, Vicki, you are wonderful! The list contains hundreds of blogs, so please spare some time and visit some of them. Remember when you started blogging and how exciting it was to see the number of followers going up? I'd just like to encourage a few of my wonderful and much appreciated followers to find a few new blogs to follow.

All you need to know about me is in my profile, and of course in my blog posts. My blog doesn't really fit a category as it is a mishmash of all sorts of things, France, crafting, antiques and stuff, dogs..... :-).

Which brings me neatly to a quick update, sort of, lol. We are in France now, we travelled very very early Thursday morning, and arrived at the cottage around 3pm. Interesting journey, all of France was covered in snow. Well, from Calais to our cottage in Bourgogne anyway. Freezing fog on the motorway with very little visibility in some places, blinding sunlight in others, and very low temperatures, see -

Yep, thats right, minus 15!!!

Wasnt so bad at the cottage though and I am very happy to say that nothing had frozen solid, no pipes had burst, the boiler was working and by now the cottage has warmed up and we are toasty cosy. Phew. Takes a couple of days as the cottage is built of field stones and the walls are half a metre thick.

It is so peaceful, sigh, and all the snow blanketing the fields is just gorgeous, sparkly white and untouched as most of the cows seem to be in their barns.
Our dogs love the snow, they go nuts romping through it, snapping up a mouthful of snow or chewing a chunk of ice from a frozen puddle. Me, I prefer sitting by the fire inside the cottage, and just admire all the whiteness through the window. But I am being good and going out for walks with them.

This is what it looked like at the cottage yesterday.
View from the front door -

Bread oven next to the cottage -

View from the kitchen window-

Back of the cottage with the kitchen window -

And the doggies on one of the walks -

It has snowed more overnight, and visibility is much worse as well, we seem to be in the clouds again, lol. I love being all cosy in the cottage when its like that outside.

Well, thats it for now. Please spend a few minutes visiting some new bloggers on Vicki's list here, and have a really good weekend wherever you are.

Toodlepip x

PS - Are you gals of the saintly patient variety? LOL, you see, I would love to offer a little giveaway in honour of Vicki's great blog hop, but I am totally without craft supplies here in France. Didn't bring anything with me. BUT........ if you can be patient and wait until the middle of February, then I'll have a few days at home in the UK to come up with something. And I'll happily tailor the little something to the winner's specific interests. Would that be OK? Phew, glad you said yes ;-). Leave a comment, and be entered.

Blissful Whites Wednesday with Tags

What a rush the last couple of days have been. We got an email from our friends in France a few days ago telling us that the temperatures were plummeting and a severe cold spell was round the corner. After the disaster we had last year during the really cold spell, we didn't want to risk that again, so we decided to go and spend a few weeks at the cottage, keeping it warm and snug. Arrgghh. Panic, lol! I have been making what seems like a million tags to go with customer purchases, getting the packages all ready for my son to post, tags for a great Valentine's Tag Swap over at ArtJoyStuff ( see sidebar ), and assorted other stuff. You are lucky that I had packed my camera stuff up this afternoon, otherwise you would have had even more tag pictures to endure, lol!

So here goes, the " I'm Dreaming of a White Valentine " tags first -

The TAG TUESDAY tag, starring B for BABY -

and a couple of the customer tags -

I am linking this post to Blissful Whites Wednesday over at the lovely TIMEWASHED blog.

Gotta get a couple of hours sleep now before we are off on our trip to France. 
Toodlepip xxx