Father's Day Tokens

A new product from me for Father's Day this year, June 16th by the way, some Father's Day Tokens. Dads are notoriously difficult to buy for so these little tokens are an easy way to treat them to all the things they would like which luckily enough don't cost any money.

I know that Ed would like the Control of the TV Controls the best but we may just give him some of these token and inexplicably forget to put that one in the packet!

New Neighbours

We don't often get new neighbours in my part of the village so I wanted to make a good first impression but the 79p pansies I bought from the local hardware store (limited shops on my post office run) wrapped in a thin blue plastic bag didn't quite look right.

However, whip off the 79p stickers, put a bit of recycled tissue paper around them, wrap round some yellow bakers twine and add a Penguin Classics postcard and voilà a present fit for a new neighbour.

Always sad to say goodbye to neighbours who you've known for a long time and there is always the dread that someone you don't like might move in but am happy to report that on first meeting new neighbour seems lovely. Now all I have to do is arrange a little soiree*  {what is it with me and smatterings of French today} with the other neighbours.

* Don't worry I most definitely did not use the word soiree when I was talking to her I'm sure I said get together.

Thank You

As any reader of this blog will know my new products normally come from requests from those lovely notonthehighstreet customers. Well guess what .... here is another one!

There is a bit of a trend for wedding couples dressed in all their wedding finery to hold a bunting saying THANK YOU and then they can use the photo for  their thank you cards.

I've done a number of them through my Wedding Signage Bunting product (catchy product name NOT) and had numerous enquiries so I decided the time had come to give it its own dedicated product page.

So here we have it the THANK YOU bunting. Not just for weddings of course but any time you want to say thanks in a small, medium or large way!

Birthday Treats

It was my birthday last week and as a treat I had a day off for a little jaunt to London. I had booked tickets for the Park in Progress Tour and for some inexplicable reason I had booked a very early slot which meant we had to get up to London for 10am (silly me exorbitant rail fare and exorbitant train tickets ooops). I can only think that at the time I booked it was the only slot they had left. Anyway it's always good to start days out early isn't it?!?

We got there in good time and listened to Boris (on video sadly not real life) giving us a safety talk whilst we put on our high-vis jackets, which is always exciting.

Then we got on the bus and went off to the ArcelorMittal Orbit not the catchiest of names is it and to be totally honest I'm not a huge fan. I don't think it is that impressive especially next to the Olympic Stadium but who am I to judge. 

The viewing platforms are amazing though and I'm so pleased it was a clear sunny blue sky day because we really did get fantastic views.

We also got to see Kapoor's million pound distorting concave mirrors .... mmmm .... not too impressed by them either, I mean why would you want to view London upside down in a mirror when you can go and stand outside and see the real thing? It does mean you can take a self-portrait with Chris Hoy though which is fun!

Now I'm sounding a bit negative but I did enjoy it because it was one of the things we didn't get to do when we went to the Olympics and so I'm glad I've been up but I wouldn't rave about it. As for the Park in Progress tour well that was a bit of misrepresentation really because we didn't get to see much of the park. My advice is don't bother with the tour and just wait until they have actually finished doing whatever it is they are doing and it's not a building site any more.

As it was my birthday we then got to go shopping (whoppee). So off we went to Oxford Circus and a little visit to Liberty. Ahhhhh bliss. From the moment you walk in the door it is just amazing.

As a child I was taken to Liberty a lot {thank you Mum x} and I was really pleased that both the boys "got" Liberty and realised that this wasn't like your normal average store. They stood in awe looking upwards, ran their hands over the wooden frog on the staircase and wished they could buy a leather pig. Nostalgic for me, oh yes.

Obviously the things Liberty sells are beautiful but so is the styling and everywhere you looked there was something unexpected and delightful.

We were thrilled to find a RE concession there full of extraordinary things, I could buy it all.

But I just bought some poison glasses, as you do.

Two Liberty bags later we finally left with smiles on our faces and a comment from youngest asking if he could have one of the Liberty bags .... never has a mother been so proud of her son.

Quick lunch stop at Wagamamas, I needed to make sure the boys were sustained for the next bit, and then off to Anthropologie. I'm not sure how many years and how many trips to London have passed since I became aware of this shop but I had never managed to get there so it really was a birthday treat.

Another sensory delight full of amazing styling and gorgeous, gorgeous things to buy displayed so that you want everything. I succumbed to a floppy hat and a wooden postcard that is winging its way to Australia and so another bag with string handles to add to my collection.

Perfect day out and home to husband cooking dinner and something pink and fizzy cooling in the fridge. Yup definitely perfect.

Signwriting

A little bit of a longer gap in blogging than I had anticipated but I've just had too much to do and not enough time to do it :-(

Let me start again by showing you the labours of a great day out I had a few weeks ago at a signwriting course with one of my sisters and mum. Mum had found the course and two of her daughters didn't need much persuading to go with her. The course was held at Assington Mill an amazing venue with Wayne Tanswell - Traditional Signwriter as tutor. Wayne had a very relaxed easy-going teaching style which meant that we didn't feel too intimidated by what we were about to try and complete, which was to end the day with our own hand painted sign.

We started off by just practicing the strokes needed which was actually very therapeutic and I could quite happily have done this all day.

Then we got to do our chosen word or words for real on a piece of wood for. As our house sign has bullet holes in it .... yes bullet holes. Oh alright I'll tell you why. The reason it has bullet holes is because my dear husband and one of our dear friends one night decided to set up tin cans on our gate and then preceded to kneel at our kitchen window shooting the tin cans off the gate with the air rifle. They are not very good shots and the gate and sign got peppered making it look like we have been subject to numerous drive by shootings. So back to the sign here is the chalked out lettering.

And here is the painted version.

And here is the final shadowed version.

Now although I put a lot of paint on the board the reason it looks so good and so perfect is sadly not because I am a natural at signwriting but because maybe Wayne came and touched it up just a little bit!

Everyone else produced amazing work too.

We had a great day out, delicious lunch and came home with a sign and a better understanding and insight into how difficult, but not actually that scary, traditional signwriting is.