Hi there!

It’s beginning to feel a bit like Christmas in my head. Only about 7 weeks before Grace and Mark come home! They’ve booked their flights, and they’re home for about a fortnight! I know they’re all grown up now, and they live thousands of miles away. But they’re still my kids, and I am still their Mum. And when the family gets together at Christmas, I so look forward to it! Remind me of that on Christmas Day, will you, when I’m sweating bullets in the kitchen, up to my derriere in pigs-in-blankets, and the stuffing’s sticking to the tin! I’m very, very grateful. Grateful we are here, grateful we have a cooker in a kitchen, grateful we can afford food.

I’ve just remembered something. Many, many years ago, back when I lived in Germany, I used to teach English as a foreign language. Mostly business English in big German companies. I ran conversation classes too, and even used to go to peoples homes, where I got paid to drink coffee, eat cake and chat English! Not exactly hard grind, eh? There was one group of ladies – all friends – whom I got together with every week for an hour or so. One time, my Mum – my German Mum – was over from England, and she was also invited to join in. I remember one of the German ladies in the conversation group telling us that she liked being a cooker. The golden rule when teaching is that you never laugh when people make a mistake. Well, my Mum cracked up laughing. Like proper belly laugh. I do love that woman.

But. I digress! It’s my bloggy job, in the countdown to Christmas, to scan the vast selection of festive delights we have on our website, and shine a light on some favourites. I drew this Christmas pair of Holly & Star Art Nouveau stamps a while ago. Inspired by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, of course. Stamps and Stencil.

Do you know what I have just realised? I don’t think we ever made this pair into Groovi plates! What?? Hang on a week – we’ll correct that!

In the meantime, here’s a little artwork…

I also want to shine a light on the Sampler set….

There’s one more thing to flag up. If you are reading this on the day it is written, then we are still enjoying the BIG Autumn sale. Mostly HALF PRICE. If you’re like me, you buy things in a sale that you can’t afford usually. Big ticket items, I mean. So I am going to show you the whole collection. It’s a fabulous Art Nouveau Edition, spanning the seasons.

CLICK HERE for all things Art Nouveau. And thank you for supporting the sale. I am so grateful.

On that arty note, I’m off to the pottery room, to wax my bottoms!

Love and Clarity

Barb x x x