Little Red Stars

I'm feeling very christmasy already - probably because I've been making garlands and stars especially for the holidays.



I made these little red glass stars small enough to hang on christmas trees but they are beautiful to look at all year round! I will be making them also in deep green, golden yellow and white.

You can find them and and others in my online shop

The Chateau at Langeais

We took a trip up to the Loire Valley this week, it's our favourite area of France and we intend to move there sometime in the future. One of the purposes of this trip was to find some areas we'd like to live in - we want rural but close to an historical town/village so that I can lure tourists to my atelier :) and we might have a little gite/holiday rental too.




One of the places we really liked was Langeais, a small town dominated by a huge medievel chateau - and I LOVE chateaux!!





I'm just going to post some pretty pics of things I loved about the chateau and then link to all the 'history stuff'



This doorknocker was about 30cm high - loving the grumbly rusty pretty pinkness of this :)



The chateau was one of the best we've visited - lots of freedom to walk around on your own and get a feel of the history.

I could even have a little rest to daydream about things :) I just wish I could have spent a few hours there on my own..... I'd have hung a few glass buntings at the windows for starters....









This 15th Century bed was my most favourite thing in the whole castle. The canopy suspended from rope was typical of the era. Straight out of a fairytale.


There was a tiny little room with a couple of 'reconstructed' gowns - I wish I had noted the name of the designer! I'd wear that coat in an instant!!!








At the end of the day the drawbridge is raised....now I do fancy one of those....



some more chateau info here

And The Winner is............

*drum roll*

Estela from Oklahoma USA!!!!

Congrats Estela for winning one of my flutterby butterflies - I'm sure it's going to love it's new home!



(to choose the winner, I used a random number generator)

Many thanks to everyone who entered, I enjoyed reading you comments very much!

And as a thankyou to my blog readers I'm offering 10% off (excludes shipping) all glass flutterbys in my Etsy shop until midnight Saturday 4th Oct (central european time!)

To take advantage of this offer you simply put "Flutterby Blog Offer" in the message to seller box and I will refund you the difference.

Sour Grapes

This year the fruit harvest has been bad to say the least! Not a single quince on Quincy, only one, yes ONE apple on the tree nearest the house, no edible peaches and only the squirrels know what we can expect from the walnuts!

I'm not sure what happened with nature this year - we didn't seem to have any exceptionally late frosts ......c'est la vie :)

We do have grapes though.. and maybe we will finally manage to produce a couple of bottles of table wine this year :/ Every year we seem to make a different mistake and it all has to get dumped...... not that I mind...I'd rather leave the grapes on the vine to provide food for the birds in the early winter, but Aaron is determined to make at least one drinkable bottle from our huge vine that runs the length of our house.



So at the moment it's Aaron against the birds, as he chases them from the sweet pickings before harvest! We should really train Mr Lawrence to be a bit more pro-active :)

When do finally gather this harvest (if the birds leave anything) I'll be sure to blog about it :)

Moth or Monster?

A couple of days ago we found this amazing creature attached to our terrace - he was about 7cm long and took off rather impressively at dusk that night. I've never seen a moth like it before - he almost looks like a bat (maybe they all look like that and I've just never looked close enough)

It's the scary 'eyes' on his back that really creep me :) Does anyone know anything about these moths?

updated: I just did a google search and discovered it was a Convolvulus Hawk-moth (Agrius convolvuli)

MatchStickGirl Strikes Again!

I just had a makeover, well not me, but by Etsy shop and blog are sporting magical and playful new banners courtesy of the lovely MatchStick Girl aka Enchanted Pond aka Frances J. Melhop photographer and illustrator extraordinaire! I totally love them! and I can't believe I was happy to live with my boring , flat little banners for so long. Thank You Frances :)

Check out her fabulous website www.francesjmelhop.com

and her work available on Etsy





Don't forget I still have my Flutterby giveaway running - see my blog post below!

Holding on to summer.... GIVEAWAY?

I can’t believe how quickly autumn has arrived here! Since September began we’ve had thunderstorms and what seems like torrential rain. As much I love the prettiness of the autumn and the snowy winter months I’m not yet ready to put away my summer clothes or the thought of al fresco eating and sitting in my garden listening to the crickets into the night.

At least in my atelier a little piece of summer will remain for ever as my flutterbys catch the light and the breeze from an open window. And so I’ve decided to offer a little piece of eternal summeriness (is that a word?) to one of my blog readers. Simply leave a comment on this post about what you loved (or hated!) about this summer and I will randomly pick a number (using a highly scientific method I’ve yet to source) and if your comment matches that number you’ll receive one of my signed Flutterbys!!!! If you have a colour preference don’t forget to mention it at the end of your post!!




You have until Saturday 20th September and on Sunday 21st I’ll announce the lucky winner.

GOOD LUCK!

Please Note: Giveaway now closed!

A Touch of Mid Century

The colours for this bunting were inspired by the 1950's/60's - teals, turquoise, ochre yellows, mustard.

I also made a matching star suncatcher which I'll maybe list online in a few days - just need some sunshine to photograph it - it's been dark and thundery for two days now. September brought autumn in quickly!



Find more details here

Publication Day!

The Autumn edition of Belle Armoire Jewelry hits the US and Canadian bookshops and craft stores today :)



My copy arrived in the post a few days ago - weird to see my article actually there in black and white ( and a little colour...) September seemed a long way away when the editor contacted me February and asked if I'd be interested in writing a piece about how to make a stained glass pendant.

(btw she saw my earrings on the front page of Etsy - so treasuries are worth the effort!)

It's only a question of time before Martha asks me to make a garland for her ;)