Thursday 18 February 2010

Garden vouchers...and a winner! ;-)



Last year , during August, I was given a gift... £30 in garden vouchers.

I'd been teaching a lovely little girl and, having done so well , she'd managed to gain a place at a school in Exeter . I was sad to see her go!



However, not long after that, I became unwell...and so the garden vouchers have waited on my desk, for months.


Today, I put that right !

On a gloomy and very wet Thursday morning, I took my mum to one of our local garden centres, 'Jacks Patch'.

Not much was going on there but we spotted these. I wanted three plants and

was pretty pleased with the colour combination here .


I came home and 'faffed' around..but there really are only so many
ways that one can arrange three plants in a plant stand!!!
(Believe me, I tried them all!)

That job done...

I carried on with these.
More about that another time.
Meanwhile...
The name out of the hat and the winner of my small St Valentine's Day giveaway is:
MELANIE
;-)

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Purple haze!

Whether it was that purple house, which I spotted on Saturday, or whether it was this beautiful vintage cotton feedsack...
...something certainly inspired me .
I woke up in a purple haze and in 'purple mode', this morning!

Purple is not a colour which I tend to use very often, hence the lack of it in my fabrics and also my scrapbook papers.

But I soon found myself playing around on the floor (like you do !!)


... gathering together a few purple and green vintage fabrics.


Not forgetting some pieces of vintage embroidery, naturally!



Buttons...

Ribbons...

Felt pieces...



At this point I wasn't too sure what I was going to do!

Although...for a few days, I have been playing , in my head, with an idea.
First of all I knew that I wanted to make a padded piece...in order to be able to stick in pins, needles etc.


I sewed four pieces of the fabric together and then putting some wadding underneath it,I fixed it all to some thin chipboard.
So that would be the bottom of my clipboard.
And then for the top half...
As for the rest...

I fixed a lovely piece of vintage embroidery to a felt square.
I backed that onto some more vintage fabric and prettied it up with some lace etc.

I fixed that loosely underneath the metal clip of the clipboard.
The idea being that this clip holds all of your lovely swatches of fabric.
Finally, ribbons and embellishments complete the job.


Which is a job much better than cleaning my bathrooms...which I must now get on and do!
I think that purple might just be growing on me...how about you?
Are you a purple lover?
;-)

Monday 15 February 2010

Shiver me timbers!

Ahoy, me hearties!

T'is Calico Sal 'ere, hoping you have recovered from all that 'love' stuff , yesterday?!

Well...what a weekend, me shipmates!

Cap'n Snippets woke me up on Saturday mornin'...

'Shake a leg, Saucy Sal! I wanna know how you're gonna enhance my day today, you buxom, little wench!!!

Oooerr!

I don't know about 'enhance' but t'was out with the railway timetables and no sooner than he could say 'thunderin' cannonballs',
we grabbed our clobber and, not forgetting our pieces of eight, off we went to a place where
pirates like to go...

Penzance!



We rarely go west on our travels. I will explain.

Firstly, I hate Plymouth and secondly, I am not a fan of Cornwall either!

(Shock horror...I know some of you might want to make me walk the plank or give me a taste of that cat o' nine tails ... for stating such a fact!)

But tis true!

I have tried soooo hard, over the years, to like Cornwall; tried soooo hard to give it a place in my affections, tried oh sooo hard to give it chance after chance.

Ok..it has some pretty little fishing villages, I grant you but not much else grabs me about Cornwall, I am sorry to say that!
***

But... I do love a good train journey and bearing in mind the time distance from where I live to Penzance, (about 2 hours 40 mins) I reckoned that £7.25 for a single journey was amazingly cheap!!! You could never get a journey going the other way, say to London, that cheap!
You'd have done the same, I bet!

As it was so cheap, I enquired about first class upgrades,which you can buy at weekends (Calico Sal does have a certain standard to keep up!) and I was told that we should sit in first class and wait for the ticket man to come along and pay him the upgrade fee . And that is what we did! And we waited and waited....

So..first class to Penzance for £7.25 each...that'll do nicely! ;-)

Yo ho ho!

On with the day...now where was I?

Ah Penzance? (No wonder it was so flippin' cheap to get there! LOL)




Ok, that's harsh...we found one or two pretty streets, had lunch in a very noisy pub (but at least it was showing the footy..Southampton v Portsmouth)

We found a street where I would happily live (if it was not in Penzance). I loved these houses.




This one was definitely for me.
When I am old, I am going to wear purple and not only that, I will paint my house purple as well..!


But... it has to be said that the highlight of our trip was definitely... umm... the wall mural!


Don't you just love it? I do.



Oh and in case you are wondering...we had to pay the first class upgrade coming home on the Penzance to Paddington train...but it was worth it (a tenner each) as we had the whole of the first class carriage, from Penzance to Newton Abbot , to ourselves!!

I entertained the old Cap'n with the hornpipe whilst he drank his grog.... and a fine journey was had by all.

I returned with NO booty! My pieces of eight came back home with me, intact...as did his doubloons! Oooo..arrrrr! Say no more!! LOL ;-)

Enhance?

And ye may lay to that!

(in other words...you betcha I did! LOL!)

And do I NOT want to go back to Penzance?

Ye may lay to that too!
;-)


Oh and before I forget...in this photo, you can just spy St Michael's Mount, in the distance.


I did however, get an order for one thousand shabby, vintagey, eye patches, from this motley crew!
And if you believe that then you are a bigger fool then me!
;-)

Sunday 14 February 2010

Happy St Valentine's Day ...and a small giveaway!

Just being together...

...is all that really matters.


I have some small pieces of fabric to giveaway, depicting these gorgeous, old fashioned scenes.
I'll add a few floral extras so there will be about 12 pieces in all



Just make comment on this post about what or who you are loving today!

I'm loving the card,which I was given earlier.

Have a great day!

xxx

;-)