Re-use, recycle and re-make

I have had some time to potter over the Christmas and New Year holidays to do some very needed projects.
One was painting my bedroom for the first time after living here 15yrs and the other was 'doing' up two old chairs that I bought at a local junk shop for only £5.00!

One is in the process if being upholstered and the other has been spray painted pink with some old but unused spray paint.
I'm SO pleased with the colour and I now have four chairs in my breakfast room that are all painted in Cath Kidston colours-all ready to match my vintage coloured cutlery.

Vintage war time patterns

I was going through and old bag of 'stuff' today and I came across some scruffy pieces of paper.
When I opened them out (after letting out a little squeal) I saw there were three toy patterns from the 2nd world war. A dog, a duck and the most adorable doll!
The hand writing sent a shiver down my spine, especially when I turned one piece of paper over-it was an envelope with my great, great aunts name and address on. On the revise, written in pencil was "make for Heather"...my moms name, who would have been two years old then.

Each pattern had been cut from old news papers of the day, showing adverts for Bisto etc or from old brown packing paper.

This instantly pricked my 'make-do-and-mend passion. But what amazed me the most was, these patterns had been kept, they were scruffy pieces of paper-nothing special and even many years after the war when my mom must have inherited them, she felt they were special enough to keep...so I will do the same and treasure them for what they are.