Alison May's Blog, page 18

The Adventures of Miss Petitfour

A few days ago I found myself standing in the children’s aisle of a bookshop while Finley bemoaned the lack of decent books for boys his age and my eye wandered in search of something to delight either one of us. And there it was:The Adventures of Miss Petitfour.

A book with a ribbon! (Oh how I love books with ribbons!) And oodles of spoonfuls of delicious whimsy and pastel, heart pleasing illustrations. But more than that – Miss Petitfour herself – a tall and slender someone with a messy, flyaway, fall-down bun, sixteen cats and a love of baking and all things paisley- is just downright wonderful. So wonderful in fact that I did that awful thing – I read the book standing at the bookshelf, while Finley harassed the bookseller as if it was his fault that once he has moved on from the Diary of A Wimpy Kid, and devoured both Harry Potter  and Percy Jackson, there is a rather yukky leap to piles of books with black covers and viscous tales contained within, and very little else.

Anyways… Miss Petitfour. Truly she is a darling and if we could bring her to life I know for sure she would be a Brocanteer.  She is silly and fanciful, and she goes off on adventures pulled along by her magical tablecloth. You know, like we would if we could?

Miss Petitfour enjoys having adventures that are “just the right size – fitting into a single, magical day.” She is an expert at baking and eating fancy iced cakes, and her favorite mode of travel is par avion. On windy days, she takes her sixteen cats out for an airing: Minky, Misty, Taffy, Purrsia, Pirate, Mustard, Moutarde, Hemdela, Earring, Grigorovitch, Clasby, Captain Captain, Captain Catkin, Captain Clothespin, Your Shyness and Sizzles. With the aid of her favorite tea party tablecloth as a makeshift balloon, Miss Petitfour and her charges fly over her village, having many little adventures along the way. Join Miss Petitfour and her equally eccentric felines on five magical outings — a search for marmalade, to a spring jumble sale, on a quest for “birthday cheddar”, the retrieval of a lost rare stamp and as they compete in the village’s annual Festooning Festival.

A festooning festival! I don’t know what one of those is but I know I want to go. And a jumble sale! Or as my Nana used to call them: rummage sales. Because you went in to a fusty old church hall and rummaged. Which is I think quite the most perfect sport to indulge in on any given Saturday morning.

But I digress. Because for some reason I am feeling rather giddy this morning. So yes. Miss Petitfour. It’s a charm. The writing is full of lovely, domesticated nonsense and the book a feast of five stories penned by poet Anne Michaels and illustrated by Emma Block.

Just as one might expect of someone who likes to fly, she had billowy hair that she wore all brushed up in a tumbling bun. The more she brushed up, the more it came down, and misty wisps floated about her head. She liked to wear a woollen coat that flounced when she walked and jingled with a row of silver buttons. Almost everything she wore (except her shoes) ended in zigzagging scallops of lace and rickrack. She was especially fond of pockets, paisley, playful patterns and anything hand-knitted…

She is lovely. And this is quite the most perfect book for bedtime reading with a little girl. A classic reminiscent of Mary Poppins and the perfect excuse for us all grown up little girls to indulge in a pretty fantasy of paisley tablecloths and teeny cupcakes.

Click here to read a sample of The Adventures of Miss Petitfour or buy it on Amazon.Com here or Amazon.Co.Uk here…

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The Spring House Is Here!

Good morning Oh Gorgeous Ones! It is a yukky, rainy day and all is well with the world regardless. Oh yes indeed, because this I know for sure: Spring is on its way.

In fact The Spring House landed in many of your inboxes just last night , and is available to be collected in the Rose Library for all my lovely Vintage Housekeepers Circle members as part of your Rose subscription. Then next week as an extra special treat, I will be accompanying The Spring House with a lovely new Spring Cleaning download, to guide you through a three month, daily task orientated method of thoroughly cleaning the house once annually – so digging in to The Spring House first might be just the ticket for working up the enthusiasm to really make a difference in your home in 2016…

Click Here To Buy The Spring House for Just $8.00 Right Now!

 

Oooh yes it’s all happening here on Brocante! 

This weekend I am climbing in to my scruffiest work-wear and setting about getting as much of my life out of my house as is physically possible all by myself while Ste entertains the boys by taking them to Posh Pooch to watch poor Alfie be primped and preened in to silly, baldy style. Then next weekend, my whole family will descend on Chez Brocante to paint, and clean and remove furniture ready for the attentions of a new estate agent the following Monday. It is so very odd to be dis-mantling a home – a life – in preparation for another one, but I seem to have rather successfully emotionally detached from my little cottage and I am thoroughly enjoying dithering over each and every item to decide whether it still has a role to play in my life…

Times they are a’ changing Housekeepers. Have a lovely weekend won’t you?

 

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Getting Started With Essential Oils

Step on to the Brocante stage: Ste! Oh yes, Mr Matthews has penned his very first post, and indeed THE very first post over in the Brocante Oils community – our lovely little (FREE) site dedicated to creating a life abundant with all the blessings essential oils can bring to our lives.

Now trust me: the man was a sceptic. Though he is generally of an up for anything nature, I do believe that when he met me he spent a few months feeling utterly befuddled by my “cranky” way of life. I waffled on about routines and rituals and he looked at me blankly. I doused myself in essential oils before I went to sleep at night and he sniffed and smirked and enjoyed their benefits as much as I did by conking out faster than I could switch the lamp off, but waking up in utter denial that it might just be the heady mix of lavender and geranium that helped him switch the day off. I kept house according to my thoroughly detailed 365 schedule and he wandered about muttering to himself, apparently confused by my utter dedication to keeping a house in a way that even he had to admit made my diddy little cottage feel like the cosiest place on earth.

His Comeuppance

He didn’t get it. Any of it. He could see that something made life at Chez Brocante different but he wasn’t quite buying my madcap ideas…

Then life started to get in the way. A few health problems dogged him, and the disastrous effects of contentment apparently began to show around his waistline (though I do believe that was slightly in his lovely head!). He changed jobs and found himself with all the challenges a career in a new industry brings, and Christmas reared its rather persistent head with all the family and financial demands it is so very prone to making.

I could see he was struggling. Sluggish and tired. And I talked about all the benefits my way of life could bring to him and he, finally at the end of his tether said that he would happily get on-board with living an essential oil fueled life if I could prove to him that a) they were safe and that b) it wasn’t all just hocus-pocus!

And then he did his own research and fell in head over heels in love with the idea of something both pure and natural fueling our well-being. (See what a pushover he is!). He read everything there was to read on the company he believed to be the leader in their field, and talked me into a more thorough investigation and before I knew it I was setting up Brocante Oils, and we were beginning our journey to complete well-being with a company I am not allowed to talk about here on BrocanteHome due to various regulations, but can happily share with you if you pop over and quickly sign in to Brocante Oils.

So why am I telling you all of this? Is it just an excuse to sing the praises of my lovely man? Well yes, obviously, but I also wanted to tell you that he has just written the very first blog post over on Brocante Oils, sharing his delight in two products that have made him feel a hundred times better and resulted in him, in my eyes, looking bright-eyed and bushy faced (yep: he’s currently doing the beard thing) for the first time in months.

Go read what he’s got to say and do be kind won’t you… it’s his first blog post EVER and I do believe  he is a little nervous! This then is how a skeptic got started with essential oils and is now the one blending the oils in our living room diffuser each evening and massaging the thyroidy area of my feet each evening with Frankincense oil in an ongoing effort to render me normal. Such is his faith in essential oils. 

Who’s going to tell him normality is never going to exist around these parts??

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The Spring House

Though this January has been exceptionally soggy, it is usually in this, the first month of the year. that,I get to to dreaming of all the tiny little pleasures Spring brings: from laundry drying in the garden to bundles of white tulips, Spring cleaning and a gentle shift in mood from subdued to almost alive again. Not to mention bouncing baby lambs!

And so because the weather has been behaving rather astonishingly badly, with neither the hint of a teeny snowdrop forcing it’s little head through a sprinkling of snow, nor the sunlit, cold days usually associated with January, I have instead been indulging in all things Spring, while writing the second in my seasonal series after The Winter House.

The Spring House then is a both a how-to and a mediation on what Spring means for those of us who keep house the Brocante way. It is a gorgeous collection of rambling thought, things to do, puttery treats and scrumptious Spring ideas and it is available to order today, and will thereafter arrive in you inboxes on Thursday 21st, and yes, that’s the day after tomorrow!

I am releasing it earlier than planned to lift all our moods. To get us planning a season abundant with scrubs, and lemon scented furniture polish, a lovely Easter and meals to tantalize our taste buds with Spring greens.

To lift us right out of the doldrums and tickle our domestic fancy all over again…

There are two ways to buy The Spring House.

Order it today over in the Brocante Download Store for just $8.00 and it will be delivered on, or after Thursday 21st January 2016.
Or become a Rose Member of The Vintage Housekeepers Circle (prices start from just $12.00) and get it absolutely FREE, along with everything else in the download store (and lots more besides), as part of your subscription.

Please note that The Spring House is available to everyone, where ever you live in the world, and the price of $8.00 will be converted to £5.59 in UK pounds, and $11.57 in AUS dollars by Paypal automagically when you place your order so you don’t need to worry about the conversion yourself.

Let’s welcome Spring in to our homes the Brocante way Housekeepers.

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This Floating Life

In Association with Homify

I am between two houses. Caught between two worlds. For as we remove all traces of personality from Chez Brocante, in order to appease buyers who struggle to visualize living anywhere other than inside a magnolia box, we find ourselves retreating more and more to Dad’s bungalow, reveling in the space, and marveling at how easy it is to keep clean in comparison to our dusty old Victorian cottage.

But the vintage interiors fiend living inside me cannot quite come to terms with the existing decoration in this very modern bungalow. Can’t forgive the green bedroom carpet laid throughout the entire house, nor quite adapt to the size of the teeny bathroom after one I could swing several cats in.

As I scurry around the bungalow, mopping this and vacuuming that, in my head I am re-decorating. Laying  wooden floors throughout the main living space and hanging my own pictures on the living room walls. Banishing the flock wallpaper in the hallway and fitting floating shelves on to the blank wall of the white kitchen to pile with stacks of white china and sparkling glassware.

Imagining myself living elsewhere.

For that is what this is about. Practicing being away from home. Making a transition that doesn’t shake Finley and I to the core. Letting go.

This then is an affair. The test of a failing marriage: to see if I can transfer my heart to pastures new. It is a dalliance that has astonished me in the degree to which it has revealed how very stale my once instinctive interior design dreams had become. How stifled they had been by lack of space, and the hushing of an imagination that once ran riot.

Today I am writing to you curled up in the conservatory. It is a dark day, and I have got a floor length lamp switched on, suffusing this glass room in a golden yellow light. On the far wall is a self-portrait of my Grandad, wearing a trilby and painted in oils.  I am sitting on a Knole sofa, watching birds hurry between bare trees and imagining the garden filled with pots full of lavender in the Spring and I am thinking that I could be happy here. That I do not feel suffocate. That I love it that there are so many bare walls just begging for shelves and a huge garage in which everything I own could be organized. I love the possibility of it. Of this, or another house just like it.

I am ready to move house, Readers. Ready to stack my books in boxes and turn what has been a beloved home in to a magnolia box ripe for someone else’s dreams.

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Ruby Ridge Studios

It is not very often that one gets to see swear words and beautiful pattern combined successfully, but I do think that in this instance, Ruby Ridge has managed it magnificently, mostly I think because I so very much appreciate the sentiment right now and need to get on with doing that very thing…

Today on the Vintage Housekeeper’s Forum I read that my new assistant was wearing a new hat, and in my befuddlement I actually thought she was about to reveal herself showing off a darling velvet cloche, or a daring tweed trilby, when actually she was of course just sharing her new role here on BrocanteHome with our lovely Vintage Housekeepers.

But it got me thinking: perhaps we could all use a little more symbolism in our lives. 

Maybe Mimi needs a new hat in celebration of her new role and I need a poster like the one above to remind me to get my bottom moving and make sh** happen! I am the sort of person you see that needs reminding to do just that, or else I am prone to leaning back, nibbling pineapple creams (not recommended if you were wondering) and watching in horror, while sh** happens to me. Which is clearly not what we want at all.

So yes. I am in search of symbols, (or outright bossy get it it sorted dictates!) and a browse around Ruby Ridge Studios, brought to my attention a whole host of gently persuasive reminders I need in my life now…

First up this mug. Because all of a sudden I am a boss, and though I have bossed before I do believe I have quite forgotten how!

Then this printable graphic… Oh Darlings, lets be adventurers. For Ste and I have resolved to throw all caution to the wind and live life a little fiercer than either of us previously have and this charming little image might just be the catalyst we need to get and be adventurers. Or else we will buy bikes and he can do his best to teach me how to ride!

And finally, Be Brave. For life has taught me recently, that next to kindness, bravery is the trait that can see us through all manner of trauma and calamity and I want to remind myself daily, that being brave can help me walk through a storm and come out the other side with dignity and strength.

Symbols? Pah! I’m all about words aren’t I?

But I am going to insist on Mimi getting herself a new hat.

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New Year’s Resolutions For Vintage Housekeepers

This is a Members-Only Vintage Housekeeper's Circle Post

It is only after the first week of the New Year has passed that I do believe it is possible for us Vintage Housekeepers to really get a grip on the creation of domestic resolutions and the implication of new housekeeping routines. For it is only when we have managed to get the decorations down and neatly packaged away, and the children back to school, that we really feel like we can truly shift our focus back on to the business of keeping house in the peaceful, uncluttered manner our heart yearns for.

And so today I wanted to set out a list of ten do’s and don’ts to either adopt or abandon as we step in to 2016: little somethings that will help us keep house with an abundance of both spirit and determination.

Click here to read the rest of this post if you are a member of the circle or here to sign up today! 

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Love Poem by Melissa Balmain

Sunday Poetry...

The afternoon we left our first apartment,

we scrubbed it down from ceiling to parquet.

Who knew the place could smell like lemon muffins?

It suddenly seemed nuts to move away.

The morning someone bought our station wagon,

it gleamed with wax and every piston purred.

That car looked like a centerfold in Hot Rod!

Too late, we saw that selling was absurd.

And then there was the freshly tuned piano

we passed along to neighbors with a wince.

We told ourselves we’d find one even better;

instead we’ve missed its timbre ever since.

So if, God help us, we are ever tempted

to ditch our marriage when it’s lost its glow,

let’s give the thing our finest spit and polish—

and, having learned our lesson, not let go.

Melissa Balmain

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Tropical Pineapple Creams…

I am a traitor to my own cause. Today I stood in front of a selection of Beech’s chocolates, including my beloved Rose and Violet creams and I chose…pineapple. If you know me well you will understand the enormity of that statement. These tides they are a changing!

It suddenly struck me that a change is as good as a rest, and as the universe had seen fit to tempt me with something rather exotic I decided to play ball and devote my evening to tantalizing my senses (and hopefully not appalling them!) with tropical pineapple creams while Ste and I browse the internets booking the very first holiday I will have taken in twenty years…

This m’dears is me getting all exotic and tropical in the midst of the rainiest of January’s. This is me dabbling in the different. Shaking off my cosy security blanket and trying on a whole new persona: someone who goes on holiday and eats pineapple creams!

This you see is apparently what happens when you give up alcohol for dry January (let’s pretend that cocktail in the bar last didn’t happen), employ an assistant to help get organized (let’s welcome Mimi into the BrocanteHome fold!) and move your family in to your Dad’s house the minute he boards a train down South.

Good Lord. Pineapple creams might only be the start of it. Who knows what else 2016 might bring!

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Puttery Pins

Was there ever, ever, ever ANYTHING quite so infinitely inspiring as Pinterest? No siree. I simply cannot think of anything which can set my domestic imagination in to perpetual motion quite so fast as a browse around my lovely boards (Hint: follow me pretty please?} and so here I am again combining the charm of my very own puttery treats with all the irresistible ideas to be found on Pinterest and calling them Puttery Pins. Genius main non?

Created in the spirit of Diane Vreeland’s wonderful “Why Don’t You” articles, I hereby present this months collection without further ado…

Spring Vignette Found on Decor4All

Why Don’t You… invite Spring in to your home with a fresh, seasonally themed vignette?

Pantry Organization Labels From The Country Chic Cottage

Why Don’t You… add a little country charm to your pantry by printing off a set of these lovely labels?

Organize Your Garage At A Thoughtful Place

Why Don’t You… turn your garage in to a stylish, organized extension of your home?

Soap Jar by Tidbits and Twine

Why Don’t You… create a jar full of fragrant soap?

Cookery Book Basket by A Bowlful of Lemons

Why Don’t You… Fill a wire basket with cookery books and display them on your kitchen counter?

Vintage Cake By Kitchen Meets Girl

Why Don’t You… throw an afternoon tea party and serve a slice of Vintage Cake to all who grace your table?

Happy Puttering Housekeepers!

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