a jolly good read...

if perchance you are looking for a jolly good read today then may i suggest the latest issue of 91magazine

and if you happen to turn to page 62 you'll find a spiffy feature about our Mossy Shed and a nice little write up about my book.

 i am quite the fan of 91magazine, the articles are beautiful and i even find myself enjoying the ads which is nice i think, sometimes ads just do not sit right amongst the pages, but not in this magazine, no sirree! they fit peachy perfect, hurrah hooray. 

yes indeedy, it is the perfect read with a cup of tea on a winter's afternoon.

many thank you kindlies to Caroline and indeed Chloe for inviting me to be part of such a spiffy publication

her mother hen heart has been put through the mill by her chickie peas today ~ Tif 

questions & answers...

1. Tif, how is your crochet coming along?

well thank you kindly for asking, despite starting off with what i felt a dodgy combination of colours, i am thrilled to see things are not as pants in the 'colour combo' department as i first thought.

2. Tif, have you paced yourself this time whilst dabbling with Mr Hook?

actually i have dearest reader, i have indeed! this time i have just dabbled short spurts of dabbling and thus far, the blanket is progressing, Mr Hook is feeling loved and my wrists are feeling dandy.

3. Tif, when are you going to continue with the three c's, the anticipation of your words of wisdom on clog wearing is causing me to be distracted at work and home?

do not fear nor fret dear reader, i do plan to pick up where i left off in the next week or so and with that bit of information i hope your distracted ways will mend themselves.

4. Tif, you mention you have been beavering on a joyful shop update but have yet to announce the day of said update?

ah yes, tomorrow i will be doing a bit of rambling about this very subject, as tomorrow is wednesday and i do think it lends itself nicely to such important businessy busy things such as rambling on about shop updates. in my rambling will be the date of my joyful shop update and other nitty gritty details which maybe of interest (or not as the case maybe for some)

...and glory hung at mossy shed windows in the shape of flannel floral curtains

5. Tif, was that you i spied over on Holly's peachy blog Decor8 this morning, whilst having my morning cuppa?

gosh, yes it was... i must tell you i was most fortunate to meet Holly whilst doing what i was doing in Minnesota in september. if you recall Janine and myself went to The Creative Connection to sell our wares and launch the book. Holly very kindly invited me to do a book interview upon her peachy place, i do hope you will take the time to read it, because way, way on down, once you get through my rambling answers you will see at the bottom, where i list my blessings of the internet, you are amongst them dearest readers. for i have said it before and i say it again today, i would not being doing what i am doing without you by my side and for that, i am truly thankful

she is also thanking Holly most kindly for asking her some very nitty gritty questions and being most peachy about the book ~ Tif

a ramble of sorts whilst recapping...

hooray it is friday! 

i am tres giddy because that means a brand new shiny week is waiting to happen in just a day or so. i am gearing up for said shiny week by cleaning our shed and shuffling things around. i can not clean a shed without shuffling, it makes the cleaning so much more thrilling when you plot and plan the movement of furniture and knick knacks.

then monday will roll around and shiny week will begin and in turn my sanity will be saved...

in the meantime, how about a little recap of last friday's book launch.

photos by bees knees Lola

oh so many fine and dandy folks dilly dallied our way, it was a most spiffy event and i was most fortunate to meet some of you
("hello hello", said whilst waving to you).
new friends and old friends came out to support the book and Janine and myself were tres delighted.

the peachy Andie and Emily of Assemble Shop are the bees knees without a doubt.

and best of all, yes quite honestly the best thing of all,

a small being with a little critter came to visit

("hello small being Gráinne and little critter Sugar Cookie" said whilst doing an extra grande wave to you)

Janine put together a little video of the evening, 'cause she is pretty spiffy that way.

dottie angel book launch from UPPERCASE gallery on Vimeo.

i on the other hand, was complete pants and did not take any photos after a failed attempt at capturing the window display and so have relied upon others to allow me to share...

so thank you kindly Lola and Melanie, cheers my dears for your fabby sharing selves

*a nice little write up from Melanie of inward facing girl

*lola's lovely post on her book launch visit with me

she will be back on monday, with crafty creative cap firmly bobby pinned on her bounce, a la Diana Dearie style (another big wave) ~ Tif
footynote: photos today kindly shared by Lola Nova, who is also the bees knees, actually everyone who came to the book launch is the bees knees, but especially 'bees knees-ness' goes to Lola

footynote note: oh crikey, now i am fretting someone somewhere is thinking "Tif didn't wave at me" or "Tif forgot to say i was the bees knees" and this will never do. so just to set the record straight, i think you are all the bees knees and i have said this whilst waving "hello hello" to everybody this morning. yes, that is much better now...

note taking again...

oh how i love myself some notes...

bee day notes:

note one: it occurred to me, half way through yesterday, the Queen does birthday portraits every year, so why can't i, after all i had my new birthday frock on.

note two: my 'lads of three' did not let me down! to think they plotted and planned without Our #1 and #2 around made me feel super spiffy inside. along with handmade cards (the bestest kind to receive) i was given three lovely books of which i will show on an up and coming thrilling 'book week' (to be announced, i like that and so i had to write it, "to be announced"), two bars of cadbury's caramel and EVIL'O', a glowing pesky daxie. my lads have noted on many an occasion that OLIVE spelt backwards says 'evilo' and so this seemed most fitting for a life size daxie now glowing in the corner of our lounge

note three: EVIL'O' looks a little chilly to me :)

crafty notes:

note one: in between a mammoth amount of chin wagging with clan members far far away i did get a little crafty yesterday, not enough for my liking but enough to feel like i am making headway. for this sunday i am heading to Seattle to install (doesn't that sound professional and like i know what i am doing, gosh what a spiffy little word) a 'dottie angel' vignette (please see booky notes below for install reasons)

note two: i wish for a cluster of goodness and i need to get my crafty granny pants on and not dilly dally about the place, for dilly dallying is banned this week. i think i may put up signs around the shed stating this. i do not think i have ever banned anything in our shed before, however, time is not on my side and dilly dallying therefore will be banned

booky notes:

note one: hurrah hooray, for 'tis tres exciting. Janine and myself are having a book launch in Seattle and you are all invited! in my heart of hearts, i wish you could all be there but alas and alack i know this is not possible. however there maybe one or two of you peachy readers who do live near by, who are not doing much on September 30th, between 6 and 9pm and fancy a bit of dilly dallying at the lovely Assemble Gallery and Studio. (the dilly dallying ban will have been lifted by then)

how grand it would be for you to come and join us, small beings and little critters most welcome. actually i do not know about the little critter bit, so perhaps if you have a mousey who likes to go out and about in your pocket i am thinking that might be okay. or a hedgehog like Basil, but not so sure about larger critters, so best leave them at home. but small and big beings all welcome. my 'lads of three' will be there, i have mentioned to my man he may want to read my book as he might be asked a tricky question like "have you read the book?" his response was "i live in your dolified world Tif, i think i'll be okay"

i think he has a point...

she is thanking you most kindly for the peachy well wishes yesterday and will be back tomorrow with a little monkey busy businessy stuff ~ Tif

creatively connected...

hurrah hooray! i made it to Minnesota on wednesday on my 'owny oh', and made it all the way back again yesterday. we had the most spiffiest of times, me, Janine and Jessie, my two creative connection buddies. all three of us wore our rose coloured spectacles...

me, Janine and Jessie with our rose coloured specs firmly in place

so many many creative folks and so much connecting going on, it was quite the sight to behold. as i thought might be the case, i was so busy being a busy bee, 'frankly frank' hardly got a moment to do his thing, but thank goodness Janine was a little bit more 'altogether' and has put up a lovely slide show of just some of the event. so please do have a looky, you can click on it and make it larger. you'll be able to spot our stall and even if we did say it ourselves we were pretty chuffed with how it looked. each day we started tres early and ended tres late, sleeping very little as our cogs kept on turning through the night.

me taken by Janine Vangool (a most spiffy publisher of whom i am so proud of)

i am so thankful to all of you who stopped by our stall, who said "hello Tif", who bought me gifts and just made me feel so welcome. i am truly humbled by the kindness you showed me, the huge enthusiasm for the book and i am without doubt, quite positively sure, these past few days will stay with me forever.

she is busy beavering away, for her little creative cogs are riding high from being surrounded by so much crafty goodness ~ Tif

the creative connection...

on the one hand, i am not cut out for a life where you jet off to foreign climes, meet a gazillion new faces and hob nob. but on the other hand, an itty bitty bit inside of me sees past Mr Doubter and Mr Scaredy Pants and sees the bit where it is simply quite thrilling to be travelling to do a market place stall, sit amongst other fine authors and best of all, meet peachy folks such as yourselves, dearest readers.

so with that in mind, i sallied forth to the drugstore yesterday to buy me a bottle of nail polish in an attempt to freshen up my appearance. my eyes alighted upon the perfect granny coral orange polish right at the back of the shelf. as i was riding high, on a roll, i heeded my adopted auntie and soul sister's wise words and stood bedazzled in the make up aisle. after much indecision due to major bedazzlement, i targeted a green eyeliner as the little bit of miracle to make me look tres peachy on the long days and nights ahead.

once home, i discovered the clumpy coral nail polish was not only the colour a granny would love but was also as old as a granny. my toe nails had looked better before with the two month old chipped teal they had been sporting prior to my meddling. application of the green eyeliner left me with no doubt it was more suited to a halloween event and not an author book signing.

and so it is dearest readers, come tomorrow early morning, i shall sally forth 'as is' with a case full of dottie angel wares (just room for 4 pairs of granny knickers), my exciting travel assemble of layered florals and pinstripes topped off with cardi and handstitched elbow patches and 'a heart and a head' full of high hopes for the coming five days. i have informed Mr Doubter and Mr Scaredy Pants there is no room at the Inn where i am going...

if you are heading to The Creative Connection, she would love for you to say "hello Tif" and will do her utmost with Frankly Frank's help, to bring home some photos to share ~ Tif

random things to note...

random thing one:

i am guilty of using the word 'spiffy' too many times, i need to curtail my usage for fear of 'spiffy overload' which is not good, just the thought of it and what it may cause is fearful enough

random thing two:

despite saying i would not twiddle, i could not help myself and thus proceeded to do a little itty bitty twiddling with Gladys, therefore i am thinking i may be forgiven, because it was so itty bitty it really doesn't count.

random thing three:

a little jealousy can be a good thing sometimes, especially in the case of Danielle Krysa the peachy Jealous Curator no less. i am most delighted to see she will be running a fabby camp this October in Palm Springs. i have never been to Palm Springs, but my thrifty senses tell me it is full of granny goodness to be found. i noted Danielle's camp would be well suited to me except the bit about pilates, however i noted this was optional. as my dabbling with yoga and tai chi was pretty pants i can only imagine how i would be at pilates. the rest of the blurb is well worth a noting. so yes, i am a little jealous of those who will be going

random thing four:

i have finished reading my book, i read it from back to front to add an element of surprise. surprisingly i noted it read equally as well backwards... not sure what this says about the book but i like to think it adds an element of uniqueness to the whole thing

random thing five:

cellar door magazine is a spiffy magazine (just one spiffy today) i was most happy when they ran a little article on mossy shed. this may be my first printed article in a magazine which says 'by Tif Fussell'

random thing six:

shop window was filled last week, thank you kindly to those who dropped by. i will be adding more things when i return after my trip to Minnesota

random thing seven:

am testing out my market stall set up today with my adopted auntie. she has kindly agreed to come by and give me words of wisdom on the stall, me fretting about traveling alone next week and indeed doing a better job at pulling up my knee socks

random thing eight:

my doorbell went yesterday morning and a Brit was on my doorstep. i noted she may have been sent from above, even though she said she have moved in 4 houses down. i am hoping she did not notice my frightfully birds nest plaited hair-do, going on 3 days worth and deranged look in my eye due to lack of sleep the night before when Mr Lurgy visited Our #4. i am also hoping i did not scare her off with my huge enthusiasm at having a fellow Brit in the neighbourhood.

random thing nine:

a bear took a bath in my next door neighbours pond two days ago 

random thing ten:

i cannot say the word 'skipping' in a normal voice, i tried all morning whilst doing the washing up. it is not possible to say it without actually a skippity skip tone to my voice. interesting, very interesting, i wonder what other words are like that

random thing eleven:

nope its gone, my mind has gone blank, the cogs have stopped turning, yep this is as good as it will ever get for today.

she is wishing you the most agreeable weekend ~ Tif

a spot of rustling...

i am not here today,

i am over at Victoria's shiny place.

i do like Victoria's shiny place and i do like her too.

whilst Victoria is away on her hols,

she kindly invited a gaggle of bloggers

(i like that too! a 'gaggle' of bloggers)

to ramble on in her absence

and what a peachy line up she rustled up

i was most chuffed indeed to be included in her rustling

and so i did a spot of 'rustling up' myself with a little 'how-to'

for the faded vintagey looking lanterns i did a whilst back.

she is dropping her folks at the airport and thinking the shed will have an empty feeling upon her return ~ TIF

where's dottie...

oakie dokes...

magazine round up

1: the peachy folks over at Frankie Mag in Australia bought out a lovely mook in November called SPACES. a mook is what happens when a magazine and a book get together. SPACES is jammy packed full of inspirational creative homes and work spaces from around the world. some of the folks you will have probably heard of and others will be new to you. i still can't believe Mossy Shed is in their fine pages amongst such lovely folks and their collections.

2: FLOW magazine is dutch, i cannot read a word of it but does not matter, for their visuals are so delightful i am happy to just look at all the pretty pictures. they have mentioned dottie angel before, but for this issue asked to use my pictures to illustrate an article of D.I.Y crafting. i need to get my friend Marjan to read it to me over a cup of tea i am thinking

3: a nice little mention in Inside Out, an australian magazine ( March/April issue) for my ramblings of dottie angel shiny place

4: Selvedge's latest issue has a page listing the lovely wares they like on Etsy. was greatly delighted to see our perfect peachy tea towels featured amongst the lovelies they picked out (have yet to see the latest copy in the flesh, but Debbie tells me it is grand)

other nitty gritty businessy busy stuff

1: lovely store Het Grote Avontuur in Amsterdam is stocking our handy dandy notebooks, just one look at Anna's peachy website has me a little giddy. the notebooks have done so well she has restocked on them! Anna's bricks and mortar store looks just peachy and i am rather made up to think my book will be amongst such lovelies upon the shelves come summer

2: Verandah in England has two lovely locations and is a collective of designers and craftmakers, their website is well worth a ganders and we are most chuffed our notebooks are now available to buy from both the Norwich and Holt store

3: Mies en Moos is a lovely dutch online store featuring all sorts of goodness and in amongst it all are some handy dandy notebooks. Michelle who runs her little online store is most delightful indeed.

4: my fabby friend Gloria from The Laundry will be running a stall at the SELVEDGE spring fair on April 2nd in just a few weeks. the fair features 30 wonderful folks and their wares. Gloria alongside of her peachy wares will have dottie angel notebooks and tea towels for sale. this is indeed most spiffy for more reasons than one, but the other reasons will have to wait until monday...

so there it is, hurrah hooray, a lovely thank you to all the peachy folks above and indeed to the others who featured dottie angel upon their blogs. it is most kind

she will be pausing for thought tomorrow, and will be back on monday ~ Tif

pondering thoughts on 'wheres dottie'...

last year in september when i was spending quality crafting time with my dearies. one lovely dearie asked me quite a telling question. she asked it in the most kindest of ways, but basically she asked why was i so pants at telling folks about the places i have been featured in. there upon followed a brilliantly brilliant conversation between the two of us, over a pile of vintage doilies resulting in me agreeing i was pants indeed. my lovely dearie laughed, especially when i ended it with, "i think it is the Brit in me". she then proceeded to tell me, many folks actually are interested in that sort of thing and indeed would love to know what i am up to and other such stuff.

the thing is, i never sat down to ramble on this blog with thoughts of being noticed. everything over the past few years has evolved on its own, i just continue to tippity tap just as i did the first day four years ago, talking about this and that, finding a smile in the day and crafting. slowly but surely lovely folks such as yourselves have found me and with this has come interest from others, one being magazines who wish to feature our shed or my creations and as anyone who has been in such a boat will know, it is most flattering to be asked. however more often then not, i have declined, due to a feeling of being a little overwhelmed by all the attention.

on occasion however i say "yes thank you, that would be nice" because the magazine or person has interested me, they are doing something i admire and i am delighted to be part of it. when the lovely publication appears in my mail box, i have a ganders, feel most proud inside for a short moment and then pop it in a drawer where i am collecting such things so one day my grandchildren will know a little bit about what their granny did when she was not quite so wrinkly.

after much pondering of my conversation with my lovely dearie and realizing i need to find some way to figure this out, i have devised a cunning plan. yes indeedy, my little cogs have turned and i do like it when that happens. i have come up with 'wheres dottie', it will be a category upon my sidebar and every now and again i will do a 'wheres dottie' post. within the post will contain a little round up of where dottie angel has featured in recent weeks and indeed perhaps other things which relate to 'businessy busy' stuff. i do not know the actual nitty gritty details, for as is often the way with my plans, i think it through half way and then just go with 'high hopes'.

those folks who may be interested will go

"ah ha! how spiffy, today i can find out which magazine Tif has waffled on in"

and then discover it is a foreign magazine, not available locally and in turn be driven nutso by my 'wheres dottie' post.

or perhaps, other folks who are not interested in that side of things to do with dottie angel will be able to say

"ah ha! i see this is not for me today, i do not do businessy busy stuff. i will come back tomorrow when Tif is talking about her undies and Samuel Whiskers in her attic"

(yes, he is back and from the sounds of things, he is a father)

so with all that being said, i am rather pleased with this plan, for over the coming weeks and months there are things i wish to share and are part of the way my dottie angel world has become to a certain extent. strangely surreal some days, i cannot ignore it is changing and i need to find a way with being okay with that, being thankful and enjoy it for the wonder it is, without my little shiny place losing it's ramblerly way :)

she will be back tomorrow with her first 'wheres dottie' post, just to give you a heads up ~ Tif