27th May, our first anniversary of the shop opening!
What a year of adventure, discovery and success it's been.
We've had a fab time choosing and buying all the lovely new stock items and seeing it go out of the door. The vintage items have been amazing and a part of the business which has proved to be more successful than we ever dreamed it would. We're a great team Gav and i, he's my knight in shining armour, this lovely man, with a kind and gentle soul, who made all my dreams come true, i'm so glad we're together.
Here are some details of assemblage pieces i'm currently working on for my exhibition. I still haven't decided on a date yet, but we're working on it.
I thouroughly enjoyed myself sifting through my very many boxes of found elements collected over the years for suitable bits to add to these assemblages, it's quite satisfying to be able to use elements that would otherwise be thrown away. I spent a lovely afternoon last week taking apart an old 1950's radio, the switches were bakelite and the stash i managed to get from it was amazing, very dusty though and i'm sure there was a spider lurking in there somewhere!!!
I did some needle felting a few days ago whilst sat in the shop, it was pouring with rain and very quiet. Lovely Jo came over and brought me a "Clover needle felting tool" with four needles, so i was able to produce them quicker. I've had a huge delivery of pretty wooden buttons so am looking at sewing some on and selling them in the shop as brooches.
Ha! not satisfied with just needle felting i also did some wet felting, at the kitchen sink and made these gorgeous little brooches. I had a few (nice) distractions when customers came in, but was able to leave these whilst i served, which is ideal. I sat sewing the brooch backs on them in the shop in the afternoon and had sold four before closing time (although the lady has to come back for them because i hadn't put the pins on them at that point). I'm making some more today, but trying to be a little more adventurous with colours.
My new business cards i made a few evenings ago. They look really pretty, i put what i'd made (about eight) in the shop and they've gone already. Gav's scanned and printed some for the time being, but i like the hand made aspect of them with the embellishments, even though they're time consuming to make. so i have some more in progress
Awww, my lovely wedding dress all packed up and hanging on the side of my wardrobe, i love it when i walk past it, so many lovely, happy memories.
Talking of which, i've had loads of comments about how fab the band were at the wedding evening party
From Swansea. George (third from left) is a friend of Gavs (well ours now) and has his own band "Son of Man". As it was such a nice evening we were trying to think of excuses for another party (do we really need excuses?) and getting them to play again, and then i remembered my big birthday next year, so we decided to have another party then ...yaaaaaay!!! Everyone's up for it, so should be good, better get organising.
I had a lovely evening with my friend Jen last night, we opened a superb bottle of wine. She's just finishing her college course and wanted a CV done. Jen is one of those lovely special people that came into the shop when we first opened last year and we became friends immediately. She's so easy going, always smiling and happy and i love her to bits. I hadn't done a CV for ages, doing all that typing took me back to my medical secretarial days.....shiver.... and makes me feel glad i moved on to much nicer things, but i was happy to help her out.
We're off to an auction tonight, i'm on the lookout for some specific pieces for my assemblage art and really looking forward to it. Then, if we're back in time, we're off to the Checkers to celebrate our opening anniversary...cheers everyone.
“The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing; it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of divine accident, and the most wonderful of all things in life.”
Hugh Walpole, Sr
