Got sidetracked again!

Seems to happen more and more often these days, lol. So, finally, I can show you the beautiful card my dear friend Alexandra sent me for my birthday. I so admire her style, the combination of vintage and modern, the gorgeous colour scheme, it is perfection in my eyes -

Ganz herzlichen Dank, meine liebe Alexandra, die Karte kommt mit nach Frankreich und rein in meinen Craftavan!

I also managed to find time to make my Tag Tuesday tag, on the right day! The theme was EGGS. I used 3 different greens and a yellow distress ink to colour the background in kind of Springy greens and then embossed it with little flowers. Highlighted some of the little flowers with Treasure Gold, it doesn't show up very well in the photos though. Used a scrap of 18th Century book page, printed out some antique egg images and added a sliver of corrugated cardboard. That was pretty much it -

Toodlepip xxx

A little bit of crafting

I know I said I definitely would not be making any more domino books, but I just couldn't resist making a couple more. Just had to make a cat domino book for our charity auction, another dog domino book for another charity auction, and finally a new bird domino book for a friend.

This is the cat one -

And this is the birdie one -

Also made a tag for Tag Tuesday, the theme is blue and green -

Toodlepip xxx

Tag Tuesday tag - Windows

The theme over at the Tag Tuesday blog this week is WINDOWS. I don't know why, but my mind turned dark again and showed me a ghost at the window. Lol, I shouldn't watch spooky movies!

Toodlepip xxx

Tag Tuesday Tag - Ornate

May I present to you an ORNATE, beautifully detailed, fancy piece of gold JEWELLERY, embellished with clear diamonds of the finest quality, gorgeous rubies and the sweetest pink diamonds. All real of course :-). May be used as a large brooch, could be a pendant on a massive gold chain, or you could pin it to an Ascot Ladies Day hat, lolol -

IF ONLY!

Toodlepip, xxx

Tags

I realised that the last 5 posts were all posts for Wen's Simply Neutrals Tuesday party. What happened to all the other things I wanted to post about? Like the absolutely stunning surprise nest from Vicki, which I was lucky to be able to buy, or the wonderful things from Suzy? Or any of the tags I made for Tag Tuesday? No idea, lol. But I am going to show them over the next few days, promise, and I'll start today with the tags. 4 weeks worth.

Four weeks ago, the prompt at Tag Tuesday was 'I remember when.......' ......movies were in black and white was my choice -

The next prompt was Something Old, Something New -

Then came Nature's Bounty -

And this week, the prompt is Pastels. I coloured the background with various pastel Distress Inks, gave a hand tinted little girl a pair of pastel wings and stuck pastel crystals to the background -

Toodlepip xxx

Rainy Day Crafting

We had a massive thunderstorm last night, and it is still raining today on and off. The water butts are full, the veggies are drinking up the rain, and the yellow courgettes are being checked morning and evening now to make sure we don't get any more monsters :-).

I love being in the craftavan when its raining, it is cosy and somehow more inspiring and productive. I made this week's Tag Tuesday tag, Blues and Browns, and also the Linen and Lace ATCs for Kimberly's September swap ( see sidebar ).

Please do tell me, which background do you prefer for the Blues and Browns theme this week? I really can't decide -

Blue, brown or white-ish?

Linen and Lace is a wonderful theme of course, and I had such a good time making these ATCs. I finally got to use some of the lovely images and words my friends Dorthe and Rhonda had made a long time ago, and I used some beautiful antique laces on the cards as well. Can't use my sewing machine at the moment, so everything had to be glued ( fingers crossed that it all stays glued, lol ) -

I am going to the kitchen now to wrestle one of yesterday's monsters into the soup pot! Toodlepip xxx

Done early!

We had a little dribble of  rain a couple of nights ago, not enough to even keep the surface of the earth moist for any length of time, but enough to cool the air down for a few hours. I took advantage and headed over to the craftavan, and prepared this week's tag for Tag Tuesday and ATCs for Kimberly's next ATC swap. As the heatwave continues without any promise of rain in the near future, I thought I had better get them done early, no telling when it will be bearable in the craftavan again.

Tag Tuesday theme tomorrow is Ooh La La. Although we all associate that little phrase with something a little naughty, here in France I hear it most often when something bad happens - for example, somebody at the brocante dropping a porcelain figure and bystanders going ooh la la, c'est cassé ( oh dear, that's broken ). 

Anyhoo, I have most definitely gone with the slightly naughty one, lol. Paris, Moulin Rouge, the Cancan dancers........ -

I love the CANCAN entry in a very old French dictionary at the top of the tag, ... eccentric and indecent...  tehehehe.

Kimberly's next ATC swap is for August, but as the theme is already up in her sidebar, I have started on the ATCs already. The prompt is DRESS UP. I used to have a doll similar to a Barbie when I was little and I used to dress her up in handmade clothes. I also loved to dress up myself in beautiful old clothes from my mother's and grandmother's wardrobe. And......... I also played with carefully cut out paper dolls and their little wardrobes of paper dresses, and thats what I went with for my ATCs. I thought it would be fun for the recipients to have a little play with them :-). This is one of them, the others are not quite finished yet -

I am also painting some old garden furniture our friends C and F passed on to us. My DH sands them down, and I paint them. One chair a day, lol, it is still so very hot and any effort is too much effort. I am painting the chairs in different pastelly colours, 2 of each. I really like the whimsical mixture. So far I have used the beautiful soft greyish green which I had also used for the table, a lovely shade of very light lilac/mauve,

 and yesterday this gorgeous light blue joined the others. DH is just doing the next chair, so as soon as I am done with this post, I'll be swinging the paintbrush again and painting the second chair in that lovely lovely blue -

This is the BEFORE pic :-) -

Thats it for now, back to the painting, and then hopefully I'll have time to take some pics of that lovely lace I was telling you about the other day.

Toodlepip xxx