Etsy Cottage Colours - AQUA and Every Inchie Monday - ENCOURAGEMENT

Both of these challenges were really quite difficult for me. Etsy Cottage Colour for this month is AQUA and it seems I have very little of that gorgeous colour in our home. Hmmm. Perhaps I ought to do something about that, because aqua is such a beautiful colour.

Here is what I could come up with for AQUA -

First is this beautiful vintage trim in beautiful shades of aqua/sea green


Next, beautifully soft tattered aqua silk ribbon and a fantastic vintage trim with aqua sequins -


Aaah, antique bottles, they are the most delicious shade of aqua -




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The Every Inchie Monday challenge this week was exactly that for me, challenging. The theme was ENCOURAGEMENT, and I did struggle a little with that. For some reason, I saw messages on a beach in my mind ( I know, lol, huh? ), so I used Distress Stickles in Tattered Straw to simulate a sandy beach, and put my message both on a little pebble and on the beach -


I am linking this post to


and

Lots of Whiteness!

I am so behind with everything, because we have been out and about so much. Luckily, two of this week's blog parties have the same theme - WHITE, so I can combine them, woohoo!

As my Nikon is once again in for repairs, and my little point and shoot isn't all that brilliant, I have pulled out some old photos, which some of you may remember from a couple of years ago, for this week's White Wednesday over at Faded Charm, and The Colour White over at the Etsy Cottage Style blog. But I am kind of hoping that you are as bad as me and can't remember that far back, LOLOL.

I am forever fascinated by the amazing variety of doilies you can find in charity shops or at boot fairs, hardly ever do you find two the same. So, for this week's WHITE post, I am showing you just a few of the doilies I have in my collection -


Blogger is driving me nuts at the moment, it is taking me forever to upload the photos, as Blogger keeps coming up with error messages, sigh. I have to try each photograph at least a dozen times before I can get it uploaded. So I am going to give up. Which is probably quite a relief for you, lol.

I am linking this post to -

White Wednesday at Faded Charm

Etsy Cottage Style - The Colour White

Toodlepip xxx

Back from France and Etsy Cottage Colour Party - YELLOW

Yep, we got back to the UK last night, and have gone from glorious summer sunshine to cold and drizzly English weather. We had a great week, I did find one (small) vide greniers not too far from us, we had a geocaching outing which took us up a little mountain we hadn't been to before, and I planted my tomato plants, woohoo! I did take some photos, but I have so much catching up to do, it will probably take me a few days before I get round to posting them.

This morning I started working my way through all the posts I had missed while we were away ( I am still 4 days behind, sigh ) and realised that I am almost out of time to participate in this month's Etsy Cottage Colour Party, with the theme YELLOW.


Ten minutes of frantic searching for yellow vintage stuff finally produced this mixed bag of French and English YELLOW antique and vintage items -

This gorgeous set is Malingware, and I guess it was made to hold soap in the smaller, lidded part and a sponge in the larger one, with the bowl underneath to catch the drips, whilst washing. I love the delicate blue and gold design -


Next up is this vintage box of DMC embroidery threads, which I had found at a French vide greniers, errmm, last year, I think -


oh, and I had forgotten that I used this delicate yellow glass flower to photograph the box with


This Art Deco vase has the most delightful rose design and is a deep, rich golden yellow -


And last but not least is this 19th Century French lampshade cover. I had to stuff it slightly to show the shape of it, as I haven't found a lampshade to fit it (yet) -


That has got to be it for right now. I have an inchie to make before the new challenge goes up tomorrow, a challenge tag to make before the new one goes up on Tuesday, and WHITE photos ( from our week in France ) to sort out for White Wednesday, on Wednesday I guess. Apart from that I have to finish a fabric collage I started before we left, 7 tags to make for a tag book swap organised by the lovely Karla over at Karla's Cottage ( link to the swap is on my sidebar ), photos to edit ( stuff I found at the vide greniers and an Emmaus visit ), photos to take of the stuff I found at the boot fair this morning and a million other things.

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