The Little White Shoebox

It sat on a side table, not on the large stand where all the desirable objects vied for customers. It looked tatty and very ordinary. Just a battered white shoebox. And then I saw the writing on the box, the magic word - DENTELLES -

Thats when my heart started beating faster and when I made a bee line for the stand, hoping for all those long seconds that there really would be some lace inside that little box.

And there was!

It took ages looking through the box to see what was hiding inside, and then negotiating with the stall holder, but in the end it was mine :-)

I found some gorgeous salesman samples in the box, with their original little labels, so special -

My favourite piece,  RESERVED for North America

Fabulous metallic lace -























The first layer in the box was pieces of the finest, daintiest Napoleon III era black lace, so very delicate and somewhat ravaged by time, but beautiful nonetheless -

Amongst the black lace was this beautiful black floral piece, perhaps for millinery -

And then there was the white/ecru/ivory lace ...

And that was not all, there were also many pieces of the most beautifully hand worked broderie anglaise, which I absolutely adore -

I can't imagine how anybody could produce such beautiful, neat, tiny stitches by candlelight. 

I hope you have enjoyed looking through the little white shoebox. Wishing you a beautiful new week wherever you are, toodlepip xxx

Done early!

We had a little dribble of  rain a couple of nights ago, not enough to even keep the surface of the earth moist for any length of time, but enough to cool the air down for a few hours. I took advantage and headed over to the craftavan, and prepared this week's tag for Tag Tuesday and ATCs for Kimberly's next ATC swap. As the heatwave continues without any promise of rain in the near future, I thought I had better get them done early, no telling when it will be bearable in the craftavan again.

Tag Tuesday theme tomorrow is Ooh La La. Although we all associate that little phrase with something a little naughty, here in France I hear it most often when something bad happens - for example, somebody at the brocante dropping a porcelain figure and bystanders going ooh la la, c'est cassé ( oh dear, that's broken ). 

Anyhoo, I have most definitely gone with the slightly naughty one, lol. Paris, Moulin Rouge, the Cancan dancers........ -

I love the CANCAN entry in a very old French dictionary at the top of the tag, ... eccentric and indecent...  tehehehe.

Kimberly's next ATC swap is for August, but as the theme is already up in her sidebar, I have started on the ATCs already. The prompt is DRESS UP. I used to have a doll similar to a Barbie when I was little and I used to dress her up in handmade clothes. I also loved to dress up myself in beautiful old clothes from my mother's and grandmother's wardrobe. And......... I also played with carefully cut out paper dolls and their little wardrobes of paper dresses, and thats what I went with for my ATCs. I thought it would be fun for the recipients to have a little play with them :-). This is one of them, the others are not quite finished yet -

I am also painting some old garden furniture our friends C and F passed on to us. My DH sands them down, and I paint them. One chair a day, lol, it is still so very hot and any effort is too much effort. I am painting the chairs in different pastelly colours, 2 of each. I really like the whimsical mixture. So far I have used the beautiful soft greyish green which I had also used for the table, a lovely shade of very light lilac/mauve,

 and yesterday this gorgeous light blue joined the others. DH is just doing the next chair, so as soon as I am done with this post, I'll be swinging the paintbrush again and painting the second chair in that lovely lovely blue -

This is the BEFORE pic :-) -

Thats it for now, back to the painting, and then hopefully I'll have time to take some pics of that lovely lace I was telling you about the other day.

Toodlepip xxx

Brocanting in France

This is a great time of the year for brocanting in France, even in our very rural area. I have been to a few brocantes of the last few weeks, and I thought it was about time I showed you some of the finds :-). I don't need to tell you anything about the bits and pieces, do I? You all know what these things are and if you don't, just ask. So, here is a bunch of pics I took yesterday in the garden -

After I photographed all that, I lost the will to live, lol, so all the beautiful ephemera and all the gorgeous old ribbons and lace will have to wait for another post.

Some of the small bits and pieces will make it into my Etsy very soon, I have listed a few things already ( you can check the vintageland blog or of course the Etsy shop itself ). The large things will have to wait until I am back in the UK in September.

It is hot hot hot!

Most of you will know that we spend most of Spring and Summer at our cottage in France in the deepest Burgundy countryside, on our little hill top overlooking the valley with the village we belong to. It is idyllic, peaceful, stunningly beautiful, but living so far away from 'civilisation' can have its drawbacks. We haven't had any rain for a very long time now, temps are in the very high 30Cs, and in order to keep the veggies growing, we need to water them every day. Because we are so far away from the village and on top of a hill, we don't get mains water to our cottage, we are solely dependant on our well, which is only fed by rain water filtering through the ground. So you can imagine that water is a precious resource up here. We are careful about using water and in order to save what little water there is in the well, we needed to find another supply somewhere.

So, at the recent annual village barbecue organised by the mayor, we asked him whether we could take water from the river ( which is very low ), and he said of course we could, but we could also take water from the old 'lavoire' half way up the hill, where in the olden days the women used to do their laundry. This lavoire was connected to a proper underground water supply and as getting water from the river proved rather difficult due to the steep banks, the old lavoire became our daily source of water. Twice a day, early morning and evening, my DH drives down to the lavoire, fills 40 5ltr bottles with water and I water the veggies and pot plants when he gets back -

The water is so clean and clear -

Got to be careful when filling the bottles though, lol, one could easily scoop up one of the GOLDFISH somebody has put in the lavoire! They were rather miffed at us for disturbing them and hid under the fallen leaves most of the time. I just managed to get a couple of glimpses of them ( you have to look very carefully, lol ) -

It is all so worth it though, because we have an abundance of gorgeous vegetables, which we happily share with neighbours and friends. Every day we eat nature's gifts from the garden. Perhaps lettuce and cucumber, or green and yellow courgettes, green beans, rainbow beetroot, cavolo nero and lovely new potatoes. Tomatoes aren't ready yet though.

I haven't spent much time in the craftavan, because it is like an oven in there, but I did make a couple of tags for Tag Tuesday, last week and this week. Last week's theme was FACES -

This week's theme is FRIENDSHIP -

I picked these two life long friends for my tag, just think of the stories they could tell! I added the clock for all the many hours the spent together, the bingo card for all the evenings they went out together and had so much fun, the measuring tape for all the crafts they enjoyed together, and the emergency ticket for all the times they got into trouble when they went on wickedly naughty adventures.

Have fun wherever you are. Toodlepip xxx