PRETTY WOMEN

I have quite a collection of dolls scattered around the house and they come in all shapes and sizes.  I was out and about the other day and found this old style antique shop.  It was absolutely filled to the gunnels with stock. I would say that some of it had been there for years.  The first thing that caught my eye as I came through the door was this lovely lady.

Yes her dress is faded and a little tattered but she is just exquisite.  She has a stockingette body and beautiful hand painted face with the most delicately curled hair with wonderful detail.  I do know that a lot of this kind of doll was made in Hong Kong but I don't feel that she has the same origins as she is so fine and detailed.  When I asked the seller how much she asked for £5.00 and I was just bowled over so she is now sitting proudly on my mantlepiece in the sitting room.

Another doll that I fell in love with came from Jo of Hesta hestanesta.blogspot.com , she had taken this wonderful boudoir doll to the Market Harborough Fair and she was propped up behind her stall. 

You know how it is - you take lots of stock to sell and come back with something - well she was my present to myself that day.

Whilst talking of presents my hubby treated me to this wonderful 1930's art deco lady hat stand when we were in the States this year. 

These are not cheap and they are not easy to come by and I have been promising myself one for years but have always shied away from them due to the cost but when someone else is treating you who am I to say no.

My cousin in the United States is to blame for my doll collection, I was purely a bear collector before but getting together with her is fatal, her doll collection must go into the 100's and she has display cupboards full of old childrens toys books and dolls.   I have to say that I am not a big fan of Madame Alexander dolls but Glynis found this one for me and she so reminds me of a character from Mad Men that I have to have her out and displayed.

Her name is Cissie and she is complete with tiny little net stockings.  I do have one of her black mules but I think she must have lost one whilst coming home from a dinner dance one evening as this is sadly missing.  To me she is just so 1950's and again another gift which as I say is always nice.

STOWE GARDENS - LAST DAYS OF SUMMER

Like most people we decided to make the most of this lovely Indian Summer weather and take ourselves off to Stowe Gardens owned by the National Trust. 

The garden's are fully of Roman style follies and every where you turn there are great vistas with the follies sitting at the end of them, very clever landscaping.

I will just let the photo's speak for themselves.

I cannot ever remember kicking through leaves in my sandals before!!!

Even though the trees are still very green I found colour in the berries around the gardens.

I just hope this good weather holds for a little while longer yet as I have got lots of things I still want to do and my garden really does need me to turn my attention to it ready to put it to bed for this year.

BYGONE TIMES

Not saying that hubby and I watch a lot of television but one programme that we do like is Antique Road Trip and we have visited quite a few of the places that we have seen and which might be little treasure troves of goodies for the booth and fairs.

For my birthday treat hubby booked a hotel room for an overnight stay and we headed off to Eccleston near Chorley, Manchester to an antique mall called Bygone Times. 

Believe you me it is as interesting on the inside as it is on the out.  It is actaully three large rooms crammed full of antiques and collectables and as you can imagine we had a field day looking through and pulling things out.  It even has it'd own little penny arcade where you can swop your £'s for old money and play the slots (guess where hubby headed for) and a small 1940's exhibtion complete with Anderson Shelter.

We found some sweet little sewing items.

Some great old cookery leaflets - I love the way someone has put string through the booklet in order to hang it up in the kitchen.

I think there is also a bit of a dog theme going on as well as seemed to find some nice doggie related items.

Another doll and a little bunny which I actually found in a charity shop.

This little nude lady figurinne is rather daring but I could not resist picking her up, she is sadly damaged and so the seller was not asking too much for her as these can usually command quite a price.  Although she is not marked I think she is probably German as her facial features are very good.

I collect old childrens books and could not resist the front cover on this one and hubby decided to surprise me with it after we had finished shopping.

On our way home Sunday after we had hit two small antique fairs we headed for a National Trust House just outside Manchester - Little Moreton Hall.

It dates back to the Tudor period and was a nice change just to wander around the house and gardens and finish it all off with a brilliant High Tea of finger sandwiches, cheese scones, cheese and home made chutney, fruit cake, fruit scone, shortbread and flapjack and of course a pot of tea.  Now please don't think I am greedy they packed up what I could not eat and we brought it home with us.  Lovely.....

RAINY DAYS AND A LITTLE BEE

We had spent Saturday inside the hall at Market Harborough for the Vintage Fair and decided that we would get out and about for some fresh air on the Sunday and a village not too far from us was having a garden open day so we decided that we would make that our destination.

Got up Sunday and the sun was shining which looked very promising so we took ourselves off – brolly less and coat less. We pulled into the car park and of course the skies opened up.

Other like minded people, us Brits are a hardy bunch.

Luckily our friends who came with us were a lot more organised than us and they had some spare umbrellas in the back of their car and one of the gardens had some bric a brac etc for sale and nestling in a box for £1.00 was a waterproof jacket for hubby which a bit like Cinderella’s slipper fitted him a treat. I on the other hand just had a summer cardigan on. My linen trousers soaked up the water like a sponge and they were flapping gamely around my ankles but undaunted we persevered and the sun came out and we continued on our way.

We got to the last garden and as I was turning to come down some steps I felt a sharp pain at the top of my leg very near to my derriere, then again another one. I could feel something moving around and so with no further ado I dropped my trousers in full view of all the other people that were wandering around only to find a little bee had crawled up my trouser leg and stung me – not once but twice......

So picture this if you will, there is me with my bottom hanging out (good job I had decent knickers on) and my poor friend kneeling down to inspect the damage. Like a good Girl Guide that I once was many moons ago, I had one of those stick pens that you use on bites and stings and I pulled this of my bag out shoved it in my friends hand and bade her to dab it on the injured area. Obviously others in this garden were more than entertained by my antics, I even got the comment “nice view” from some guy and what did hubby do, he put his head down and made a big effort to look very interested in some steam engine that was in the corner of the garden, pretending that he was not at all anything to do with the mad woman with no trousers on. Now that’s my hero for you.

On the plus side I did win a bottle of Bertolli tomatoe sauce on the tombolla, mind you there again a bottle of wine would have been better.

I reckon that bee was so busy smelling the roses he got drunk and decided to sleep it off somewhere, just wish he had not chosen my trouser leg to do it in.

JULY MAKES FOR THE OLNEY FAIR

I always like to try and make something new for the fairs and with Olney coming up this Saturday I put on my thinking cap and this is my latest - gift bags made out of brown paper sandwich bags and matching gift tags.

My cousin sent me a pack of Victorian scraps from a shop that we both love to visit in the US and I just had to use the one above.  I have been struggling with my sewing machine but now fianlly feel that I have got the hang of it and have been whipping up these bags and tags all weekend.

I have used vintage papers, cards, lace and all manner of bits and pieces that I have stored in my many boxes around the house and they are a great way of using up little snippets of items.

These ones have old postcards as their theme and I used some of my printed tie as well.

Children's theme bags.

I know you cannot get an awful lot in them but sometimes the sweetest suprises come in little packages.

TICKLE MY FANCY WITH TAKE THAT

 Last night I had a rare old time I went with my daughter and son in law to see Take That at Wembley.  The last time I saw a concert there I was 18 and Elton John was headlining.  So there I was a 50 something year old grannie screaming and jumping around alongside the rest of the audience.  I have loads of photo's so will let them do the talking.

For those of you who are going to the concert LOOK AWAY NOW!!! for those of you that cannot go here are some of the highlights just pop on your Take That album and dance around your living rooms.

The first set was the lads without Robbie

Then came my Robbie moment

Back together again

The concert was spectaluar, the lads were on top form and still managed some of their old moves and I left the stadium with my dancing shoes firmly on my feet and woke up this morning still singing.