Treasures

As it was a lovely day, weather wise. yesterday, I popped to a local car boot sale/market. I wasn't expecting much, but came away with a bag full of jewellery bits and pieces.


Everything was piled into a vintage suitcase.


I left the suitcase as it wasn't anything special and it was the jewellery I was interested in. So a deal was struck (after all it would have been churlish not to haggle) and everything was tipped into my shopping bag.


After running over and trawling through the contents, I made the executive decision that I ought to buy the whole kit and caboodle.


The yesterday evening I started to sort through the jumble. There are individual diamante earrings, beads and buttons galore. And was I glad I bought everything. Included in the jumble are necklaces that have been broken but the beads have been kept. A quick search on Amazon yesterday led to a jewellery stringing book being purchased as I would love to be able to restring the necklaces (It's hideously expensive to have it done at the jewellers). Now I just need to untangle the jumble of necklaces and decide what can be restrung and what will be used in future projects.

Pretty as a Picture

My new skills projects are finished - and it wasn't too painful either. In fact the most difficult part was choosing the fabric combinations. Very difficult when you have boxes and boxes of fabrics to choose from!

I managed two designs: a sailing boat and cupcake. After all everyone loves a cupcake don't they? And having opted for a cupcake design, I decided to go with vintage Laura Ashley as the main fabric.



I used some very delicate vintage 1940s (I think) cotton for the top of the cupcake and topped it with s vintage button.


With such a girly bias, I felt that I ought to make something for the boys. Which meant that a sailing boat was next up on the sewing machine.


Red are blue is such a traditional nautical colour scheme, but it always work so well. And of course there had to be a vintage button embellishment.

I have developed the bug for this machine embroidery malarkey and no can't wait to try some more designs. But in the meantime, I have pictures sitting in my studio and looking for new homes.

If they catch your eye and you could see one in your house, they are in my Folksy shop.

New Skills

For quite some time I have been wanting to do some freehand machine embroidery. After all I have the machine but didn't have the foot for my machine. I spotted one on e-Bay, bought it and a few days later had all the kit I needed to start.

Of course, I didn't and this project has been a LONG time in coming, but I have made a start and so far I am pretty pleased with the results.


Apart from the machine foot I had all the fabric I needed already and the most difficult part was deciding which fabrics to use.

I have to admit that it was a bit unnerving at first - but it seems more a "getting the hang of it" kind of thing. Quite liberating after using the sewing machine in the traditional way.



The project is almost finished. It just needs a little finishing off and it will be ready to post next week. See, I am trying to get back on the straight and narrow with posting regularly!

After using one button for the project, I felt perfectly justified in buying a small pot of vintage buttons on one of my charity shop trawls. After all, I was a button down wasn't I?!


After

In Season

The car boot sale season is now well underway and I thought I would take full advantage of the beautiful weather today and visit a local market/bootsale.

Unfortunately there wasn't much there for me, but I did buy a charming cupcake ceramic trinket box. When I got it home and looked underneath, there was a Marks and Spencer label stating that it had once held chocolates.


It's perfect for my dresser and sits nicely next to the Allsorts jar that I bought some months ago.

Dulcie was on the prowl when I was taking the photographs and managed to sneak in to the shot.


The kittens have all been rehomed: one to a friend, one to the friend of the lady that works in our local vet and the two tabbies have gone to their new home together - which was very comforting. She initially did look and call for them after they had left for their new homes (although I tried to make it as stress free as possible and rehomed them over the period of just over a week) but really has settled down well without them.

She has also discovered a love of Arthur and after a few nights of her roaming around the house and waking us all up with her howling, she is now shut in the kitchen at night with Arthur and that has solved the problem. Hope I haven't spoken too soon!

And now she is starting to come out of her shell and settle in. And in true Siamese style, she may be small and delicate but she has a voice like a foghorn! She just walks around the house making the most horrendous noise - but I find it very endearing. Stephen doesn't though; especially when he is trying to watch TV and it is getting drowned out by Dulcie. At this point even poor Arthur doesn't know quite what to do with her.

On Display

Well - what can I say? Where have I been? Not entirely sure of the answers. The time just seems to have flown by. Plus I lent the boys my digital camera and they lost the charger - which meant I couldn't take and upload photos.

But the charger has been found and I have finally taken some photos of my "new" display cabinet.
I had mentioned to a friend that I wanted a display cabinet (the stumbling block being Stephen's lack of enthusiasm) and about a week later she said that she had been driving home and spotted the cabinet at the side of the road with a "Free - take me if you want me" sign taped to it. How could she leave it there? It came to my house and sat out the garden for a few weeks, whilst I let Stephen come to terms with the fact that it was coming into the house. And there it sat.

Deciding to take the bull by the horns, I started painting and a few days later, the display cabinet was finished.I plumped for Farrow & Ball paint as it always looks beautiful when painted and was lucky enough to find the lilac wallpaper for a measly 50p in the Laura Ashley batch end bargain bin.

Admittedly the cabinet is still looking a little empty, but that just gives me an excuse to find some little objets d'arts to put in it. I've started with the two terriers which were a Mother's Day present from Keanan.
Stephen is less than impressed - to say the least. But I just love it. And the best part of it all for me is that it cost under £10 in total. And of course there's the ongoing fun of looking for items to put in it. I'm sure that one will be an on going saga!