Twas the night before the night before Christmas

Each year I promise myself I will be ready in good time for Christmas, the day itself is over so quickly that I like to enjoy the lead-up, when tree and decorations are up, just sitting, relaxing and enjoying the view.

Each year I fail miserably to achieve this, with this year being no exception. Although the Christmas decorations are up, today I was still painting walls and tomorrow I will be re-covering the settee!

I managed to snap a few pictures, my main scheme is red, gold, silver and white. For me it just doesn't feel Christmassy without these colours.

A festive Lillipeg - I've named her Holly!

Baubles and birds are my favourite combination.

A mix of old and not-so-old.

Of course I love vintage decorations too and have dressed a small tree in the dining room with multi-coloured vintage baubles.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, see you again in 2010!

After the Party

So the big 50 has come and gone - do I feel different? - yes I do - I'm not sure if I like it much but there you are, nothing to be done.
I did have a wonderful birthday though, starting with the mystery mini-break which was finally revealed about half an hour from our destination. Mr Bloom chose well, this is the lovely country house where we stayed. It was right out in the sticks but not too far from the town of Ledbury in Herefordshire. I was quite happy to be there as we were close to some favourite antiquing haunts.

The B&B was superb, we were the only guests and our landlady kindly showed us round much of her home, done out in splendid English Country style. The kind of house most of us will only ever dream about living in. Sadly, photos were not allowed indoors, but I did sneak a few in our room.

We could choose our room and though the other one had a four poster, this room was bigger with the best views and the most luxurious bathroom.

Several shopping trips ensued over the next couple of days, including one to the pretty spa town of Great Malvern in Worcestershire.

You can stock up on spring water for free.

A view over the town from the romantic Waitrose car park.

The magnificanet Malvern Priory.

Something new since our last visit was this delightful retro shop called FOL (which stands for Fabric of Life). The owner was just doing up the front for the "Best Christmas Display" competition for local traders. He wasn't too keen for me to photograph it in a half finished state, but finally relented. I thought it looked great anyway, I hope he did well in the competition, I didn't notice much going on outside the other shops.

Great Malvern has a good selection of shops and some nice places to eat and drink, if you are thinking of visiting. After a lovely couple of days it was back home for the weekend, and a family dinner. I'm not much for big parties and this was the perfect end to my celebrations.

I was very spoiled and received some lovely gifts, these are just a few:

Beautiful hand painted box and glass perfume bottle.

Pretty candle cup and loads of flowers!

Mr. Bloom's gift had been a mystery too, there had been a trip out somewhere one Friday afternoon which I wasn't allowed on, and I had no inkling what my present might be, but I couldn't have chosen better myself - this beautiful vintage french lamp and shade, which I just love.

In fact, I did choose it myself, I just didn't know that I had. We spotted this back in the summer in a lovely french brocante style antique shop in Pewsey, I had oohed and ahhed over it, then promptly forgot about it, but not so Mr. Bloom. Lucky for me it was still there when he went back months later - there's dedication!

Something purchased whilst we were away was this huge chandelier prism, you should be able to just make it out in this picture, the postcard underneath should give an idea of size.

Not sure why I felt the need to show this, I just thought it made a pretty vignette.

Also wanted to say Thank you for all my lovely birthday emails, I think I have replied to everyone now.

Once my birthday is over, I usually get straight on with Christmas preparations, but annoyingly I have succumbed to this nasty cold virus going round and for the past week have been unable to do much other than lie on the sofa under a blanket feeling ill as well as old ;-)). It's still hanging around, hope it buzzes off soon!

Webshop Update: Due to other commitments I haven't been able to update my webshop and am postponing until January, hoping my customers will be prepared to wait!

Post Fair Haste

I'm probably the last one to post about the V&H fair so you'll have read all about what a truly wonderful day it was. Being determined to allow some shopping time, my friend Jayne and I hastily set up and I took some even hastier photos, most of which came out blurred, so here are some not very good pictures of my stall.

Looking around the other stalls I noticed how artfully they were all arranged whereas mine seemed to be a lesson in how much can be packed onto one 6ft x2ft table - quite a lot as it turned out.

Before we knew it the doors were opened, the rest is a bit of a blur until suddenly it was all over. Thank you to everyone who visited my stall, I wish there had been more time to chat, but it was lovely to meet you all.
A huge thank you to Jayne and Michele once again for a fantastic event! There are links to all posts of the event on the Vintage and Handmade blog and lots more pictures on the website (good ones!)

My plan to allow plenty of shopping time almost worked, I had about 20 minutes before the start, I could had done with three times that at least. I think I need to work on a simpler stall layout and less stuff for next time!

I was very pleased with my own shopping though - pretty fabrics and trims...

One of Niki's superb fairies...

and a lovely brooch pillow.

I thought once it was over I'd be able to slow down a bit, but it's been a very busy week so far with one thing and another, so this is a hastily-written post. I will be taking it a bit easier for the rest of the week though, as Mr. Bloom and I are going on a mini-break tomorrow. This is a bit of a special break as it's my birthday, and a milestone one too. A lady doesn't like to give away her age but it begins with a 5 and ends in an 0. I don't know where we are going, it's a surprise, but I will be taking my camera so hope to have some pics to show you when I'm back next week. Now I'm off to do some hasty packing!

TTFN - Lucy x

Results and Preparations

I'm a bit late announcing my giveaway results, sorry to keep you in suspense. I just couldn't find a slot to get onto the PC yesterday, but thank you to everyone who left a comment! As always there can only be one winner and the random number generator selected number 5 - Congratulations to Victoria of Florence and Mary. Please email me your address Victoria and I'll get the goodies posted as soon as I can.

As to preparations - under three weeks now to the Vintage and Handmade fair and I am almost permanently surrounded by fabric, paint, paper, glue, trimmings, and my (way too big!) To Do list constantly whirring round in my head.

The kitchen table is taken over by stock - at the same time as Mr. Bloom is doing a bit of DIY in there - not a good idea!

So, in the absence of very much to say, I'm showing a few snippets of what will be on offer from Lucy Bloom. Hope you like!

(p.s. I'm switching off my comments for a while again - just until I catch up with myself!)

Monday Nights and a Giveaway

In common with (probably) a large percentage of the population, I don't like Mondays. It's that horrible back to work feeling together with a disbelief that the weekend whizzed by so quickly. Monday evenings, however, are a different matter as that's when I go to my painting class.

It's a small class - just 5 ladies and our teacher, Jayne (who is lovely!) at Jayne's house. I've been going for several years and now it's really more of a social event - we still paint of course, but we choose what to do and probably spend as much time chatting as painting, and indulging in tea and chocolate biscuits (some of us more than others ;-)).

Most of my projects end up in new homes, since I don't have room to keep it all, but I so loved this project I worked on recently that it's been found a spot in the house - for the time being at least!

It's really a combination of painting, decoupage and collage, and a bit of a departure from what we normally do - not all the ladies share my vintage tastes! I would love to say I painted the roses, they are the decoupage part, from floral gift wrap - my contribution was the corset and trellis leaves.

I ruched some pink ribbon to trim around the bust and also for the hanging loop. I then trimmed top and bottom of the board with lace, braid and pink fringe, then added tiny self-adhesive pearls as a finishing touch. Now adorning a spot on the side of my wardrobe that miraculously wasn't yet occupied.

I haven't been able to blog as much as I'd like in recent months and have been a terrible respondent to the lovely comments and emails I've received, so to say thank you to all my readers I have put together a few things for a giveaway.

Included are a selection of vintage cards:

A fat quarter of my favourite Laura Ashley fabric - Isabelle, of course in pink!

A tiny frame with a fragment of vintage wallpaper, a vintage soap, a floral tin, a vintage hanky, a tiny sprig of pink millinery flowers and a rose scented sachet.

And Blossom, one of my Lillipegs, dressed in flowers and lace with a mass of golden hair.

The giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere - just leave a comment, short or long, before Monday 26th October 2009.

Right, must get back to more mundane things - enjoy the rest of the week - Lucy x