Wanda The Witch by Just For You...designs by Lisa

Wanda the Witch flew into Essex from lovely Wales just for me last fall! She is the most adorable witch ever, and I love her to bits!

Made by the very talented Lisa oa Just For You.....designs by Lisa as a group swap. I am fortunate to be a part of the ebay groups Crows 'n Roses and honoured to be friends of the nicest and most talented ladies around!

Wanda is having a rest at the moment building up her energy for when summer is over an the seasons change for shorter days, cooler weather and time for mischief making!

Just For You - designs by Lisa

My friend Lisa makes the most gorgeous quilts, dolls and fabric ornaments and
she has just launched her first pattern for sale. I have been telling her for some time now she should do that and I am so glad that she has. the new launch is for her lovely kitty - I bought one of these that she had made, for my daughter - and it is the sweetest kitty ever! Trust me on this!

I am lucky enough too to own several items made by Lisa, both as gifts and as purchases and in some instances they were purchased by me as gifts but far too tempting and I have kept them (that is so bad of me - but her work is irresistable! )

Lisa is having a giveaway - a surpise package of her treasures and if you go over to her blog you can enter for it! I knwo you won't be disappointed - so don't delay as it is ending soon! Click on the link for Just For You ...designs by Lisa in my blog list and feast your eyes on Lisa's lovely blog!

Have Fun!

Roses on Everything

On the same day at the end of April when Lara set up her tea party photo shoot, I used her set up to take pictures of some of my latest paintings.

I have been painting a lot of distressed signs lately and love to sneak in a rose or two or three whenever I can and these little Vintage Chic signs with rosebuds are fun to do.

Given my way I probably would paint roses over anything and everything, but I do have to take a step back and not do that!

On this particular day, due to a long cold winter and spring no roses at all were in bloom in my garden so I had to use some fake roses, which although quite good for fake roses, are not like the real thing by a long shot. A month on from the date these were taken, with a few weeks of warm weather and my roses are once again out in the garden - a riot of colour, and scent with full blooms and lusciousness and now as I write, it is raining! Sigh!!

Maybe that is the reason I am always painting roses onto whatever I can?

Tea in the Garden

My daughter Lara recently set up a photoshoot to represent a teaparty for one of her photography tasks for college, and what fun to get out pretty china, silverware, a table cloth lovingly crocheted as a gift for our home and also the excuse to buy some decorated cupcakes! ( I admit - being a Domestic Goddess is not something that has happened to me - although I love cupcakes and often paint them which is a better option waistline wise too. I have no talent or patience to make edibles cakes! )

I love teacups too, and am having great fun finding pretty ones in the charity shops which sadly is getting harder to find now that Vintage Anythings are all the rage now!

I don't drink from teacups often, but again I do like to paint them - having been totally influenced by Connie Parkinson who is the Queen of painted teacups, cottages, roses, cakes and all things quintessentially English!

Connie is an American painter living in California and if anyone can be described as being the Queen of Tea - I would say it is Connie.

I came across Connie in 2004 in my internet search for book, dvd's, pattern packs and anything else I could find which would help me to learn how to paint roses.

When I chanced upon Connie's work - it was as though my quest had been answered - here was a lady who was doing all the things that I aspired too and I was hooked.

At this time - it seemed to me that most people in England had little interest in the tradition of tea and roses, and cottage gardens, and yet in America there was a whole community of women celebrating the traditional customs of tea, growing roses, tending cottage style gardens and decorating their homes in pink with distressed painted furniture covered in roses. Connie introduced me to many talented rose painters selling on ebay at the time, and I spent hours searching through pages and pages of US ebay listings of painted furniture and accessories being painted and presented for sale, and drooling over all the pretty pretty items.

I was hooked and have spent the years painting as often as I can and trying to learn as much as I could, never actually reachimg my goal, but helped along enormously by the encouragement of Connie, a very sharing painter.

Well now - now that teacups, roses and traditional pastimes like sewing, knitting, gardening and crafting are all back big time in this country, as well as the tradition of taking tea (see June 2010 issue of County Living for pages about it!), I have been pestering Connie to come over to teach a painting seminar in England sharing her knowledge and instructing us as to we can learn to paint all these wonderful traditional iconic symbols of days gone by!

Now won't that be the icing on the cake!

Have a look at her website which is on the page next to me to have a look at here art and see how wonderful her art is!

Riley and the Roses

Some guys just gotta be the centre of attention! This is my little pal Riley when he was a year old. Over the years our two children have taken so many photos of this dog that now- point a camera at him and he automatically rolls over on his back and poses like he is Burt Reynolds on a Cosmopolitan photo shoot!

We had a lovely cat called Sophie, sadly no longer with us, but she used to do the same and purr and look adorable. We used to joke about that, saying that when we would go out, she would teach the dog to do it, because he sure does look like her when he does it - even if he cannot purr like her!

Isaphan Damask Rose

Mme Alfred Carriere being elegant and demure!