It does not seem like a year since I was putting out decorations to celebrate last Christmas, what happened to this year it has flown by at breakneck speed!

Well here we are all ready for the big day, presents made, shopping done (thank goodness for Tesco online!) and house more or less ready for visitors.

I collected together some of my little toys and did the Christmas mantle in the sitting room and also this year did a Christmas cabinet to peep into like a little shop window.

These I found at a car boot in the summer, think they must be paint by numbers but they look very festive on the wall.

Well cheers everyone, have a lovely time.

Lots of love and best wishes for the New Year

Jane XX

Homespun Fair this Sunday

This Sunday is our first Christmas Homespun and it looks like its going to be a good one! We are full to the rafters with lovely stalls selling lots of wonderful things from tea sets and textiles to candles and hand made soap a real mix of all things vintage. Our Tea Shop will have the addition of Gertie's husband who is having a stall selling delicious German home made stollen and cookies for you to buy to indulge in for Christmas, if you can keep them that long without tucking in!

I will be selling my usual eclectic mix of vintage bits and bobs and a few hand made decorations and cards like these tiny hand made Christmas envelopes and gift cards made from old Noddy and Little Grey Rabbit books.

Hope you will be able to come along and see us.

Looking forward to seeing all you lovely ladies old friends and new, just hope I can control myself, maybe I should leave my purse at home!

Prints for sale.

I now have prints for sale over on my artwork blog here.

New Blog

Here is the painting seen in my last post, finished at last and to find out some exciting news do go over to my new blog Jane Winton's Artwork and find out all about it!

uuurrrrmmmm!

Dare I poke my head above the parapet and say hello?! Well the summer has flashed by and although I have poked about in your bloggy lives nothing has been posted with my Happy Crow for quite some time now. Is there anyone out there that still wants to listen I wonder?

The garden is looking decidedly autumnal, leaves are falling and everything is starting to get that scruffy edges look about it.

 My path to work is crisp with leaves and trousers get wet brushing through ferns which grow in abundance down here and a good ground cover in such a large garden.

I have been busy all summer with fingers in a few pies. Mainly I have been painting for galleries but also working in the Sea Garden and having all the fun of hunting out nice things to sell in the shop and also at our annual summer Homespun Fair which I organised with Gertie  and it was a great success as you have probably seen over on the Homespun blog. So much so and by popular demand we are going to have a Homespun Christmas Fair on the 27th of November. We still have stands available if you want to apply for one.

Well I went off to Shepton Mallet this weekend to find some more little bits of loveliness for the shop and I think because I had a bit of a small budget for such a wonderful big fair I did not actually buy that much but thought you might like to see some of it.

Tiny soft pink leather shoes small enough for a doll with sweet little buttons, a bit tatty but couldn't resist them.

 Nice French hat and coat rack. Look great in that little cottage by the sea!

 Two dolly beds in need of some bedding.

 Love this dolls chair for its worn paint, sure it used to be a high chair but its so sweet.

 This cabinet I want to keep, look at the original paper inside. I am going to paint it off white, its not a very nice wood finish in the flesh so I dont feel bad about doing it. Will Mr Crow let me keep it I wonder?

 Beautifully feminine French mirror with a candle holder at the base, So pretty and in perfect condition.

Very pleased with this haul of Regatta china which always sells well in the Sea Garden.

 Wanted to show you this that I found at a car boot over the summer for the bargain price of £10! An original oil painting by Raffay. The funny thing about it is that it looks remarkably like me as a child, I have hung it in the living room and everyone who sees it thinks its of me! So although I bought it to sell and looking it up on the internet its worth about £150 I don't really want to let it go.

And finally this is what I am doing at the moment, just started a little series of  paintings with a circus theme. The dog troupe above is my work in progress, cant wait to get out there in the morning and get back into it. 

P.S. I have joined Facebook, yipes!

Not the Royal Wedding!

Today, being two of the few I am sure, that had no interest in staying in and watching The Wedding we took advantage of most of the population being indoors watching their TV's and went on a little road trip around the Constantine area near Falmouth.  

Tiny creeks,

little paths through bluebell woods

and clear tinkling brooks abound

in this beautiful part of Cornwall where every turn seems to lead to another stunning part of this vast estuary.

Houses nestle in along the edge of the water,

from lovely Georgian homes 

to tiny cosy cottages, I want to live in all of them.

boats waiting for the tide to return,

some of them never to take to the sea again, sad old wrecks alongside flashy youngsters. I wish I could get this home and make it into a summer house in the garden.

Along the road to Port Navas we walked, enjoying the views and the sunshine.

I hope that you enjoyed your day as much as we did, however you celebrated it.  Heres to a lovely weekend too.

Easter Greetings!

Happy Easter everyone. Hope you are out there enjoying this wonderful weather and not stuck indoors reading this blog! Well I hope you do read it at some point obviously but you know what I mean.

We are very busy here getting ready for the Homespun Fair tomorrow and Christine and I will be down setting up the hall later today in readiness to welcome our wonderful ladies early Monday morning. We have a lovely mix of treasures for you to come and peruse and have all been baking furiously so you can stop and enjoy a nice cupper and a bit of cake. I have made my famous chocolate cake and a three layer lemon cake which ended up about 10 inches high, scrum!

Have a wonderful weekend whatever you get up to! 

X

Sweet as a lamb.A very Springy post.

A couple of weeks ago I stayed at my brothers for a couple of days when I delivered new paintings to a gallery in Oxford. They have a farm and at the moments lots of lovely skipperty lambs. Although they did not loose any mothers some of the lambs need that little bit of extra TLC and get bottle fed three times a day.

This little chap was clearly keen to get at his bottle of warm milk.

There you go! And boy do they drink it quick!

"I want to tell you a secret! That new person has another bottle."

To scared to go out.

Number 35 is my favourite, such a sweet little face and the tiniest.

Ahhhhhh.

They have a few sheep that are sort of pets, this is one of them for some reason called Pirate!

Enjoying a patch of sun in the barn.

Here are a couple of new paintings, 'Waiting for father' and 'The quilters'. They are both quite big canvases, I loved doing the quilt with all the pattern on it.

Hope to see lots of you at the Vintage and Handmade Fair on Saturday.