Good to be Home.

Its so good to be home again.  I am not very good about being away from my  'nest' or my other half and my babies (fury ones of course!).  I left home last Friday on my way to the Vintage Fair with my little car stuffed to bursting with work and display bits, I am always surprised at what, with a little lateral thinking, I can pack into my hatchback, its a sort of tardis on wheels really. 

The fair was a joy to be at and I thank everyone there who made it such a great venue, such a lovely atmosphere, super people and of course CAKE which I am sure we all enjoyed!

Well after that I had to drive back home unpack the car and repack it with work I was returning to artists in Shropshire that had supplied my gallery. Then I had to drive back up the M5 to the welsh borders and stay with my mum, very luckily for me the first artists I visited offered to redistribute most of the work I had for me so that saved a lot of driving around.  Then I stayed a couple of nights with my brother in Devon so we could visit Ikea, why don't they open one down here??? I got home Friday morning in time to take Midge to the vet as she needs regular check ups because of her medication.

Then on Saturday THE DRESSER arrived. this was the one I coveted in Lostwithiel. I ended up swapping a few of my antique toy horses and a bit of money for it.  I spent all this morning 'playing' arranging some of my china collection on it. Its nice to have somewhere I can put a few of my Maureen Minchin pieces on as you dont really look into a bowl on a table and thats where all the beauty of them is.  My little box I got from Michele (Cowboys and Custard) looks sweet on it too.

I spent this afternoon with my friend Sara, we went to 'Present heaven at number 11'  a house in Penzance where Emily opens her house to the public to view and buy her work alongside other crafts people and artists  It is a great pre christmas treat and gets you more in the mood for the festive season, I love doing as many before christmas things as I can that feeling of Christmas is more enjoyable than the day which goes so quick.  We also planed our jigsaw days and hope to get at least two in in the next few weeks.  Got the jug of lemonade on ice Sara!

Here is a festive fairy with her cat that I might use as my christmas card this year, there will be prints of this on my etsy shop.

I liked Michele's idea of a christmas bazaar on her blog and if any of you show an interest I will do the same thing??

Birthday treat and the giveaway

Its giveaway day!  And the winner is.........Annie from A Saucerful of Secrets.  E was charmed by your memory and could imagine the scene, cold night, golden light and biscuits!  So this little bunny is on his way to you when I can get your address.  Thankyou for all your memories it was lovely reading them.  I have lots of treasured memories of christmas, coming from a large family, I have three brothers and three sisters, christmas was always a very jolly time with lots going on and usually a house stuffed full of family and friends.  One of my warmest memories is when I got my first 'hard' doll (I had only had soft toys till then) I named her Sarah and my mum had knitted her a load of clothes and better still she came in a pram, an old fashioned (I think my dad had got it second hand) type that had a hood at both ends!  I had to share this with my little sister and mum had made all the bedding for that too. 

Birthday Outing.

It was E's birthday yesterday and for his treat he wanted to go to the zoo!  He is only 48 you know.  We went to Newquay Zoo and although it is only tiny we were very impressed. I must admit that I do not like seeing animals in cages but as E says they are safer there than in the wild nowadays. As it wasn't a very nice day there were hardly any other people there it was almost like our own private zoo.  We saw the penguins fed and the lion, the penguins weren't fed to the lion I might add.  

The meercats were so sweet there was a little one following the older ones around, even though they are safe in a zoo there was always one on lookout!  This Lynx was gorgeous and I could have reached over and touched it, it was so close.  The animals that totally charmed me were the marmoset's at the top who had an island on a pond to live on they were so cute and again there was a baby that must have only been about 10 inches long (never stayed still enough for me to get a pic) they chirped like birds and I could have stayed and watched them all day. It was a lovely day we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and we will go back soon I think.

Here are Bunny bracelet and some Noddy necklaces that I tried to put on the last post, aren't they fun!

Fanfare please....It's my first giveaway! Yipeeeeeee!!!!! and other things.

This week I have had great fun making christmas decorations and some jewellery.  I cant show you the jewellery as I dont seem to be able to get any more photos on this post without making others disappear, very strange!  I am now high on soldering fumes and my fingers are black from the flux but is it worth it what do you all think??  

It has all made me feel very christmassy and nostalgic, I remember as a child we always seemed to have snow in the winter, staying out to long till your fingers and toes froze in wet mittens and wellies then rushing in to thaw your hands out under the hot tap, the burning warmth as feeling returned in them.  I love snow and now we live in the least likely place to get snow in the UK, sigh!  

I used some lovely old glass buttons to adorn some of these hanging dainties with chandelier drops and mother of pearl buttons to0.

Do di do di do do dooooo!!!!!!! (My go at typing a fanfare!)

Here is the give away.  This little chap has been sat on my desk watching me work all week and is now waiting to pack up his little bag of goodies and head for a new home.   But I do want you to do something for him, so if you post me a comment telling me about a treasured childhood christmas memory I will get E to choose one and they will get this little boy.  Look forward to hearing from you.  I will tell who has one in my next post on Tuesday 11th so you have a bit of time.  

A prize, a day out and some new work.

The other day I had a lovely surprise in the post when my prize from the blog Dadas place arrived it is a sweet little painting of a girl and her doggie.  I was lucky enough to be the person chosen on her give away.   Thank you Dragana I love it!

Our Friday out this week was to Cadgwith Cove, we had never been there before, its a tiny village with thatched cottages and a little harbour.  We spent some time wandering about enjoying the sunshine then went on to St Keverne for tea at Roskilly's icecream farm sitting by an open fire where the farm cats come in for a warm and to say hello to all the customers, they did not settle down till they had done the round of all the tables, very sociable poods. Wish I had taken some pics of them.

This cottage is such a diddy little thing it should be made of gingerbread and have a witch living in it!

  I spent last week making assemblages of which here is a couple. As you can see I have used the cow toy I bought a few weeks ago for one of them and pieces of an old jigsaw too.  I love wooden jigsaws, hate the new cardboard ones, they have no soul!  This was one I got on ebay and it had a few pieces missing so I did not feel to guilty using bits of it here.  I do have another farm one that is complete and it has lots of animals that you can play with as they stand up on there own.  I will be scouring ebay soon for my yearly fix of puzzles to do over christmas.  Luckily I now have a friend, Sara, who is also a jigsaw junky and we have a lovely jigsaw day where we just do puzzles, drink lemonade and eat biscuits!  Looking forward to that again soon Sara!  Well it was a productive week and I now have quite a stock of boxed bits for the show so I am now onto making jewellery and christmas decorations.  The decorations are in the prototype stage at the moment but I think they will work out OK will put some on the next post.

 

Another picture of Cadgwith for some reason it got put at the bottom and I cant move it.

Attention blog readers!  If you come back and look at my next blog, number 20, I will be doing a give away and I think you will like it!  I know I have not been blogging for long and I probably dont have many people who read it but I thought it would be nice to show my appreciation of you out there by giving one of you a little gift so do hop back soon and see me (bit of a clue there!)