Becoming lockdown, first time grandparents has been such a ray of sunshine in these crazy times. Our little George has melted our hearts and really warmed our cockles. He is a happy, smiley, alert, expressive, bonny, gorgeous little boy. Sleeping all through the night and so contented, loved and adored by his doting Mammy and Daddy. Lucky lucky little boy❤️
What better birthday present for Granny Kazzy than a stunning pencil drawing by Grandad Trash. Capturing so beautifully the many faces of gorgeous Georgie boy.
Pencil drawing capturing some of the many expressions of Gorgeous GeorgeThe many faces of George
You know how a Father’s love and pride for his daughter just shines out right? Well … just look at this beautiful pencil drawing, commissioned recently…
The drawing was commissioned by a caring brother for his adored sister. The siblings have a strong and special bond and very sadly lost their beloved father just weeks ago. This beautiful pencil drawing needs few words, because the emotion captured in pencil, as Dad looks at his daughter on her wedding day, is quite simply just stunning.
I’m pretty sure that buying a perfect birthday gift during lockdown can be a bit of a dilemma. However two clever mummies recently gifted their sons one of Trashcan Emporium’s cool lockdown Tees. One mummy picked one of Lee’s original skull images and added the lockdown location, name and age for her son and another mummy chose a “Corona Virus” Tee with their lockdown location for her son. Their boys have a pretty unique reminder of this crazy time and their lockdown birthday celebrations.
Thanks to both lovely ladies for supporting our little business in these tough times and a big happy, 17th and 11th, lockdown birthday to these blinkin’ gorgeous boys!
Creative ideas are us. We are always thinking of new things to encourage purchases from our little ‘arty farty’ business. We also love it when we get given some awesome ideas from others too.
A runner up in our recent music quiz based in the 30 Day Music Challenge came up with a stormer of an idea (or actually his wife did). He was offered a design of his own choice sublimated onto our gorgeous poly-cotton Tees and chose to have a the treasured ticket from one of his top music gigs as the design.
Why put your treasured gig tickets in a drawer when you can put them on your TShirt?
‘Ticket on a Tee’ is a service available right now!
So a lovely friend of mine in our village wanted a lockdown Tee as a surprise birthday gift for her husband. She inspired me with the design and we worked on it together (maintaining social distancing of course!). The final design was gifted to the birthday boy and soon a few spin offs, for an anniversary present for my neighbour and a topical Tee for The Husband, followed.
We can make these to order – changing location of lockdown as well as your personal wording … £15 per TShirt – and if it’s a gift then we can post to your recipient together with your personal message on a gift card – just drop us a message to order!
We simply love driftwood and often collect interesting pieces from our evening beach strolls with the pups. You can imagine there is always an arty farty project at the ideas stage in the Trashcan Household.
Our first grandchild is due in just a matter of days and I wanted to personalise a piece of driftwood from our beach to connect George to his Granny Kazzy and Grandad Trash living four hours away. My plan was to use my vinyl cutter but Grandad Trash had other plans and lovingly sanded, hand painted and lacquered this beautiful driftwood room sign. I used my vinyl idea to decorate an “Our Family” sign on a driftwood hanger and added personalised natural wood slices.
With our family so far away from so many of us during these crazy lockdown days sending a surprise personal gift for a birth, a birthday, or an anniversary may be a real highlight for someone somewhere. We are still creating lots of beautiful things here at Trashcan Emporium and will happily gift wrap your purchases and post to any destination with a gift card and your special message.
Soooo … a decade ago I was an Ironman and, despite being a chubbier, less fit version of me these days, I still absolutely adore swimming. I had a little spark of an idea of a retro style swimming lady to hang from the high ceiling beams in our front room and, of course, my wish is The Husbands command. ❤️
This fabulous Swimming Lady was crafted by The Husband using newspaper, Plaster of Paris and Das clay, then hand painted and sprayed with lacquer.
My swimming may be on hold during lockdown, but Swimming Lady, complete with representations of my peacock and flower tattoos, will soon be swimming forevermore.
If you would like your own version of Swimming Lady, wearing a costume and bathing cap in your favourite colours, then we will happily take commissions – £100 plus P&P for an unusual and original piece of art – a lockdown bargain! ❤️
In the middle of lockdown arty fartyness The Husband has some fun with a glass etching set that was my very cool Xmas pressie off Little Sister.
My plan was to cut some vinyl stencils for the etching but of course The Husband, being an artist, had way better ideas. He freehanded this traditional tattoo style anchor and waves onto a glass pane which separates our back porch from the dining room.
And to think I was going to hang a curtain there huh?
The Atlantic Puffin is probably Pembrokeshire’s most famous sea-bird. Anyone who has made the little boat trip trip over to stunning Skomer Island will have seen this funny little bird really close up as they are everywhere. Over 22,000 of them.
I have longed for a Puffin painting ever since Lee and I spent a joyous day on Skomer this time last year and I was so delighted that Lee made it one of his lockdown art projects.
The Husband always says I have no patience with my arty projects. In some ways I understand his view as I am always ALWAYS impatient to see the end result. However I think with this latest project I think I have proven I have quite endless patience. In fact, has anyone else ever taken 5 years to create a perfectly perfect photo frame?
For our wedding day I wrote Lee a cute little poem called “Fifty and Married” and Little Sister read it out to our lovely guests during the marriage ceremony. Months later, as a surprise gift for me, Lee drew the poem and mounted it on card. He always said he would get it properly framed but, as his artwork measures a whopping 42 inches by 15 inches, finding a frame to fit was a bit of a task!
However, I’m not sure why but, since we first moved into our little pink bungalow, I have been diligently saving all the corks from our Prosecco (and occasionally Champagne) bottles. It was actually becoming a struggle to close the cupboard which contained the bulging bag of corks so I was rather pleased by my lockdown stroke of genius. By using a long piece of wood (kindly sourced from my favourite pub landlord/ thank you Sir), a tub of gorilla glue and a couple of bottles of PVA, I created this masterpiece of a photo frame simply perfect for my poem.
Patience huh? I very patiently drank fizz for FIVE long years in order to create this mighty piece of art! Now is that dedication to art or what! .
PS. how many corks do you think it took to create it?
Trashcan Emporium & The ThreadShed Fresh East 