Treasury

I am in a treasury - whoo hooo!!

I love the title DO NOT EAT! Good advice as I really don't think that paisley Cheeky Chicken would want to be eaten!

Number 6

When we were little my dad made a shed play den for me and my sister that we absolutely loved called Number 6 - he even put a number up on the door for us! In anticipation of the girls coming to stay while we were in the US, he cleared out one of his sheds and turned it into a Number 6 for them :)

Extra points from me for salvaging all of the furniture :) Good recycling/reusing Dad!

Mum made the curtains with fabric given to her by a friend

And Anya added a touch of decoration with this picture of a rainbow dragon with its rainbow egg sitting in its nest.

Mum and Dad also found the prams that me and Sarah used to play with when we were little - mine was the blue one. The dolls were also there too :)

I loved my Tiny Tears doll and now so does Anya!

Giveaway winner!

Sorry for the delay - I have been out in the garden in the rain doing some weeding!


The number was 28 which is the lovely Twiggypeasticks!! Congratulations Twiggy :) I will contact you soon to see which colour chicken you would like.

Update on the number of churches!

As I know some of you are dying to know :) We saw a grand total of 298 churches (we were hoping to reach the magic 300 but didn't) which when averaged out over the mileage we did makes a church every 2 miles or so! And to say that we did the last 80 miles or so on the motorway then that is an astonishing amount of churches!

Back tomorrow with details on who won the giveaway - you still have time to enter as I will draw the giveaway at midday (GMT) on Wednesday 29th July :)

Creative at the airport

Having 6 hours at the airport while you wait for your flight isn't often seen as being creative but when a chance remark is overheard and it sparks something in your head then it can be, especially if you have your ideas book with you!

This is my ideas book - a posh Paperchase notebook bought from a jumble sale for 30p and decorated by me :) Can you spot the chickens?? Also note my white vintage cherry dress in the bottom right - the perfect dress for traveling in.

This is an idea for a card

As you may be able to tell I am not much of a draw-er (drawer? sketcher?) I can't draw to save my life - that arrow thing on the bottom photograph - the Eiffel Tower! What do you mean you couldn't tell!! I'm much more of a bad and (very) quick sketcher with lots of scruffy notes detailing what I want to appear in the work.

Often there are no pictures - just words.

Our flight back to the UK leaves in the next couple of hours so I am going to entertain myself with writing down some more ideas and maybe trying to perfect that picture of the Eiffel Tower :)

Books

Uh oh - I found a Barnes and Noble book shop!

I bought only two magazines - I could have bought many many more but set myself a 2 magazine limit. I'm going to drool over these on the plane.

This book called out to me - handmade books made using recycled, reclaimed and upcycled materials. Very me!

Mmmmmmm - this book has lots of great ideas for mixed media work and in particular collaborative art journals which I must admit, have intrigued me for a while. I'm going to read a little more about them and then in a few weeks (or months!) I will see if I can get something organised - feel free to let me know if anyone would be interested in this :)

And I was very pleased to get my hands on this. I have scoured book stores in the UK to no avail and was on the verge of ordering it through Amazon - I'm glad I waited.

Funny signs

I love taking photographs of signs I find amusing whilst I am on holiday - here are some of the ones I have spotted so far.

Catfish Cabin - just love the huge sign with the catfish. Not really amusing but I like it anyway :)

One I spotted whilst driving through roadworks

Fillies - need I say more!

Golden Rule Bible school - just because!

A stark warning that you really should listen to - don't make meth your reality!

And this one was my favourite - whoremongers and all liars shall have their part in the lake of fire :) I like the fact that divorce and television is included on the board too. Matt says I'm going to Hell for mocking - good job I don't believe in Hell then isn't it!

Church spotting

Matt and I hadn't planned on spotting lots of churches whilst driving through this part of the States but once we had seen about 20 in the space of 15 minutes we thought that it would be fun to see how many we could spot. So far we have spotted 225 in the space of about 300 miles - thats a lot of churches :) And we still have the drive back to Atlanta on Saturday!

Rainy rain rain!

We woke up yesterday to pouring rain - it felt like being at home!

Apart from the fact that it was very warm and I was wearing a vest top which doesn't happen too often at home! We visited some great sites yesterday but as I can only upload one photograph at a time while we are here, the posts about them will have to wait until we get home :)

Guess what we have been doing?

....no prizes for this one though as if you read the blog regularly then you will know that I couldn't pass up this opportunity!!

Goodwill was huge and there really was too much stuff to choose from and the one at the top has a bag sale on - fill a carrier bag for $5! Not too shabby at all!

And just to prove that these soup cups get everywhere in the world!!

And smug browser me! And I couldn't believe the prices - I got a skirt for 25c - that's about 15p!!!!! And being me I got lots of granny style bright clothes which I'm sure you will see soon enough :)

Sweet Home.........

....... Can you guess where we are?

And yes - it is beautiful so far

Giveaway

This is now my 600 and somethingth post and I had intended to do a giveaway at 500 but never got round to it so I am doing one now :)

First up is this copy of Marie Claire Idees - I inadvertently got 2 copies of this so one can be yours!

This photograph inside made me swoon - isn't it fab?

You will also get these Hansel and Gretel recycled envelopes - along with a couple more sets :)

And because I am feeling generous I will also include one of these chicken pincushions - you choose the colour! I'll also throw in some gift tags for you too.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this post and I will draw the winner on Wednesday 29th July. Oh and I will post worldwide so please do enter if you live overseas :)

Artwork up

Some of the artwork I bought in the charity shop the other day made it up onto the walls! Organised!

One of the embroidered pictures up on the wall. The huge piece below is an indenture from 1838 showing the purchase of some land. I can't remember the exact details and I can't read the handwriting well enough to go and look at it now! We got it from a local auction.

The other embroidered piece up on the wall along with a family tree for Matt's side of the family and a copy of a line drawing of Matt's maternal grandfather.

And although I didn't buy this the other day I thought I would show it to you anyway. It's an oil painting of The Houses of Parliament with Big Ben that we bought at a car boot sale for £5 when we lived down south. We only had £7 left and we thought it would be way over budget but it wasn't!

The artwork is only a temporary thing in the dining room as when I was putting the pictures up I found damp so they will all have to come down when we re-do the dining room. It will be done after the front room though which also has damp - and the kitchen and utility room. Oh the fun of living in a 120 year old house!

My own Ali Baba!

This is what greeted me (with much cackling and laughter!) 5 minutes after I said we needed to put the washing into it to take upstairs :) Bless!

Charity shop finds

When coming back from a crafty meeting yesterday Bumble got into a parking space all by himself and made me go charity shop shopping - honestly!! He's a persuasive camper van that Bumble :)

The first thing I bought was this dress for Anya for £1 - she loves it and it is in the washing machine as I type!

I also spotted these flick books for 50p each. I used to love these as a child and the girls liked them too.

I also bought some new artwork for the dining room. The photographs don't do these pictures justice - they are beautifully embroidered onto some sort of silk.

Just look at the work that has gone into this one - a bargain at £30 I think.

And this one was only £5 - it needs cleaning and I'm going to see if I can do that soon. I think all the pictures came from the same person as the donater number (for claiming tax back) was the same for all 3 pictures. There were lots more but I these were my favourites.

Not bad for less than an hour's enforced shopping trip :)