One A Day Challenge 1930s Inspired Overarm Brown Bag with Red Rose

Here is todays bag a 1930s inspired overarm bag complete with red rose fabric brooch just to get us in the Valentines Day mood.  Not that I need to get in the mood as my lovely hubby had his romance gene removed at birth and there is always a lack of it in Handbag Headquarters!  Anyhoo, a bag that is both practical and pretty, although I have to say I am getting a tad 'browned' off using brown now, and may have to use some different colours in tomorrows bag.

So a family meeting was called and holiday issues were discussed.  We explained to the kids that the budget, was going to be well, lets face it miniscule and what would they like to do?  Turns out that the best holiday we had was back in 2006 when we did a HH tour.  That was a bit of a rough year for me personally as I was waiting to go into hospital to have a total knee replacement and anyone with experience of waiting for hospital dates will know what I mean!  That meant that because I was in a lot of pain I couldn't travel too far and also we couldn't book anything because of waitng for a date. Anyhoo, we decided to have a week visiting a few places.  We started in Glasgow (my favourite place ever) where we went to House For An Art Lover and discovered an amazing art park next to it, this had the affect of quieting down any moaning from the kids in that at last they were able to climb on the art!

After this we travelled down to Holy Island, which if you have never been is absolutely beautiful!

This was the view from the side of the road that runs across to Holy Island at low tide, your timings have to be correct otherwise you would be stuck on the island.  However, I could think of worse places to be stranded!

On the way down we stopped off at Hadrian's Wall which was lovely, however, hobbling permitted I only got to see a small portion off it.

So considering we booked Travel Lodges in all the places we visited, the kids loved it as we made up our itinerary everyday and had adventures and laughs that we still remember now.  So back to the discussions we have decided that winning the lottery aside this is what we will be doing again this year a HH Tour 2010 this time the South of England here we come!  oooh any suggestions of where to visit would be welcome!

Day 18 1920's Style Clutch with 2 Fabric Brooches

I am rather pleased with today's bag which is based on the design for a 1920's style clutch.  It is another tiny creation (I am going for small and delicate this week!).  When photographing it I could not decide which brooch looked nicer so I thought I would include them both with the bag, therefore making it that you have one bag with two looks!  I have listed it in my folksy shop.

Making this bag made me nostalgic for art college.  Whilst studying art and design the favourite period for inspiring my work was the art nouveau movement.  Everyone knew that as soon as projects were given out for presentations they were going to hear something else about the art nouveau movement whether it was glass, ceramics or textiles!  However, my absolute favourite artist from this period is Margaret MacDonald (who was much underrated wife of Rennie).  During one of my research trips I was lucky enough to visit Glasgow (not that I need an excuse as that is my favourite city!) and went to see the MacIntosh house which is housed in the Hunterian Art Gallery.  Here I was able to get up close to my favourite piece of Margarets 'The White Rose & The Red Rose' 1902,  which is in the drawing room.  However, the guide was taking a particular interest in me being so enthusiastic she need not have worried, I had no screwdriver and my bag wasn't big enough!

By the way this picture does not do the original justice, there are handmade glass beads on it which sparkle in the light and it is huge!