Back from hols down east...

We flew back this morning from our week in Halifax with Don's mum, Mary. We walked miles each day as Halifax is a hilly little city so my legs had a good workout. We had an overnite stay up in Pugwash, (I know...cute name) which is the hometown of Mary's family. The photo is one of the family cottages. We stayed in it and there is another cottage is over on the right out of the pic. We also spent a day down in Lunenberg which is where the new tv series, Haven, is filmed. And had an ice-cream in Mahone Bay...both places were just gorgeous...

vintage dress for you Trudes....op shop this morning!!

It is a really pretty pink broderie anglaise fabric...very retro...its halter necked..

Thrift shopping...

a close-up of fabrics I bought..these are old curtains and there are a few metres!! Very nice...I love them.

A gorgeous old book in French...it really is beautiful..

My finds laid out on the bed....I forgot to mention the red velvet under the book..I think there would be 3 metres ....$5!!

A funny old kids jigsaw I actually DID...I wanted it done to use in collages...it took me a while..haha...

This was quite large and lovely but I didn't buy it - I could have wall to wall pictures without trying so I have to rein my enthusiasm in.

This set was one I thought you might like...I didn't buy it either though but wanted to show you...there is just the little issue of bringing it all back..Can you see the price tag on the cup? 49c...maybe I should have bought them...

Our finds in the basket...My plates and Donna's inlaid box..






Some more pretties that stayed in the shop.

A lovely cup...I can't think yet what to do with cups..they are so gorgeous and so prolific but what do I do with them? Didn't get it.

The reeeeally big frames I bought and our home.

Do you remember these birds from one of the markets a few years ago? They are so lightweight I brought them over here and blutacked them to the wall in the dining area...I made the funny looking glass stand and collected the old books from the op shops...I have found some beautiful old old hardcovers...

This is one of the frames with black and white photos from nan and pop blutacked to the wall inside the frame...the lamp was pink and green and I painted it cream...I made the ivy circle and your books are sitting on this side table.

An old jug standing next to the silver frame which is being used to frame a pinboard in my art room..the just has an 'A' engraved on it...A for Alex!!

Both frames...I didn't really show you a good pic of the silver frame.

Birthday prezzie from Trudy...a lovely surprise..

Some of the illustrations from 'Art Forms in Nature'..the smallest of the 3 books...I love it and used one of the colour palettes as inspiration in a collage.

I will start reading 'The Art of Travel' soon...it looks very interesting.

This is a large coffee table sized book on homes...a lot of them are set in Japan and China...it is pretty amazing and I love it.

New art

This is the old large vase of flowers painting which wasn't working. Some of the flowers were okay but parts of the painting were just not good, so I decided to use some of it as part of a new painting. This angel will have flowers either as her hair or in her hair...I really like the change...I,m hoping it will work out well but if not there is more paint.

A small collage done in layers with varnish between each layer...I really like its luminosity...this isn't the best photo though

This is the second collage done with the one above...there was a third but it didn't work out.