elfie & Me

Naughty, naughty.

Naughty me has not been near the blog for weeks. It has become a sad and neglected space so I'm going to shower it with pretty pictures to make it feel better.

Now let me share with you a gift that came to Pixieland from the lovely Teena. Vintage hankies by Mabel Lucie Attwell. Aren't they sweet? I remember having a set of these when I was a little girl but they must of got lost along the way somehow. 

I'm gonna frame these as they are too cute to put in a drawer (or blow my nose on).

I'm signing off for two whole weeks as we are all off on an epic road trip. Sunny California here we come! It's tea time, I haven't even started packing or even got the cases out of the cupboard and we're leaving at dawn. Do I get the prize for the world's most disorganised traveller? But I have downloaded loads of fab Beach Boys/ Mamas and Papas/ the Doors for that West Coast feel. A girl's got to get her priorities right!

See ya soon!  Claire xx

P.s Any tips on where to visit will be gratefully received. And any addresses of California purveyors of kitsch, vintage and fancy tat most welcome. I should be checking in on the blog if Mr M doesn't forget to pack the laptop!

Vintage and Handmade

What a wonderful day of delights it was at Vintage and Handmade! Here is some of the Pixieland stall which had lots of lovely visitors.

 

Thank you to everyone who said came and said hello, it was lovely to put names to faces at last.

And I admired Frank who was created  by Nicky. Isn't he gorgeous?

And as the pixie camera is generally rather crap, the lovely Sal has let me use these pictures. you can see more at her flickr group.

Firstly, Sal's amazingly colourful stall -what a feast for the eyes.

 

My favourite stall: Cowboys and Custard. Michele  created this wonderful display as well as organising the whole fair with Jayne. They did a brilliant job! 

Of course there was much feasting on cakes too. Did you know that tea and cakes were free for stall holders? I was rather worried I would have to be shoe-horned out of the doors at closing time but luckily the busy atmosphere kept me on my feet. And a lovely gentleman brought round dainty cups of tea at regular intervals. Oh yes, we were spoilt.

But do you know what the worst thing was? Not being able to shop because I was on my own. Sigh! But then my fairy godmother arrived in the form of my good friend Jo, who kindly offered to man the stall for a bit while I rushed round buying all sorts of treasures.

And what did I get?

These two tins from Cowboys and Custard. The one on the left was made for me as I am a painter of toadstools, don't you think?

 I have no idea what chocolate table violets are, but they sound delicious. 

Lots of tiny vintage Chinese lanterns. How I love these!  I've put them in a jar so I can look at them every day until Christmas. 

Finally it was time to pack up and off for my last night at Jo and Scott's beautiful house. They made us so welcome, it was like being on holiday with the good weather and fine food on offer :-). Alexei and I slept in Finlay's magical room tucked into the roof. 

We were sorry to go but looking forward to seeing Roland who had been looking after the furry friends and in our absence, had done a lot of tidying up and had even mowed the lawn. (I normally have to do this and I grumble about it.) It's good to be home but the weekend away was fab! Can't wait for the next one.

Making things . . .

Yes, I'm making things madly at the moment for Vintage and Handmade - less than two weeks away now. I'm getting very excited although I suspect Roland and Alexei are getting fed up with the amount of stuff that is cluttering up the table and that I keep forgetting to provide meals and walk around enthusing about nice string and cake decorations. All the exhibitors at Vintage and Handmade are contributing home made cakes for the day so you can shop and eat cake at the same time. Heaven.

Anyway this is what I needed the nice string for, although I think it is really called twine.

 

A Pixie Peg board.  I've been meaning to make one of these for ages and ages but never got round to it. It's amazing what you can do if you have a deadline isn't it? Catherine from Mollycupcakes painted the pegs for me as Catherine's polka dots are the best -really precise and a nice dollop of paint. Roland is very impressed with the quality of her painting and he is possibly the fussiest man alive so that is praise indeed. I've put some in the shop and I will be taking them along to Vintage and Handmade. 

Alexei has got one above his fireplace which is where most of his treasures are kept. Currently the Irish dancing trophy is in pride of place. I'm very proud of him of course. I love dancing too but the thought of dancing on stage fills me with horror.

Not forgetting, the winner of name the picture in the last post is Rebecca with "Hello sunshine" It was a difficult choice as there were lots of great suggestions. I know where to come when I get stuck for inspiration again. 

Talking of inspiration, would you believe it but I've got LOADS of new ideas and sketches for drawing but, alas, no time to draw them up as I've got to get on with making stuff instead. Inspiration is like buses, none for ages and then it all comes at once. Sigh!

Gifts

Just look at this beauty . . . an original Mabel Lucie Attwell Money box. There it was in the window of one of Rochester's antique shops. Unfortunately there were not nearly enough pennies in the pixie purse to buy it so I tried to forget it. Of course, I causally mentioned it to the other half who, although appreciates lovely and unusual things, has been known to mutter about the house being full of "pointless objects". However, he willingly came and admired it with me and without any persuasion on my part, did a deal with the man in the shop and "Voila!" –it's mine. A totally unexpected gift from the very, very lovely Roland and I promise not to moan too much about cooking your tea in future. I'm very lucky, I know, and I get a warm feeling every time I look at it.

Today I was very touched that Alexei, very thoughtfully, bought me a flower ring back from his school trip, also: a tiny cuddly bush-baby for himself and a large plastic sword. What a lot for £5! By all accounts, the museum shop did very well today and the mini bush-babies were very popular, especially with the boys which surprised me a bit. Actually, I shouldn't be surprised because Alexei's friend came for a sleepover recently clutching a giant Tardis stuffed to the gills with tiny teddies which was not at all what I expected it to contain.

So as I'm feeling joyful, here's a happy drawing of Elfie from this weeks drawings. It hasn't got a title yet so if anyone feels inspired to think of one, I will send the first numbered print off the pixie press to the winner of the best title. 

Happy Easter

An exhibit of Easter eggs in the style of Darwin. (Unfortunately this exhibit is no longer with us.)

Never mind, there are still plenty of cakes.

The Easter tree.

Two little chocolate kittens for my sis and brother-in-law. I wouldn't be able to eat these, not with those sad little beseeching eyes. 

Good Friday, a spent day shopping in sunny Canterbury after a hearty lunch in the Boho cafe. Daffodils, bluebell scented candles and gathering up all those last chocolate novelties left on the shelves. 

Hope your Easter is full of fun and joy.

A secret box and seven things

 

What do you think of this little secret keepsake box-that-looks-like-a-book? I'm pleased with it as it is quite vintage looking and involves one of my most favourite things to do which is pasting. I adore wallpapering. I've got a whole stash of these wooden boxes waiting to be painted, pasted and varnished after the Easter hols. If you want one they are priced at £9.50 and are in the shop now. 

Ages ago Catherine tagged me about seven things about myself. I'm actually going to change it a bit and do seven things I liked doing when I was seven. I think a lot about this as I find myself comparing myself with Alexei to see the differences and similarities despite the fact that he's a boy and is now nine so probably we are not similar at all. So here goes  . . . 

Seven things I liked doing when seven years old

1. Making perfume out of rose petals. It was never much of a success and always stank after a few days.

2. Blowing hen's eggs and decorating them (v seasonal).

3. Jumping off the back of the sofa while wearing my dad's specs and watching the ground rush up towards me. I really yearned to do a parachute jump and this was my idea of a simulation. My father (ex para) said parachuting was horrible and he couldn't understand anyone who wanted to do it just for fun.

 

4. Making Japanese gardens out of moss, a biscuit tin lid and an old compact mirror as a pond and fish paste jars filled with tiny posies. They were sweet I recall. 

5. Sliding down the stairs in a sleeping bag. Alexei and his friends have just discovered this but the sleeping bags of today don't seem to give you the same static charge. There was a LOT of nylon in the 70's.

6. Taking a tape recorder out and interviewing people in the street. Must have been very tedious for the people we stopped.

7. Being feral, wanting to live in the woods and have bare feet all the time. I went on a trip to the Commonwealth institute with the Brownies. They showed us a film of little boys in Africa kicking a leather football around with bare feet. I was most impressed. I came home, took my shoes off and booted my brother's football as hard as I could and my toe nails turned black overnight.

I'm not going to tag anyone in particular but I think it would be such fun to see what you liked doing when you were seven. Have you changed much?

magic mushrooms

I scanned the playground for my friend Jane. A deal had been arranged. She passed me the bag of mushrooms and I handed over the cash in exchange. All done in view of two of the teachers who looked both perplexed and amused at the sight of this transaction. They had to agree that Jane's cashmere and cotton crochet creations are very sweet. All that remains is for me to sew on the pearls and keyring findings and then they will be ready for the shop. I like this task, I do it in the car while Alexei is at his gymnastics club.

I also received some lovely unexpected gifts from the lovely Donna. A sweet toadstool brooch and a set of four candy striped pillowcases in perfect condition and the top two have gorgeous frills . . . sigh! Our dark chocolate boy Oskar is showing great respect for the new pillowcases by not sitting on them. I do not like a cat's bum on my pillow.

And if you pan out a bit, you see Percy at the end of the bed. Close but not touching. Percy keeps his distance as Oskar is a bit overzealous when he gives Percy a Spring clean.

Odds and ends

 

I had a lovely day on Friday. I went up to the Spring Country Living Fair on a whim. A fun day with friends and buying all sorts of fripperies like this little china tag.

My sister was late. She is never late. She was late because her cats followed her down the road and twice she took them back home. She then scuttled off only to find half way down the hill that Mr D'Arcy was with her again. Mr D'Arcy is one of the cats in case you were wondering. 

Look at this cute jug. If you look closely you can see a tiny ladybird and another one perched on the handle. I had a difficult time deciding on ladybird or mouse.  

"For goodness sake stop dithering. You have been annoyingly indecisive all day."  my friend Lucy told me as she dragged her bags of shopping off to the next stand. So ladybirds it was and thus the spell was broken and my shopping mojo was restored. 

Have a look at this fabric sample which I had printed in the US and took what seemed like many, many weeks to come back to me.  I am a little disappointed with it as some of the colours are somewhat unexpected and the background colour has not come out at all. I've now got to fiddle with the colours a bit and try again until it is perfect. 

Today the sun is shining and it's Roland's birthday. Pinny on and time to get baking! Carrot cake muffins have been requested. Look at the weekend's leftovers . .  . 

Pineapple upside down cake disguised as an owl's face. Whoo-hoo!

New stuff

Gosh - where did February go? I've been busy with some new drawings which means I totally lose track of time. I've been very poor company for the whole of February, wrapped up against the outside world sitting in my little room surrounded by tea cups, bits of paper and crumbs. Here's the first one: "Dusk falls" inspired by Arthur Rackham of the muted colours and ethereal atmosphere school of drawing.

Next we have these two which look kinda nice as a pair. The sea urchin.

And The Fairy ring.

I've been advised to put watermarks on them when putting them on the web which I feel a bit weird about as it seems maybe a bit paranoid and I don't want to appear self important and up my own arse. 

I'm getting very excited about the Vintage and Handmade fair only 84 days away!- I got an email from Michele requesting cakes for the cake stall so] it will be fun to decide what to make. I have my eye on some lovely sugar pansies for my fairy cakes and I can't decide whether to make a coffee cake or some biscuits as I've got a biscuit recipe that promises those lovely chewy biscuits. I guess better practice  the biscuits first. Mmm- there's gonna be even more crumbs than usual.Yum, yum!

Catherine tagged me - oh many moons ago so here are some random facts about me.

1. I used to be able to fly. No not aeroplanes like my lovely Roland but when I was a child I have very clear memories of flying round the house, inches from the ceilings then bump! I would be suddenly back in bed. Alexei has also said he has done this but when I have mentioned it to other people they have just given me a long hard look as if to say .  .hmmmm? I'd love to know if anybody else has experienced this. Hopefully it's not just us.

Y'know what? I can't think of any more random facts as I haven't had my tea yet so I promise I will be back after the weekend. Sorry for such a rubbish post.

 

School dinner envy

I know, I know . . school dinners weren't always nice. This is how the conversation goes most afternoons:

Me: "what did you have today?"

A: "Can't remember."

Me: "Oh you must do, think back." (imagining such delights as cheese and potato pie and pineapple upside down cake)

A: "The pudding was nice. It was a round cake with a thin red circle and ice cream in the middle."

Me: "Arctic roll? I've not seen that since about 1979." (makes mental note to try and track some down)

Well here we are after some time, I found it when I had given up all hope. The perfect retro dessert.

 

"Oh mum - I've remembered what the first course was . . it was lumps of meat and orange potatoes."

I think school meat had something to do with why I became a vegetarian as soon as I could.

The cold weather and the darkness really slows me down. Every year I promise myself a sun light lamp to get me going but then I dismiss the idea as bunkum and another winter goes past . . . anyway, now we are on the downwards slope thank goodness and spring is just round the corner. I did some "doggy day care" last week and had to take crazy Daisy for some long walks.  Behind our house we are lucky to have a little steep valley with allotments, a wild meadow with woods and the sweetest little lawn tennis club amongst the bushes. And there is always a smell of woodsmoke that hangs in the air. See, I do quite like winter after all! 

You don't get a true view of what it is like as you can't see the bottom of the valley but Rochester is full of steep hills and surprising vistas which make things look much nearer than they are. Unsurprisingly, it is also a really horrible place to ride a bike.

Do you ever get that feeling that you are being watched while in the woods? Of course, the little people are watching you go by but look at all these eyes on the tree trunks. The more I looked, the more I saw.

   

I'm gradually getting into gear with some new drawings too. I'm very excited to be doing the Vintage and Handmade Fair in May so I need to get lots of new stock together and so my challenge to myself is to create something new everyday. I'm not doing very well so far but this is a new drawing entitled "The Scruffies" and is inspired by the toys that Nicky makes.

I'll be back soon - I've been tagged by Catherine so I'm busy thinking up some interesting things about me that don't make me sound totally weird. Bye for now and look out for the "eyes'.