Handcrafted & Vintage Christmas Fair

I can't quite believe it's that time of year again! This time last year I was spending my first few days at home with our little Stella, where has that year gone.........?



Somehow, in the midst of the madness, I have managed to keep the business ticking along, only just! So, after the Open Studios back in September, Katie and I got our acts together and organised the above fair, and in the blink of an eye it is upon us already!



We have a great selection of stall holders, everything from beautiful porcelain ceramics, to knitwear, vintage and textile homewares, artwork, photography, fashion accessories, painted furniture and lots more.



We've decided to do it as a fuindraiser for Help for Heroes as Rob, Katies husband, was in the Royal Dragoon Guard for 16 years. As far as we know we think this may be the first ever Handcraft Christmas Fair held in aid of the charity in Scotland, so lets hope we get a big turnout.

We've got the local SWRI serving up tea, coffee and lots of home baking, so hopefully that will pull people in too!



So, if you fancy a wee day out on Friday or Saturday of this week do pop along to the fair, remember to come and say hello!



L x

The last 13 weeks

I think we're just about out of the fog! Life with little Stella is good, although where the last 13 weeks have gone, who knows!

Christmas came and went, spent with the family and was a very chilled out affair, just what we were needing.

The house renovation (part 1!!!) is almost there, the next couple of weeks will be exciting as the woodfired ESSE will hopefully be getting fitted........watch this space!

Hopefully it wont' be quite so long until my next post............

L xx

Christmas "Open House" at Lilybank

Hello all!

I'm in the land of pink and babies at the moment so this is very short and sweet! Thank you all for your lovely messages welcoming our little Stella into the world! She's doing extremely well, Mummy & Daddy are a little sleep deprived, but hey, it could be worse!

Just a quick post to invite all the locals along to this years "Open House" event. Seeing as we have our hands full at the moment, Katie at Vintage Squirrel has kindly offered to host this years event, and would love everyone to come along. We'll both be selling our wares, plus another friend is coming along to sell her gorgeous painted furniture, so do come along and start your Chistmas shopping!

It's at Lilybank, 32 Mercat Green, Kinrossie, Perthshire, from 11am until 4pm, this Saturday, 14th Nov. If you'd like any further info or directions give Katie a call on 01821 650632.

Hopefully see you on Saturday!

L xx

Back to work

Today we returned back to routine, the festivities over for another year. We both felt we'd had a good holiday and really enjoyed this Christmas especially. The house started to fill up on 23rd December, I was kept busy with sewing and orders right up until the day before, so it was a welcome break to start the holidays when the guests arrived! There were 6 of us in all, Gregg and myself, my Mum, my two sisters and my brother. We knew it would be strange, the first year without Dad, but somehow it has brought all so much closer together. Some tears and much laughter, but Dad certainly wasn't forgotten, we dragged everybody up Alyth Hill on Christmas Day to have a wee toast to Dad, I'm sure he was with us somewhere.

Lots of long walks were had with friends and dogs, a childrens reel with friends in the village hall, visitors coming and going, lots of good food, a little too much whisky but lots of fun was had over the last couple of weeks, it's just a shame it's all over for another year.

2009 will hopefully be a special year for us, I really do hope so. Plans are afoot for lots of exciting things, so fingers crossed that it all works out.

Wishing a very happy & prosperous 2009 to everyone who reads our little blog and supports our adventures in the country, I hope you all continue to enjoy it as much I enjoy writing it!

Love to all,

L xx

Christmas door wreaths

I'm getting there with the gearing up for Christmas in the Studio, it has certainly cheered me up as it's a time of year that I absolutely love. Nicola, my trusty little elf, delivered me a couple of door wreaths this week, one for on the Studio door and one for inside. Given that she was a florist in her previous life, she has taken over the task of making our door wreaths this year! And they are just gorgeous, made traditionally with a mossed ring, they are made up with lots of hedgerow finds and other natural bits and bobs. Just perfect for any discerning front door, and what better way to welcome friends in to your home over the festive period.

In previous years I have done the whole running around like a blue ar**d flee delivering everyones wreaths, this year we are asking that you come and pick them up from the studio, you will be welcomed with mince pies and maybe even some mulled wine, who could refuse an offer like that! Obviously we're only expecting locals to order them...........

They can be made up with a natural hessian ribbon or a red satin ribbon, the choice is yours, and all for just £20. Bit of a bargain really.

L x

P.S. I'm off to a Sarah Raven Christmas Flower arranging day next week so no doubt I'll be helping out with the wreath making over the next couple of weeks!

Back into things.

We are back home and trying to get back to normal, back into the routine of things. Friday was a really hard day, my first on my own with no one to look after, just me, myself and I. And a very messy studio with a huge backlog of orders to be made, put together, and posted out. I'm getting there, slowly. The shop is also back open now and is dressed for Christmas with twinkly lights and lots of festive loveliness.

Thank you to everyone for their thoughful comments, cards and phone calls, it's at times like this that you realise just how important good friends are.

Taking things slowly this week, but missing the buzz of the Country Living Fair, never mind there's always next year. I'm sharing a stall with Katie this weekend at a local Winter Festival so that shall keep me busy.

L x

Christmas scents

Much stuffing of Christmas hearts and pillows has been done this weekend, so the herb jar has been hit fairly hard. A mix of cinnamon, cloves and rosemary, with a little clementine essential oil added too. The best bit is definitely bashing up the cinnamon sticks, very good for anger management............

This year our little Christmas hearts are made from locally handloomed linen with an embroidered snowflake in red stitching, and stuffed with said herbs. All we need now is jingle bells playing in the background.............

Happy Monday.

L xx

After the event

Phew, my feet have at last hit the ground today, a full day of uninterupted sewing, probably the first in almost 2 weeks! The Perthshire Open Studios was a huge success, I was amazed at how many visitors we had over the 9 day event, I think from my notes between about 70 and 80 people came along. It was lovely to chat to everyone, I met some really inspirational and interesting folk, and there was an awful lot of studio love going on, I only wish Gregg had been around more to hear everyones comments.

It was really interesting how many people who visited had seen our little article in Homes & Interiors Scotland, so it just goes to show that P.R. does work!

The venue up the road from us at Bamff House was fabulous too, I met a couple of the artists who were exhibiting there, Penelope Anstice and Lulu Washington. Lulu is a total inspiration, her paintings of chickens and ducks were understandably snapped up quickly on the preview evening. She came down to visit us and fell in love with Florence and Felicity our geese, so hopefully they may feature in some of her work soon!

I met this lovely lady too, she came to visit on Sunday and we had a great old chat, Lucy organises the North Fife Open Studio event so it was interesting to hear how they were doing now in their fourth year.

I was also thoroughly delighted when the author of this book compared our setting to that of Enid Blytons, apparently she used to cross the bridge over the burn and into the woods, just like ours outside the studio...... Duncan and his partner Kate came to visit during the POS week and were quite taken with our little bit of heaven here.

Right, I'm off to have some supper and then back out to the workroom, 20 Christmas hearts are a calling.

L xx

Frankly my dear, I'm in a bit of a tizz...

I must be mad, with only 7 or 8 weeks sewing time left, I have decided to go for it with the old Country Living Fair up here in Glasgow. I was waiting to see how things were with Dad before I committed to anything that big. *Amazingly* he is hanging on in there.

Never having done anything quite this big before I am now panicking slightly (Spring Fair is one thing, Christmas, I think, will be a whole different ball game up here). So I have bitten the bullet and aquired some help over the coming months, a sweet little elf (called Nicola) is coming to join the sweat shop.

Lets just hope no family dramas happen in the meantime.

Back to the sewing machine, covered notebooks are a calling!

L x

Autumn Courses

I have at last got something organised that has been in the pipeline for a while now. On Friday I had a meeting with my friend Nicola Poole-Reeves as she is going to be taking one of our courses over the Autumn/Winter months. Nicola is the type of person that I would love to employ full time. She always knows what to be getting on with, is great with the customers and is just generally lovely to work alongside. With 20 years experience of running her own floristry business under her belt, she certainly knows a thing or two about flowers. Her business was based in Devon, so this allowed her to support many local flower growers by selling their flowers in her shop. She traded that life in two years ago and moved up to Glenshee with her husband, her two passions now being pottery and growing her own flowers and veg, along with doing up their cottage (many of us seem to be in that boat up here!).

So, we have put our heads together and are going to do a day course on Christmas Flower Arranging. She will demonstrate how to make a mossed wreath (which everyone will get to make and take home too), putting together a gift wrapped posy, bulb planting and a table centre decoration. I'd like the emphasis to be on using natural ingredients foraged from the garden and woodlands, so my dog walks are now centred around looking for seed heads and nice greenery to be foraged later on in the year!

We have set the date of * changed to 6th November rather than 27th, sorry!*, so everything should be fresh in your head for making your own the following month. The course costs £50 for the day 10am - 4pm, and includes morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea. Drop me an e-mail(info@primrosehillinteriors.com) if you'd like more info or to book a place.

I'm also in the process of organising our other courses which will be held in October, day courses in quilting, knitting and needlefelting, again let me know if you are interested as spaces will be limited.

Gosh, it's just all Christmas, Christmas, Christmas at the moment, mad really given that it's August, but then the weather is fairly lousy so it's not really difficult to get into the spirit of it all!

L x

A fab weekend

Well, we're onto the last push this week, it's more mad sewing for our Open Day this Saturday (all welcome if you're in the area). We had a fab time at The Green Gallery Fair this weekend, we were beside some lovely stalls in the conservatory, it always helps when you've got nice "neighbours" at these things.

I love the fact that quite a lot of bartering goes on between the stall holders, I did swaps with Emma of Pumpkin Sputnik who was next to me, she makes the most fabulous stationery, have a look at her site. We're hopefully going to work on a project together some time next year.......

We were also kept well fed and constantly tempted by The Cookroom, the most delicious range of cakes, all gluten and wheatfree. The Fair was their first weekend of trading so I really hope they do well in the future.

I also got to meet the lovely Jane Keith, the sister of my friend Sara Keith, both extremely talented textile artists. Jane was there with her fabulous range of hand printed and painted silk ties, I think we're planning on doing swaps too, she loves our dotty aprons and is getting one of our dotty door stops for her Christmas..........!

Right, must get on, loads to do this week, plus the house looks like a bomb has hit it, so a fair bit of tidying will be required before Saturday.........!

Bye for now,

L xx

P.S. the pictures are of Katies gorgeous felt jewellery, it flew off the stall this weekend. x

All work and no play.....

This week has been a bit mad, the fair on Monday and Tuesday went really well, which to be honest I was really quite surprised at. I had felt previously that it had been more of a "social" fair where people go to catch up rather than shop. But this year we did really well, hence the reason this has been a bit of a mad week, no stock left! So amid a mad flurry of sewing, we've also been trying to get the web site updated (always late doing that, one of these years I might actually get organised and be updated with xmas goodies by October, but to me that would just be boring, I much prefer to fly by the seat of my pants!). Plus, other than wanting to get the shop updated before December is upon us, we've also got a lovely little article in The Scottish Farmer about us this week, so by midnight last night my head was spinning slightly!

So, this afternoon I'm heading down the road to Buchlyvie to The Green Gallery for their annual Christmas Fair this weekend, one I always enjoy as there are always so many familiar faces, given that the area used to be home. It's my last fair for the season other than our open house next weekend, and boy am I looking forward to getting home on Sunday night, I'm pooped!

Off to get on with some last minute sewing, label printing and packing my bag, roll on Sunday night, a big hug from Gregg and a log fire to come home to!

Enjoy your weekend,

L xx

A few photos....

I'm absolutely pooped! Not long home from another fair, a big one in Perth that was on tonight and all day tomorrow - if you're in the area do pop along to say hello, there are some lovely stalls there........

The fairs are all going well, some better than others, but that always tends to be the case in this game, you can just never tell...... I should really be going to do some sewing now as we've sold out of a few products tonight, it's very heartening to see that it's the handmade goodies that are selling out, it makes all the hard work worthwhile!

Seeing as I've not shown you any photos of the studio build for a while I thought I'd post a few tonight, it's really coming on.......

The roof trusses inside, it's going to be open plan to make it feel nice and airy....

The sarking boards going on the roof......

At the end of this weekends work, roof water tight, the back wall clad and the side wall started.......

A rather blurry photo of Gregg on the roof playing with his favourite toy, the nailgun.......!

Right, I suppose I'd better go and get a bit of sewing done before I go to bed, it's going to be a long week I think!

Night, night,

L xx

A quick post.....

Morning all! Just a quick post to let you know our next fair is tonight and tomorrow at The Edinburgh Academy School. Tonight (7.30pm - 10pm) is a ticket event, £10, which includes champagne and capapes - very posh! Tomorrow is open to the public from 11am - 4pm. There will be approx. 50 stalls so it should be rather good. I'm really looking forward to it as I haven't been down to Edinburgh for ages, hopefully this afternoon Katie and I will manage to squeeze in a couple of art exhibitions, so I'll report back on Monday!

I also want to tell you all about the latest happenings here on the animal front, I've

been trying do a post on it for ages, but never quite get round to finishing it! We've had our first experience of eating our own poultry produce, but all I'll say for now was that it was very yummy! Don't worry we haven't eaten William the Cockerel.............

More next week, off to pack the car, it's a very frosty morning!

L xx

Progress

Just a quick update with the progress of the studio, it's coming on, as you can see......

We have decided that we're probably not going to get it completed for a Christmas opening, which is a shame, but we'd rather not rush it just for the sake of being open for a couple of weeks, plus the weather is bound to turn sooner or later...............!

So, I've started making plans for the grand opening next year, probably even more exciting than a Christmas opening actually, but more about that in the new year.

Julia, you mentioned in your comment about having a wood burning stove in the studio, well funnily enough that's exactly what I was thinking!! It's all dependent upon space as it is a bit of a luxury and there are certain things that I must fit into the studio, but hopefully we'll be able to squeeze one in somewhere. It would just be rude not to have a stove for Chrissie to lie in front of now wouldn't it!!

Tonight is a tagging and organising of stock evening, the first Christmas fair is this Friday at Letham Grange Hotel, from 10am - 4pm, so if you're in the area do pop in and say hello. I've been sewing like a mad woman for the last few weeks now, so hopefully I'll have enough stock made. We set up tomorrow evening so I'll take some photos and try and remember to post them!

Anyway, better get on, loads to do tonight. I promise I'll come and visit you all very soon.

L x

P.S. Blogger was playing up so I've only just managed to load up the photos after umpteen attempts last night - it seems to be behaving a little bit better this morning! x

The Christmas break.....

Well, it has passed for another year and 2006 certainly proved to be the busiest one! By the time Christmas Eve arrived all orders and Christmas pressies had been delivered to customers, friends and family. The stove in the dining room was finished and chugging away - just having a warm house for Christmas was such a treat!















The tree and the rest of the house were eventually decorated very late on but I did enjoy doing it this year. The tree was kept very simple with lots of fairy lights, glass, white decorations and silver jingly bells.
















The dining room was a bit more festive with red berries, holly and ivy, and traditional scandinavian style decorations.
















The weather has been amazing, very cold with lots of heavy frost, but beautiful blue skies, it couldn't have been more perfect.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas so far and are enjoying the break, it has certainly done Gregg and I good to just stop and relax for a few days. My mum and two sisters arrive tomorrow so the house will be full of fun and laughter for a couple of days.