When I Met Julie Arkell

So I'm still in London and it's finally Sunday, the day I get to meet the wonderful lady herself....JULIE ARKELL.

(As this is an extra long post you might want to make a cuppa lol!!)

As we weren't meeting Julie until noon we had plenty of time to go to Columbia Road where there's a flower market on every Sunday morning and all the shops are open.

My favourite shop belongs to Jessie Chorley and it's filled with all the lovely things that Jessie makes,

the walls are full of hand made pictures,

and "frames" holding brooches.

Jessie displays her gift wrap in old prams,

and candles in tea cups,

I loved this old sampler with it's bow.

Jessie also has a selection of vintage clothing that she stitches patches of fabric, buttons and bows onto (not sure if this is called "upcycling" or "recycling"??)

Shall I show you what I bought at the end 'cose I know you all want me to get to the "meeting Julie bit!!"

As time was marching on we decided to get a taxi to Julie's studio but can you believe it the taxi driver got lost not once but twice, the poor chap was beside himself and insisted we got the ride free for messing us about ( I did give him a generous tip, the poor mite.) 

We arrived at Julie's studio to be greeted by these little creatures above the door,

and after a rat- a - tat- tat on the door knocker we were  met by the lovely Julie who showed us into her studio, if any of you have Julie's book some of the pictures were taken in the very studio that I was now standing in!!

Julie kindly let me take a "snap" of her.

Julie chattered away while I stood there with my mouth open, looking, touching and feeling all the lovely things that Julie had got out for me.

 Finally it was decision time.

I chose two lovely rabbit brooches

"no tea" is the lady rabbit who I've named Bella

and "a lost folk" is Bertie her young man,

both are now whisked off to santa!!

I shall proudly show you them both on Christmas morning.

So what else did I buy???

Two old Hovis tins, one I've put some silver baubles in and the other holds a candle,

a cream bell with merry christmas on, two big clock faces and a few little trees,

patterns for gloves and a hat knitted in alpaca wool

an extra large lantern that was reduced from £100 to £5  because it had a piece of glass missing, what a bargain!!

Did anyone see Kirsty last night? She was shopping in Columbia Road for flowers for the wedding and she popped into a shop where there was a lovely Irish Lady, well that's the very shop that I got these little ruby red decorations that  I've put in the glass jar.

I just had to have these three wooden pigs with their curly tails, I'll have to call in the charity shops to see if I can get the three little pigs ladybird book to go with them.

Gorgeous  "mice" buttons, I do love "mices" especially at Christmas time,

and finally, two brooches,

well you know how much I love a brooch and these were only £2 each.

We also got some food, flowers and a few Christmas presents, we were like a couple of cart horses on the train on the way home good job I'd taken an empty holdall with us!!

Lucey xx