lost in the forest and the wizard of oz...

i'm too lucky. look at this collection of beauties i've just received from the lovely emily over at lost in the forest. i have been coveting this stunning embroidered brooch for a while now, so when it was slipped into the package with the pretty purse and brooch shown below i was over the moon! isn't the detail of the stitching just beautiful?

even the packaging had elegant little touches with hearts cut out from vintage book pages. you can see emily's beautiful collection of handmade delights over at her etsy shop....full of lace and sweet keepsake lockets.

so, i'm off to australia tomorrow! things may be a bit quieter round here for the next couple of weeks but i'll try to drop by with some pics. this blogpost title is a bit misleading and i have no intentions of visiting the wizard of oz but we do intend on seeing the blue mountains, sydney, dorrigo national park, byron bay and brisbane among other lovely places. can't wait to share the pics with you all!

speak soon xx

memories of little granny...

ah...so my penhaligon's perfume arrived! what a win...to go from winning not much more than a badge in a raffle (though let's not forget my primary school winning streak at bingo) to winning this entire anthology set of penhaligon's perfume courtesy of the lovely weebirdy. doesn't the bottle just fit perfectly on my bedside table? i love the art nouveau style packaging, a beautiful embossed box with contrasting ribbon which folds down at the front to reveal a short history of the perfume. my four (four!) bottles of perfume arrived hand delivered at my office in a shiny gold bag...must say i felt rather glamourous carrying this bag home on the bus!

so the four scents are very nostalgic and mostly floral based - gardenia, eau de verveine, night scented stock and extract of lime. i think the night scented stock is my favourite with its floral scents mixed with spicy and musky notes.

i won these fabulous (and expensive, £95 a bottle! i've not come near to spending that on perfumes before, but it's nice to have some of the 'posh' stuff!) perfumes by entering weebirdy's competition about our favourite nostalgic scent. immediately my 'little granny' came to mind ('little' in that my granny was approximately 4ft 7 inches...i wonder if she was always that tall/short? i like to think she shrunk a little in the wash...like a fine cashmere jumper). little granny reminds me of summers spent picking willow catkins and crab apples, fishing for stickleback and shelling peapods. it also reminds me of these particular smells, which i wrote down to enter weebirdys nostalgic perfume giveaway:

"ah...it has to be the smell of imperial leather soap mixed with the delicate scent of a light spritz of rose perfume...these are the smells of my grannies hands...mix this with a waft of apple crumble bubbling away in the aga and the smell of charred wood on the fire and i am whisked back to my childhood..."

to celebrate her 98th birthday (sadly she never did receive her birthday card from the queen) i arranged for us to have a traditional tea party...the first surprise of the day was the classic car which pulled up in the drive to whisk us away....the second surprise was arriving at the polly tea rooms for tea and scones (or massive portions of chocolate cake as evidenced in the picture below! if you are in the wiltshire area i heartily recommend a visit to these tearooms for some traditional english charm and wonderfully tasty cakes!)...the third surprise was the family aleady crowded into this petite tearoom to welcome the birthday lady. here she is below, isn't it hard to believe she is 98? so full of life, with a cheeky sense of humour and sincere love of cake...maybe the secret to a long and happy life is a combination of these?

i like to think that this classy little lady i had the pleasure to know and love pulled a few strings to get these perfumes whisked across to me...i know she would have absolutely loved them and would have treasured each bottle. they probably would have been her 'special occasion' scents, as a finishing touch after she'd carefully clasped her pearls together and given her hair a final fix....

would love to know what your favourite 'nostalgic' scents are!

meet my fluttery lodger...

i have a new guest in my bathroom...the moth has taken up residence for the past week despite my efforts to shoo it out the window. i do manage to get him out, but he comes back (at least i think it's him, there may well be a gang of them tag teaming nightly sleeps in my home). he's a sneaky one though, creeping under the towel bales and fluttering out when i grab a towel after the shower. or dive-bombing me in the shower and leaving glitter on the tiles where the water has splashed him...i'm not sure what type of moth he is....umm...brown. and spotty. this isn't him above, this is a one spotted by photontrappist but it does kind of look like my moth...

anyway, here are some purchasable and less fluttery moths for your perusal:

beautiful brooch by luxandlove with leaf texture rolled on the surface to create moth wings!

by gollybard

by blueterracotta

by deardodo

real butterfly gifts

ok, so the above is not a moth but it kind of looks like one. on a side point what do you think of these shadow box with real dead butterflies and insects inside them? i'm undecided between beautiful and macabre....or beautiful because it's macabre? cruel or necessary for conservation? if you're more informed than me please let me know what you think because i'm just not sure but love how beautiful they are.

aaaand on a second point of curiosity....what IS the difference between a butterfly and a moth? well, according to the wisegeek's 'brief and straightforward guide'...there aren't many differences beyond their preferred hours of socialisation and the clubbed or not nature of their antennae! and yet i treat them so differently to their beautiful butterfly cousins...i'd pretty sure i'd welcome a butterfly into my bathroom and even set him up a little home, maybe pop some flowers in so he doesn't need to go far to feed...hmm maybe i should show less prejudice to my less colourful lodger...

why do we seem to love moths less? is it their dowdy wings? is it their bad reputation for being clothes munchers? do the butterflies have a clever PR guy doing a smear campaign on their brown winged cousins?