Arundel Festival, Painting vintage enamel,BBC Visit,Paint Workshops, Ardingly Antiques Fair & some great publicity

August 16, 2012

Arundel Festival, Painting vintage enamel,BBC Visit,Paint Workshops, Ardingly Antiques Fair & some great publicity

Good Morning from Arundel Eccentrics

and an Arundel preparing for the festival.

Starts this weekend

17th until 27th August

http://www.arundelfestival.co.uk/

Check out the festival website ...there are loads of events.

The Gallery Trail is still as wonderful as ever.

http://www.arundelgallerytrail.co.uk/

so grab a leaflet and map,

and go out there and enjoy trailing...

through gardens and houses, shops and restaurants,

you'll find galleries all over town.

We have lovely

Jenny Lock the artist,

down at our warhouse/showroom

http://www.arundelgallerytrail.co.uk/artistpages/jennylock.html

so we will be open every day of the festival.......

........and no Arundel Tourist office are not paying me.

But I think they should

Ha Ha

Oh! but you will find all our Arundel Christmas Cards on sale.

No..it's never too early.

The way this year is flying along it'll be here before we can turn around.

By the way,

you wont find these cards anywhere else in the town.

Vintage enamel.

Some of our US customers love all these pieces.
Vintage enamel that we find at Ardingly Antique Fair
and that we then paint and decorate with decoupage.

You can use all sorts of items.
These are some wonderful 19th century
French postcards I picked up in a flea market in Paris a few years ago.
I use the written side as well as I love the fact they are dated
and tells you a very small part
of someone's story.

I once had a customer who ordered 40 buckets in one hit.
Oh my... that was some gluin' stickin' and varnishing.

I was still waxing and polishing them up as the shippers walked in the door to pick them all up.

So Ive been mostly out in the sunshine...but occasionally in the gloom of some our August days,
painting, decorating with decoupage, varnishing and cracqueluring til the cows come home.

or Elephants.......

If you want to learn any of this email me
arundel.eccentrics@sky.com

we are running courses, and although we sort out some dates, and Ive put the latest on todays blog,
you can tell us when you are free and we will sort a workshop out for you.
If there are others who want the same day, thats great ,as its a lovely sociable day,
if not,
lucky you,
you will have one to one tuition and the day to yourself.

I am getting these all ready for Ardingly Antique fair next month

still varnishing away...........

Workshops

Here's our last workshop in our beautiful riverside studio

Our peaceful riverside setting

my trusty assisstant Bella...bless her she was 19 years old a few weeks ago and has lost her sight.

We are getting several enquiries as a result of the piece in House and Garden.

Yes, this is one of our Victorian bamboo tables

What an exciting day,

Recently we had a great

afternoon with the film crew and stars

from BBC 2's Celebrity Antique Roadtrip.

After initial nervousness,
Nass and I both relaxed into

it and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Thankfully, they were

able to look beyond the scruffy exterior.

I put some of my decoupage pieces

outside, as the camera followed the celebs up the drive.

( drive...ha ha.... that sounds extremely grand,

which, as you can see, we really are most definately not)

But...we DID have a lengthy discussion

on camera about my decoupage work,

so I am ever hopeful,

at least SOME of that

footage will appear.

The celebrity, was Alison Steadman, the actress.

Recently in Gavin and Stacey as Gav's wonderful Mum.

She was quite delightful and said she had loved

coming to Arundel and would like to visit again.

In fact, even showed some interest in

coming on one of my decoupage courses,

which would be lovely.

Thomas, the antique expert, was a great guy.

Nass found he knew him already.

the classic car they travel in, is a bit like a Noddy car.

They bought from us, which was great.

I only hope they make money on the piece,

as its for

Children in Need.

They must have thought they had gone to the

back of beyond coming down to us.

They drove straight

past us

once,

and I ran down the road after them,

waving the arms around

like and idiot.

...........not much leg room in there

Bye Bye............

and its off to the next town.

The funniest thing,

we only found out afterwards,

that the other team in the programme,

Larry Lamb

and

his antiques expert,

were at the same time,

filming at our dear friends

Julie and Rudi's

over in Chichester.

Mangan Antiques

Thanks for visiting us BBC

The programme will be screened early September.

We have had a great bit of publicity this year

one of our cabinets... the folks in this write up bought from Liberty in London

Here are a few of the other pieces we are making our name with...............

our Victorian bamboo is all circa 1860
we restore , paint and decorate them with 19th century images
and send them on their way

hopefully, for another 100 years....

Victorian chest that we've covered in music

Ardingly Antiques Fair

we will be at the next
Ardingly Antiques Fair
Tuesday 4th September

Come and say "hello" if you are there.

If you have never been and love interiors, antiques,

vintage or quite frankly, just rummaging amongst pure junk.

This is the place to be.

Antique dealers and hoarders paradise.

Its a great day out...even in the rain, which it seems to frequently do.

Don't be tempted to go, just on the 2nd day,

unless wild horses have kept you away from the first day..or "Dealers Day".

I always thought it meant you had to prove you were trade to get in on that day.

You don't.

2nd day?
Half the price. yes.....
Half the dealers
Half the stalls,
Half the stock,
Half the fun

Many of the overseas dealers leave after the first day,
as do UK dealers who have travelled a distance.
Or if the weather is bad.