me and a tin of black paint

Black in small doses  seems to work well at the moment.  It compliments the neutrals we love so much, and tolerates the occasional loud splash of a brighter colour.

I've had fun restoring an old and very battered backgammon board found for next to nothing at a fair, and then since I had some paint left over, I tried it on a cutlery box.  What do you think?

 the box when I started - not a pretty sight!

- I replaced the main panels and painted them ... black -

- I toyed with the idea of leaving the board without any markings -

- I tried to call it stylish; my son  called me lazy -

so we compromised and I painted in the simplest board possible!

 then I moved onto a cutlery box ...

I can't sign off without thanking you for all your kind words about my pictures

this weekend - you really know how to make a girl happy!!

Thank you for reading my blog, thank you for your generosity!

garden favours

The first show of annuals is fading away in the garden, leaving behind their seed pods and making space for the next wave.

This is a good time to make some very personal favours, gifts to special friends, thank-you's to a dinner hostess.  I've found an idea that seems to please, costs nothing and takes less time than required to write this post !!

 To make these little packets of home grown seeds, you'll need some greaseproof or waxed paper, a sewing machine, paints and ......  some seeds.  Here I chose seeds from a pink lupin.

To create a tiny and very simple watercolour, don't get ambitious, keep it simple, naive even.  You're not looking for a botanical print - unless you're clever enough to do that, then just go for it !! - For the lupins, I first painted in some rough lines showing the position of the lupin heads and some foliage beneath.

Next I dotted in some of the lupin colour, blotting with kitchen paper as I went to keep everything soft.

I painted in the name of the flower, again as simply as possible

To make the seed sachet, I simply folded a piece of waxed paper in half and machine sewed each of the long upright sides, making a sachet open at the top.

I popped the seeds into the sachet, you don't need very many, and sewed the little painted paper onto the top of the sachet to seal the seeds inside.  Voila !  I told you, it was quicker than this post to finish !

Oh yes, and just for fun I added the words 'de mon jardin'  -  from my garden.

Any flowers will do for this,  providing they are easy to draw - Nigella is good because they are so vague and fluffy!  Have fun!

new bed makeover and cushions for the fair

Preparing for the fair, I knew I needed a bed to show the linens, but wouldn't have the space to take a huge double bed.  I found a pair of vintage single beds and reworked them.  Here's the before and after, an easy project that anyone could handle.  And old beds like this can be found world wide, usually going for a song.

 I wanted to use the slight recess on the head and foot of the bed to put an upholstered panel.  So after painting the beds, I cut pieces of wood to size, and covered them with padding and an old piece of vintage ticking.  My staple gun came into its own again here.

On the head panel I wanted three buttons.  I had pre-pierced holes in the right place before covering.  Now I just had to sew through the wood and attach the buttons.  For extra strength I  placed a thin flat button on the back as well.

My only solution for putting the panels into place was glue, quick and easy!

I really planned to show you  the two beds set up in the garden covered with some of the cushions I've been making for the fair, but we are having alot of showers today, and I didn't have a long enough dry moment to put it all together.  I'm sure you get the picture.

I'm sure loads of you have already done this sort of project, I'd love to hear about it.


PS  I seem to have lost the 'follow' buttons on my blogs -
anyone have any bright ideas about retrieving them?!
I'd be grateful to hear if this has happened to you to
Thank you

linen cushion tutorial

With all my stock of monogrammed sheets, I inevitably have some worn out treasures, that can no longer decently be draped across beds.  While sorting them today I decided to use two of the monograms to make  cushion covers for the guest cottage.

 I used

2 large monograms and remnants of the sheets, 

one heavy metis dischloth.  

a little ribbon

60 minutes of my time (OK it took a bit longer but I'm trying hard to make this sound easy!!)

I made this project as easy as possible.    Rather than fiddling around with buttons to close the cushion, I used sections from the hems of the sheets where I already had a perfect and wide hem, and overlapped these to form an envelope closing.

The first inset monogram is placed behind the linen cover piece.  Here I cut an X opening and opened up a rectangle to the exact size required.

I then basted the monogram in place before hemming it in with small tight stitches.

The second cushion was even simpler - I machine zig-zagged the monogram onto the centre of the cushion linen. 

Then to cover the machine stitches I simply stitched 4 lengths of narrow white ribbon and tied a little knot at each corner.  For those who don't like to sew, all this could have been done with fabric glue.

Once firmly in place I could sew my envelope backing pieces on.  Right side to right side, making sure they overlap enough.

Et voila!

And if you're looking for real old French pillow cases to decorate your sofa or bed,
check out what just arrived in my store.

the writing on the wall - my chalkboard

I've always loved to have a blackboard in my kitchen,  shopping lists, mots d'amour, rugby fixtures, it all has to be put somewhere.   But the one I used to have tended to get in the way.  It  hung a bit close to a door, and now and again we'd knock it as we walked past.

So I decided to go two dimensional ...  I love painting on walls, it's very relaxing.  When the children were little I found it hard to get cross if they wrote on a wall because I know how good that feels!

I painted a trompe l'œil frame around the blackboard, and to make it more fun screwed a couple of little aluminium hooks for my tea towels and aprons underneath.

And the day I don't like it any more I shall get out the brushes and start all over again!

Very happy to be linking in to the chalkboard party at SIxty Fifth avenue