Welcome to my world.....won't you come on in...

Snow is falling

All around me...

Children playing...

Having fun....

It's the season...

Love and understanding...

Merry Christmas everyone

The edge of the world

PS: This isn't real snow.   I know  I am shocked too!  I 'invested' (I don't think it's cheap at £4.99) in one of those tins of fake snow - add water and snow appears. It is great (I am not sponsored....) : the children and I mixed it again and again to watch snow form before our very eyes. We made this tableau  for our delectation on the mantelpiece. Bronte did most of the arranging.

PPS: I bought the old cake decorations from a jumble sale circa 1986.

PPPS: Last Christmas I sold a merry group of 1930 snowbabies....why, oh why....

PPPPS: The little chalet is actually a viewer thingy - with tiny views of Switzerland that move round when you click on the chimney - I gave it to Bronte last Christmas.  I am a bit of a cheapskate....This year Bronte has asked for a piece of foam for felting purposes.....I do not spend much at Christmas.

PPPPPS: The old car we have had for years - I usually display it with holiday items when we go on holiday in the summer....it takes all sorts...

PPPPPPS: Other items model's own........................

PPPPPPPS: Very,very busy with work but not so very busy getting ready for Christmas - we never are really.  I don't buy  much, don't eat  much (apart from Quality Street) and don't do much - apart from decorations....now I love decorations....

PPPPPPPPS: I really don't  spend very much over Christmas.  I never quite understand all that spending to be honest...sometimes I go a bit 'crazy' but I think that possibly only then brings me up to a sub 'average' level.

PPPPPPPPPS: I am a curmudgeonly misery guts

PPPPPPPPPS: I was recently in Chichester with Mrs X - I bought  a NEW dress - Mrs X commented that in all our years of going 'shopping' it was the only time she had seen me buy something new.....

Deers....

Thank you again for kind comments - it is so very kind of you.  I will be blog visiting tomorrow all being well (where does the time go....).  Thank you for asking where all this stuff is kept in between times - it is mainly, but not completely, contained here.  I ventured into this cupboard today - I have filled two bin liners ready to take to the CS today.  I am getting a grip!

However I am rather partial to a nice deer.

So these are some more old photographs of mine from Flickr and one or two more recent ones

The photograph above reminds me to do a post about seasonal aprons one day

These bowls are not uncommon I think - from the CS a few years ago, also in blue!

I have a 'farm' of plastic deers - well why not.  These are also CS finds over the years.  Dear Mary from The Vintage Cottage sent me the WONDERFUL deer wrapping paper that you can just see in the back of this photograph - it is quite lovely.

This fabric dates from the late 1930s I think - this little scrap I used to adorn the front a Christmas stocking that I made a few years ago -  I decorated the top with some lovely old lace and some old buttons

I will tell the tale of these very, very delicarto glass deer.  Two summers ago (I like to hold back until the time is right to share something!)  I went, as I always do, to the May Day Fayre : lots and lots of stalls with plants, cakes and old stuff.  On one stall was an old shoe box full of kernickerty  kerknackerties - glass boats, chinese figures and I could just see a deer head poking out.  The deer was 50p but I could have the box for £3:

 'I don't really want the box thank you all the same'....
'Oh go on we need to get rid of stuff'...
'So do I!'

I handed over my £3...cough, cough..... and carried the box under my arm (bike basket was full of plants.....and cake) whilst steering my bike. The bike and I rattled all the way home.  When I reached base camp I found not one deer but two!  How these have survived undamaged for years (and the bike journey) I do not know.

I had never seen anything like these before so I Googled 'glass deers' and found this information about them .  They are little mercury glass survivors from the 1920/30s so deserve their place in chez Cootard I think.

Ever since that summer they have lived on the mantle piece - enjoying the space around them and taking in the fresh air devoid of shoe box atmos!

I will be putting holly in them for  this month

Deerio!

 More deer puns welcome.

Hotch potch........

Thank you again for kind words re: gloves - much needed on these colder days.

Here are some old photographs of mine from Flickr - I was looking at them all recently and thought that I would transplant them to here.

I have an box of these glass cottages.  

I am rather partial to a nice old decoration.....

She looks a bit worried doesn't she?

Have you seen the price of these Father Christmas jugs on ebay!! Despite what you may read these are not rare in the slightest.  I saw one only three weeks ago in a charity shop for 4.99 - I did not buy it though....I felt that I had enough.  As a child we knew it was Christmas when the Father Christmas jug appeared (given by Bird's custard if you saved up tokens I think)

I am rather partial to a tin or two........I went through them the other day and found a few duplicates...gulp

The bunting above I made years ago and below is my festive bag

Below is my festive bowl...

 

This took an age to make a long time ago now and it was very fiddly.  I do not have a special cutter outer machine so I drew the letters by hand (trying to get them vaguely similar sizes) and then used bondaweb (unbranded cheaper version!) to adhere letters - I did sew round them but forgot to photograph that bit. Note that the shelf is not as full up here....this was taken a few years back...

From time to time I also use NEW fabric

Smelling salts......

The photograph below is our local museum - I love it

I think that I have missed a page of verse here

I will do a separate post on deers.....

...and robins

...and tea towels.....

These are tiny crackers that I have had for years - I added the little buttons because the motif was missing on a few of them

Poor old Dom.....

....actually he is several years younger than me...but he is still poor old Dom....

PS: Yesterday I had occasion to travel on a Number 26 red  London double decker bus heading north towards  Hackney Wick....a very nice bus route I think.  I trundled across the bridge, past my old haunt - The National Theatre -  through the old City, Old Bailey, St Pauls, Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, Columbia Road (not the same any more) and the Geffrye Museum.  Nearly as good as my favourite bus routes, namely the 68 and the 159 : both of course very good indeed if you just wish to take in views as you trundle through town.  LONDON was PACKED.   I think someone had told them that I was in town!   We went to 'Liberty' for old times sake.  I am getting very, very old....'Liberty' (I felt) was not how it used to be....'Liberty' used to be magnifico.....I would visit just to gaze upon it.....'Liberty' used to have 'special things'....yesterday 'Liberty' just had just expensive things.  I have seen the trailer for the telly programme where the  new'ish manager says (in a derisory way) that it is like 'Are you Being Served'. I think that Mr Burstell is gradually shaping 'Liberty' into yet another ordinary department store  - for me the essence of Liberty was that idiosyncratic individualism (I can identify with that!).  They were filming  yesterday for the programme and I was wistfully thinking that I wished they would ask me what I thought....I like a bit of old fashioned me....

PPS: 'Tis odd how many of my photographs appear on Pinterest but now attributed to that well known blogger...Google...Ahem!