So another year has flown by and the New Year is about to start.

I'm still deciding where and what events I will be attending during 2016, I will be reviewing the past years events, the successes and the failures and coming up with a whole new calender. Some of last years will be present again, such as The Castle Green in Taunton, Sidmouth Folk Festival, Glastonbury Frost Fair, Wedmore Street Fair and after Decembers success in Bristol I will be found again on St Nicholas Market on Wine Street again, starting as soon as January 9th.

I'm also looking at lots of new events such as Lyme Regis, Priddy, Priston, Chagstock and South Petherton Folk festivals and lots more. So keep an eye on my events pages on my website for when they get booked and confirmed.

So Happy New Year to all our past, present and future customers, we look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year.

Tammy & Mark

Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Friday 27th November & Monday 30th November

Between 7am and Midnight

Receive 20% off everything on line!!

All you need to do is place an order on Friday or Monday between 7am and Midnight and write in the Discount code box DISCOUNTFRIDAY or DISCOUNTMONDAY.

Please note my other November offer of a complimentary free gift will not apply on this day.

Latest on France

October Trip to France

Some of you may wonder why I include my trips to France on what is supposed to be my "business blog". This is because France is a part of our future, we have big plans for the place - eventually! 

Unfortunately (for us) at the moment those plans are on hold until the children have grown up, being 16 and 14 they no longer share our dream of living in France so Mark and I are having to wait. In the meantime tho, it means we can do work to the house to get it ready.

So eventually when the children have fled our nest, we will be also fleeing it and moving to France!

Where we intend to take the business that I have been nurturing for the past 6 years and expand it. We would like to turn one of the barns into a craft centre where we will expand on our own crafts so that we can run workshops and holidays. We will have some sort of holiday accommodation, whether this will be shepherds huts, yurts, a converted barn or just tents will depend on our finances.

The house is located in an ideal spot for tourists, being on route 3 cycle route from Mont Saint Micheal to Paris and the town has a very rich history. During the war the Americans fought hard to keep the Germans at bay, to the point that the Germans pushed the Americans to the top of the hill behind our house only to be pushed back down again. Unfortunately for the town tho this meant that a lot of it was bombed and flattened to the ground. (Hence one of our barns being the last remaining building built after the war to house the town folk - possibly). Our house possibly was also one of the ones bombed during the war as the cellar looks original and the upper part newly built. I like the idea tho that the Germans occupied our house whilst pushing the Americans up the hill! One day I intend to buy the book about our town to fully learn its history.

We have many other business ideas for the property as well as being as self sufficient as possible, growing our own fruit and vegetables in the veg garden and harvesting from our many fruit and nut trees in the orchard. I am hoping that one day we will also have goats, chickens, sheep and weaners to bring the place alive and provide us with meat, eggs and milk, so that we can then go on to make our own produce to sell at market with our crafts.

So you see France is a very big part of our lives and our future. Our elderly French neighbours are our inspiration, the fact that they are in their 80's yet every time we visit we have to go down to the cave to see his massive strimmer! And his wood store is something to marvel at, we are also very envious of his wood burning central heating and hot water system!

This month our visit concentrated on that all important vegetable garden, over the years it has got neglected and the leylandi hedge was too big to stay (I didn't want it sucking all the nutrients from the ground anyway), so this week that was removed as well as half an acre of brambles that sent out long ten drills into the orchard and up the apple trees. As well as some other tidying up and bonfires, it was a busy week. Now we are able to get to the apple trees so we can give them some much needed surgery in the spring.

Before

After!!

So on the business side of things, I have been busy completing the next batch of mosaics, ready for Christmas and the two large Christmas Craft Fairs I have at Killerton and Knightshayes National Trust houses over the next couple of weekends. Everything is now listed on my websites shop, but hopefully they wont be around for long!

Workshops

Christmas Door Wreaths

Would you like to learn how to make your own stunning Christmas Door Wreath?

Then why not sign up to one of my workshops, taking place in November and December with 6 dates to choose from.

I need to have a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 8 to run the course, so get all your friends together and we can make an evening of it!

Click HERE to find out more.

Read this month newsletter HERE.

AUGUST 2015

Sidmouth Folk Festival and France

The first three weeks of August were stressful, jam packed and exhausting, but totally worth it!!

The first week was full of Sidmouth Folk Festival, Wells and the Honiton Show.

It was my first year at Sidmouth, so I had no idea what to expect or what my sales would be like, but I knew I would have to be prepared as I wouldn't have much time in the evenings, so for some time before, I was stock piling stock, one of my fellow traders would tell you how much stress this gave me the run up to the week!

So much so I did boo boo a bit! I failed to read the set up information for Sidmouth properly until the Wednesday before the Friday I was due to start and noticed the pitch size! It was just 1.8m x 2m after emailing the organisers I discovered there was no way my 3x3m gazebo would fit in, so ensued a frantic search for an alternative, but my solution (a 2x2m gazebo) would not arrive until the Friday morning. So we had to wing it for the first day. Luckily it was dry but unluckily for Hazel and I it was also extremely hot and despite borrowing an umbrella from a neighbouring stall we both ended up with heat stroke and came home feeling quite unwell.

Friday

 Saturday

But you cant complain too much when this is your view!!

 

Luckily the new gazebo arrived on time and we were a bit more prepared for the next day, which was a good job as the Saturday was a lot busier, with the Sunday even busier.  I did find it too busy tho and this did effect sales a bit as people were too focused on getting down to the next entertainment. So I found Monday was our busiest and best day.

Including a lovely sale of an original painting, which made Mark extremely happy!

I was due to be at Glastonbury on the Tuesday, but my neighbour said they needed to go home and pick up more stock and decided to have a day off so I could have their pitch. Which I did and it was well worth it.

Wednesday I was at Wells, which turned out to be a good decision as the weather was a bit dodgy in Wells but apparently it was worse in Sidmouth with the sea mist being blown in to the stalls and it was quiet.

Thursday I was at the Honiton Show, which although was quieter than the previous 2 years, it was still a successful day.

And then back to Sidmouth for the last day. Once a year I give myself a week from Hell and although it was 8 days in a row (the longest I have ever done) it was bearable, in fact quite pleasant.

I had my little helpers with me, taking it in turns (I did do Tuesday and Wells on my own). In quiet periods we would take it in turns to look out to sea, which on hot days was very inviting. I happened to snap a picture of Hazel one day, which I then played with on my phone, which gave me an idea, so I took one of Jack (and he took one of me).  You will have to wait and see what the idea is!!

Saturday was spent resting, packing and getting ready to leave for Dover and our trip to France.

France

We left home at 5pm for the 12.30 crossing. Our only hold up was just before Stonehenge, where we crawled along for 45 minutes and eventually passed a terrible crash which included 3 cars and a land rover ambulance, after that it was an easy drive all the way to Dover where we arrived with plenty of time to spare.

Not the best timing in the world to travel to France, Dover to Calais, on the week that up to 2000 migrants were storming the tunnel and ports. After saying to friends which crossing we were doing, it was met with screwed up faces the week before, but actually it was fine. Apart from the ferry being full of Dutch Chelsea supporters who thought it very thoughtful to spread themselves across the ferry (where we were trying to get some kip) and talk very very loudly and laugh about their bodily noises produced in each others faces - pleasant!.  Apart from that when we got to France at 3 o'clock in the morning we drove straight out.

We stopped for a few hours sleep and then continued our journey to the house, arriving at about 10.30am. Sunday was spent resting as the journey does take it out of us and once the house is set up for our stay we do try to just chill for a bit so that we can plan and start with all our energy the next day.

Monday we started work.

I had already cleaned off one of the outside walls and half painted it in June, so another coat of paint was added, I then had to clean all the ivy roots off the end wall which was a real pain. While I was doing this Mark had stripped a row of tiles off the wall in the sun room (we were going to leave them but they served no purpose and were already coming away from the wall so it didn't take much to encourage them all off) and sanded it down for a coat of paint. 

He then moved into the toilet to take off all the creppie (which we now call "crappie creppie") it had gone mouldy in the 3 years we left the house locked up. It was a horrible job for him as it needed to be sanded off, so locked in the smallest room in the house on one of the hottest days was not easy, but eventually he got it down to how it was when I had stripped it of the orange and brown 60's floor to ceiling wallpaper. Ready for me to paint.

While waiting for coats of paint to dry in the toilet I alternated my time in the laundry room, it wasn't a planned job, but I decided I couldn't stand the salmon pink anymore, it had to go!! However this turned into a bigger job as it was also painted floor to ceiling so took 3 coats!

During this time Mark had decided it was time for all the battleship grey tiles in the kitchen to go, which created lots of mess.  Many many holes were filled, sanded and prepared in the kitchen and then I painted, while Mark put up panelling which he then painted in a colour we decided we just had to have!

First cupboard went up!

One morning we got up to find a red squirrel nut hunting in the tree next to our kitchen window, which soon became a bit of an obsession with us, trying to catch the perfect picture and video. During the next week we soon realised that nothing was going to stop her collect her nuts, even if I was painting outside or Mark was drilling in the kitchen, still she would collect her nuts.

Just before lunch we went for a stroll up to the chapel and then back down in to town to get a baguette.

Ironically talking to my sister on facebook about how we should be careful we both don't over do it (she is also working on her house) and how we may be working by 8.30am we do stop at dinner time. The next day, I couldn't move! The night was spent, awake, with Mark snoring next to me and what felt like someone trying to chop my head off with a blunt axe! After 7 days of continuous painting, I had pulled what felt like every muscle in my neck. After a very painful trip to the pharmacie (as we had neglected to bring any pain killers with us) I was then loaded up with strong painkillers and muscle rub. Mark very kindly pulled an armchair out on to the balcony and I spent the day snoozing and reading while he carried on working.

The next day I had "slightly" more movement, so I managed to gloss a couple of windows and I also made some mock tiles so we could see how what we had in mind would look.

We took out some time and went for a picnic!

By Thursday I was getting frustrated, I was there to work not play invalid, so I painted the last kitchen wall, once in the morning, then I rested and again in the afternoon.

We found some old tiles in the roof of the barn, which I cleaned up, there's just over 100 complete tiles and some broken ones. We want to use them some how, but not sure how just yet.

In the meantime Mark had made good progress on the panelling, which now all had their first coat of paint and had started (until he ran out of materials) the ceiling.

Too fast too soon the last day had come and it was time to finish up. I finished glossing the last windows, cleaned the outside of the sun room and started putting everything away, while Mark fixed some corrugated panels that had blown off the barn roof, put some struts in the roof where it is sagging, finished off the strimming and cleared some more brambles, scrapped some of the moss off the roof, checked the drains and fixed the chimney.

While clearing brambles Mark found a lizard (yet to be identified) which I managed to get a great shot of, we actually have loads of these in the garden and according to our neighbour when we are not there we have snakes basking in the sun on the driveway.

After a surprise visit from our neighbour who we thought we would miss as they were on holiday we went for one last walk up to the chapel and the view point to see the sun coming down.

On Saturday morning we were up at 5.15 and out the house by 6am, locking the door for another 9 weeks.

We had an easy drive home with some excellent views of the sun coming up. I was dreading the the crossing back, but again it was fine, security checks took a little longer than normal, but as we usually travel at night not at lunch time and it was August that could be normal. We did decide tho that crossing in August at the height of tourist season on one of the hottest days of the month was not an experience we intend to repeat!

Back home on Sunday and we are looking at crossings for October half term!

A chance to Visit the Studio

We are opening the doors to our studio, come and see where and how we work.

And see all of Mark's paintings in the studio gallery.

Visit the website to find out more

We also will be featuring soaps from Daisy Age Soaps who now has a workshop behind the studio.

Our Trip to France May 2015

Viva La France en Mai

May was the month for us to take a sneaky week out and pop over to our house in Normandy, not for a holiday tho, it was very much a working week. It was mainly to give the garden a tidy up again, but inevitably we also did other stuff too.

This time we travelled Newhaven to Dieppe which is a new one for us (we have done most of the crossings over the last 12 years!).  It wasn't a particularly sociable crossing at 11pm. Mark thought I was ridiculous wanting to take on the boat blankets and pillows, so we only ended up with two pillows. Jack and I started off on the "reclining" chairs and Mark as always disappeared to find somewhere quiet (which ended up on a chair with his head on the table under his coat!). But after an hour Jack and I decided we had numb bums and ended up laying on my big cardie. After waking in the morning, we saw how everyone else was sleeping, I promised us all that I would come more prepared on the return journey!

Arriving at the house was a little sad and we all shed a little tear, its hard to get over and every time we do it seems we are taking two steps forward and one step back. The house needed cleaning again and the garden was even more overgrown.

But in my true fashion, I got on with it, whipping a cloth and a broom around the bedrooms and making up the beds soon made it look like home again and it wasn't long before we were sitting at the kitchen table with our traditional lunch of baguette and cheese and discussing our plan of action. 

Our lovely neighbour had already very kindly cut the main bit of grass around the house, so this just left Mark to finish it off, cutting as short as he could around the barn walls with his strimmer. And once I had whipped round the kitchen and bathroom, we were already feeling much better.

We made the decision that we are fed up of coming over and seeing the hedges in such a state and as our intention has always been to remove them one day, we decided that one day would be that day, as we cant have a bonfire in France until the winter tho we only cut back the vegetable patches hedge on the drive side, which as it was now 3 meters over was getting a bit ridiculous! and then as I hate the privet hedge behind the kitchen we just hacked at that a bit to keep it back - the rest will all come out on our November trip (when we will also do work on the apple trees, brambles and anything else that's got out of hand!).

We were making good progress, so I put some putty in the window frames ready for painting in August, undercoated the inside and then Jack and I scrubbed the outside kitchen wall (which took some doing thanks to a lilac tree which had left years of pollen on the surface which we didn't discover until we started scrubbing and the wall turned into rust! It took a good hour of scrubbing to do a 1 meter stretch, luckily the other 5 or so meters was much easier!) I even managed to make a start on a first coat of paint.

Mark in the meantime, cleaned and mended gutters, repaired the barn door and cleared the tarmac away from the house that was covering the air vents, which we are sure has contributed to a lintel rotting in the bedroom which has resulted in the wall dropping. Finished cutting back the hedge all the way down the drive and cleared the herb garden of willow and brambles.

Jack helped too, in spits and spurts, he helped to move a lot of the hedge cuttings into neat piles ready for burning, he helped me wash the wall (a bit!), together we weeded, raked and swept the drive of the neighbours pine needles until we could see glimpses of it again! He even got into using the scythe! And he helped me cook dinners in the evenings.

It wasn't all work and no play. We often would be working by 8.30/9am but we stopped at 6 for dinner and then we played risk and settlements (I am a bit of a champion at settlements!). We took ourselves up the hill to the chapel and view. On Wednesday we went to St Hilaire market and then went onto see our friends (who we have known since we first visited on holiday - it was their cottage we rented), they now have a welsh cob horse which I am very envious, he is exactly what I would like to have (when we eventually move over) to ride and drive. 

We found out from our neighbours who said he has a friend who is doing research in the area. And he thinks that our wooden barn is a bit special. During the war a lot of the town was bombed flat. Temporary buildings were built on farms outside the town to house families while their houses were being rebuilt. He thinks our barn is the last remaining "house" in the whole of France!!

It was my 40th on the Friday (we signed the agreement for the house on my 33rd birthday), I'm afraid I did spend the day working (painting and clearing the drive) but in the evening we were invited to our neighbours for drinks and nibbles - the drink being two bottles of champagne!!

Our last day was spent coming up with a huge list of things we want to crack on with when we return in August for two weeks, including meeting a builder to get some of the bigger jobs sorted.  We have decided we are going to change the laundry room into the main bathroom (this will involve us blocking up the kitchen door, cutting a door way into the toilet wall and reducing the toilet wall by half and then filling in with glass tiles, then fitting a shower where the washing machine was by the previous owners, this way we don't need to muck about too much with the plumbing), then we will change the bathroom into a 3rd bedroom, this way we can delay having to make more space in the loft for when the children want to visit with their families (when they come...). We have been taking over Mark's parents old kitchen in bits, so soon we will have a functioning kitchen, so in August we need to repair the ceiling, clear the old tiles and paint the walls in preparation.  We have one bedroom which has a mould problem due to the plaster we used, but after a little investigating, we realised this can just be sanded off, the lounge has a few cracks that need filling and then it can be painted. So its getting there.

Our trip home was another midnight crossing but this time I came prepared with loads blankets and pillows and we raced to get the darkest spot on the boat that we had checked out on the way out, as there were many families that were as unprepared as we were before we were the envy of many!

What's new this week

As usual its non stop here at T&M headquarters. As well as attending our regular events/ markets we are busy behind the scenes creating new and exciting work ready to share with you.

I have been preparing for a Vintage Car show I have on Sunday and so have had a go at a couple of vintage vehicles to take with me. I'm hoping this will be greeted with open arms by two lucky new owners.

 

 And as I am at Glastonbury every week this one had to be done!

My next projects include a series of clocks and some mosaic pendants!

I have also been working on, as ever, increasing my stock of jewellery, as one of our best selling products this sometimes seems like a never ending task. I am often seen at market spiralling my spirals ready to put with gemstones at home or I am sat in front of the telly making Tree of Life pendants. Finishing off my spiral necklaces tends to be a bit noisy tho as each spiral has to to be hammered to help keep its shape, so I have to do this when everyone else is out the house otherwise I am moaned at!!

And there seems to be no stopping Mark and his painting. His latest one is a bit of a rescue job, as I found it half finished in a cupboard in the studio. He decided to pick it up again and finish it, however the only part that is the same is the shape of the tree! He completely changed the background and foreground. I think this one is quite a masculine tree (quite unusual for Mark, a lot of people cant believe his work is done by a man). The tree in this painting is based on his hand.