Happy New Year!

Get your glad rags on and have a super New Years Eve, whatever you are doing!! And a Happy New Year to all my readers and your family and friends, hope 2011 brings you much happiness.

Welcome the Boudoir Doll Jester!

Well looked what arrived in the post this morning!!! I purchased this gorgeous 1930's Jester "Boudoir Doll" through a wonderful lady who runs a lovely shop in Somerset. Niki of Nostalgia at the Stone House recently blogged about this little man and showed beautiful photo's of him in her shop window and as soon as I saw him I knew I had to have him.
Now I know these kind of dolls are not to everyone's taste, I am sure when my husband arrives home this evening and walks in on this little man in our lounge he is certainly not going to be ohhhing and ahhhing over him like I did, and my kids definitely didn't "get it" this morning when I was fluffing around him arranging him in one of their chairs, they looked at me like Mum had lost the plot! And to top it all, quite a few of my friends think I'm pretty crazy with some of my taste in these old dolls, but I just adore the quirkiness of this gent, yes, he's not the prettiest toy on the block by far, but I love the fact that he is old, from the thirties and has that flapperesque look about him.

One member of our household who seemed impressed was Oscar our dog!! Although I'm not entirely convinced of his intentions, I secretly think he's on the side of my friends who don't approve of my dolls and if my back is turned he may just seek revenge for them and sneek up and chew poor ol' Jester, so the lounge door remains shut at all times when we are not in the room! Earlier this year I made a wonderful find, a beautiful Boudoir Flapper Doll, she is my absolute treasure and she has pride of place in my bedroom, I realised I hadn't blogged about her yet, so I've popped some photo's below, she's a real beaute.....

I adore her painted face and marcel waved hair. She wears her original silk pyjama's with a large black sash around her middle.

I agree, she's much prettier than the Jester, but they are both adorable all the same. Jester does need some attention, he has some bare patches at the back of his knees which need repair and a few faint stains on his costume, but this all adds to his charm. He'll be a long term fixture in our household now, coming out every Christmas, so be sure to look out for him in my decoration photos for next year!

All Decked Out....

Last weekend was spent decorating my home for the Christmas holidays. We always really enjoy this time as a family, the boys love going up into the loft to bring down the many boxes containing all the decorations, we then take the short drive to the Christmas Tree Farm to choose our tree, and this year we found a beauty.......
I love going through each box and unwrapping the decorations ready to display, last year I purchased the gorgeous "Grubby Skating Mouse" pictured below, she is adorable and has a wonderful cinnamon and coffee scent baked into her clothing, amazingly the scent is still clinging to her clothing a year on.

My little cycling Santa always has pride of place on my old wooden trunk next to a card cutout Christmas tree.......

Another decoration I always enjoy unwrapping each year is the pretty Jester below, I can't remember where I purchased him but I've had him several years now and always look forward to displaying him alongside my other pieces.....

I have lots of different decorations for the tree, I've collected them over several years, and they are all so different, below is a little fabric angel, cute isn't she.....

In the Garden Room I love to decorate my Santos Doll in keeping with the current Festive Season, I have filled her cage skirt with pine cones and hung a pretty fabric tree decoration from her hand....

The Dining Table is covered in my Christmas Tablecloth and decorated with various favourites, although I do change these quite regularly depending on my mood.......

My favourite shelf unit that contains pieces of my art and treasured photos, vintage button jars and old photo albums has been decorated with the handmade garland that I made during my last get together with the "Vintage Ladies" (see earlier post), also lots of little fairy lights and my tin skating lady (below).....

Twiggy the Reindeer (below) looks amazing at night with his antlers all lit up........

Below is another photo of my treasured Santos Doll and at her base my his 'n' hers mice, a recent purchase from the Wealden Fair.....

The Kitchen doesn't go undecorated either, berry garlands and fairy lights brighten up this space......

We had a lovely Christmas Hamper arrive at our door, a gift from my husbands workplace, it contained lots of scrumptious goodies for the festive season, I just had to photograph it, below.

So this is Christmas Style at my house for this year, I hope you've enjoyed the little tour, now I'm off to have a cuppa and some shortbread from the delicious hamper!

A Message for Santa...

With Christmas Eve fast approaching it's time to get those decorations up, plan the Christmas Dinner and get out all those finishing touches ready in time for the big day!! And these little wooden door hangers are a magical way to decorate any little childs (or big childs) door on Christmas Eve.
I have hand painted each door hanger using acrylic paint and added stamped flourishes. The vintage images are printed onto matt photo paper and then pretty butterfly wings are then added, the wings are either printed onto acetate for a transparent effect, or fluffy paper to give a velvet feel to the touch.

On some of the hangers the message is printed onto decal paper and then wet and slid onto the hanger, with others I have printed onto ordinary photo paper and adhered the cut out with tacky glue.

The hangers really do look very pretty, and children love to hang them on their door on Christmas Eve to ensure "HE" calls on them!

All The Fun of the Fair.....

Finally I have managed to put together this post showing some of the fabulous findings at this years Wealden Mid Winter Fair. It was a super three days, despite the weather, lots of people braved the snow and turned out to shop, shop, shop!! Amongst the many visitors I had to my stall, these two lovely ladies above popped by on the Sunday, the young lady on the right purchased one of the felt brooches I had for sale and proudly wore it back to my stall with her Sister!! To my delight my creations were very well received, with several customers returning to my stall several times over!!

I met lots of lovely people, some of whom have already been in touch with me for on-line and bespoke orders which is wonderful! And even a couple of shop owners expressing an interest.

On the Sunday I had a very good friend of mine take over the running of my stall during the afternoon so I could have a wander around the fair and meet the other Exhibitors, below are some photos of the beautiful items for sale....

These gorgeous fascinators, hats and floral brooches are by "Love it Like Vintage", they are beautiful, so feminine and delicate, you can find more information on the company here!

I did succumb and spend a little myself at the Fair, the two little mice below caught my eye and now have pride of place on my bookshelf.

All the stall holders presented their stalls beautifully, they were all very eye catching with an array of unusual products.

There were alot of handcrafted items too, the bunnies below were just scrumptious!

Some stalls were like mini curiosity shops selling amazing vintage finds, Kirsty Allsop would have been in second hand heaven here...

One of my favourite stalls was "A Day in Provence" run by husband and wife, Shirley-Ann and Ian (photos below)...

I met Shirley-Ann last Christmas when I visited the Wealden Fair as a consumer, Shirley inspired me to work hard and aim to have a stall at the 2010 Christmas Fair, which I thankfully achieved.

Shirley-Ann sells a collection of handmade and vintage accessories for the home and garden, including original art by herself and her husband.

Unfortunately "A Day in Provence" does not currently have a web prescence, they are working on it! As soon as they do I'll be posting it here.

There were many, many more wonderful stall holders that I haven't photographed, but you can still find a full list of the Exhibitors on the Wealden Fairs website, it's well worth a look.

We Made It!!!!

Despite the weather the show must go on.... and on it went!! What a fab first day, after all the struggles of yesterday all stall holders turned out to make the Wealden Fair's first day a success. Thank you to all shoppers who braved the weather to visit the event, it was great to see everyone. We still have two days to go, the Fair will be open tomorrow 9am to 4.30pm and again on Sunday 10am to 4pm.. hope to see you there! For my overseas readers I promise to take photos of other stall holders and their stalls as there are some fabulous stalls to drool over so watch this space!

It's SNOW joke!!!

Well after months of creating and lots of hard work the Wealden Fair is finally here and WE'RE SNOWED IN!!! Aaarrrgghhh, so frustrating. I was able to get to the site yesterday to set up, as did many of the other stall holders, there was a lovely atmosphere, very festive, and the site looked amazing, here are a few photos of my stall.
Once set up I had a pretty nail biting drive home in the dark and snow along country roads, but we all kept hopeful that by morning we could still make it in. But as dawn arrived it was evident that we were all going no where, so reluctantly the fair was cancelled for today.

For those of you that are hoping to go, it is planned to open tomorrow and Saturday, and they have now laid on another day on Sunday. Please keep checking the Wealden Times website for updates on opening. If you have purchased tickets in advance for a set day, do not worry, they will honor those tickets on any of the forthcoming three days.

Let's hope between now and Sunday we can get in at some point to get this show on the road so to speak, everyone involved has put in so much hard work it would be such a shame to not get even one decent day out of it.

And if you do come along, don't worry about the cold, the tents are very warm, all heated, and there are lots of food areas serving hot food and drinks.

Of course if you do decide to brave the weather and venture out to the Fair, please take great care!

May I take this opportunity to thank all of you who have contacted me with warm wishes and support your kind words are so greatly appreciated.