Neutral Palette Tray

I like to keep some of my supplies in old drawer trays, I have an antique one full of misc. jewellery findings and this one above I picked up at a brocante a few weeks ago for just 1 euro - bargain!!

I decided to fill it with neutral tone vintage and contemporary supplies (my favourite) including glass buttons, chandelier drops, faux pearls, cabochons, Swarovski crystals, enamel, acrylic and fabric flowers, frosted bead caps, bells, seed beads, sew-ons, and all things shiny.

There are a few empty spaces which obviously means I'm just not shopping enough *sigh*

The kitchens at Chenonceau Chateau

Whilst in the Loire Valley we treated ourselves to a visit to the chateau at Chenonceau - even if you don't know the name you'll almost certainly have seen the chateau on a trillion jigsaws and chocolate boxes.

As we only had a very limited amount of time, there was no time to fanny around in the gardens or labyrinth :(



As you can imagine the place was crawling with global tourists and I hate getting strangers in my chateau snaps - it ruins my little fantasy. I had to stand like a idiot for ages to get the first photo of the kitchen stairs free from 21st century trainers and anoraks :)

The kitchen's were so fabulous I was (almost) a little emotional - heaven help me when I finally make to Versailles .....













even these unfortunate wild boar looked happy :)

I win this year Mr Squirrel!

Yesterday afternoon I gathered a basketful of walnuts from under the tree in the corner of the garden. I could have gathered at least another basket but it's kinda back breaking! By this time last year Secret Squirrel (slinky black chap) and his gang had pilfered most of the nuts already (they knew it would be a long cold winter!!) On Tuesday afternoon one of SS's minions - a bushy tailed red squirrel was spotted on our kitchen windowsill - clearly keeping an eye on us ..... I needed to act fast. I'm not sure if it was the breeze yesterday but, as I was collecting from the ground, walnuts were raining down of me ........

A little treat ..

I've been eyeing these pretty little mittens for several weeks so after an afternoon of heavy gardening I decided to treat myself :)

you can find these and other gorgeous girly knits at ileaiye.etsy.com

A short pause ....

It's quiet :)

My parents went home to Ireland yesterday and Aaron has, just a few minutes ago, left for the airport.... there's just me and Mr Lawrence :) bliss :)

But I won't be lying on the sofa with a bag of Malteesers watching Murder She Wrote - I have much work to do and very little time to get it all done. After the latest trip to the Loire I'm feeling very unsettled here and hope (although it's unlikely) to put our house here in the Alps up for sale as early as next Spring. But there are lots of little renovation tasks to finish (and some not so little like laying a new wooden floor in the huge living room ) and of course the garden to prune back before the snow arrives and before I go to Ireland at the beginning November. Something's gotta give if I want to achieve my goal and I'm afraid it's my glass work, I've already decided to close my Etsy shop from the end of November and mentally I written any Christmas sales off for this year. But I don't care - I'm so excited about moving to my most favourite part of France, building a passive home and having a new atelier hopefully brimming with tourists :D!!!!!!

So this afternoon I'll start to tidy the garden (it'll probably take 2 or 3 weeks to finish) and I'm going to order up some Farrow and Ball paint for the kitchen cupboards and buy some new paint brushes to get the windows painted before it gets too cold. The firewood was ordered today so that will be arriving Monday, 6 cubic metres to stack but on the bright side I'll hopefully shift the pounds I put on over the summer whilst feeding guests :) ..... this is the quiet before the storm today ...bring it on because I want a new adventure :D

photo : Cinderella by Eugenio Recuenco for Vogue