Button it up !

Autumn is upon us and its time to get out those winter woolies to keep warm. I am a disaster when it comes to knitting but I do love the look of chunky jumpers to snuggle into on cold days and envy those who are wizards with knitting needles!

To make my shop bought jumpers stand out from the crowd I like to add something a bit different so I have made some big ceramic buttons to jazz up knit wear and add an individual touch. Here are just someof my designs all ready and packaged for a local shop.

Each button is handmade in Earthenware and glazed before being kiln fired. Buttons vary in size, the ones shown are about 2" wide and have 2 holes.

£10.00 for a set of 3 handmade buttons plus post and packing.

Spotty ladies

I find myself surrounded my spotty women, no not an awful epidemic more a ceramic obsession with me at present. My studio is filling up with these jolly women bearing hearts and flowers and wearing polkadot dresses in different hues and rather splendid hair styles!!

Retro fun !

When we were kids we lived a very Janet and John lifestyle, summer hols in the cottage in the country and home made ginger beer, with jolly memories of fun in the sun and innocent enjoyment with families and friends. There were a group of about 5 families all with kids about the same age and when we all got together we kids would disappear out into the wilds shrieking and building camps and the adults would sit together sharing jokes , cheap wine and putting the world to rights in good company.




Each year one of the families trotted off to France for the summer hols camping which in those days was very chic and daring and on for that they had a state of the art brand new and fresh from the production line, mint green VW camper complete with striped awning and a pop up roof. I remember when they first bought it and we crawled all over it, oohing and awing in awe it was so cool and so trendy and we had never ever seen anything like it before. I was as smitten as Mr Toad was with his gypsy caravan and I have been smitten with VW campers ever since.


Now it seems they are very much back in fashion with their retro design and 1960's style and I am still very much a fan so here is my small homage to that Westphalia wonder van

Two new VW Ceramic Tiles with an original hand painted design Available from my shop on Not on The High Street at £10 for the small tile and £15 for the larger one ( including postage and packing) they make great gift for a VW Fan anywhere! Oh and I am happy to customize the tiles with your own colour and number plate at no extra cost to you!

Dreaming of sunshine

What with christmas, lots of visitors and lots of snow the new year has so far been rather hectic but not very productive.

I decided it was about time I embraced spring ( well ever hopeful!) and got down to some work. Beautiful though the long hard winter has been I needed the promise of something warmer when the cattle are out in the fields again and the countryside comes to life once more . I have as my screen saver an endless array of phototgrpahs I have taken since we moved in here, images of the fields whch surround where we live and they always make me feel happy.

Here we have then inspired by daily walks in under a clear blue sky tiles of the cows and pigs that are part of farm life here in the wilds of Brittany. They are all majolica glazed and fired at high temperature on beautiful italian hand made terracotta bisque tiles and measure 20cm by 10 cm and are about 10mm thick, nice chunky tiles to frame or just prop up on the mantlepiece or of course include in your tiling scheme amongst other plains tiles.

All are available direct from un peu loufoque at www.notonthehighstreet.com at £15 each with free post and packing.

I hope you like them.

Christmas is coming....

December has crept in this morning , bringing with it, a cold and frosty dawn, the water troughs are frozen and the grass had a pleasing crunch as I trudged through it out to feed the animals. I love the first few days of December. Time to look forward to Christmas and all the joy it brings!
Christmas for me is the busiest time of year , and each year I try to design something a little different for my clients although the Christmas hanging dove above is a perennial favourite as are the holly stars . This year customers seem to be taking the patriotic route ordering lots of the union jack doves and stars and hearts as well as the stars and stripes which is popular with my American customers .

Hearts are a constant theme but after a trip down to the South of France to see the Carmargue this summer I fell in love with the floral motifs of the gypsies beautiful fabrics and embossed leather designs and designed these hearts with an embossed floral design.

I love Mistletoe and the wonderful way nature creates such symmetry. We have great balls of it in the trees here and I have used the same motif on all sorts of decorations this year including hearts and doves as well and ceramic Christmas gift labels using my mistletoe design .

Of course Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without an invitation to kiss under the mistletoe and this 10cm heart on its Gingham ribbon has just the message for anyone who is shy in coming forward.

All the ceramics are available direct from me, you can email me at unpeuloufoque@free.fr

and other designs not shown here, including the patriotic range mentioned , are on my website http://unpeuloufoque.com/creations.html .

Prices are doves £3.50 each, 10cm Hearts £9.50 each ,small embossed Hearts £3.50 each and gift labels £3.50 in either Bisous or Noel design.

Postage and packing to anywhere in the world is a £2.50 per item with a resuced rate for multiple items sent in the same package. I will also gift wrap and send direct to someone for yo with your own message. Last postage date from France is the 12th December so remember to order early for Christmas!

Love is in the air.

It is that time of year again when a young womans fancy turns to love and alas most young men are, as ever, at a total loss as to how to be romantic. Well Chez Nous anyway!!! It's hard each year to come up with a valentine's design that is a little different from the cuddly bears hearts and flowers image that abound so I thought Id try something a bit Gothic and more sophisticated this year to add to my collection and hopefully tempt a Romeo or two to make a romantic gesture!

So here we have my Valentine's collection .. or some of them ..

If you are interested in any then please email at unpeuloufoque@free.fr. Prices range from 10 pounds sterling for the large black and white Gothic hanging heart to 5 pounds sterling for the smallest 5cm heart, plus postage. All can be personallized with a short message and are available in black and white or red and white.

Of course if you would ratherer secretly hope someone might buy you one then email me their email address and Iwill send them the link with a note saying someone who loves you would rather like one of these!!

Well you never know it might work!!! Heres hoping your Valentines day is a romantic one!!

A drum roll please for the Christmas Give-Away!!

Well here we are then, the time has come to make the prize draw, the names are in the hat and some more than once , all legal and honest and no slight of hand...everyone ready.. no pushing at the back!..Firstly may I just say that I have really enjoyed doing this so Thank You ElizabethD for encouraging me to join in and meet lots of new interesting bloggers whom I might have never met otherwise. Thank you too to each one of you who entered and made such kind comments about my work, they are much appreciated.


Alright its not really a hat but Brigitte here was not willing to donate her hat and insisted she hold the basket instead as it matches her hair...vain creature...


Widdle, one of our cats, decided he'd help and act as ajudicator just to make sure everything was above board. Here he is checking all the names against the list of entrants in case I have forgotten anyone.

He wanted to take the names out of the bag too but, being a little lacking in poseable thumbs as he is, I thought I had better get a human to do that....

And the winner of my Glazed Expression Christmas Give-Away draw is.....oops sorry dropped the paper.... now where are my reading glasses? You'd think I could read my own hand writing wouldn't you.. sorry, as I was saying the winner is....are you sure you want to do this? You wouldn't like a nice cup of tea or something instead? Or something stronger? No? oh well if you are sure then lets get on with it.

The winner is... or should I say are ...

Jan and Tom from Jan and Tom's Place ( http://jt-jantom.blogspot.com/) Well done you...!

Oh look do stop looking so miserable not everyone can win everytime. Oh now stop it at once I hate grumpy faces... go on then, I shall be kind and draw a few more Christmas Give Aways as well to get you all in the holiday spirit ( I know its months away yet but as I said before some of us have to plan early!)

Here we are then another drum roll but smaller this time..3 small give aways just because I hate dissapointing people... and the first ones goes to Fennie ( do read Fennies very funny blogs http://corner-cupboard.blogspot.com/) and thank you Fennie I see you have linked to my glazed Expressions that was very kind.. .. Carolien who does the most amazing stitching see http://caroliensstitches.blogspot.com/and finally but not least to Debbie of Debbies English Treasures who has a real conrucopia of floral china on her new website and blog http://d-e-t.blogspot.com/

Now if all you lucky winners would like to email me with your postal address and your real names so I can send your giftees to you I will pop them in the post on monday..sorry to those who didn't win this time but if you are interested in anything that you see on this blog but you don't see on my website then email me and I will be happy to let you know prices and details.

I am really sorry I couldnt give everyone who entered a little something....perhaps I will do another one later to make up for it. I do love giving things away..Any if any of you haven't tried Give Aways on your blog then I hope you will soon. Its great fun !

Must go now as I have some very important parcels to prepare! I haven't taken photos of the prizes as I do not want to spoil the surprise but hope the winners will be kind enough to display their well earned gains on their blogs so everyone can see them when they arrive.

Have a good weekend!