A quick hello from France

Hello my sweet friends! I am at a friend's house in the valley at the moment and have hijacked their internet so that I can pop in and say hello to you all. Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and emails when I left for France. I have only been to a couple of little vide greniers so nothing much to report yet, but boy, we are loving being here in this beautifully peaceful bit of heaven on earth. I'll try and upload some photos in a week or so, if I can work out how to do it, lol, with all the gadgets I need, arrghh. Wish my DS Nick was here to do it for me. I wish you all a wonderful summer and I'll try and pop in again very soon.
big hugs to you all,

toodlepip xxx

And off to France we go!

A few more hours and we will be on our way to the cottage in France. For almost two months, woohoo! The first few days will be spend cutting the grass on the two acres, clearing the cottage of cobwebs, etc etc. But then, blissful hours spent under the trees in the garden watching the very slow paced life go by in the valley below us, waving to the occasional tractor going past, arranging getogethers with our friends and neighbours and delicious French cheeses and wines. Aaaaahhhh.

I meant to write so many emails to some very dear friends before leaving, but time is against me, so please know that I'll be thinking of you always and will try my best to catch up with you when I am out there and able to get online.

I might be able to post a few times while we are there, I have bought a laptop and friends in the valley have wifi broadband access, so even if they are not there, I'll be able to sit outside and use it, woohoo! I don't think I will be able to take part in any of the usual challenges and parties though, because I have very little in the way of craft supplies at the cottage ( working on it, lol ). But the few bits I do have, will go into my little craftavan ( caravan taking over for crafting purposes ), and I'll be sure to spend some time in there.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with some photos from last summer, some of you will already have seen them, but hey......



Sunrise on one side of our cottage

Sunset on the other side of our property

My "Craftavan"


Au revoir, mes amis! I'll really miss reading your blogs and emails. Toodlepip xxx

I am soooooooo late......

...with all the usual challenges and parties this week. Its been a busy time, getting ready for our trip to the cottage next week. But I got told of a couple of days ago for not posting my inchie or tag, or taking part in White Wednesday, Treasure Hunt Thursday etc. Well, it wasn't so much a telling off, as a concerned enquiry about my wellbeing. Bless.

I had a bit of time this afternoon, so I made this week's inchie and the Tag Tuesday challenge tag as well. The inchie prompt was SWEET. I think my muse has already gone off to France, lol, because it took me ages to come up with something. Whilst I was making my cup of tea, stirring in a spoonful of sugar, I had my little lightbulb moment - Sugar, thats sweet! I used a sweet little vintage image of a sugar ad, coloured it in a little and used white German glass glitter for the spilled sugar -


Once the inchie was done, I started on the Tag Tuesday challenge. Now this one really was difficult, because the word for this one was SUMMER and, oh, there were just about a million things that immediately sprang to mind. I didn't want to go with the summer on the beach theme, nor could I really go with the summer in the French cottage theme, so in the end I decided to use the one thing which always means summer to me - a garden filled with roses in full bloom. I printed out some rose images, cut them out carefully, and arranged them on a tag covered with music paper. Made a little banner, and that was about it, quite simple, but you can almost smell the beautiful scent of the old fashioned roses -


At least I have managed to catch up with a couple of things, wish I had the time to photograph things for White Wednesday and Pink Saturday, but alas, I have way too many things still to do. Also, I am really missing my Nikon camera, this little point and shoot one just isn't up to it, sigh. And I won't get it back before we go to France, which means I will have to manage without it for TWO whole months! 4 -5 weeks for a repair, I think thats quite disgraceful especially as it is the 4th time the darned thing has gone wrong. Ooops, I am ranting, lol.

I am linking the post to Every Inchie Monday HERE

and to Tag Tuesday on Blog Challenge Garden HERE

I am toddling off again now. I'll try and get a couple of posts in before we go, but can't promise.
Have a great weekend, toodlepip xxx

What better to do on a Sunday

than playing with lace and trims and images? I had all sorts of things out on my desk in order to make the SUMMER tag for this week's Tag Tuesday challenge. And what happened? I got totally sidetracked again, lol. I started filling up my little traveling craft case for the summer in France, which meant printing out images, sorting out some embellishments and trims to take etc etc. You can imagine how hard it is to reduce a whole big craft room to a tiny little beauty case, right?

And I didn't even get very far with that, lol, because I got even further sidetracked whilst I was playing with the embellishments and trims. Braids and fringing in particular. I decided to put together a couple more little collections of trims as the other ones I had put in blog shop were gone so quickly. Here they are -

Textured Neutrals -


Grande Passementerie -


And what happened to the SUMMER tag? The one thing I should have made today? Errm........ lets just say it is still in the planning stage. Ooops.

I trust that all my wonderful American friends are having a fantastic 4th July weekend with lots of wonderful celebrations. I am so looking forward to hearing all about it in the next couple of days.

Toodlepip xxx

Pink Saturday - Vintage Candlewick

I love vintage blankets and bedspreads. Gorgeously tactile old wool blankets, light as a feather cellular blankets and best of all, candlewick bedspreads. This is one of my favourite candlewick bedspreads, it has the most delicious pink and green floral design -








I need to get out into the garden and tackle the jungle, wish me luck!

I am linking this post to PINK SATURDAY at How Sweet The Sound. So much pink loveliness to look at!

Toodlepip xxx

Oh boy, did I get a surprise!

And it all started with just a few tiny little numbers. Price tags, to be precise. Most of you will know Julia of Vintage with Laces, her creations are absolutely to die for, drop dead gorgeous. Well, a little while ago, she showed some vintage price tags on her blogs, and I commented on them and wonderful woman totally out of the blue offered to send me some. Can you see me refusing her offer? Nah, lol, of course not. When I said that they were perfect for Green Paper's vintage glue book course which I am going to do whilst in France, she said that she might have a few more bits that would be good for that................

So, instead of a little envelope with a few little price tags, I received a big package! Oh, and an envelope as well, lol, because she found something else to send me after she had already sent the package. But of course the postal service being what it is, both arrived at the same time. And I was thrilled to bits!

But see for yourselves, because I am going to unwrap it all with you alongside me -


Carefully wrapped little treasures -


One of her beautiful tags -


with my initial! She always adds the most perfect little personal touches -


I was totally overwhelmed when I started unwrapping all the beautiful little parcels -


So many gorgeous paper goodies, perfect for the vintage glue book, just like Julia said -


And these are the little price tags, which started it all -

Aren't they just the cutest little things?


And what was in the little envelope? A real beautiful little treasure, old copper initial stencils, with my initials. both my proper full first name, and the shortened version as well, what a precious gift -

Isn't she just the most wonderful friend a blogger could have? I have said it so many times, but it is true and can't be repeated often enough, bloggy friends are the very best! Thank you so much, Julia!

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, toodlepip xxx