Hitting the Spot

I haven't been able to hit the spot with my usual readers recently. Comments have dropped off and I sometimes wonder if anyone is reading my blog. Anyway I will not be defeated!!! Hopefully there is something in this post to appeal to most readers.

I thought I would have a go at making some vintage or 'prim' coffee stained tags. There are many ways of doing this to be found on the Internet. My way was as follows:

• Put a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee in a small cereal sized bowl.
• Pour on a little boiling water to dissolve the coffee. Add some vanilla essence if you wish to do so.
• When the mixture has cooled slightly, dip some cotton wool into liquid and then rub over tags and string.
• Heat in a low oven for about 5 minutes and then repeat the process several times until you get the desired effect.
  

I left mine to dry overnight. The next day I stamped a greeting onto the tags.

I then stuck on some scaled down reproduction postcards. These tags could be further embellished with lace, buttons etc. Use your imagination! They smell yummy too!!!

A few years back I was lucky enough to be given my Nan's 'button boxes'.

I remember going through this tin as as a child. The contents are decades old as my Nan is in her late 90's.

As you can see, the tin doesn't only contain buttons!

Such an assortment of colours.

This is one of the smaller tins.

The contents inside are just as precious to me.

Look at all these fancy buckles.

All sorts of buttons from plastic to mother of pearl, leather to hand painted.

This mother of pearl button is a real beauty. Look at the size of it in my hand!

And if you thought that was big look at these ones!!!

I still have remnants of summer in my garden. The climbing rose continues to bloom.

This rose is called Compassion and it has a fresh lemony scent.

It has had a growth spurt this year and doubled in height climbing over the top of the arbour.

The violas have had a new lease of life too and are rapidly taking over the flowerbed.

The strongest autumn colour in the garden at the moment is Gizmo with his autumn coloured coat.