the story of a chair

Once upon a time a girl worked at an Emporium of Scandinavian Flat-packed furniture with unpronounceable names and indigestible food shaped like small cannonballs. The girl's nemesis was the colour yellow which she wore everyday and kept her from using her ability to be creative.

One day the girl found a little white chair that had been abandoned in the ex-display graveyard. She felt sorry for the chair and as it was very cheap she bought the chair and brought it home. The chair lived happily amid other flat-pack constructed furniture in a tiny one bedroom cottage.

But then the girl, her husband, a tiny babe and a very lardy cat moved to a bigger home and the little chair was used to stand on to paint the walls. It was dripped with paint knocked over and eventually went to live in the green house with the tomato plants. The chair was very sad and lonely.

A few years later the family moved and with the family moved the chair. It was used for painting the walls and stripping wall paper. The chair lived in the garage and then in the garden shed. The chair was sad and alone. It was splashed with blue and purple paint, it's own white paint was cracked and peeling. It was forgotten.

One winter day the girl remembered the chair and dragged it out into the brittle winter sunshine. She scrubbed the chair with sandpaper and wiped it down and brought the chair into the house again. And the little chair was happy again.

Lattes, Ikea jars, and hidden mushrooms

another toadstool painting

M did take me for a Starbuck's we sat together happily at the new one by Ikea Nottingham, sipping from wintery red cups and listening to Christmas music while looking out over the half empty car park pretending we were in America. I had a red cup with a latte (extra shot please)in it, and I was happy. Then we dragged ourselves around Ikea in search of a desk for the bedroom and I wanted some of the little glass gars with lids ( canning jars) for some Christmas crafting.

The desk ended up being a full serve item so we must have waited twenty minutes or more for them to bring two small flat packed boxes while I sat there being thankful that I don't still work there. M will be spending the rest of the day reading flat pack instructions and grizzling at said instructions, while i carry on playing with beads for a stall I have over the weekend.

my little seahorse

The toadstool painting and the seahorse are from a few days ago, I misplaced them and forgot about them until this morning. I used to doodle seahorses all the time when I was little, that and erm unicorns. But anyway I have been really busy stocking up on bracelets and beaded pendants, with a few key chains and mobile phone charms mixed in. Pictures soon I promise. I best go as I'm being shouted to sort something out.

Drawing Straws at Ikea

Katy's pendant

Yesterday I met up with the effortlessly cool Katy at that place of all things flat packed and Swedish. We had a good natter over a vaguely black substance labled coffee, but tasting of no such thing. I gave Katy's this pendant I made from a square cut focal jade bead, and some fire opal beads I had kicking about my bead box. I found the focal bead at SpellBound Beads in Lichfield on Saturday and Thought it would make a lovely gift for Katy, with her love of the colour green, and paired with the vibrant orange fire opal, it makes a bright pendant in orange and green 70's colours, Katy's favourite.

M forbid me to buy anything as we had a walk around Ikea, my only purchase was a little bag of straws to replace all the straws that H has chewed up. Oh and I bought some chocolates for M for the shop at the end. Thats my lot for now H is throwing tantrums and the kitchen is a pig sty.

jade and fire opal pendant