365 / 186 & 187 - Pincushions, Sweet Treats and Thrifted Lovelies

On Thursday I wasn't fantastically awake, so I sleepily stitched together the last of the flower pincushions - here they are with the two leftover green ones finished last year:
I do love those bright spring colours! Friday's 365 picture is even more of a riot of colour though, look:We went shopping yesterday you see and I bought myself lots of things! (well, technically the boyfriend bought them for me as it was his money... and he carried most of them home.. hehe). First up I remembered to buy the latest copy of Craft, to have a copy of the Etsy ad in the back to show my mum:
If I sell any moustaches because of that ad (which I rather doubt I will) I've already spent the profits from them as the magazine was rather pricey... oh well. In contrast, I then got a serious bargain in one of our local charity shops: a set of 4 adorable vintage childrens books for 50p (US$1). I don't really have any kind of use for them, but I just could not resist all the darling illustrations like this one:
How cute is that? I also bought what I am beginning to feel is the most awesome picture in the world, a giant owl print:Not the best photo in the world, but you get the idea I hope. His bright yellow eyes are particularly fab. The frame needed taking apart and cleaning, but I've done that now and I think it looks rather spiffy. It's going to get hung up in pride of place in the kitchen, replacing the omnibus picture which is one of my favourites so it needs a new home... I was thinking about hanging it under "Keep Calm", what do you think?
In the foreground is our kitchen table, which is where I work, currently covered in dishes as we're spring cleaning the cupboards, then there's the funny little room with the china cabinet I blogged about the other day, our other china & glass cabinet and then on the right is the breakfast bar and my new "office" shelves. The bus picture is the same width as the keep calm poster, and would fit beautifully with the retro vibe eminating from the cabinet...
I was a little worried after all that shopping etc that I wasn't going to get up to much in the crafting department yesterday but late last night I made this lot:
I got a lion pin finished after their manes have been cut out and in my wip-box for a couple of months, and tested out a few brooch designs... I'm very pleased with the liquorice allsorts, and the dolly mixtures will look great with a bit of tweaking, but the iced gem biscuits need to be reworked as they look a little odd to me at the moment. A different layout and a darker background perhaps? The dolly mixtures and liquorice allsorts are my entries for this month's UK Etsy Challenge - I've not taken part for a while but I couldn't resist this month's theme of "sweets from your childhood". I'm illustrating the battle between two warring sweet camps: allsorts vs dolly mixtures? whose side are you on?
(I've always preferred Dolly Mixtures myself...)