Gifts in the Post AND a chance to win more!

This last week was a very busy one, with lots of non-vintage-style sanding machines and exterior varnishes. It was enlivened, however, by the knowledge that THREE little parcels were winging their way to me through the postal systems of various countries.First up came a fantastic mini-swap from Sam, the lovely Gingerwine with a blog named after her cat, Silky Sue. I sent Sam some French craft magazine supliments, because she'd mentioned the UK magazine Easy Living and I wanted to give her the chance to see its French sister publication, Avantages. She returned the favour in style, sending me a super edition of Country Living. The articles are so to my taste, Sam - I am crazy about the 'Natural Elegance' one, and even the cover is fantastic - doesn't it sum up an English summer, especially to a family who are reading Swallows and Amazons every evening. (Oops - I covered up the little boat with brown sails in that picture - you'll just have to believe me that it looks like the Swallow.)I actually own some of Sam's artwork now! This sweet tag, which may not mean much to her, means so much to me, after I've been admiring her painting for so long on her blog. She has a blog shop now, you know...

Inside the little package were these fantastic copies of vintage gardening items. The adverts are incredible! I have a great idea for using the two cards, although I may not be able to bear using them at all...Next came something really different - a prize I was able to choose myself! Lululiz ran a fiendishly difficult visual quiz earlier this month. Try it out yourself - it is fun! She decided to reward each of us who had struggled through it, however amusing our results (I know mine made her laugh), and let us choose two items from her collected prize items. I chose this lovely card of French glass buttons, which made their way 'home' partway through last week.

I think the card is as wonderful as the buttons...I also chose this length of edging lace, which will be mega-useful one day and will look beautiful in the meantime. This picture also includes a clue about my last parcel, which arrived yesterday, all the way from New Zealand...Spot the Red Gingham? It's Sarah's trademark fabric. I sent her some vintage mother of pearl buttons, which are hard to get hold of in New Zealand, along with her prize for my Garden Party event. She outdid herself by making me this fantastic patchwork picture - I really still can't believe it! Let's look at the whole gift in more detail...

Here is the lady herself. Is it me, Sarah? I do have a string of pearls...Look at all the details - I think that the edging fabric is my favourite of all. I have been wandering round the house with this in my hand, waiting to find the perfect place for it. When it's up I'll take another photo for you!
There was also a sweet crocheted flower...And such a pretty drawn threadwork handkerchief to add to my collection.

Finally, these very classy ribbons. I really only buy secondhand/vintage ribbon, so the sight of such lovely, colour-coordinated, well-presented ribbons kind of went to my head.

I spent some time this morning winding the ribbon onto vintage spools, a la posh shops and magazine shoots I have been observing this year. I really need to get some bare spools, as these already have vintage threads on them and the ribbon doesn't go on perfectly, but you get the idea for now.Until I use the ribbon, it can sit looking charming in my vintage sewing corner.So, thank you so much, Sam, Liz and Sarah. I have had a wonderful week opening your lovely parcels, and will have plenty more delight as I read, display or use the fantastic things you've sent me.

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Do not miss your chance to win something fantastic in the post! Click here to enter Mel's Country in the Town giveaway, which has undisclosed but unquestionably exciting prizes. You have until Friday, I think - Mel has great taste and is very generous, so do enter if you haven't done so already!

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Tomorrow - definitions. What on earth does my blog name mean?

Sunbathing on the Sempervivums

I love lizards, so you can imagine I was delighted to find this one sunbathing on my favourite little plants this afternoon, and even more amazed that she let me run upstairs, grab the camera, and snap several photos of her before dashing off! The love of lizards became something of a theme this Christmas. Son 1 chose me this mug by one of our favourite local craftspeople - we always buy something from the stall at the Christmas Market.

There's even a brave lizard inside, who investigates your beverage of choice. I was also given this lovely magnet by the same artist. Son 2 was feeling lizard-inspired too, and bought me this Chinese hair pin.It matches my hair!We are enjoying the sun as much as the lizard - the boys are in and out of the pool all day, and my washing is drying wonderfully! Don't forget to visit Juanita's giveaway if you haven't already done so!Ben and I are making serious plans now for my real Garden Party. Please remember that you are all invited to the blog version - click on the invitation to your left to find out more!

'Auld Alliance' Giveaway

As I live in France and like to visit my parents who've moved to Scotland, I've been collecting a selection of French and Scottish goodies for my 100th post giveaway. Anyone from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD is welcome to enter: The 'Auld Alliance' is the name given to the military, diplomatic and trading alliance between France and Scotland, which began in 1295. You can read more about it on websites here, here and here, if you're interested. Obviously, it was in the interests of Scotland and France to curtail the interests of my native England, so that was the basis of the alliance! Access to French wine was also much enjoyed by the Scottish. There is still an organisation of the name today, although the alliance was officially disbanded in the early 20th century:

Here is a glimpse of the lovely little things I've been collecting for you: they've been picked up on various outings which I've chronicled, on the whole, in my blog, so our lucky winner will be able to track back through my links and find out where most of the items came from.

Let's look at the Scottish bits and bobs first: my mother has donated this 1930s(?) clan tartan handkerchief from her collection, and I have added two sweet saltaire beads (that's the name of the Scottish flag) for you crafters, and a lovely little lavender bag lady in the Macgregor tartan, bought from the self-aid craft shop I visited in Edinburgh.
Now to the French connection: you may see the vintage-style apron I found in Veti Relais waiting for one of you here, in the background. In addition I'm giving away the vintage silk Pierre Cardin scarf from the braderie, some Ebay lace, a modern book of antique French samplers, with detailed embroidery patterns, three vintage children on coffee cards from a Vide Greniers, one of my latest fashion suppliments (1898), and a French craft magazine suppliment from precisely 110 years later, entitled '100% Récup' full of weird/wonderful craft ideas.I'm going to add in another vintage photo (wait and see) and some violet flavoured lollipops, a speciality of our area, in the assumption that our winner will be able to find some children to pass them on to!I've got three ways that you can be entered in the giveaway, so please feel free to go for all three; you'll triple your chances of winning...

Entry one: Leave a comment here on this post for me!

Entry two: All those who've signed up as followers to 'Troc, Broc and Recup' will automatically be entered, so please do click on the 'follow' button if you enjoy reading my blog.

Entry three: Please use my giveaway button at the top of this post on your blog, and link to me, or otherwise mention the giveaway on your blog. Make sure you let me know while commenting on this post, and then I'll follow you up and give you another entry into the giveaway.

So that could give you up to three chances to win - I do hope you like the look of the goodies and join in!

I'll keep the giveaway running until Tuesday May 19th (the first day I have enough free time!!!), and then I'll do a draw from all the entries and let you know our lucky winner. Best of luck - I look forward to hearing from you.

Blogging goodies, blogging fun!

I've been lucky enough to get to 'meet' Sharon the Crafty Trundler, whose blog is called Clover Cottage. I've now been doubly lucky because I was one of the first three people to sign up for her 'Pay it Forward' project. That means I get to join in, and you can do the same if you're one of the first three to comment here! Sharon says: 'This is how it works. The first three people to leave a comment on my post will receive a surprise handmade gift from me. All you have to do to take part is to carry on the gift giving to three people. As soon as the comment is made, do a 'Pay it Forward' post on your blog, and carry on the giving. Of course you will need to request the address details of the first three people replying, so you can forward on their gift!!'
Well, that sounds fun to me! Please leave a comment with me and I'll get in touch - I started making last night, with some of the goodies I brought back from my mum's collection...

If you're too late for this one, or have already done it, the Farm Chicks have another great giveaway here. They have two yards (oh, that sounds so nostalgic) of your choice of fabric from a designer called Pixie Dust, and it's very, very sweet stuff. If (and it's a big if) I won, I would choose the 'Column' and the 'Aqua Pagoda' fabrics, I think... or maybe one of the 'Lattice' patterns... It would be hard to decide, but we have to name our choices. You can see all the beautiful fabrics here.

A Golden Parcel has arrived!

Oh, I'm so glad I got to the post before the boys yesterday. They would never have been able to resist ripping open this GOLDEN parcel. But then I couldn't either, as you can see!

Inside were these lovely little bags made from the recylced pages of a fascinating programme of events from Switzerland.

And inside those were some sweet little packages I had ordered from Juanitatortilla, a blog friend!

I bought this necklace for myself:

Lovely, lovely blue!

Even the clasp is prettily hand made...Very unsusally, I hadn't worn a necklace yesterday. Some inner sense must have known this one was coming:

You can tell it was hot here yesterday! I am not always quite that pink!

There were some other packages with contents which will remain secret for now, but Juanita also sweetly added this blogging gift: Look at the little elephants!

I've hung it on the window handle, but here it is a bit lower, just to show you the blue, yellow and green company it is keeping.

Thanks so much, Juanita!

Don't forget to check out Juanita's giveaway, folks!

Bienvenue a la Braderie!

Good-value second-hand shopping,in aid of a different 'good cause' every year...in the company of cheerful ladies! These amazing women run a 'braderie' every year in the village next door, where my husband works. We were chatting about my blog and they asked if we have anything like a 'braderie' in the UK or the USA. The answer is, not really, partly because it's such a TON of work! It's most like a deposit shop, where you take your good quality second-hand items, and the shop sells them on whilst you recieve a portion of the sale price. At a braderie, however, you take your goods, labelled with all relevant details and the price you want for them, and the dedicated ladies assign each item a number. This takes place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. You pay the ladies a certain amount, according to the number of items you have for sale, I think. Then on Saturday and Sunday, the shopping begins! As everything is clean, folded, sorted, labelled, and priced, it's nothing like a Jumble Sale. Prices are a bit higher but it's easier to shop and high-quality items are included in the sale.
Here are our cheerful ladies again, because this is the check-out, where you realise how much work has gone in to the event. Things move VERY slowly! Each of the ladies on the right has a book, with numbers 1-400 in the first book, 401-800 in the next, etc. The first lady on the left looks at each of your items in turn, calling out the number, description and price. The lady on the right with the correct book stops chatting with a start, finds the number, and checks that the description is correct and crosses out the item. On Sunday evening or Monday the vendors turn up and find out from the books how much money they have made.

As this badly photographed banner shows, every year (over the last 20 years) the money raised has gone to a different local project - a computer room for the village, books for the nursery school, a play centre...

This village bradrie is particularly cheerful. Last year I turned up just after their lunch break, and the ladies insisted on my trying several of the home-made cakes they were sharing. This year I arrived during a crowded moment, and suddenly one of the woman jumped up, grabbed a claxon and hooted it loudly. She announced: 'We have a winner!' They had arranged some kind of prize and one of the shoppers had unwittingly won their goody bag. The atmosphere is punctuated by gales of laughter, and last year one of the elderly ladies had just arrived on the back of a motorbike, driven by a very hunky young man. The screams of delight were wild and long-lasting.

Now, if anyone knows anything about France, you may find this as unusual as I do. People really are very quiet and restrained, and don't want to make a display of themselves in public. Women in particlar stay graceful and calm... except here. The cheerful ladies invited me to join them to 'experience the spirit of braderie'. They say, 'we laugh a lot, we eat a lot, we work hard...' I actually don't think I have the time, as I teach every day, but it would be quite an experience...
As you can see from my photos, I bought a vintage platter, two little mauve planters, a crochet jumper, a groovy T-shirt (in most backgrounds), a book and a very non-French DVD. The total came to 15 euros. I also met my friend Sylvie, who said 'people are going to think we share the same address!', referring to the fact that we seem to meet at every second-hand shopping opportunity in the area!And, as always, when I came out, under my windscreen wipers was a flyer about another forthcoming event of interest to braderie-goers...

I also want to tell you about the most lovely giveaway, over at la Maison Douce. Isabel Lang, who is now based in the USA and writing in English, has an amazing European background and has organised three giveaways to celebrate her 100th post. The post tells you about her fascinating life and the reason that the three giveaways are from Portugal, England and Morocco. It is well worth reading.