China Love

Yes sir, I love china, heaps and heaps.

Think it's my Mum's fault.

I've loved it since I was a teenager.

And I especially love it when I get it for a bargain.

Like this selection above, which completely doesn't match, but that just makes it all the more special, cause one day when I find a random bit which does match a bit I've already got- that's like winning lotto (I think kind of, not really).

The blue/gold floral cup above is a new find from the weekend trip to Goomeri, we called in at the (expensive) Kilkivan Antique shop, this cup was $6.  That's alot, for a random cup.  It's a Crown Staffordshire and the saucer under it was also $6 and its Anysley and soooo cute. 

When I find the cup that matches that saucer, that will be a winner!

But until then, I love it like this.

And check out this gorgeous gold Japanese Coffee set for 6 lucky people sipping coffee.

My Mum found me this at the Collectorama on the weekend.  I mentioned that I was into gold china at the moment and she found this for $25.  Now that is a serious bargain, it is mint condition and I can't wait to use it.  Coffee at my house very soon for the local readers with scones too to try it out...actually, that will be open to the 'commenting' local readers only, hint, hint!!  Thanks Mum, I love it.

This is what makes me happy, piles of this stuff!

This is all thrifted china, all english and all old and unmatching, I love it.

This is a few years worth at least, the op shop ladies are getting smart and pricing it high, not as many bargains these days.

I changed my kitchen hutch display last night, to a yellow theme, since I am loving the gold.

That is a very precious carnival glass bowl on the left that belongs to my husbands mum.  I don't know alot about carnival glass, but I believe it is very precious and I really love it.

The plain yellow Royal Albert cup and saucer with gold rim belongs to Lilly, she let me get it out of the china cabinet to join the other yellow friends on the hutch!  I gave it to her last year.  She loves yellow!

And here is my efforts from yesterday's car journeys, nearly sewn up. 

It will be a small cushion but so bright and colourful.

It is Lucy from Attic 24's pattern.  With a couple of changes also known as mistakes. Never mind!  But now looking at this picture, they are so obvious to me and making me a bit mad now the more I look at it!

I'm making one of these!

I just love this! And I'm going straight out tomorrow after school drop off to get some rub on letters! I will have to get some beautiful scrap book papers as well I think and a couple more balls of Cleckheaton natural 8 ply cotton for the next cardigan that is already 1/2 done.

Click here for the link to this very sweet tutorial.

antiques and collectibles fair

Here are the treasures we bought...

Lilly chose the tiny little doll with sleeping eyes and the smallest crocheted dress you could imagine. The doll is 60's. I got another pair of Siamese Cats for my collection, a Holly Hobbie book about Mothers, a milk glass cup and saucer, a demitasse cup and saucer, some miniature figurines, some random plates and 2 trio's of Elizabethan Mother (my Mother's Day present and one is for my second best friend!)

Here is the new pink addition to my china cabinet to go beside the violets that I got last year at the same show. These cups are tiny, made in Japan but I'm not sure of anything else about them, so so sweet.

sight words ruined my picture

Last night Lilly and I did this week's sight words homework. Our clever teacher always gives us interesting things to do. This week we were supplied with a plain white piece of cardboard a bit smaller than an A4 size and we had to fill it in with colour, this is what we did, mainly Lilly.
I did some of the flowers on the right, the trees and birds nests and helped fill in the blue sky.
Then we had to glue on the sight words, 6 of them, randomly onto the work, then draw puzzle pieces or wavy lines and carefully cut them all out making a puzzle.
Well the big mistake I made was helping create this masterpiece, naming flowers then drawing them, adding the birds nests (she could feel it in her heart when I drew the first bird, I could see it in her face!) she was so taken with our work and so happy. But then she went into an absolute state of desrepair when I read out the next instructions of glueing over the top and then cutting it up!!!!
So I scanned the picture before any of this happened and now I'm blogging the original drawing so everyone can appreciate it, cause she is still not happy about it all, and scoffs at the puzzle when we put it together.

Sesame Street

So this cool as Sesame Street sheet became shorts.

owned and worn by a cool as and cute as little boy!

How could I choose which cheeky picture to put in here, so here are both of

my little beauty boy.

And so far I haven't had the right idea for what I can do with the rest of it (the sheet), which is destined to head Kirsten's way, since this little rascal's mummy found it!

i can feel it in my heart

Lill and I headed out together today for the last day of school hols, we had a few jobs to do and I thought we'd check out some Op shops as well. So driving along I am looking at her in the rear vision mirror and I tell her the plan then she says to me:

Mum I think this is going to be a great day today, I can feel it in my bones,

actually I can feel it in my heart.

We exchanged a Pandora charm that I already had and got our bracelets cleaned while we were there. Browsed in the Op shop next door while we waited then had a smoothie and coffee followed by a visit to Nimble Stitches, the tiny boutique fabric store (the only boutique fabric store!) on the coast and picked out some fabric for a dress for a little friends birthday.

Then we headed on down to the other Op shops we check out every so often and found a few more treasures.

I think my favourtie find is this little pink vase which I think is actually a candle stick that my lovely little Lilly discovered with her heart.

See what a packet of Spring Flowering Seeds does...

For Mothers Day, amongst Worm Farms and Royal Albert tea cups I got a packet of seeds, which were purchased completely unsupervised at our school Mothers Day stall-so I think I did pretty well there. So they were scattered, actually dumped in one big clump over the top of the pansies and this is what happened.

Tags for my bags and other stuff, and a cute newly acquired tea cup and saucer (thankyou my bestest friend Kimmy) that just so happens to look perfect with this orphaned plate.

Remember this image...we are hoping it does actually grow into juicy corn, stay tuned for that one too.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs- not sewing related at all!

Ever since I was little I have been fascinated by Snow White! I think it may have started back when we used to go here...every time we went to Port Macquarie on holidays. Fantasy Glades is now closed unfortunately, my kids would have loved it, I think my favourite thing was the 7 Dwarfs house (you could go in, upstairs and everything, furniture the lot- all cubby house size!) and the coin operated cars- they were great, oh the Diamond Mine, I could go on and on, maybe it was because the people that ran Fantasy Glades were all Dwarfs themselves, I don't know but I loved it all! It first opened in 1967 and closed in 2002, imagine when it was sold all the stuff up for grabs.
We found this set at the markets recently, made from the usual garden gnome plaster and painted, we spray lacquered them all so they last a bit longer without fading and peeling. They are standing under the big camphor laurel tree near the kids play area.

Thanks for reading while I relive my childhood memories! I am going to dig up some old Fantasy Glades photos from Mum's!