Monday Inchie, Etsy Cottage Style PURPLE and an Artfire Collection

I know, I am cramming a lot into this one post, but if I don't post these things now, I'll never get round to posting all the other stuff, like the photos from France, and the recent boot fair finds.....

I'll make this nice and short though, well, short for me, lol.

Lets start with the Every Inchie Monday challenge for this week. The theme was "FROLIC". Now, when I think of frolicking, I straight away think of gorgeously fluffy little lambs frolicking in the fields and meadows in Springtime. I inked the background of the little inchie with blues and greens, added some tiny wool scraps at the bottom to simulate grass, a few red dots for flowers in the meadow, and a cut out of a tiny little lamb happily frolicking about. I used the tiniest little bit of white fluffy wool on the lamb. Got more stuck to my fingers than to the lamb though, lol.

Choice of backgrounds again, because I can never decide which one I prefer. Do tell me which one you prefer, and I'll add that to the Flickr group.

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NEXT, Etsy Cottage Style's monthly colour challenge, PURPLE! Not as easy as you might think, I don't really have an awful lot of purple stuff. Purple clothes from my purple days, yes, plenty of those, but lovely vintage bits and pieces? Not so many. Here is a little collection -


A vintage purple bow tie and a gorgeous purple crystal pendant -


Vintage buttons -


A gorgeous late 60s/early 70s art glass bowl, small but beautifully formed -


A white and purple crochet lace trim -


Light purple tassel on an old cedarwood fan -


Gorgeously soft vintage French toile de jouy -


I have been hoarding this fabric for many years. One of these days I'll use it, when the right project comes along.

This sweet apron is probably from the late 50s, early 60s, I remember this sort of fabric from when I was a little girl. Just the touch of it brought back memories of frilly summer dresses -


This old tin is so sweet with those delicate little violets on all sides -


I remember the funkiest purples from the 1970s. The wallpapers and the bedlinen, my oh my.
Just look at these sheets and pillow cases still in their original packaging, fab and funky purple and blue flowers -


Ah, and those fabulous candy stripe bedlinens I got introduced to when I first came to the UK in 1975, I fell in love with them straight away. and look, there are purple stripes amongst all the other colours -


Thats it, folks, my contribution to vintage purple!

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Finally, I was really gobsmacked when I got an email last week, telling me that one of my things had been included in a member curated collection on ArtFire. Really??? But I only have a couple of things on there, just to see whether anybody actually does look at things........... I was really thrilled though to find this little pillow in a beautiful collection of dreamy creams -


You can see the collection here -
http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=collections&op=details&cid=14648

Please keep your fingers crossed for better weather this week, I so want to photograph some finds for you, but the light is just awful most of the time.

Wow, three subjects dealt with, lol, now I need a cup of tea. Have a pleasant day wherever you are. Toodlepip xxx

Tag Tuesday Challenge - Postcard, and a little pillow

A couple of days ago I was talking to my dear friend JJ, and mentioned that I had to make a tag with the theme "postcard", and that I had to give that some thought. Now, we both live on the coast here in the UK, JJ in Brighton and I live in Hastings, so she suggested that I should use the typical old fashioned English seaside card. That appealed to me immediately. They are so funny, a bit cartoon like, a little bit saucy, and they are so very English. I had found some old ones at a bootfair a year or two back, and just looking through them again to find a suitable one for this tag made me chuckle.

I had so much fun with this one! I got to mess about with seashells and seaweed, with Stickles
( in tarnished brass and scattered straw ) for the sand and some seashell stamps. Tadaaaaa -





I love these postcards.

A couple of days ago, I finally managed to get my sewing machine out again. I wanted to make a little pillow with a particular theme, a Guardian Angel, or Ange Guardien in French. Very plain, no lace, no fancy flowers, nothing really to detract from the Angel. I used a rustic old French linen, some very vintage blue striped French ticking fabric and printed the image of the guardian angel on to cotton fabric, which I had aged a little in a weak coffee bath -




And while I was at it, I made a matching tag as well. Again, nothing very fancy -


I wish you all a happy weekend, I hope the weather is better where you are, lol, here it is absolutely chucking it down again. Sigh.

Toodlepip, xxx

Can you put up with more?

I hope you are not getting fed up with me showing you all the wonderful gifts which have arrived on my doorstep lately. They are all so different and all so fabulous in their own way, I have to show you all of them.

During the OWOH event I came across a blog called Top Floor Treasures, and I was really fascinated by it. Zoe was offering a zendoodled initial in her giveaway, and I was so intrigued by her work. I entered the giveaway and I won it!!! I chose our family initial, W, and it arrived yesterday. What an amazing letter it turned out to be. Now, when I was in my teens, I doodled a lot, errm, during lessons, lol, at home, on the bus, but boy oh boy, my doodles were like chicken scratchings compared to Zoe's zendoodles. They are incredibly detailed and I love my W so much.

Here it is in all its zendoodled glory -








Pretty amazing, isn't it? Now I am trying to decide what sort of frame to put it in. Any suggestions will be gratefully received, of course.

One of my winners was Sam from Cornish Contemporarys. This lovely girl made me a gorgeous tag as a thank you, using some of the bits from the embellishment pack she had won. How sweet was that? And the tag really is fab, and has already joined my collection of Blogger friends' tags -


Toodlepip, xxx

I tried, but I just can't wait

I know I said I would show you something really gorgeous on Saturday, Pink Saturday, but that is still 2 days away, and I just can't wait any longer. I am just bursting to show you, lol. You may have noticed the little button to Celestina's giveaway on my sidebar, and if you have looked recently, you may also have seen the note I gleefully put underneath it. I WAS THE LUCKY WINNER OF HER BEAUTIFUL GIVEAWAY!!!

You know how much I love roses and how I love to collect rose themed little treasures for our cottage in France. So you can imagine how thrilled and delighted I was to win her giveaway. I had admired her soft and feminine rose painted beauties for so long. I couldn't believe how quickly the package got to me, I think someone in the postal service must have realised how much I was looking forward to this.

So, why don't I let you unpack my package along with me? I managed to get my camera before I started. I had to take many photos because my hands were shaking with excitement, lol, but you can relate to that, can't you?

Ready? Here goes -

When I lifted the pretty pink tissue paper, I was greeted by this beautiful big pink rose, such a perfect delicious shade of pink -

Are you oohing and aahing yet? Two beautifully wrapped little packages...... I carefully unwrapped the one in the fabulous Paris wrapping paper, had to save that, of course -


Gosh, its so exciting, unwrapping gifts!


Under the sweet little lavender bag was this -


See why I was so looking forward to this? It is THE most perfect thing for the pink bedroom in France. But that wasn't all. There was also this huge bonbon!


And inside the bonbon was.............


A heart shaped rose box! It is beautiful, I can't imagine anything more feminine on my dressing table. Of course the box wasn't empty -


Inside the box were -


HEARTS AND KISSES ! How sweet is that?

Celeste enclosed a beautiful card, and you know what? As much as I love and adore the beautiful gifts, this card meant even more to me, and its making me well up again right now as I am writing this, because of the things she said. I am such a soppy cow, but I just want to give her the biggest hug! She is one very beautiful soul.


See, now you can perhaps understand why I just couldn't wait until Saturday.

It is unlikely, but if some of you have not been to her blog yet, go and have a look right here.
If you want to see more of her beautiful designs, check them out here. I am going to treasure mine forever.

Toodlepip xxx

YAY! The third one has arrived!

I am such a lucky girl, I know. And a soppy one as well, lol. I get all teary and silly grinny when I receive a package. Yesterday was such a day again. The smiling postman handed me two, yep TWO packages and wished me a wonderful day. How very sweet of him.

One of the packages was another OWOH door prize. You know when you enter a giveaway and it is for something that you would really love having in your home? Well, all the wonderful OWOH gifts which I have won, are just like that, really lovely little treasures.

This one is destined for France as well, because it is just perfect for the cottage. Inside the package was this very pretty gift bag -


And inside the pretty bag was this -


And inside that was this -


The sweetest mini canvas which I had won from Sarah, whose blog you can find here. Check it out, she is quite amazing.

I have to show you the details on this darling little thing, I love all the embellishments -


Look at these swirls, now why can't I draw swirls like that? -


Adorable teeny tiny lace roses -


And this gorgeous little treasure..............


is of course going to live in France, in the blue bedroom -


I'll take pics of where I am going to put it when we next go to the cottage.

The second package I was going to show you tomorrow, but then I thought, no, I am going to save this one for Pink Saturday, which I love but have never taken part in, so you will have a little longer to find out what it is. The Pink Saturday might have given you a little hint though, lol.

Toodlepip xxx