How flash am I?

I have also been faffing about with a bit more jewellery making as I can’t resist those glass domes that you put over images – they look so effective.  Here’s one I made earlier posing against a pretty little vintage jewellery box I found the other day which turned out, once I got it home, to be Japanese not French.  Which doesn’t really matter except I tend to ‘specialise’ in French things with a bit of the rest of Europe thrown in occasionally.  Still, a charming vintage item is a charming vintage item wherever it comes from and I’m the boss of my shop so there!

Watch this space as tonight, probably, if there’s nothing good on the telly, I’m going to recover the lampshade on an old standard lamp that I found recently, with some stunning vintage Liberty fabric.  If the results are good, I’ll be putting the photos on here, if not, forget I said anything!

I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly impatient person but, once I decide to make something, I want to do it straight away or as straight away as possible.  So when I saw some really cute clasp purses made from Liberty fabric I felt the urge to create.  Trouble is, instead of just ordering the kit from the place I saw it, I decided that I didn’t really need the fabric from the kit as I already have a good supply of Liberty cottons and the purse frame on its own was silly money and I knew I could get a better deal elsewhere so off I went to surf the net.  Which, of course, is where the problems start.  I fell in love with some purse frames and ordered them from one place.  Then I ordered a PDF tutorial to make the purse in what I thought was the right size from another place.  Well, it was the right size but not the right shape.  The tutorial was for a rectangular shaped purse frame and mine is curved(ish).  The ‘ish’ is important because then I bought another PDF tutorial for a curved shape but then realised that mine is a cross between the two.  This is so typical of me.  Anyway, I ended up designing my own and here it is – be kind, it was my first attempt, even though I was cavalier and used Liberty and linen being falsely over-confident in my own abilities.

I’m not entirely happy with it.  I want one that comes up over the ends of the hinges more and has a flat bottom.  Still, I have some more purse frames on order and, this time, I think I have ordered the right ones for the right tutorials so there might be all different shapes and sizes coming up.  Although I may well have moved on to something else by then. 

On my way back from dropping Madamoiselle Tialys the Elder at her guitar lesson and popping in to Carrefour for some ‘bits’ having remembered that  Mr. T. does like to have some food in the house when he comes back at weekends, I went for a rummage in the junk shop as I do.  I found some pieces for my shop but I also saw this bowl which is absolutely huge – I think it was part of a pitcher and basin set – and cracked, chipped and discoloured to death – but it’s such a gorgeous pattern I just had to have it.  Well, they only wanted a euro for it - so I couldn’t just leave it there.  You will see that I have cunningly disguised all the deficiencies by turning the good side outward and filling it with huge hydrangea heads – who would know?

Anyway, I have a Japanese speaking reader who not only offered to help me with the translation but also has now told me that these little rabbits can be used as bento which is an idea from Japan where lunch is packed into a divided box and is both nutritionally balanced and visually appealing.  I know these rabbits are not boxes but, apparently that is what they are being marketed as in the book and, because my Japanese is limited to what I hear coming out of the computer when Madamoiselle Tialys the younger is watching her interminable Manga, I hadn’t realised and thought they were just for storage.  Hoorah for helpful blog readers (thanks Jenn!).

I know that the Japanese are keen on ingeniously wrapping things in beautiful fabric so those long ears tied into a knotted handle for little children (or big ones with small lunches) to carry to school is a great idea.

Of course, bunnies being bunnies, they are multiplying and I am going to need to replenish my linen and Liberty cotton stocks soon.  I got some coloured linen last time I was in the U.K. and, as I am going to visit my family next month, I will stock up on some like this lavender colour which I matched up with some Liberty cotton in the Strawberry Thief design to make this one.

Now that I know they can be lunch bags for tinies, I might well replace the buttons with stitches – just in case.

Also, I can’t wait for the little Easter eggs to come in to the shops here in France (where they don’t jump the gun as much as they do in the U.K.) so that I can pose the buns with some eggs inside.

I found some rusty old tins in a dark, dingy corner of an even darker, dingier junk shop.  I didn’t know what they were exactly but I thought they looked interesting so I bought them, took them home and started my research.  My main clue was the brand name ‘La Perpetuelle’ and what came up was a French site who had one for sale and explained that these were used by ‘Les Poilus’ in the trenches in the First World War to keep their rations in. 

And I was off!

I asked Madamoiselle Tialys’s French boyfriend why the French soldiers were called ‘les poilus’ and he said it was because they couldn’t shave very easily in the trenches and became hairy (poilu).  How interesting!  I photographed the tins with a photograph of Mr Tialys’s grandfather who did fight in the trenches but was English although he may well have become ‘poilu’ too.  You should have read the  description in my draft listing for my shop – it was soooo fascinating.

Then, I was going to do a blog post about the item PLUS the story of how Grandpa Tialys was bayoneted  in the fighting and was so afraid that the German soldiers would finish him off, he lay pretending to be dead for several days, presumably without sustenance and in terrible pain.  Then, when they did find him and realised he was alive, they took him to hospital and treated him better than he could have imagined!  By all accounts, he was a miserable old sod but then, expriencing life in the trenches, who wouldn’t be?

Anyway, Mr. Tialys and I were rather troubled by the method of getting into the glass jar inside the tin.  Where would you find a screwdriver in the trenches?  It looked rather fiddly for men up to their knees in mud and desperate for something to eat.  So I had another look around the internet and found somebody else claiming that these are old conserve jars dating from the 19th century which makes more sense to me and so that’s what I’m going to go with even though it’s not as exciting.   

Unless you know different………………

Grandpa Tialys still got his day on my blog though!

Still, it’s Valentine’s Day soon and hearts and flowers will be everywhere.  Today’s Saturday Selection – as this is not just a post about moaning and whingeing – is the beautifully named  ChezSucreChez where you can buy lovely little cross stitch items which have been made by them or kits for you to do yourself.  As you may recall me saying in the past, cross stitch drives me crazy and, as I don’t need any help in the frustration and eye strain department, I leave it well alone and marvel at the skill and patience of others.  However, Madamoiselle Tialys, the elder, has discovered a liking for the craft and I am busy collecting supplies for her so that she can make things for me for a change.    I have ordered this great little kit from ChezSucreChez so that she can make this one to give to her ‘petit ami’ on Valentine’s Day.  Her friends’ nickname for her is ‘squirrel’ (or ‘ecureuil’ as we are in France) so I thought this would be appropriate.

On with the dusting and vacuuming now – well, maybe after lunch…….

I love linen, plain linen is great, but I especially love printed linen and specially especially linen printed with spots.  This one is gorgeous and just the colours I love to use.  I feel a fabric covered sewing box coming on.

I am going to start going to my sewing group again this year – I got out of the habit and must re-start it because it is so good for my French – and if I do all the cutting and icky sticky stuff  for the box at home I can do the hand sewing bit whilst serenely chatting over an herbal infusion with the group.  Well, actually, I make them get in Earl Grey for me as it is my concession to ‘different’ tea but they all seem to prefer weird fruit or herbal concoctions.  I mean, honestly, no milk!

In the meantime, I had exhausted my stock of coffee sack owls so I made another one.  This one is a Java Type.  I must be getting a bit Valentine Dayish because I felt the urge to give him heart shaped buttons for eyes.

There is an ‘e’ after that ‘p’ but it seems to have disappeared into his little owl bot.

My dad’s a fidgety type.  He is never happier than when he is fiddling about with something mechanical – I should say ‘fixing’ rather than ‘fiddling about’ but he tends not to have a 100% success rate and, as he’s not listening……..    

I always worry he will get bored when he visits.  My mum is fine – we catch up on the gossip, she brings her knitting, she reads, she gets waited on hand and foot, as is her right,  but my dad always looks as if he is missing his own armchair and his man shed back in the U.K.

I have found the perfect solution.  I find and buy all the non-working vintage clocks in a 50 mile radius, give him free access to Mr. Tialys’ shed and the can of WD40 and he’s like a pig in the proverbial poo.  Then, if he manages to fix any of them, I can put them in my shop.  Everyone’s a winner!

Well, actually, Mr. Tialys, my Mum and the two Madamoiselles Tialys might not consider themselves winners as they have had to listen to the sound of very loud alarm bells going off all week as the clocks have been on test.  My Dad, of course, is almost stone deaf so this has not been a bother to him.

Still, it was Christmas and you need bells at Christmas.  I hope you had a Christmas with bells on too.

Time for light up santas..

and handmade baubles

Time to be helped up to the highest heights by your boyfriend….

……or your dad.

Time to dress up the animals again.    The real ones…..

………and the not so real.

Now I’ve really got to find a turkey in the next few days.  Not so easy here in France and, when you do find them, they are only the size of a large chicken.  This is because the French don’t seem to understand that, being British, we need to buy a huge turkey and then eat it in various manifestations for a week afterward…….and then make stock.  That’s not weird is it?

At the risk of offending some of you here, I’m sorry but  I just can’t help not liking them.  I appreciate that it’s a quick and easy way of updating people you don’t see very often with what’s been going on in your life but, really, I have to ask two questions.  If you really wanted them to know, wouldn’t you telephone them, email them or write to them (individually!) at some time during the rest of the year?  If they really wanted to know, wouldn’t they telephone you, email you or write to you at some time during the rest of the year?  In other words, if you were that interested in eachother, why would you wait a whole year to tell them your news?

What has sparked off this tirade, of course, is that we have just received a round robin which starts of  ‘Dear (in type)  ‘our names’ handwritten which of course is supposed to be more personal but just means a whole load of them were printed off and the names written in afterward for which, I assume, we must be grateful .   Then the author apologises for the impersonal letter but says it would take her hours of handwriting to inform all her family and friends what has been going on over the past year which implies a) we are a mere drop in the ocean of the vast network surrounding this very important person and b) we give a crap. 

After apologising for the ‘impersonal nature’ of the communication, we are given some extremely personal information.  Which boyfriend is history, and why, and what the new one does for a living. What medication is now being taken.  What surgery has been carried out and on what body part.  How busy, busy work is and how she deserved her holiday in the exotic location on the other side of the world.  If she had kids, which she doesn’t, I’m sure we would be told how well they were getting on at school and that their teachers suspect they might be ‘gifted’ .  I think it could be statistically proven that all children of round robin writers are exceptionally clever.

You might understand my rant a little better if I tell you that the giver of this particular annual information is Mr. Tialys’s sister who has our postal and email addresses and our phone number but not I hope, for the sake of future family relations, the link to my blog.

I do appreciate the irony of my complaint when here I am blogging about the trivia of my own life and people, most of whom don’t actually know me, come and read it just as I go on to other blogs and read about them.   But that’s different ………isn’t it?

So, if I haven’t offended you too much, my lovely, possibly round robin writing readers, what are your views?   Do you like receiving them/sending them/ranting about them?  I’d love to hear.

If you like books and you like handbags this great combination of the two from A Spoonful of Chocolate  is for you.

What a great conversation starter.

There’s a good selection of different books so you can express your preferences and personality. 

PLUS – for the gifted amongst you, A Spoonful of Chocolate  sells a tutorial so that you can make your very own book handbag which would be a great project for the New Year.  I’m seriously considering giving it a go as I can just see Madamoiselle Tialys with an Alice and Wonderland bag.

They do Ereader cases from books too.  I like the sort of ironic idea of carrying around an electronic book in a traditional book cover.