I love this photo of Nicole, my beautiful baby girl!!!! 18 years old on 6th September....where did those years go? It seems like only yesterday that she was born and now here she is about to be 18 and all grown up....my baby.... I snapped this photo last week when we were in Llangollen on the steam train ride, she was enjoying photographing the scenery, i was watching her feeling tremendously emotional with love and wonderment at how beautiful, clever and independent she is.


Not one for liking her photo taken, a moment later she scowled at me for snapping her. Some photos of my new bedroom as promised. Not finished yet, but i'm enjoying deciding what to put in it. This is a vintage lampshade we got from an auction, it was meant for the shop, but i thought it was perfect for here.

This is the Laura Ashley curtain (bargain from our neighbour), i've still not put it up yet, it's so gorgeous.

No, it's not for pole dancing!!!!!! (much to Gav's disappointment) It holds the house up!!!

Gorgeous dressing table and lamp. I'll probably paint the dresser eventually.

It's been amazingly busy in the shop over the last few weeks, i've got loads of new stock, which i've photographed and will post soon. We've also had a stream of visitors come to stay some of which are still here until next week!! I've managed to get some small collages done as they were selling well in the shop and also i had a go at needlefelting, it was amazing, very relaxing....I did some simple brooches and put them out in the shop and sold four in the space of an hour!!! All my wooden ones have sold and i made another huge batch, unfortunately, when i re-organised my workroom I put them somewhere safe...so safe that i can't remember where! I'll post some of the felted brooches though soon.

XXXXXXX

So excited...

...I've just moved bedrooms... since moving in here we've been using one of the smallest rooms in the house as a bedroom (right up on our third floor). This was because we'd been so busy with setting up the shop and, the room we wanted to use as the bedroom was needed to store the stock we'd been buying for the shop before it opened, and then when it did open and we moved all the stock into the shop we then used it to store furniture whilst we were decorating other rooms....phew.....breathe Tina!!!! Anyway, we've been having a few visitors lately and we need a permanent guest room so we decided it was time to get on with organising our nice bedroom. Nicole has decided that she now wants her bedroom to be the one we just moved out of...so...the guests get a smaller bedroom again, but that's fair because they're not here all the time and only require a room to sleep in, whereas Nicci requires a room to storm away to have "attitude "in, what with being a teenager and all that!!!

The new bedroom is about three times the size of the other one and we've been collecting furniture from various auctions to go in there, it looks fab, i'll take some photos later. To add to the excitement one of our lovely neighbours sold us some gorgeous, unused, Laura Ashley duvet covers and pillow cases in lovely Egyptian Cotton, the price tags were still on them which were over £100 for each duvet and each set of lace curtains, we had two massive, super size duvet covers, four pillow cases, three beautiful lace curtains, a single sheet and various other things, all for...wait for it....£30 BARGAIN OR WHAT???? Each duvet cover and each pillow case comes in it's own matching little bag made of the same fabric and has the same design as cover/pillow cases.....thinking about adding a handle and using it as a handbag...heheheheh!!!!

Ok. so i'll post about that soon and add some photos. But now i want to show you these gorgeous creations from Hannah at Lonely Hearts, http://www.folksy.com/shops/lonelyhearts who kindly sold us a selection of her gorgeous handbags for the shop and gave us another load of her fab jewellery on sale or return. She delivered them all last friday and they look lovely in the shop.

I toyed with the idea of hanging the handbags around one of the posts in the centre of the shop, but thought they looked nicer scattered around and i sold one within a few hours of her leaving!I displayed her jewellery in with some others and it looks really nice. Unfortunately the jewellery will have to go into locked cabinets soon as we had a lovely expensive necklace stolen a few weeks ago, it's a real shame because they look so nice like this. Hannah made these beautiful combs, rings, button bracelets etc. She also made some lovely necklaces which she calls her "Secret Garden" range showing beautiful flowers and charms (sorry the photograph didn't come out well, so will show it in my next post).

OK, off to to some more organising now and soon off to Craven Arms to pick up Nicci who's been visiting friends.

"Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all,

to see life as it is and not as it should be!"

Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

Well, now i know i'm going absolutely "DOOLALLY"! I went out to the kitchen earlier today to put the kettle on for a cuppa, i filled it with water and flicked the switch....or did I? When i went back into the shop lovely Jo (Twiglet http://www.twiglet5.blogspot.com/) popped in for a visit and we chatted for a little while. After she left i went to make the tea and couldn't find the kettle anywhere!!!!! After searching the kitchen for a good few minutes i eventually found it in the fridge!!! No idea what happened there...but it's been coming on for a while!!!

Just thought i'd share this photo with you, it's the new cupboard we bought for the shop, Gav sold one of our lovely dressers and the lady's been waiting for about six weeks so we thought we'd better get a replacement. This was at the Montgomery auction in the town hall on Wednesday just gone, so we bought it, squeezed it into the kitchen (spiders an' all) on Wednesday afternoon until the shop closed at 6pm, then lugged it around to the shop and painted it. It needed six hours drying in between coats so, at 1am we were up again slapping on another coat of paint and then up early in the morning to arrange it in the shop ready to be open for 10.00am (thats why i'm going mad)- Hmmmmm....no ones noticed yet!!! Those vintage quilts look gorgeous draped over the doors, i had three, but sold a blue one last week, the backing on it was made out of old flour sacks (i cried when it sold....sigh...it would have looked so good on my bed).

C'est la vie!

Day Off

I had such a great week last week, I managed to sell quite a lot of my own art work, five pieces to be exact as well as a lot of my handmade brooches, both textile and painted. It feels so good when that happens. When other people who aren't family and friends look at your work and like it as much as you do, enough to pay money for it, it feels amazing. What's more overwhelming are the comments i get from people saying how beautiful and unusual my art is, i love being able to tell my customers, when they ask, about how it's created and what materials are used etc, this is what is so nice about having my own shop/gallery and what makes all the obstacles that we had to work around to get it worthwhile.

This is currently on my work table, with a few other bits and pieces. Last year i did a series of mixed media collage paintings called "Happy Thoughts Angels" about 12 pieces on recycled cat food boxes. The "Happy Thoughts" theme came from a damaged vintage book i found of the same name. It contained all sorts of happy thoughts quotes and i used them in the collages. I sold a few of these before the shop opened, as i put them in the window and people knocked the door and asked if they could buy them, I have a few left so i've decided to collage them onto the wood panels to hang in the shop. This one (below) i'm re-creating from scratch onto a wood panel, it won't be exactly the same, but it's already sold.

(This is the original one placed onto the wood panel - not finished yet)

I created this for my new blog banner (I may even do a new blog) i've had the old banner for a while and I need change in my life every so often...

"There seems to be some sort of a pretty wilderness out there...."
Detail...

Detail...

Now... I have to show you this it's really exciting. I did a Bird Swap arranged by Lisa on http://www.noodlebubble.blogspot.com/ . My swap partner was Emily Burt http://www.handmadebyemily.blogspot.com/ in Brighton and i got this gorgeous owl, it's so beautiful i love it, thank you so much Emily and also thanks to Lisa for arranging it all, it was good fun.

www.folksy.com/shops/handmadebyemilyshop

"A wise old owl sat on an oak;

The more he saw the less he spoke;

The less he spoke the more he heard;

Why aren't we like that wise old bird?"

One of the things I have to get used to about living in a rural area is that it's difficult to find art suppliers of any consequence. I know i can buy on the internet but when it comes to brushes i have to touch and feel them before i know what will work for me. I have some old favourites but ended up using some of them for painting the intricate parts of furniture for the shop fittings (i.e. around glass on the cabinets) and now i can't find them. I got quite depressed at not having decent tools to work with and i ended up getting some cheap ones form a DIY store to try and make do, but they were impossible to work with, so i ended up going to wrexham yesterday (we were going anyway for something else) in search of an art store, not an easy task, we couldn't find one, and in desperation i ended up in Llangollen where i found a very small shop with a limited range of supplies, but at least i managed to get a decent selection of brushes. They were resonably priced and now i can start painting again.....yaaaaaay!!!!!!

nice...nice...nice...

.....so i prepared some of my smaller wood panels as these have already sold really well.

OK, i'm off to my work room now for a bit of creative therapy and then a nice hot relaxing bath.

Doodles and dreams....

I just have to show you this, i bought it on Etsy from my lovely bloggy friend Micki, The Secret Hermit http://www.thesecrethermit.blogspot.com/ I fell in love with it when i saw it on her blog, she's an amazing artist, please have a look! I've decided (when i can afford it) to start my collection of original art. It's a Moleskine notebook with Micki's beautiful painted illustration on the front with a beautifully written "Doodles, Dreams and Roaring good Schemes"...perfect!!! and signed by her on the back. It came beautifully packaged, thank you Micki, it's a real treasure, i love it.

This is another piece of original art i bought recently from another bloggy friend, Viv Sliwka, Hensteeth http://www.hensteethart.blogspot.com/ - I met Viv at one of her vintage shows in Ludlow recently, such a lovely lady. I love all these wonderfully talented people i've met and i feel honoured to own a piece of their art.

This is my new window display in the shop! Not brilliant, but it's difficult as the window lets in quite a bit of light. I'm limited to what i can put in there as it's right next to the counter and i didn't want people in the shop to have to look at the back of things. The chair i got from the recycling place and painted it a gorgeous duck egg blue and put the pitcher jug and some tea towels on it. I've had really nice comments about it. I'm currently thinking up my halloween and christmas display (hoping my clever sister is going to help me with ideas!!!).

Some different stock in the shop. These cards are gorgeous, they're 3d and are delicate little teapots and tea cups. There are some really nice cards around these days, all very contemporary and these seemed a little old fashioned at first, but people love them.

Gorgeous boxes:

Ribbons galore

Tibetan Bangles

Jewellery Boxes

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day" - Elwyn Bookes White

Aberdyfi

What a fabulous night and day away. It was such a nice thing to do and we feel so relaxed considering it was such a short period of time. Aberdyfi is so lovely but we arrived too late on the sunday evening to catch the fish and chip shop, so ended up in the spar with a sandwich.

I even managed a paddle in the sea!

but avoiding the jellyfish.

This was our B&B

...The room

...and the gorgeous view from the room.