Important Announcements and a few tags

Before I get to the important announcements, I think I'll show you a few tags. Firstly, a very late Tag Tuesday tag from last week. The theme was Mad March, bunnies and March hares. This is what I came up with, a whole week late, sigh -


Bit different to my usual tags, but I like it, it makes me giggle.

Next, just a few simple customer tags -



This one went with a vintage bicycle repair kit, took me ages to find a nice graphic for it -


There were lots more, but I keep forgetting to take pics!

Right, and now on to the important announcements. Good grief, that sounds serious, doesn't it, lol. Its nothing bad, just something totally unplanned.

I need to explain a little first. My darling No. 2 son, my almost-daughter-in-law and their beautiful daughter Grace were supposed to move into their new flat ( apartment ) this week. Yesterday they found out that it won't happen for at least 2months. The people living in the flat my son was supposed to move into can't move yet, because the flat they are supposed to move into is still occupied by some selfish rotten scum, who haven't paid the landlord rent in months, and refuse to leave until the court case comes up and they can get legally evicted. So basically DS2 and family are homeless with their belongings in storage, having to move out from where they are living right now and it seems impossible to get a short term 2-3 months let. They have had such bad luck with all their rentals, landlords not returning their deposits for no other reason than greed, all sorts of things. So, we have decided that DS2 and family can move into our house for the next 2 to 3 months and DH, myself and the dogs go and stay in the cottage in France for that period. Until they can finally move into their new flat.

That means however, that I will have to do the CELEBRATION GIVEAWAY a few days early. Instead of ending it on the 31st March, it will now finish on Tuesday, 27th March, and I will draw the winner(s) on the 28th and ship the same day. That means, you have to make sure I can contact you by email straight away to get your addy.

If you haven't entered yet, you can do so HERE or


Next thing - I think we can finally get some sort of broadband in our area in France, hopefully we will be able to arrange that soon after we get there. That means, I will be able to blog from France, woohoo! Fingers crossed, eh?

Next next thing, lol - Etsy shop. Because all the goodies listed are here in the UK, and I will be in France, I need to put the shop in vacation mode just before we leave. BUT UNTIL THEN, I AM HAVING A 20% OFF SALE ON ALL ORDERS OVER $10! So. if you have "favorited" something recently and were thinking about getting it, now is a good time to shop, otherwise it won't be available again until after we get back. Whenever that will be, sigh. If you want to have a quick looksie, the shop is HERE.

My brain has gone all fuzzy now, lol, I have got so much to do over the next few days, rearranging things in our house so they can move some of their things in, packing for 2-3months in France, sorting out what few crafting supplies I can take (waaahhh, I will miss my craft room), millions of bits and pieces to sort out.

Thats about it for now, I'll try and post pics of what else is going into the giveaway tomorrow.

Toodlepip xxx

Celebrating !

If I was into celebrating a lot, I would be completely worn out after this long weekend. Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, yesterday was Mother's Day here in the UK, today is my birthday, tomorrow is our 31st Wedding Anniversary and on Tuesday it is my almost-daughter-in-law's birthday. Quite a weekend, don't you think? Lol, I don't think I can handle 5 consecutive days of heavy celebrating anymore. Definitely enough reasons to do at least a little bit of celebrating though. But there are other reasons for little celebrations as well - over 400 followers on this blog, over 100 followers on the Vintageland blog, over 100 sales in my Etsy shop, those are jolly nice reasons as well.

So I finally got my butt into gear and started on a Celebration Giveaway, because I am so grateful for so many things and all your encouragement and inspiration. I altered a little egg box and filled it with all kinds of little treasures -


That is as far as I have gotten. I'll be adding a few things over the next few days, so keep your eyes on this post. I'll put a button on my sidebar with a link to this post, so that you can easily check once in a while. And of course, if you would like to put the button and link to the post onto your sidebar as well, that would be great.

What do you need to do? Not a lot, lol. Just be a follower and leave a comment on this post, and make sure that I can easily find your email addy. You can enter until the 31st March, and I will announce the winner ( or winners ) on the 1st April. No April Fool's joke, honestly!!! I'll do the draw the old fashioned way, I'll draw the name ( or names ) out of my good ole heart shaped box, as usual.

Thats it for the moment, back to gently celebrating and making tags and restocking the shop and making inchies and and and.........

Toodlepip xxx

Almost forgot, here is the button, if you would like to use it on your sidebar to find my post again quickly -


And this is the link to this post - http://lululizinlalaland.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/celebrating.html

White Wednesday - a tangle of threads

I was looking for a really strong thread the other day, and remembered that I had stashed away a whole bunch of antique and vintage French threads a couple of years ago. I was pretty sure that there was some strong linen thread amongst that lot. Oh, it was so lovely opening up the box again and going through all the different threads in there. I love the old labels on the pure linen threads. The big hanks of cotton threads in white and creams are so tactile, I have to admit, I had to play with them for a little while. There were bunches of vintage embroidery cottons as well. But I had better let you see for yourself, hadn't I?

Happy White Wednesday! I am off to check out all the wonderful white posts at the FADED CHARM blog HERE.

Toodlepip xxx

Again, catching up with inchies

Why is it that the littlest things take the longest time, lol? I suppose because they are small, I think, oh, I'll do that in a minute, and the minute turns into hours, and the hours into days, and then of course I forget all about it. Bad me.

So, once again, I am catching up with my Every Inchie Monday challenges. Last week's challenge was "friends" and I really wanted to use a photograph of my boy Harry and myself ( Harry is now living on the moon with Bobbie, according to my granddaughter ).

A dog most certainly is a (wo)man's best friend -


This week's challenge is "Steps". Although baby's first steps sprang to mind first, I ended up going with a photograph of these beautiful 150year old steps at a friend's house in France. But I didn't want to use just another photograph yet again, so I took some fluffy green thread, painted it in different greens, and used that to simulate the rosemary growing next to the step. Even got some earth out of one of my indoor plant pots for the rosemary to grow in!


I'll really try to be on time next week, I will, honest, lol!

Toodlepip xxx

Mostly whites and neutrals

I did warn you the other day that I would have to post more tag photos, didn't I? I meant to post them on Wednesday, for White Wednesday, of course, but life interfered again, sigh. I still have a few hours to post some White Wednesday photos over at the fabulous Faded Charm blog, so here goes, a few tags to go with customer orders -







Here are a couple more pics for White Wednesday, soft off whites and neutrals I use for packaging -



And a couple more customer tags, a bit more colourful -



Have a wonderful weekend! Toodlepip xxx

I am linking this ( rather late ) post to WHITE WEDNESDAY AT THE FABULOUS FADED CHARM BLOG, click HERE for more wonderful whites and neutrals

BIRDS - this week's Tag Tuesday tag

I thoroughly enjoyed making this week's tag. Whenever DS3 and I go out geocaching in the woods, I pick up bits and pieces, feathers, acorns, moss, all sorts of things which might come in handy for crafting with one day. I was so pleased that this week I could use some of those bits.

This is the tag I made for this week's Tag Tuesday challenge, which is " BIRDS " -


The background is a handmade paper with lots of woody bits in it. Feathers and acorn caps found on walks in the woods. Beaded trim was a brocante find, I thought the beads look almost egg like. With a bit of imagination, lol. Letter stamps from a cheap little set from Tesco's, and dark brown seam binding. Of course. Gotta have seam binding.

Thats all for today, but I have to warn you, there'll be more tags tomorrow.

Now I wish you a very happy afternoon/evening/morning, wherever you are.

Toodlepip xxx