The Vintage Arcade Feature + $29 Giveaway





A packed to the rafter’s box of mixed goodies ranging from vintage to the unusual. Some of the bits-N-bobs included are - vintage buttons, a length of vintage French lace in smooth milky Late tone, a length of Ruby Red Organza ribbon and very unusual lattice rainbow ribbon, 2 pairs of pewter Ballet Shoe charms, a mini portrait of Marie Antoinette, one of Mary's handmade Fornasetti Fridge Magnets and a tourists $100.00 Las Vegas hologram gambling chip and lots more. Whoo Hoo what a collection!!

I am delighted to introduce you to Mary who opened her Vintage Arcade shop on Esty in March of this year, based in Ayr in Scotland  a town and port situated on the Firth of Clyde in south-west Scotland. Mary adores antique and vintage items and has over the years collected quite a few, with delightful finds from local auctions, house sales and salvage shops.  Her shop is a true delight and you really feel like you have just stepped in the past. She also has another shop called simply ScotlandUK where she creates fabulous Steampunk jewelry.

This giveaway is open worldwide and is simple to enter.

1. Please follow my blog so you can come back and see if you are the winner:)
2. Heart a favourite item from either of Mary's shops
3. Do you blog? feel free to share this (not mandatory )
4. Tweet this giveaway 
5. Mary on Twitter (She is just getting the hang of this)
6. Mary on Facebook

Any other share will be fabulous and do pop in again over the next couple of weeks, the more times you enter the better your chances:) Giveaway will end on the 14th Dec and best of luck to all entries and a huge thank you to Mary for her generosity.

Ok Where is it?

A friend of mine mentioned that she was having a lot of pain in her elbow, and we both agreed that it could be Tennis Elbow, last year I suffered for weeks with it till I got a tension bandage which I then wore for about 6 weeks till it healed itself.

My task therefore was simple, find the bandage and give to said friend. The cupboard with medical bits and bobs would be a good start. Opened the door and there was the box, fantastic I can give her this tomorrow opened the box and dam thing was empty grrr. So where is it then? I can tell you this much I have spent several hours now looking for this bandage and if I ever do find it I think I will shake it till it begs for mercy. (Yes I do know they don’t have any feelings it will just make me feel better).


Ok so now I know I have 35 drawers and 17 cupboards in my house and although I am still sore with the missing bandage it has remained well and truly missing. I have now cleared most of the drawers and cupboards out and filled 3 bin bags with the following, 3 pairs of broken glasses, video cassettes (do you remember them) odd gloves that are probably in cahoots with the bandage and I know that if I throw them out the other ones will appear!
Well I don’t care it's out of here along with broken elastic bands, dead batteries, dried up ink, recipes hastily written on scrap paper (I kept these just moved them to the recipe book, see I am learning already) what else, broken rubbers (erasers to my American friends been there got the t-shirt) 4 hose connectors three packs of 2004 seeds, a jigsaw with missing pieces (yes probably with the bandage and odd glove). Several uninteresting keys that don’t fit anything in my house, where I got them from beats me!
Handful of pre decimal coins, half burnt candles, did I really think that I was going to melt them all down one day! 2007 diary, screwdriver, relief cream (not quite the relief I am looking for today) Blistex if your really must know! purple ballon, a trolley token, a few buttons a tube of Schmuck -Kleber glue.

Feeling pleased as now I have tidy drawers again, but I wonder how long it will take to fill them back up again. Please tell me you have drawers the same as mine! Oh well she will have to go buy her own bandage, it was the thought that counts :) wasn't it:)

Dalton Ghetti Amazing Pencil Carvings

This morning the lovely Mercedes from DigitalCSEtsy tweeted me. I have not seen her for awhile as I think we are on different time zones, anyway I decided to see what she has been getting up to and checked her christmas blog and Zazzle and somehowI nded up on Pinterest!. I don't know now which one took me too where I found this amazing work from Dalton Ghetti.  The original blog post showing his work is by Narineh Mardirosian which she did last year. I might just never have seen Dalton's work had Mercedes not tweeted me when she did, thanks for that and for letting me find this........


BIOGRAPHY


Dalton began learning how to handle tools at the young age of 6 when at school in Brazil, he and the other students used either a razor blade or a pocket knife to sharpen their pencils for drawing and writing.
Also, his mother was a seamstress. When Dalton was 8 years old, she taught him how to use a sewing needle to help her with simple projects like hemming and sewing buttons. At the age of 9, his parents gave him a set of metal tools for children, which he used to make his own boxes, toys and go-carts. This is also the age when he began sculpting with knives, chisels and a hammer. Ever since, he has created many objects out of all kinds of materials.

At first, he carved large objects; but in 1986, as a challenge to himself and because of his interest in small living things, like plants (moss) and insects (spiders and ants), he decided to create the smallest possible carvings that he could see with his naked eyes. One day, he picked up a working pencil and started carving it.  You can read his full Biography here http://www.daltonmghetti.com/

http://www.daltonmghetti.com/memorial.asp This is Dalton's memorial to the 9-11 and I dare you read this and not get a lump in your throat. It took him 10 years to finish this project and I was deeply moved by his gesture of pure love.

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World Toilet Day

Well I never knew there was such a thing as World Toilet Day but Offbeat Earth says so and it's the 19th November, oh today in fact!. Just a few ideas for you if your looking for something  a tad different from the run of the mill! Check out the toilet house on their site. Surely their taking the.........

World Toilet Day is November 19. So in preparation for this holiday, Offbeat Earth welcomes you into the world of toilets. In this post they uncover the oddest toilets from around the globe, provide interesting facts, and even supply information about a toilet-shaped house! Yes, you read it right! Well call me boring but mine is a bog standard white wood!

Did you know?!? According to the San Diego Union, the odds are 1 in 10,000 (0.001%) that you will be injured by a toilet this year. Watch out! You should probably avoid this toilet, ouch

The Big Meet

Well last Friday ( hard to believe a week has already passed) I flew to Grenoble to meet Londi  from LondiCreations  before she heads of to New Zealand next month. We have known each other on line for almost 4 years and felt we had to meet at least once and Grenoble is a lot more accessable than NZ!

Seems very fitting that Londi just happened to be wearing an official Marshall Top (only amusing if you know that it happens to be my surname)

She took me to Domaine de Vizille which is now a museum, we strolled in the gardens and there is 10 hectares of it, beautifully maintained  and zillions of roses not out at this time of year but I can imagine how it will look, box hedges shaped into pyramids, even the pure white swans were very friendly especially if you had some bread in your hand, which I didn't but............

I suppose I could have taken this bread as an offering but as it was burnt to a crisp I thought they  might not appreciate it. Had Londi and I seen the smoke billowing out of her kitchen we might have managed to rescue it! Still she cooked a fabulous Spag Bol which happily did not burn.

The interior was breathtaking and it we must have spent a good 2 hours walking round, we were both exausted when we came out as there is so much to take in. Interior click on this link to see why we were blown away with this.

I was at the birth of this little beauty and watched Londi create it which was a real treat for me, she hand paints most of the embellishements and her attention to detail and colours as you can see are wonderful.



Thank you so much londi for your fabulous hospitality and friendship. I am so glad I came to see you.
Bises
xxxx

Little Red Flowers 2006 Yuan Zhang

I thought this was a beautiful film about the perspective of children in an adult's world of regimen and conformity. And the main little man is adorable just look at these eyes. Loved every minute of it.  

Qiang is a four-year-old little rebel, possessed of a pair of luminous eyes and a precociously indomitable will. His father deposits him at a well-appointed residential kindergarten in post-1949 Beijing, since his parents are often away. Life at the kindergarten appears rich and colourful, made up of a variety of cheerfully sunny rituals and games meant to train these children to be good members of society. But it's not so easy for Qiang to adapt to this kind of carefully organized, minutely scrutinized collective life. A fierce individualist in miniature, he tries but fails to conform to the model his teachers enforce. Yet he still craves the reward that the other students win: the little red flowers awarded each day as tokens for good behaviour. But Qiang doesn't win any flowers: he can't yet dress himself, and doesn't play together with the other kids. He even dares... well you will have to find out for yourself :). Let me know what you thought of it if you have already seen it.

The Stiching Coop Rag Quilt Giveaway Share

On my last post I had a message from a new follower Tammy (thank you) from TheStichingCoop and she invited me and fellow followers to enter her fabulous giveaway for a gorgeous Rag Quilt. Well, nosey me just had to go and look and so glad I did. I have entered  as my 4 yr old g/daughter Poppy would  love it, well it's pink as well as beautiful!  So here is the Quilt and the link to enter is just under the picture below, good luck to all. Tammy is also offering a coupon code for a 25% discount from her shop for a limited period, use 25OFF at checkout.

Click here to Enter

FortyAcreWood - Handmade Eco Friendly Cards

Scrap paper, cardboard a little water and a huge amount of elbow grease from Sarah  (the owner of FortyAcreWood), produces the paper for her to then go and create  beautiful natural eco friendly gift tags and cards. Embellished with woodland creatures like rabbits,does, and foxes. Take a look at her cards and you will see just what I mean. If you want to see more then pop over to her shop, she will be pleased to see you. If you would like to purchase Sarah's cards use coupon code KRISHENKA for a 15% discount, offer will run till Dec 1.