just before i go away...

Thought i'd tell you that it's official that the friends and relatives of Montgomery Town Councillors are "upset" and "indignant" by our comments about their colleague in the local paper regarding his lack of response to our difficulties in setting up the business - how dare we speak up, and newcomers too, the cheek of it!!! it would seem we can't be in their gang anymore!!! Not come across this sort of behaviour since infant school!!! It's been suggested that we "de-personalise" the situation...in other words say sorry or perhaps admit we were wrong in speaking up.

Wondered if anyone could recommend another pub! tis gutting really as this one was within walking distance!! Ha!!!

"The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals and have no hope of rising in their own self esteem

but by lowering their neighbours"

- William Hazlitt

Happy Friday!!!!

I had a little opportunity to create some art recently, although not much as i've not had time to spend in my art room and i need my supplies around me for my paintings. These are "works in progress". I love creating these pieces on wood, i lose myself in the moment. Creating the patchwork backgrounds give me a sense of peace and nothing ever comes out as i planned, so i'm more inclined not to bother with the planning process any more. When i do get time to work on these i shut myself off, put on a Jane Austen audio book and sit thinking about things for a while, it could be five minutes or it could be hours, but whilst thinking i start to gather little treasures around me, i have an obscene amount of found elements to play with. My favourite supplies are my stash of wallpaper samples which i've been collecting for years, i use small pieces in my work and sometimes alter them, i love the different textures and the colours and patterns that are available. I love this piece (below), i started it recently, i love assemblage, for me it's like being a child again, although your art gets taken more seriously!!! Gavin found me a stash of these wonderful old french magazine papers (see background), they're just amazing, they have the most gorgeous images in them, the paper is old and yellowy and very brittle but when glued onto the wood they take on a colour and texture of their own which, amazingly, is different on each piece. Also, my wonderfully thoughtful man (not saying Gav again in this post, as i'm in danger of sounding like Charlotte Church!!!!) found boxes of these old watch faces for me on ebay, they're all different shapes and sizes, i think they look fab on this piece which has a few, unintentional, Alice in Wonderland elements to it, so it may end up being a take on that eventually, but who knows and thats what always appeals to me when doing assemblage art.

And...

...these are some fabric brooches i "tried" to make recently, pretty enough but i'm not that pleased with them. I'd like to know what you all think, as i was going to put some pins on the back and sell them as brooches or bag charms in the shop. Unfortunately, i'm pretty bad at sewing and creating with fabric, i will persevere though, but i need a break from it at the moment.

We've decided that we need a break, probably before we have a breakdown, we're officially exhausted and stressed to the hilt. We can't go far as the shop is open six days a week, so Gav's booked us into a nice B&B near Aberdovey for Sunday night, we're off at five as soon as the shop closes, heading straight for the beach to have fish an chips and...well...er...who knows after that!!!! At least we can have a nice relaxing day all of Monday, then back in the evening to open up again on Tuesday!!!

Have a lovely weekend everyone, It's the Montgomery street fair this Saturday, lots of stalls etc, hope we don't get too cut off as we're round the corner!!!

xxxx

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay.....i sold one of my green chairs in the shop today, i only put them in yesterday, i'm soooooooooooooooooooooo pleased!!!!

Treasures

Gavin and I went to an auction in a little village called Westbury, nr Shrewsbury last night and these are some of the things we got (some of the items came from a car boot sale).

Chairs

I found these gorgeous vintage wooden chairs at a boot sale a few weeks ago. I meant to take a photo of them before i painted them, but forgot until i was half way through the last one!! Anyway, you can see the original colour here.

I painted them in a gorgeous jade eggshell wash and sanded them back to give a distressed look, then put them in the shop, they look really nice.

Well earned day off

I've had such a lovely day today. The shop is shut on Mondays and we decided to get out for a few hours. We couldn't go far as we have a rock star visiting us tomorrow (Gav's filming an interview here) and we needed to get back to tidy up and for Gav to prepare his filming equipment. We combined our time with a quick visit to one of our suppliers in Shrewsbury for more stock and then headed back down to Clun, for a nice lunch, a walk along the river and a walk to the castle. This is Clun, in Shropshire, (not my photo i found it on the internet).

This is the bridge over the river and the brown brick building you see on the right is where we intended to go for lunch, except it was shut.So we wandered across the bridge and up to the town in search of a cafe. Gav and i are on a quest to find the perfect baked potato, our experience of baked potatoes in cafes so far have been so dire that we don't usually order them anymore...but.....today we decided to try once more and stopped at this llittle cafe. Gav ordered Tuna and sweetcorn with his and i ordered baked beans with cheese.
The first thing i noticed when mine arrived was little blue bits of mould on the cheese, i thought i was seeing things, then i asked gav to taste it (Ha!) i thought there's no way that anyone would put blue cheese on a baked potato, i like blue cheese but it's a very acquired taste. Gav thought it was blue cheese, i thought it wasn't and that it tasted gone off. As i tentatively pushed the cheese around the plate i found a few more bits of, what i was now convinced was mould on gone off cheese. How desperate am i? i was so hungry i pushed all the cheese and beans to the side of the plate and continued to eat the potato and started on the substantial salad served with it. INow,i must admit here that the potato was actually very nice, in fact the nicest i'd ever had in a cafe (had i found the elusive perfect baked potato i wondered) However, as i picked up a forkful of salad i'm confronted by bits of gone-off purified lettuce covering everything, and was so put off i couldn't eat anymore so we paid and left. Gav's salad was the same, although he finished most of it before he discovered it was past it's best. Yeuch!!!! What is wrong with people? they charge enough for food when you eat out, the least they could do is make sure the food is within date, even if they can't cook it properly, there was no excuse it's slovenly and lazy, i'm sure they wouldn't have eaten it themselves.

We consoled ourselves with a white magnum ice cream and have decided that we'll take our own food out with us from now on.

However, none of this detracted from our lovely walk around the town, across the river and up to the castle. It was such a beautiful day, it was a very romantic, hand-in-hand walk, we talked about the wedding and how lucky we were to have our lovely shop and be our own bosses, admired the gorgeous scenery and soaked up the warmth. I was so relaxed when we got back i decided to leave the cleaning until tomorrow morning. I'm sure i'll regret that tomorrow.

Off to bed now, Nos da xx

From this humble piece of leftover wood innocently left leaning against the wall...

...then cut into little squares...
...and gently sanded and gesso'd
...to these gorgeous wooden pin brooches...

...and then put in the shop!!!!

Cutie cat...Alice asleep on the coffee table!

Some of my fabric hearts in a pretty basket.

These retro scarves are so pretty, we've sold loads, they looked lovely with sun on them

I bought these old wooden reels last year in a charity shop in Leeds, i wanted to use them in the shop so i bought these lovely organza ribbons to go around them...

i wanted spotty ribbon, but am still looking for that...

Gav got this lovely little french pot from the auction in Llangollen yesterday, it was in amongst a boxful of china for £10 - we then saw the pot on Ebay for £50!!! but that was with a lid, this one didn't have one! It's still pretty though.

Lots of lovely soap, this is selling so well we ordered another ten bars, it looks so colourful.

Lots of lovely buttonsNicci' dress she's altering...with all my supplies i might add

...and her patchwork quilt she's making, also from all my fabric supplies...i'm not happy that she managed to cut up a pair of my curtains thinking they were scrap!!!!! they were patchwork ones so she cut out a few different squares out of the different designs on them!