Woohoo, today is START-THE-SWAP Day!

The idea of swaps really appeals to me, it is such a great way of getting to know a bit more about another blogger and exchanging some lovely goodies as well. I have seen so many fab swaps on various blogs, but have always been too shy to join, because I am pretty new to all this, really. Silly, I know, but you know what its like when all the others seem to know each other already. PLEASE DON’T FEEL THAT JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T LEFT A COMMENT BEFORE YOU ARE NOT WELCOME! You couldn’t be more wrong. I would love it if some new faces would join in as well, the more the merrier, it makes it all that much more exciting. I know there are lots of people who pop in without leaving comments, quite a few even have my blog on their reading list ( always a lovely surprise when I find myself on somebody’s fav.list ), so please do join.

Alrighty then, let me tell you a bit more about what kind of swap I had in mind. You may have guessed from the title that it might have something to do with colours. Well, it could have been rainbow shaped objects I suppose, but the swap is indeed all about colours. All the colours of the rainbow, in fact, and more.

And this is how its going to work ( I hope ). I’ll post a list of colours, and if you want to take part in the swap, you pick your favourite ( or second favourite ) colour and put your name against it. You can copy and paste the list into a comment and add your name, or just tell me your favourite colour in a comment, that’s instant and visible to others who are interested, or you can email me your choice, but then you risk being too late with your choice, because I don’t check my emails every 5 minutes. I’ll allow two people per colour. After a certain amount of time, a week or maybe even two, I will put all names into a hat and draw partners. As an example, Person A has chosen green as her favourite, person G has chosen peach, I drew those two as partners, so A will receive green thingies from G, and G will receive peachy stuff from A. Clear? As mud, lolol.

Now, we are all suffering in the current economical climate, and I would like this swap to be fun, not a burden, so I would like to limit the value of the swap to around £10/12, so that people don’t feel they have to go way over the top with the goodies they are sending. It is quite surprising what you can do with/get for a tenner when you use your imagination. Handmade things could keep the costs down ( not counting your valuable time ), and what a great excuse to go visit a bootfair/vide greniers/garage sale to hunt for coloured goodies. Hey, you can even justify yet another visit to a charity/ thrift shop! Also think about weight, postage overseas is expensive, so if your swap partner is not within your own country, chose lightweight things.

To make it a successful swap, find out a little bit about the sort of things your swap partner likes by visiting their blog or if they don’t have a blog, through a quick email exchange. That kinda reminded me to point out that you don’t have to have a blog to take part in this swap. Just tell us a little bit about you in your comment on the swap post.

Here goes, the “ALL THE COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW AND MORE” colour list -

RED - Sarah, her blog Red Gingham is here
Pomona, read about her here

ORANGE - Victoria from the lovely Florence and May blog
Ruby, you can find one of her blogs here

YELLOW - Kate, she is just just about to revive her blog here

GREEN - Jennyflower, one of her blogs is here
Jackie - this is her blog

BLUE - Floss, her blog is here
- Elisabethd, you can find her here

INDIGO - Cal, this is her blog

VIOLET - Juanitatortilla, check out her blog here
Michela, the lovely girl is joining twice!
plus

BLACK - Michela, you can find her blog here

WHITE - LissyLou, of LissyLou and the two little boys
Juanitatortilla is going for two swap partners as well !

GREY - Steph, and this is her blog
Vicki, her blog can be found here

TEAL/TURQUOISE - Croapqueen, aka friend and co-author JJ, her blogs are here and here

PINK - Kelly - this is her blog
Bekimarie - find her blog here

PEACH – Joy, aka Madam Cowpat, also friend and co-author, this is her blog

BROWN -

BEIGE – ME ME ME ME ME ! I happen to like all the different shades of beige

Oh, I do hope that lots of you readers will join in and make this a really fun swap. Go on, don’t be shy, put your name down for a colour!

IF YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF THIS SWAP AND THINK SOME OF YOUR BLOGGER FRIENDS MIGHT LIKE TO JOIN IN AS WELL, THEN PLEASE COPY THE BUTTON FROM MY SIDE BAR AND LINK BACK TO THIS POST. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

France revisited

I have been looking at the photos from our last stay in the cottage again, and that reminded me that I had promised to post more pics of vide greniers finds. I only went to a couple of vide greniers, there just weren't that many in our area, but I did find a few things which just had to come back with me.

Firstly, there are these pretty little cups for cup candles ( I need to pursuade a certain friend of mine to fill them for me ) -


Aaahhh, and look, a shoe box full of exquisite lace -


I have quite a collection of these gorgeous hand made late 19thC/early 20thC tops ( blouses/jackets) and I am always gobsmacked how beautifully they are made, with the tiniest stitches, hand embroidery etc etc -


Two beautifully hand embroidered and monogrammed hankies -


And staying with the white bits, these great 19thC bloomers, so very daring, wouldn't it be fun though to were them? They have a cute little monogram in red as well -


oh oh, and all these small little lace squares, they will be just perfect for embellishing antique linen lavender hearts and sachets -


This gorgeous blue glass bead necklace ( for some reason this made me think of Floss, perhaps because there is always so much blue on her blog ) -


I really liked this leather cigarillo case as well -


My DH loves looking at old maps and I was really pleased when I found these two old maps of our area -


And staying with paper stuff, I found this bound volumne of 1950s women's magzines, I love them! I have already spend many hours looking through them, and there is still so much more to go through -



And I really really do like using antique knife rests when we have friends round for dinner. Not only do they look so pretty, they also save the tablecloth from getting horrid gravy stains. These are particularly pretty -


I did buy some other bits and pieces, but I I'll post those tomorrow. Toodlepip for now xx

Oh oh, dont forget girls, the rainbow swap is going to start very very soon, all the relevant info will be up within the next few days, so please make sure you check back and take part!

Are you getting excited yet?

What about? WHAT ABOUT??? The swap, of course, look, loooooooooook ------->, there, in the sidebar! I know, there isn't any info yet, but I am working on it, honestly, and I just want to make sure that lots of you readers know about it in good time, so that you don't have an excuse for not joining in. I'll be giving you all the info in a proper post within the next few days.

Now back to France again ( I wish, lol ). In my last post I said I would post a few more pics of our stay in the cottage. So here goes. I have been asked so often what I do with all the stuff I buy at bootfairs, so I thought I'd show you a few pics of where some of my recent bootfair finds have ended up. You'll probably recognise them from previous posts.

Here is the little yellow and white flower jug, which I thought I might use in the yellow bedroom, but which ended up on the table downstairs, filled with wildflowers -

Then there was that lovely old enamelled milk jug thingy, which now lives on the window sill in the kitchen part of the cottage. The first week it was filled with wildflowers as well, then I came across this gorgeous bunch of flowers in the market -

Oh yes, that tiny little glass milk jug, remember that one? It ended up on the window sill of the littlest window, outside, and it looked so sweet there. You know, wombling down the country lane with the doggies by my side, the cows mooing, the birds twittering away, picking a few flowers is just heavenly. I dont have many plants growing in the garden, because we are not there all the time to look after them, just a couple of roses, and I nipped off one bloom because it was just so perfect -

And then there are the copper bits and pieces, which I adore. I love the warm rich glow of polished copper, it makes me feel all snuggly, especially when firelight or candlelight reflects of the surfaces. Recognise any of them? I did spend quite a while cleaning decades worth of grime off them, so you might not, lol.

I love this big old copper jug, its battered and bashed, but it is a lovely shape-

That gorgeous big copper hanging bowl, remember it?, is now, well... hanging-

And I used this little burner many a time with some lovely fragrances-

Dang, I just noticed that I didn't take any photos of those pretty pretty old copper kettles, how silly of me. Ah well, I'll have to remember do that when we next go.

And I almost forgot about my rosy teapots, the teeny weeny little dinky one, and my proper big one, here they are rubbing shoulders with some other bits of rosy china-

Tomorrow I might post some pics of some more vide greniers finds. Anyone wants to see them?

Before I toddle off, I had better remind you all to enter Sarah's fabulous giveaway. Click on the button in the sidebar to find out all about it. She has put together some very pretty New Zealand goodies, and I would so love to win

Until tomorrow then, cheerio xx

Crochet, crafts and comfy dogs

I was just looking through our holiday photos again, and I noticed that quite a few shots of crochety bits had crept in. Hmmm. Remember the granny square blanket, which took me two years to complete? And the zigzaggy cushion I made with the left over wools? Well, those two now live happily in our cottage in France and the dogs instantly claimed both for themselves! I couldn't keep them away, they just loved snuggling down with the lanky and the cushion -

Poppy

Hector

Hector again

Poppy again, she loves burrowing under cushions and lankies, covering herself up

Mind you, its not just that blanket and not just that cushion. I started crocheting a very straight forward easy stripey lanky. I wanted something bright and cheerful, loud and in your face, for the garden, really summery. I had taken a whole lot of yarns with me, and I just picked them out of the box without looking for a totally random placement of the colours. Could I keep the dogs off my work in progress? Of course not -

Poppy telling everybody this is going to be HERS, so hands off

And Hector guarding HIS lanky while I was working on it in the garden

Sigh, these doggies are very good at finding the most comfortable things and claiming them.

This was my comfy outdoor spot, where I did some of the crocheting.The little blanket came from a bootsale a few years ago. I do love the colours and the starry pattern -


I started using it as a cover for my little table after a while,

well, after I found this at a charity shop and used it on that chair instead of the lanky. It was a very comfy cushion............

so of course I lost that comfy spot pretty quickly as well -

Oh, and while I am talking about the cushion from the charity shop, here are a couple of crocheted bits which I am going to make into cushions, from the same charity shop -

There you go, thats the crochet and comfy dogs bits done, now for the crafty bits. I had the best intentions of making all sorts of things while I was out there, but of course there was never enough time, hmmm, don't ask me why not, I really have no idea, but somehow there was always someone to visit, or we had visitors, or we were out shopping, or doing stuff in the garden or the house......

I managed to finish one felted flower corsage and one lot of felted beads. Many months ago I obviously had a completely mad moment and had put a fluffety thick cardigan in the wash, with disastrous results. It came out Barbie doll size and very well felted, lol. Of course I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, I knew there was something I would eventually do with it. I had vague ideas of making a felted cushion, I seem to recall. Anyway, before the hols I came across it again, and thought " flower corsage, yay", cut it up and took the bits with me to France. Along with a few beads and embroidery threads etc etc. It was really nice sitting under the trees and messing around with it, and I am quite pleased with the result. The flower is big and bold, and I love the colours-


Felted beads, hmmm. I loved the idea of felted beads and a very lovely and generous friend of mine, Ruth, had sent me some beautiful wool tops to mess around with. Gorgeously soft and almost too beautiful to use for felt beads really, but I was determined to give it a go. I had read an article on how to make felt beads in a beading magazine, but of course I had forgotten to take it with me, silly girl that I am. I remembered hot soapy water and lots of rolling around between your hands. I tell ya, I had the cleanest hands in the whole of France after making the beads for this necklace! Felted beads are not as easy to make as you might imagine. There was a certain amount of bad language flying around, because I couldn't get rid of little, well, sort of fissures, in the beads, grrrr. Still, for a first attempt they didn't turn out too bad, but I do need a lot more practice -



Thats quite enough for one post, methinks. I'll be back tomorrow with a few more pics from our little piece of heaven in France. Toodlepip xx