Furniture finds in France and two big thank yous!

This is going to be a looooooooooong post, gals, I have to try and make the most of my visit to our friends with the internet, lol.

Let me start by saying a huge thank you to two lovely people, from whom I have received fabulous packages here in France. A little while ago I won a giveaway on Kimberly's blog ArtJoyStuff.blogspot.com, and she posted the gorgeous necklace I had won, to our home in France! Look what arrived a few days ago -


and inside the beautifully wrapped package was this -


and inside that gorgeous little bag was this -


Beautiful!


The sweet little bag and the gorgeous tag are now hanging in my craftavan -

,
Thank you so much, Kimberly, the necklace is really beautiful and has already been much admired!

My wonderful friend Dorthe sent me a surprise, and I was thrilled to bits to receive this beautiful collage made by her -



Dorthe, you are the best, thank you so much for my lovely surprise, I love it so much. It is hanging in our living room now here in the cottage.

And now to the furniture! A little while ago we went to a kind of charity shop, Emmaus, in a nearby town and amongst all the horrible rubbish outside, I found a table. It looked pretty grotty, it was covered in very dirty oilcloth and it had abviously been ignored for a very long time, as furniture is usually sold inside and only goes outside when nobody has shown any interest for a long time. I had a close look and realised it was a very old, hand crafted table, it was made with wooden pegs. I couldn't tell what the top would be like under the oilcloth, which I thought had been glued on,but it was a low price so I took a risk and bought it. Oh boy, what a bargain it turned out to be! We realised that the oilcloth was held on with little strips of wood, and once he had removed those, the cloth came off easily. The top was beautiful, stunning really, two wide planks of oak with a narrower one in the middle and the most gorgeously aged colour.
But see for yourself -


It has all sorts of old stuff in the drawer -


This looked like amber, but I have no idea whether it is

and also the old number plate which I showed you the other day -


Here it is in the blue bedroom -


I really love this table, the wood has a wonderful mellow colour, Andy just waxed it. I'd say the table is probably around 150 years okl.

At the evening vide greniers on Thursday, I found a gorgeous old wash stand. It was painted and the white paint had mellowed beautifully to a creamy colour. Of course it was also perfectly distressed already, lol, through many years of use ( and cigarette burns ). I just had to scrub it real hard to get decades of grime off and sand the burns, but it definitely did not need to be painted. Perfect distressing -


While I was scrubbing, Andy was cleaning the inside of the drawer for me. He also sanded the inside and waxed it, so it is beautifully smooth now.


I have put it in the bathroom and Ithink it looks perfect there -


Still with me? Wow. Thanks for persevering. Don't know when I'll be able to get online again, I have some tags to post, and loads of vide greniers finds. Hopefully it won't be too long.

Until then, toodlepip xxx

White Wednesday in France!

I am at our friends' house again, using their internet. I am sitting in the garden, enjoying beautiful views. As it is Wednesday, I am posting some photos of lacy finds from the vide greniers today for White Wednesday over at FadedCharm -


They have come from various vide greniers and called for a LOT of haggling, lol. But thats half the fun of course, and if the price is reasonable in the end, thats great.


I also found some really exquisite antique handmade lace, but I will leave that for another post.

Gosh, my friends are saints, they let me sit here doing TWO posts in one day, woohoo!

Big hugs to you all, toodlepip xxx

France calling again!

The weather has been lovely lately, good for vide greniers, so I thought I'd show you a few pics from a vide greniers/brocante in Digoin, bigger than the usual country ones we go to.


Mt friend Christine, who often goes to the vide greniers as well. She told me about the Digoin one and we went together -


It starting raining after a lovely sunny start, but thankfully, we had almost finished. We took shelter under a bridge by the river for a little while and watched to boats go by before heading back.