You Are REALLY In The Army Now!!!

My younger son, William is firmly ensconced in the Army now. He arrived at his permanent duty station (PDS in Army vernacular) yesterday.  The 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell Kentucky. 

After a day filled with nerves and anxiety he was greatly surprised when an Air Force Colonel bought his dinner for him. Then, when he boarded the plane, he was bumped up to First Class!! I think this boosted his confidence hugely.

Ahh, the bravado of the young!

GOD BLESS ALL OF OUR TROOPS

Another nice thing happened.....I sold another piece from my ShellSeakers etsy shop! 

OK that was the good news......

Not so good news is: my SO was home before me yesterday which caused me to think he was either ill or.....

Yup, his work cut his hours back to part time.

I immediately broke into tears when he told me and guess what he said? "Why are you crying?"

DOH

We are barely making it as it is since I work REALLY part time (unfortunately) and jobs are really hard to come by in this part of the world.

SOOOOOOOOOO....this is my plan:-

Not buy any more craft supplies

Use everything on hand to make more items to sell

Ramp up my esty shops and MAKE MONEY

Not get depressed (this is going to be a hard one since I have not had my meds for about 2 months)

SMILE, SMILE and SMILE some more.....

Awesome Giveaway

Check out this fantabulous giveaway at ohhellofriend.com.

  I must be crazy in letting you know about it since it will lessen MY chances of winning, but gotta share the lurv.xxx

AND THE WINNER IS.....................

Thanks so much ladies for all entering my first giveaway.

The winner by random pick, is Cheryl Wilson!

Cheryl, I will be contacting you with the information regarding how to claim your prize.

Awesome New Linky Party

Today I am linking to Finding Fabulous for Marketplace Monday to promote my etsy shops. Such a great idea for cross-promoting your wares that you have for sale. Go ahead and join the fun.

I shall be announcing the winner of my giveaway later this evening.

STAY TUNED.

Pink Saturday

In honour of Pink Saturday, I did a little moving around in my bathroom (as one does). I collect vintage ironstone and years ago found these lovely powder containers for a ladies dresser. The candle sports a pretty pink rose that I made into a sticker, a vintage hankie, et voila.

Here is a bit of pinkness from my desk top.

  

I hope you all have a great weekend. 

I am trying to get a bit of rest, I feel completely overwhelmed with all the projects I have put on my plate. I am going to lay in bed with my feet up and make a list of priorites and WORK THROUGH THEM. You guys need to hold me to this, OK?!!!

Linking to How Sweet The Sound for a Pink Saturday.  Or Not. Blogger seems to be a bit off colour itself today.

PS, ONLY TWO MORE DAYS TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY!

TTFN, Anne

Rednesday/Wednesday/Hump Day.

Another Wednesday already!!

Another Rednesday already!

Despite the heat, I turned on my oven today and made some cupcakes. They are still actually baking so you will have to stay tuned for a picture of the finish product. They are vanilla with fresh peaches inside and will be topped off with whipped heavy cream and sour cream and a drizzle of delicious passion fruit puree that I found at Walmart in the Hispanic frozen section.

So just to wet your appetite......

Can you say YUMMMMM?

I shall be linking this post to It's A Very Cherry World

for Sue's Rednesday party.

BTW....did you all see that I am having a give away? 

So far the odds of you winning are VERY VERY good.

Get yourself entered and win a $40 gift card to CSN Stores.

TTFN....Anne

My First Giveaway!

Hello lovely people! I hope everyone has had a good start to their week.

I am rather excited because the lovely folks at CSN Stores have offered me a $40 gift certificate to give one lucky lady (or gent), just for looking at what they offer on their website. I am sure a lot of you know about this great one stop shopping site already, but for those that don't, it is SHOPPING HEAVEN ON EARTH.

Seriously, you could decorate your whole house by just buying from them. Plus their prices are unbeatable. If you are in the market for lamps or lighting just pop on over and shop away for hours from the comfort of your own home.

I personally fell in love with this little lamp.

  

If you would like a chance at $40 towards something like this, all you have to do is :

FOLLOW me.

VISIT csn's online shop.

LEAVE A POST letting me know what you would love to put into your not so shabby abode if you won the lottery tomorrow.

.

They also have a shop called LUXEbycsn.com and it is all about shoes, and bags and lots of other lovelies. I found they sell Kipling bags (so useful and practical) at the best price I have ever seen on the web.

I will do the drawing next Monday, so get a wiggle on, leave a post and cross your fingers.

Best of luck!

Frugalicious Friday Finds

It is Friday and I need to show you how frugal I have been this week. 

I was so excited to find this French market basket at......GW naturellment. Have you ever priced them new? Very spendy.

The two shabby silver plate pieces will shine up beautifully, and I am saving them to sell.

The verdigis iron hanger still has it's Big Lots tag on it for $3.99. I saved $3!

Can you see the little demitasse cup? It is soooo sweet and it is Haviland. I just looked it up on Replacements and apparently it was made in the '40s and a demitasse cup and saucer goes for about $45. They wanted $14 for the saucer ALONE.

And so the hunt begins.......saucer, oh sauuuuucer...wherefore art thou?

The blue milk jug looks like utility ware, but has no markings on the bottom.

Anyway, back to polishing. I will post pics later of the shiny bits.

Aaaaah! Bisto

If you have done any food shopping at Target recently, you may have noticed that they now have a small British Food section.

I can't tell you how THRILLED I was to find some of my favourite items there.

The Lemon Barley water is rather an aquired taste since it is not sweet, but I LURV it, especially with fizzy water.

HP sauce is a bit more fruity than steak sauce, and the Bisto gravy granules make the best, quick brown gravy.

I have to say, I did buy some Maynards wine gums, but they are long gone, teehee.

Budget permitting next week, I shall venture forth to purchase more delectable goodies.

Since it is one again Rednesday, I am asking...who thinks this would make a good tee shirt?

Let me know what you think.

Linking to It's A Very Cherry World. Drop by and add your own redness to Sue's weekly party.

Anne

Summer Swap

I recently had a wonderful experience utilizing the Summer Swap guide from oh,hellofriend...... Thiliblooms at etsy.com has a line of the most gorgeous fabric flowers and she wanted to swap one of them for some of my tags. Naturally I was delighted to do so.

We had so much fun messaging backwards and forwards, and decided to leave the finished products as a big of a surprise.

Here is what she sent to me.

I was delighted to say the least. A delicate flower hair clip that can be converted to a pin or brooch. Her work is flawless. Plus Thili was kind enough to include a fabulous pink flower magnet!

I am now a firm believer in swapping.

Please visit both Thiliblooms and SellSeakers/HandMaidenjustforyou on the etsy website and see if there is anything YOU would like to swap for.

Pink Saturday

PINK SATURDAY is upon us once again.

I thought I would put together a little grouping of some pinkishness that I bought at the GW recently. I swear I cannot go by that place without going in.

I found the large pink plate and the smaller bread plate today, and the bowl (actually four of them) a few weeks ago. Only one of the juice glasses I am sad to say.

I have been finding things that match in different thrift shops...weird how that works.

I really thought I was over pink, but this soft shade just speaks to me still.

Back to working on etsy projects,

PEACE..........

White Wednesday

It is White Wednesday over at Faded Charm and I thought I would join in for the first time. 

I have seen so many beautiful and calming white decorating projects that I wish I was able to do that in my home. Unfortunately this style of house does not allow me to do this, but I still have fun making little vignettes of whatever is striking my fancy at the moment.

I threw this together very quickly (as per usual) but have some wonderful ideas for whiteness that I want to begin working on.

I really should carry around a voice recorder or a notebook strung around my neck so that I can instantly record all the ideas that flood into my brain while I am working at my deathly boring job!!!

Everything you see was either thrifted, from the dollar store or the like. The milk glass juice glasses were found over time at antique stores. The shell tea towel I made myself.

And now for a wee bit of red for Rednesday over at It's a Very Cherry World.

My 4th of July decorations are ready to be put away, but I thought I would show off the bunting hanger that I made and just love.

I could probably make loads of those in different colour combos for every occassion!

TTFN my lovelies.....

Frugalicious Friday Finds

I had a lovely time this week going to about five thrift shops on one street close to my house. Of course, when you find out that everything you are looking at is half off you get very excited!!!

    

The glass jars were 50 cents each. I LOVE the tall one. It is an English sweetie jar.  The two turquoise place mats were also 50 cents each.  A few foot long dowels to make hanging banners with. Some plastic canvas for a quarter, to put in the bottom of hand made bags.

On the turquoise damask table cloth  are some bits of silver plate and behind is a Beaumont Pottery plate from the 1990's that I have quite a few pieces of.

I love it when your thrifting experience goes well.

Linking to:        Frugalicious  Friday at decormamma.blogspot.com

Breakfast for Dinner

    The other evening Monsieur Rouge suggested we have stuffed french toast for dinner since he had recently seen Bobby Flay throwing some down. So like a dutiful Spousal Substitute, off the the store I went to buy the ingredients. Fortunately the berries were on sale (buy one get one free). It was basically just your average french toast mixture with a pocket cut into thick slices of firm bread. I mixed some whipped cream cheese with the berries and for MR I added some powdered sugar for sweetness 'coz he is a sweetie.  It was totally delish and I watched him gobble up two thick slices with delight!

EASY PEASY

I have been seeing this on quite a few different blogs and thought it would be fun to give it a go. All the instructions to join in are posted below. I can't wait to send out some goodies!

PIF means performing random acts of kindness without expecting anything

 in return (comes from the movie of the same name featuring Kevin Spacey), just passing it forward, like a never ending chain of kindness. I will make and send a gift to the first 3 friends who post a comment on this blog, requesting to join the exchange, and promising to pay it forward to 3 other people, and on and on infinitum...... I cannot say what my three gifts may be, but I can promise that they will be sent out within the next 365 days (probably sooner that later). All you have to do in return is....Pay it Forward by making the same announcement on YOUR blog.