Antique Edwardian scrapbook giveaway winner announced!

It's that time again. Time has flown by and April has vanished into the past already! Time to announce the lucky winner of my treasured antique Edwardian scrapbook!

And the winner is.. *Drumroll*.. Rebecca of Cauliflower Cupcake Scrappin' Designs! Congratulations Rebecca! Please email over your address to DearestJackdaw@googlemail.com so I can get this in the post to you ASAP! 

Until next time ♥

Easter weekend - Sunshine, family and a beautiful tribute

I've been a little quiet on the blogging front recently. Things got a bit crazy here and we disappeared for a week to house-sit in the countryside but we're settled back in at home now after an incredibly hectic but beautiful Easter weekend! 

On Friday morning we went to the seaside. We were there well before 9AM to avoid the awful traffic that builds up during such lovely weather, the beach was almost empty apart from a few dog walkers! Even the group of loud less-than-lovely people with sand-throwing, swearing children and a ghetto-blaster (on full blast) who pitched up just feet in front of us (when the entire beach was available) weren't enough to spoil my day!

Saturday afternoon was spent with my wonderful Grandmother who made the most delicious veggie soup for lunch and syrup sponge pudding! She then presented me with an enormous plate of her famous Chocolate Crunch. Now, I don't expect anyone outside of the Knight family to have tried this delicacy, but I can assure you it is absolutely amazing. I'd love to post some pictures, but it's all gone! I suppose I could post a recipe, but I'm sworn to secrecy - I've only just got my hands on it myself.. maybe someday.. maybe.

Sunday morning was an early one. The entire day was to be dedicated to my beautiful Grandmother Pamela Richardson, who sadly passed away in 2005 after a long battle with cancer. Midge and I started the day walking up to the top of Kingley Vale, at 7AM. This is seriously early for me - especially for a Sunday! We took croissants and sat in the sunshine for a while until the rest of the family made it up the top of the hill. My siblings flew kites and we relaxed for a while until it was time for lunch at a local pub. We then walked home through the fields and spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the sunshine. Here are some little snaps I took that day, the misty ones are early morning as you can probably tell!

 

Spring Flowers - Take Two

After many stresses and strains, we finally have a sparkly new PC thanks to Novatech (who are fabulous, by the way!) This means I have access to all my images which I am happy to say, are safe and sound! *HUGE sigh of relief*
Here are a few of the images I had ready for this blog post the day before the old PC went kaput. I snapped so many beautiful images that day I just can't wait to go through them properly! It makes me a little sad to know that spring will be gone soon for another year, the blossom is falling already it feels like it's only just arrived! But the bluebells will be out in full bloom over the Easter weekend - yey!

 

Until next time!

 ♥

And the Winner is..

First of all I want to say thank you all for your fab entries, all of the looks sound absolutely fabulous and I wish I had a jacket for all of you! Now then, after a slight hiccup over the last deadline date (and a big hole in my pocket for a new PC), we have a winner for the Vintage Jacket! 

Congratulations to Sevgi Ky. Look after it, won't you! Please email your postal address to DearestJackdaw@googlemail.com and I will get it in the post asap!

PS: Remember, you have until the end of April to enter my other giveaway!

♥

Spring flowers and a slight technical difficulty!

The clocks went forward on Sunday morning, giving us longer days and lighter evenings. I took the opportunity on Sunday afternoon to get out with the camera and capture my favourite season, Spring!

You can never, EVER have too many photographs of Spring (as you will see from this post last year). It doesn't matter how many blossom trees I see that are probably all the same, I just have to take some photos!

This blog post was supposed to be a little gallery of images I've taken.. BUT, due to some unfortunate (and rather scary) technical difficulties last night, I'm currently without a hard drive for the time being, so I did the next best thing and used my iPhone to get some snaps with the fantabulous 'Hipstamatic' app which I am absolutely obsessed with!

For anyone familiar with the app, I used the Bettie XL lens with Pistil film for these images. For anyone unfamiliar with it, Hipstamatic is a pretty special little photography app for the iPhone, where you can interchange your lenses, films and flashes to create unique images similar to those taken on vintage toy cameras. Light leaks, unusual colours and different borders are my favourite perks and I usually turn to this app as oppose to the regular phone camera if I want to take a photo.

Fortunately before the computer went haywire last night, I was able to list this image on What the Jackdaw Saw. I don't have access to my other shots just yet - Hopefully I can post some in the next few days.

And finally, here's a beautiful treasury I created on Etsy for the blog. It features some lovely spring inspired work to keep us all inspired for the coming weeks! Please show it some love if you have a spare minute. ♥

PS, for those of you who are awaiting the Vintage Jacket Giveaway results, I have extended entries until 14th April 2011 due to my technical troubles as mentioned above! This means that if you didn't have a chance to get your entry in, now's the time!

TUTORIAL - Vintage Style Decoupaged Mannequin

I picked up this female torso at a car boot sale a few years ago and she's been hanging around in my wardrobe ever since just waiting for the perfect project to come along. I don't know why, but last week I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to try out decoupage and what better project to try it out on than this?

Like it? Read on to find out how to make your own!

100 followers marks the start of ANOTHER giveaway!

All I can say is Wow. Over the past 2 days my blog has crept to over 100 followers! I can't tell you all how grateful I am that you all enjoy reading and seeing what I'm up to. Thank you so, so much ♥

Back in January I promised that once my blog hit 100 public followers I would launch a giveaway.

So to mark this miraculous moment, running simultaneously with my Vintage Clothing Giveaway, I present to you my Antique Edwardian Scrapbook giveaway! 

Please note that because of the weight of this scrapbook, this giveaway is only for UK readers. However, if you are outside the UK remember you can always try for the Vintage Jacket which is equally as beautiful!

ISN'T. IT. STUNNING?

Amongst the pages you can expect to find all sorts of ephemera type goodies, much of it is over 100 years old! Fantastic for any scrapbooker, paper-crafts fanatic, lover of curiosity, inspiration hoarder, collector.. Ideal for altered journals, all paper-crafts and even mixed media artwork (non-digital and digital), there are some real gems in there ♥

If you want a chance to get your hands on this lovely book, all I ask is that you follow me on my Blog, Facebook or Twitter and leave a comment on this blog post (let me know who you are if you're not a blogger so I know how to contact you if you win!). Simple as that!

This giveaway will run until the end of April 2011 after which I will write all entrants names down, fold them into teeny squares and then pick the winner out of a hat (to keep it traditional!)

♥