Vintage Fabric Effect Mosaic House Number

Vintage Fabric Look Mosaic House Numbers

Vintage Fabric Look Mosaic House Number

These house number mosaic plaques have been designed to look like they've got a vintage Liberty style fabric background. The mosaic is made up of small flowers, and butterflies, filled in with small leaves. The grout on the front design has then been overpainted with weatherproof paint to create a rough texture to finish the vintage fabric look.

Vintage Flowers Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Vintage Flowers Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

The lovely neutral, natural palette used for the mosaic in this Vintage Flowers bird bath give the flowery pattern a fab vintage fabric look. The neutral tones are used in a graduated style on the border of the bird bath. It's a bird bath that would suit any style of garden, contemporary to cottage.

Mint Green Gingham Vintage Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Mint Green Gingham Vintage Mosaic Bird Bath

Something a bit different with this bird bath. I wanted a cottage, rustic, vintage, look. So I made a mint green gingham mosaic design, then I painted the rim and sides of the saucer and rubbed it back to give a distressed finish. The end design has a really nice soft vintage look to it.

Ditsy Daisy Suncatcher Cards

Blue and Yellow Ditsy Suncatcher

Blue and Yellow Daisy Card

Pink and Orange Ditsy Suncatcher

Pink and Orange Ditsy Daisy Suncatcher Card

Back in stock for Spring, these suncatcher cards are designed to let the sun shine through the handpainted ditsy daisy design, making it light up and spread colourful shadows.The design has a vintage fabric look, and is available in Pink and Orange, or Blue and Yellow versions. Something a bit different and perfect for brightening the recipients day.

Daisies and Ripples

Bespoke Ripple Bird Bath

Bespoke Blue Stone Bird Bath

I've been busy over the last couple of weeks coming up with new designs and working on a couple of bespoke bird baths for a very lovely customer who wanted to use two of her own stones in the designs. She sent me the stones and let me come up with the colours to use with them. The cream/purple bird bath is for her, and uses a lovely striped marble stone that, when it was wet, had these same colours in it. The other bird bath with the blue stone is for her to give as a gift, and the recipient has a special connection with the colour orange, so a terracotta ring was added in amongst the blues. I think it works because of the terracotta rim of the saucer, so it's like a reflection of that.

Purple Daisy Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

One new design I've made up and listed in my shops now is a new colour version of my Daisy Bird Bath. I already have a white daisy and blue/green pastel background, but I wanted to use a dark flower this time. I chose the plum purple because I wanted to use cream and sand in the background colours, and purple matches them really well. The overall design reminds me of vintage fabric and has a lovely aged feel to it.

More new designs to come over the next few weeks. Keep an eye on my shop or website, or follow me on Twitter or Facebook to get the updates when they are listed.

White Pastel Daisy Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Ditsy Flower Suncatcher Cards

Ditsy Flowers Suncatcher Card

I'm still coming up with ideas for my suncatcher card range. This time the design is fixed, unlike my other designs which can be removed to use as a proper hanging suncatcher, or a bookmark. These are just pretty cards that if displayed on a windowsill, or somewhere where the light can shine through them, will throw the pattern onto other surfaces. Which makes these cards something different from the norm. I'm trying to design things that would be good for gardeners, to keep a theme for my shop. But these cards would be perfect for anyone that likes flowers, vintage, or just fun, bright things.

Blue Ditsy Flowers Suncatcher Card

The cards have vintage fabric style, ditsy print daisies on them. One with orange, magenta, mint, and white flowers, one with blue, lime, yellow and mint flowers, and the other card is called Double Ditsy because it uses both colourways back to back to create a very deep, rich pattern.

Double Ditsy Flowers Suncatcher Card

As I design all my patterns, and hand-paint them all, you know you're getting something very different from anything else you can buy. Which is all part of the fun for me. I love creating my own designs, because I know no one else is doing the same. It's what handmade is all about, for me. Individual styles that make the items special and unique.

In honour of our new shed...

...I decided to create some decoration for it. I had an ornamental bird box that has seen better days. The paint that had been used originally I don't think was for external use because it was all flaking and peeling off after one winter outside. The roof wood was warping and cracking. I don't think shops should be allowed to sell things aimed at the garden unless they use materials that are all weather, or at least specify it's for interior use. Anyway, I also had some vintage plates with chips around the rims, so I decided to try my hand at Pique Assiette. Basically, it's mosaic made up of broken china, or ceramic pieces. I sanded back the paint on the bird box, cut up a couple of the plates and added the mosaic to the front of the box. I then painted the rest of the wood with weatherproof paint.

I painted the roof a shade of blue to match a shade in the tiles and artficially aged the roof by overpainting the blue finish with some green wood preservative. I'm quite pleased with the end result. For a first attempt. To be honest, I've always thought things made with the Pique Assette technique were a bit, well, twee. Which is why I've never tried it. But I didn't want to throw this bird box, or my vintage plates away, so I gave it a go. I think my bird box has a touch of vintage style about it, so I like it.

I may start making some more of these to go in my shop, but (as I always do) I want pass it onto my Quality Control department. Which means I'll be testing my one in my garden first to see how it fares.

Folksy Handmade Gift Ideas - Vintage/Retro / Men Pt 2.



Mosaic Plaque (Dad's shed sign?)



As I had to combine these two gift list boards when I was making them the first time round (due to Pinterest not playing the game that day), I thought I might as well update both lists together. So please have a browse for newly found items for both Vintage/Retro lovers, and Mens gifts.

Folksy Handmade Gift Ideas - Vintage/Retro / Men

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Folksy Handmade Gift Ideas - Vintage / Retro


I love retro, and vintage, so this was an easy list for me to put together. There's some fab things here, and lots of new shops.

Bit of a mare on Pinterest today, I couldn't set up a new board for this theme. So, I've added it onto the Men's gift idea board. Not a bad thing. It means the Men's gifts get a second wind.

I don't have anything vintage/retro to go on the list, so the pic to go with this blog is my closest look item which is my slate daisy ornament/letter rack, it has a slightly vintage look about it. The items on my gift list have a much more retro/vintage feel.

Have a look and see for yourself -

Folksy Handmade Gift Ideas - Vintage / Retro

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Vintage Look Beaded Christmas Gift Bows



Hand-woven, old gold, beaded Christmas gift bows




Magenta Beaded Christmas Gift Bow



I've been thinking about making some Christmas gift bows for a while, using the method that I used on my twine Gardener gift bows. But I couldn't think of what material to use that would give me a festive look, but would hold it's shape.Then this weekend, I found the solution. Raffia. And this raffia is a fab shade of old gold that looks like vintage metal. The finished bows remind me of vintage brooches, with a very luxurious look about them.

The centres are made up of wool on the Magenta and Purple versions, and all of the bows have hand sewn metallic beads to finish them off, and give extra sparkle.