"Things were a bit tight after the end of the war and Mrs Brown had been as frugal as she possibly could be with most things. Her husband had been invited to a "bit of a do" by his boss at work, "just drinks and nibbles and a chance to network" hubby had said. He wanted his wife to look nice and so she had been planning a new outfit for weeks.
She had managed to unpick the sleeves from a golfing sweater her husband used to wear. It was in good condition apart from holes in the elbows where he had leant on his desk and together with the sleeves from one of her own sweaters (she had got bleach on the front of it whilst cleaning a while ago, ever so upset she had been) she felt it made a super top for her. She knew she wouldn't be the best dressed woman there but with what Reggie earned and what she managed to scrape together she felt her outfit would be admired and maybe even a talking point amongst the other women.
It was the skirt she was most proud of. It had taken a long time in the planning but with begging her friends for old ties that their husbands and sons no longer wanted she had made herself a skirt. She was absolutely delighted and couldn't wait for Reggie to come home. She had it all planned. They would have a light meal that evening, so little preparation was needed, and then he would get in his best demob suit and she would surprise him with her lovely new outfit set off with a cute beret her aunt had knitted for her and which she had attached a bow to.
Reggie came home, they sat down, had a bite to eat, in anticipation of the "nibbles" that evening, and sure enough, Reggie went upstairs, had a quick shower and came back down all ready and sporting a cravat as it was a special evening. Mrs Brown looked at herself in the mirror upstairs, gave her beret a little twist to one side to show off the bow and walked slowly down the stairs and into the living room.
"Well?" she said, as she stood there waiting for Reggie to tell her how lovely she looked.
Poor Reggie, he was not sure about that skirt at all. He realised she had done it all to make an effort to look nice for him in front of his friends from the office but he was not that good at making his face look as if he was really saying nice things and so he asked himself "Hmm.. should I answer normally or should I be sarcastic?" In the end he said "I do like that beret you are wearing dear, but surely you won't be keeping it on all the time will you?"
To begin with I had a green page done previously and so I stencilled my favourite 'wallpaper looking stencil' over it very lightly in Tea Dye, added a 40's tv and some flying ducks (at this point `I must say we never had flying anything on the walls of our house when I was a child) to try to give it an authentic 40 - 50's look about the page.
I chose to type the words out again instead of doing my own writing as I had so little room on the page to do anything other than that.
Now that I have managed to reproduce something like a vintage vibe to this Dylusion page I am entering it into Art Journal Journey where Wendy has chosen vintage as the theme this month.
