Royal Wedding Day

Ok, I admit, I am a Royalist. To be fair, considering my hubby was employed by them for 22 years it would be odd for me to be anything else, so I have been very excited about today! I had some spare bunting from school so there is a bit outside my bedroom window (we have a little balcony thingy) and this in the lounge.This was the table all layed up ready for our celebration tea, using my Grandmothers tea set. She got it for HER wedding in 1939. My Mum now has it and has never used it so we decided today was a good time to dust it off!Isn't it beautiful, real 1930s shape but still pretty and dainty. It is a tiny bit stained in places and a few of the cups have tiny cracks but otherwise it is amazing with the gold rims still all beautiful and shiny and over 70 years old.... My Victoria Sandwich, sitting on a plate from MY wedding dinner service which is Wedgewood with tiny forget-me-nots on and is called (appropriately) April Flowers!

And a final shot of the table with egg and cress sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches and a medley of cake items on my cake stand! Oh and we had Union Flag napkins and navy ones with crowns and tiaras on!

So a fantastic day to be British and I thoroughly enjoyed it. What an elegant dress she had and I wish them all the very best for their married life. I am lucky enough to have celebrated my 21st wedding anniversary just yesterday so I hope theirs will be as long and happy Now must go to watch the highlights.....

Getting in the Mood!

Do you remember I showed you all the bunting I had cut out and stitched for school? Well yesterday we had our "Wedding Craft Morning" and the children got to stamp (with paint) on a piece of bunting. Then in the afternoon I got to thread them all on the string and then we put them up in the school hall. They looked so good and remind me of Tibetan prayer flags.

There were lots of lovely ones but I think this was my favourite done by a child of 9.

This is the whole of it in the hall to give you the idea of it all together. Today the children had a special school picnic lunch, a bit like a Street Party so it made it a bit more special.

I got to keep the spare bits so they are now hung on the front of my house and my husband has made me a flagpole in the back garden with the Union Flag a-flying from it! Tomorrow I shall be watching and in the evening we are having a Wedding Tea so I must get baking....

Hey little Birdie....

I couldn't resist him! I also discovered that it was on Efemera's blog that I read about the book. Do go and visit her blog, absolutely lovely things she has created. This guy stands about 2" high and was very fiddly, especially the legs.

My daughter Jess needed a polystyrene head (like you do) so when I ordered one from Amazon, two other tiny felt books accidentally fell into my basket too. I think I shall be making lots more of these teeny tiny projects!

Art Journal Week 16

Week 16 and our prompt was "Television-do you have one? How many? What do you watch? Use a TV schedule on your BG". Despite what my husband says, we aren't TV obsessed in our house. I didn't even HAVE a TV until the teachers at school told my Mum and Dad that we were ignorant of things going on in the world. So in 1978 they bought a TV and we were allowed to watch Tomorrow's World and nature programmes. Mum would let us watch Grange Hill but it wasn't until my parents divorced when I was 16 that TV was freely watched. Then we watched loads! Dallas, Dynasty, Tales of the Unexpected! Now we have just 2; one in the lounge, one in the dining room, where I craft. I never miss Casualty or Dr Who and I like to dip in and out of EastEnders and Corrie but generally I will have the TV on when I craft in the dining room.

My page had 2 pics of TVs from these 2 eras with my journalling in, and 2 TV listings from now and the 70s. Very quick and simple this week and again I have done no stamping! Whoops!

My new friend!

So here is my peacock! He hasn't got a name yet but I am sure somebody will come up with one soon. As I was blog-hopping a while ago I came across a post that recommended a book called "little birds". On the cover was a felt bird and as I love felt I decided to treat myself. Imagine my excitement when I found a pattern for this absolutely scrumptious fellow as well as lots of other lovelies! He has taken a few hours to do but it was lovely to sew something completely by hand for a change.

This is his face and top knots!

And a back view of his tail. The colours have bleached out a bit in all this gorgeous sunshine. IRL he is electric turquoise and purple, so very bright and not as muted as he looks here.

Thank you for stopping by and especially leaving comments. I have had lots of really lovely ones recently and it really makes my day that you stop and bother to leave them.

The finished Quilt!

Ta dah!!! All done! This is the jelly roll quilt all finished, quilted and bound. Looks ok from the distance for a first attempt, just don't look too closely! This is the reverse, a magenta batik. There are a few things I need to learn how to do better; how to keep in the ditch for one, how to tie off my ends properly and how to get absolutely NO wrinkles in it as I stitch.

Still it has been a learning experience, and I am still encouraged to make one for my bed. Maybe I better see what my quilting frinds think of it when they see it IRL before I get too excited!

This is the binding. I think this bit went ok but I am not sure I have done the corners quite right! Never mind, 'tis done and Katy loves it. Just got to do a label for it now before Burn shoots me....

Bluebells.

Ok well this obviously isn't a bluebell! Last weekend I went to a Quilt Show and there was also a bluebell walk to do there. We wandered through these beautiful woods and right near the end, amongst the blubells, we came across these common orchids.

I took lots of photos of the bluebells and I only had my little camera so I was trying some depth of field shots (well I think thats what they are called!). This is my favourite one as I like the contrast between the bluebell and the tree trunk, with the path going off into the distance.

This was the blue carpet, in a sunnier patch. I love bluebells, they seem so English and they smell divine!

Patriotic!

Phew, what a job! We are having a craft day at school next week for the Royal Wedding. Each child is going to decorate a piece of bunting by printing in red, white or blue and add a few sequins if they wish. So I said I would cut out the bits and then sew the tops over ready to be threaded on the tape. Well finally I have finished! 200 bits all ready to be decorated and strung up for the celebrations.

The whole picture!

Here it is......this is the finished article! Some long while ago, when I was first recruited into Guiding I went on a Camp in the New Forest and we each got one of these miniature bird boxes to decorate.When I got back I ordered some for myself and they have been hanging about ever since. Now a technique I have been wanting to try for ages is when you get paper napkins and stick them down with loads of PVA....so when I finally found some I liked at Wakehurst Place I knew that this is what I was finally going to do with my Bird House.For the roof I inked, gessoed and sprayed on some book pages that I had stuck to card and then I inked two colours through some sequin waste. To make the tiles I punched out about a million little hearts and curled them slightly before sticking them down in rows.It still needed a little something so I added the vintage lace edging and some subtle glitter on the white patches. I was going to add some dangley bits to the corners but I think actually it is finished just as it is.

I think I have 3 more houses somewhere.....

Sneak Peek

Been a bit busy over the last few days so here's a sneaky peek of a project that is under construction...

Baking today!

I unexpectedly had a free morning so I decided that I would bake some cupcakes. First of all were custard and apple cupcakes...

The recipe said "put some mixture in the case, add some custard and top with mixture" Well what a mess, the custard was rather runny and they overflowed everywhere sticking to the tin and completely dissolving the paper cases! Still I expect my lot will still eat them. Next I did Ginger and Lemon cupcakes which were a WHOLE lot more successful!

Now I think I might get on with some Inchies.....

My next hobby?

I got my sewing machine back today having had it serviced so of course I had to sew something to check it was ok! So I did another textile panel, this time Winter.

Then I decided I wanted a go at free machine embroidery as I bought Jess some dissolvable fabric and she has been whizzing away on HER machine all day , creating these beautiful lacey designs. Hmmm I thought, that would make some nice leaves to embellish my Autumn panel....I had to borrow her machine as I don't have the correct foot for mine and these were my efforts! Don't think I will have any sort of future in this art! After all the stitching you run them under warm water and the plastic goes just like snot (sorry but it really is!) and then all melts away! They are drying at the moment; I hope they look better tomorrow!

Art Journal , Week 15

I LOVED doing this one, despite having NO idea what to do. Brief this time was "Travel, love it, hate it? Worst journey/best journey, use a map for BG". I can only think of one really awful journey that we have had and that was a caravan holiday to Norfolk so I started with a map of Norfolk. I really wanted to draw so off I went with the car and caravan, not that ours looked like this at all, (although the car was red!)

The rest just evolved, I knew I had to have hidden journalling as there was a lot to write so I came up with a pull out caravan! The story is this; we were all packed ready to leave for our holiday at 8am or so. All we had to do was hitch up and leave but whilst we were reversing the car towards the caravan the tailgate came crashing down, smashing the rear windscreen. We took it in to be fixed and spent the day in the garden as it was an absolutely scorching August day. We collected the car about 3pm and were just about to leave when the man said "so it will all be fine to use tomorrow morning". Hang on, we thought, why not tonight? It was apparently glued in and the air pressure of driving with open windows could risk the whole thing blowing out! Well it was far too hot to even contemplate driving with the windows shut (pre air-con this car was!) Eventually we set off about 5.30 driving very carefully and being very hot! All was fine until we just reached the top of the M11 and had a blow-out on the caravan! The fact it was an odd size etc meant we would have a bit of a wait to be repaired and by now it was gone 7pm. We dutifully unloaded everyone from the car, climbed the embankment and sat in a field, all 6 of us. Eventually my husband had to flag down a police car as no-one arrived and it was now 10.30pm and dark!!! The long and the short of it was we eventually got under way and reached our campsite about half past midnight to be met by the farmer with torches and lights and cups of tea! We set up the caravan, awning and a tent and put 4 sleeping children to bed without a soul on the site knowing we had arrived and finally got to bed about 3am!! Luckily we then had the best holiday ever with fabulous weather throughout!

Best journey? Easy peasy Easyjet planes to Edinburgh, turn up, get on, fly, get off, no hassle!

Wakehurst Place

After a morning of jobs like hairdressers and orthodontist we discovered that all 6 of us were actually in the house at the same time. It was still quite sunny so I decided that we would go out together for once! After a family vote it was decided to go to Wakehurst Place, just up the road. We are National Trust members but don't use our card enough, so off we went.
It was quite chilly but when the wind dropped it warmed up again. I took nearly 200 photos but I won't bore you with all of them! Here are some of my faves...A rhododendron...a few were out even though it's a bit early stillMy lot sitting on a bridge. Love their boots in this, maybe I should send to Dob Martens for an advert!This cock pheasant was strutting his stuff and I kept trying to get a good pic. In the end he marched straight towards me but I had a zoom lens on so that is why his face is not quite in focus but I think it is still an ok shot.
And finally the gruesome foursome, what clones, all in their matching hoodies! I shouldn't think there will be too many more pics like this before Jess is off to Uni in the Autumn. They are from l-r Eliza, Jess, Jasper and Katy.

A textile panel.

Once a month I go to see my friend Burnice in her Craft Cabin and Linda comes along too. Generally we just chat but just occasionally we do "stuff"! Linda has just been to a class where they made these textile panels and she thought we might like a go too. She brought along tons of really sparkly fabrics, lamee, dance fabric, silks and satins etc. We chopped little pieces off and then laid them on a base. Next we added threads, fibres, ribbons and sequins and trapped everything under black netting by stitching up and down with a machine.

This is my one. Next month we are going to make them into finished panels with embroidered borders etc. I have decided I am going to make a set of 4 and join them together to make a wall hanging. This one is Autumn I think and I shall use different colour combinations to represent the other seasons.

Of course home I went all proud and showed Jess (my daughter doing textiles) and she just said "yeah, we did that at school aaaaages ago, you should have done......". Supportive huh!

Lambs

I know I didn't create these but they are just soooooo cute that I am going to show you the pictures anyway! So if you only want to see crafty stuff then read no futher!

These are some of the pictures I took yesterday when we went to see the lambing.

This lamb is about 3/4 days old...Eliza bottle feeding an orphaned calf who is about 3 weeks old,Me holding a lamb who is about 2 days old...they are very light and so cuddly!A proper white Easter lamb,These triplets had just been born, the little one lying down is the youngest and hadn't managed to stand up when I took this. He had only been born about 5 minutes!There that's my Eastery pictures for you!

Mini Hanging

I signed up for a Mini Hanging Swap on UKStampers a few weeks ago. Basically we had to make a 3"X3" hanging which would go to a randomly selected person and we would receive one back. The lady I was selected to send to likes all things beachy (according to her blog) so here is the little hanging I made for her....

Balloon painting

As I mentioned earlier, this week at school we have had an Art and Science Week. One of the best activities we did was filling balloons with paint and then bursting them on a huge piece of paper. There were a couple of tricky bits to this activity....I didn't quite have the top of the balloon held tightly shut enough as I was blowing it up so I got a face full of orange paint! The other bit was trying to work out how to pop them without getting covered with paint. Our caretaker made us a "patent popping device", essentially a broom handle with a screw through it. Problems solved and away we went! I think that if you were brave enough to blow the balloons up really hard then they might spray further but I was just a bit wary that they might pop in my face! All in all thought it was great fun!

A man card....

...a bit like Man Flu only nicer! So this is Ken's card. Remember, he had his birthday the day after Jess's 18th? He got a shop cake I'm afraid but I did at least make his card. I have to confess I borrowed the embossing foldeer off my freind Sharon and the die for the cog was Gilly's (Tim Holtz one). I just swiped over the embossing and then triple embossed the cogs adding pewter embossing powder or black glitter in my last layer. I'd forgotten just how much I like the glassy effect of triple embossing...might need to do some more....

I think this one (above) looks a bit like gingerbread!