White Wednesday, Tag Tuesday and the last catch up inchies for Every Inchie Monday

You may have guessed from the title that this is going to be a fairly long post. I have such a big backlog of things to share with you, I just have to cram more than one thing into each post. I hope you can stay with me though, because at the end of the post is the link to the giveaway, just in case you didn't see yesterday's post ;-)

Ok, I'll start with WHITE WEDSNESDAY. Kathleen over at Faded Charm is hosting the 118th White Wednesday and as usual there are sooooo many fabulous links to explore. Do check them out if you have a little while to spare. My White Wednesday post is about one of my most favourite things. Lace. French lace. Again, lol. I found the following pieces at a vide greniers in Perrecy Les Forges -



TAG TUESDAY, oh my, we had a wicked challenge this week - RECYCLE THE TRASH. Funny how it turned out to be a rather foody looking tag. I used the label from a French cheese box ( very smelly but delicious cheese, thankfully the tag does not smell of it, lol ), a bit of a chocolate bar cardboard cover, a little bit of the foil the chocolate was wrapped in, and the leaves are from a Magners cider box which I retrieved from the recycling as well. The two little flowers are punched out from another scrap of the chocolate foil. The "string" is made from twisted up tissue paper, which I had discarded and fished out of the bin in my craft room again -


And on to the rest of the inchies I had to catch up on, the last 6 of the ELEVEN inchies I needed to make to get up to date again. Working backwards through the weeks -

For STRENGTH I chose to use the chinese symbol -

For RUST I used a tiny little rusty key, found at a French vide greniers -

SUNSET was proving really difficult. I love the sunsets we get at our cottage in France, I photograph them all the time, because each night they are so very different. I really couldn't decide which inchie I preferred, as the colours are so different. So I am posting both, and you can decide for yourselves which you prefer.

NEST was so much fun to make, but tricky. Have you ever tried to make the tiniest little nest out of a few strands of dried grass, lol? It took me ages, but I got there in the end. Three tiny pearls made good little eggs -

For BOOKS I made a tiny little book with a scrap of paper from a French Missel. It had very small writing, so was ideal for this -

And lastly, 11 weeks ago, the challenge was LOVE, and fondly remembering the Hippie days of Love and Peace, it just had to be this -

I POSTED A BACK-FROM-FRANCE GIVEAWAY YESTERDAY. IN CASE YOU DIDN'T SEE THE POST, CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ENTERED -

Thank you all for stopping by and good luck in the draw if you decide to enter.

Toodlepip xxx

Here's the promised Back-From-France Giveaway!

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED !
Finally, right? I still have such a backlog of things to post about. There are the last six inchies I made last night to catch up with the Every Monday Inchie challenge, there are so many photos of vide greniers finds from France to post, and the usual daily challenges to keep up with as well. Who is going to do my housework, lol??? But I didn't want to wait any longer before posting the little giveaway, a small thank you for staying with me despite my long absence.

Here goes then, the Back-From-France Giveaway -

One of the first things one thinks of when talking about France is, of course, the Eiffel Tower. So I had to include a vintage Eiffel Tower to bring a little bit of Paris into your home -


Some lovely vintage French wine labels, a few pages from a beautiful old French religious book, a Missel, a tag made with another page from this Missel, and, not shown in this photo but you can seem them in the first photo, some very vintage French luggage labels -


No French giveaway would be complete without a bit of French lace and braid and some lovely old mother-of-pearl buttons in a little glass jar -


Of course, I wanted the winner to receive something made by me as well, not just haggled for at a vide greniers. I made this large collage with French lace, a tiny little French key, and lots of other little bits and pieces. The image of the beautiful young lady is framed by a really exquisite antique French doily. It is made from the finest silkiest fabric and beautiful handmade lace, just have a look at the close up -


The Giveaway is open to all my followers and I will draw a winner on Sunday, 2nd October. If you want to put the link to the giveaway on your blog, that will of course be very much appreciated, but is not a requirement. Good luck, girls!

Mega Inchie Session!

Two months in France put me way way way behind with the weekly Every Inchie Monday challenge. I did some crafting in my cosy craftavan, but inchies were too much of a challenge, lol, I didn't have the right things with me. So, including today's SPARKLE challenge, I need to catch up on 11, yep ELEVEN inchies. Yikes!!! But it seems I am in the swing of things and have made 5 inchies this morning already. I am working backwards from today's challenge, so the first one to show you is this week's challenge, SPARKLE.

SPARKLE, aahh yes, that immediately put jewellery in my mind, diamonds, emeralds, saphires, rubies....... I found a tiny little broken emerald and diamond pendant in my stash. It was the perfect size for an inchie. I used a glitter pen for a very subtle shimmer on the lace flower, and of course had to add some sparkly crystals and glass glitter -


Last week's challenge was KISS. It was really difficult to pick one graphic from my collection, but in the end I settled on this one, it was just too sweet to ignore. I used a tiny scrap of lace, a teeny bit of border from a French Missel page and a square jewel ( I do love my bling, lol ) -


The week before that, the challenge was COSY. I knew just the image I wanted to use. It is a tiny portion of a photograph taken last winter in our cottage in France. My son was stretched out on the settee, and Hector had settled down on top of his legs. Both were snuggled down very cosily under a blanket -


Going back another week, the challenge was CHANGE. I thought about acorns and oak trees, tadpoles and frogs, but whilst I was rummaging around in a little box of bits and pieces for something else, I found this very old French coin from 1931, 5 centimes, which is very small change indeed. Aha, small CHANGE, lol, methought, and the coin just had to be used. For the background I used a tiny section of an old French banknote, not quite such small change, lol, it was a 500 Francs note -



And the last one I am showing in this post is the IMAGINE challenge from 5 weeks ago! My imagination always runs away with me, and I can spend many happy moments imagining fairies, unicorns, giants etc etc -


Thats it for this post, I am already thinking about all the other inchies I still need to make, so I had better get myself back to my craft table before my muse deserts me again.

Toodlepip xx

Oh, I had such a busy day yesterday with a boot fair to go to, family visiting and all sorts of stuff, that I totally forgot to give you details of the Back-from-France Giveaway as promised. Ooops. I had better edit some photographs, lol, and get that post up as soon as. Tomorrow. Promise. xx

Finally catching up with things

We got back from France a week ago, and I have finally managed to work my way through all the missed blog posts. Oh man, you girls have been creating such wonderful things while I have been away! I have drooled over so many beautiful things. It really got me itching to get creating again as well.

I had put aside a few little French things for a Back from France Giveaway, and was waiting for inspiration to strike for that special something to add to it. Well, it struck and I crafted and now I am ready! Tomorrow I will post the Giveaway!

Today, however, I need to post the final two tags so that I am back on track again. Last week's tag challenge was MOON, and as much as I wanted to make it in France, I couldn't find anything remotely moony in my little stash or anywhere round the cottage. I had to wait til we got back to England before I could finally make it.

I had photographed the moon and moonlit sky last summer, when we were sitting out under the trees in the garden with friends, enjoying some good food and good wine. The clouds looked quite amazing because the full moon was so very bright -


This week's prompt was FLOWERPOT. Now, Rebecca, the lovely lady who runs the Tag Tuesday Challenge on her Blog Challenge Garden blog, wanted something " outside the box ", and mentioned bread, fish and lightbulbs................. so guess what she got? Of course, she got a bouquet of bread, fish and lightbulbs in my flowerpot, lol. I made this one late this evening, so had to photograph it with flash, which I really dislike, but I need to get these posts done! The flowerpot is made from Fimo and the fish, bread and lightbulbs are stuck to thin little wires and fixed inside the flowerpot. The background is a bit of scrap paper I had previously used under some other tags and cards I had painted. No idea really why I picked it, probably because it was on my desk, lol, and I couldn't find anything else I liked.

So here is my flowerpot, filled with Rebecca's requested bread, fish and lightbulbs -


And now it is way past my bedtime, so I am going to womble off.

Toodlepip xxx