A little help

Good evening all, I hope it's been as glorious where you are as it's been here in Lancashire.What a beautiful, sunny day it's been.

I've had a little help in my Doo Lally room this week,or should I say a little help-er...and not so little either! Thomas seems to have decided that my work needs to be supervised - only trouble is that he doesn't leave me much room to do anything!

Not even sure that he approves of my work!

I'll be travelling up and across to Newcastle on Friday and then onto South Shields on Saturday morning for my demo at Crafty Corner. I've got lots of Christmas cards and tags made using my latest Christmas stamps as well as Sweet Dixie dies and various sprays and spritzers. Could get messy (could? Who am I kidding?!).

Talking of my pusscats, I had a close shave this week in the form of Tara - who else? What a little monster she can be! I was letting her out and she stretched her front legs right up as if to tell me to hurry up.I bent forward to give her a little kiss on her head and her paw came right up and into my eye - it was so fast that I didn't have time to blink. I felt her claw in my eye but, thankfully, no damage was done. She really can be a minx!

Thomas was rather unpleasant to be around yesterday as he was rather whiffy! I think he'd been curled up in the sun too long and he's also recovering from a bout of fleas...yikes! They do both have their drops but, living with open land so close by, and the fact that there are quite few farm cats about, fleas can be an occasional problem. He's been scratching, as they do, and was generally looking (and smelling!) a bit of a mess! I made the bold decision to give him a bath!

Never in a million years would I contemplate this for Tara - I'd be flayed alive - but I thought that Tom might just be okay with it - enough for me to give him a little wash anyway. Having read that a few drops of vinegar in the water is excellent for cat's that have had fleas, I added some into the warm bath water, changed into my old clothes and shut us both in the bathroom. 

Of course, as soon as I started to lower him into the bath his legs extended in four directions and he made rather a loud grumbling sound. However, once he was in the water,he placed his front paws on my shoulder and stood quite still as I gave him a really good wash! He even purred! Once rinsed off I got him in a big towel and dried him off and, after a few shakes, he trotted off very happily and sat in the sun. He seemed to actually enjoy the whole experience and he looked a lot happier!

Well, aside from feline escapades it's been pretty quiet here except for working on various samples and projects. I made a few jewellery pieces for my Etsy shop using metal bezels and Ice Resin. They are fun to make but the frustrating part is leaving them alone until the resin sets....sooooo tempting to stick your fingers in to check.....not a good idea! I hid them away till the following day so I wouldn't be tempted and then I was able to add chains, bows etc. This one is called "Fly Free", with the little bird,some metal flakes and a bow.

And this one is called "Soulful" which seemed to bemuse my nephew when he saw it on Facebook!

All my "stuff" for Saturday's demo is packed up now, so I don't have to think about that now until Friday. Tomorrow will be a mixture of a little housework (nnoooooo!!!) mainly prompted by the fact that my neighbour will be popping round to look after the two terrors. She always says that she doesn't notice the lack of housekeeping but I'm sure she must be thinking that I'm a real sloven!!! Lol! I'll also be working on some canvasses that have been ordered and then it's Church in the evening, although not a service. This time it's puppet rehearsals first and then we are hosting a concert called "A Little Night Music" which is songs from the shows. There will be refreshments and a raffle...I'm helping...with refreshments....not singing! So, it should be a lovely evening altogether.

Right, I am off to make a coffee and a sandwich before Bake Off, so I shall bid you good evening and hope to see some of you on Saturday.

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Visitors

Well, one visitor really. My auntie came down from Scotland to stay with me for a few days, hence my absence from Blogland all this week. It was mum's birthday on Wednesday, so we spent most of the day with her and she had a lovely time eating cupcakes and sweeties....mum's favourite things!

I've been trying to fit work in around being a hostess, but I never find it easy to be creative unless I can properly concentrate on what I'm doing. I have two events coming up though, so have been planning those, as well as finishing some pieces for my Etsy shop.

This coming Thursday I am the guest speaker at the local WI meeting! I'm going to be giving a talk about the kinds of things that I do, a few stories from my travels around the country, followed by a simple card making session and then a short quiz to finish things off. I hope the ladies enjoy it!

The following Thursday I'll be at Crafty-Nook in Durham teaching an evening workshop for around twenty five ladies, so that will be a fun night I'm sure.

I've been making good use of my arty birthday gifts and have been inspired to do some Zentangling which I haven't done for a long time.....I used to love spending hours on detailed "doodles" when I was a teenager! Anyway, I decided to draw some owls - well, two actually! Once I'd drawn them I filled them in with lots of different Zentangle designs and then came the difficult decision....to keep the drawing black and white...or...to add colour? No going back once a decision to start colouring was made, so I just decided to go for it and was pleased that I did......

 .....I was really happy with the vibrant results using my ultra fine coloured ink pens. Once I'd coloured the owls I painted the moon with matte Glue n Seal and made a wavy frame mask so that I could blend some subtle blue ink over the background...I was then able to remove the ink from the moon to leave it white again. I added a wavy border with a fine black pen and coloured some areas of it to match the owls.

This piece was going to go onto my Etsy shop but it was snapped up before it made it onto there! I have since created another Zentangled owl picture which I have added to my shop though, as well as this painting that I've called "Meadow Poppies"......

 ......I used my new Inktense watercolours for this one. They are lovely to work with, with very strong pigments that allow for all sorts of techniques.

Last night I was out at a 50th wedding anniversary celebration for two friends from church. It was a lovely change to be at a party, although the fact that the music from the time of their wedding was 60's music gave pause for thought......surely the sixties can't be fifty years ago?! I had made a simple card for them using a Martha Stewart PATP heart punch, some My Mind's Eye paper, a Sizzix die for the numbers and a little hand written message. Very simple but they liked it!

 It had been another hot day but, thankfully, I'd heeded the weather forecast and taken my brolly with me as the heavens opened and I had to walk home (or should I say "squelch home") in torrential rain. Still, it was very refreshing after the muggy day!

After church and then coffee at the church hall, I just got home before the rains came again today and then I sat down to do some more Zentangling. This time I decided on mushrooms - or toadstools if you prefer...they are the same thing anyway! This was my drawing once I'd filled in with various patterns....

 ....I think mushrooms really lend themselves to this style. I've now started to colour the design and this is the point that I'm up to as of tonight.....

 ......I really do like the monochrome look, but I have always been drawn (ouch!) to colours. Even as a little girl I used to carefully colour in the illustrations in my Enid Blyton books....I did do them very carefully!

The mushroom drawing will go into my Etsy shop once it's finished and put into a mount.

Well, I think I had better sign off now as it very nearly tomorrow! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend and apologies to anyone that I owe an email to - I will be catching up with everything as soon as possible.

Summer brings cricket bats

The British summer is certainly making up for lost time now and at a cracking pace too! Every morning brings fresh delights in the garden with glorious colours and tasty crops.

Today I was greeted by this cheery Sunflower amongst the Sweet Peas and Nasturtiums. I've grown quite a few of them but this one has beaten the rest to open first. I've got three vases full of Sweet Peas filling the house with their lovely perfume and still masses of them in the garden. And some of these little belters were on my plate tonight!

I was away from home for a couple of days this week, meeting up with my colleagues for a day at Sizzix HQ, looking at the forthcoming new releases and learning more about how some of the products work. It was a really interesting day and gave me lots of inspiration. 

Yesterday, I was performing duties at another funeral....I'm feeling much more confident about what I'm doing now. Heather met me in church afterwards and we drove up to see mum. There were some other people visiting a relative too and we all ended up having a sing song! Michael started us off with "It's a long way to Tipperary" and most of the residents joined in....it's wonderful just how strong our memory of songs can be. People who cannot remember who they are, who their family are, or who hardly speak at all, can suddenly recall all the words of a song. It was a lovely moment, though, sadly, mum wasn't able to sing along as she once would have done.

Last night I watched the first night of the Proms which had a sea theme. I was transported by the Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony which I've only heard snippets of before, but I'll be listening to it again, it was wonderful. It made me think how permanent music is. Of all the arts, it's the only one that's never effected by time. Paintings can fade or crack, statues can crumble and for sure, all our inky creations will be lost, but music is there forever. Mmmm....it gave me something to ponder.

When I got home I spotted something on the floor in the conservatory and I got some good photos of it.....

  .....isn't he amazing! I was only thinking that I hadn't heard the grasshoppers or crickets in the field this year, and then this chappie turned up. It's normally the duller, brown "versions" that I see, but this one was the most brilliant green. Just ignore the Tara hairs on the carpet by the way! I managed to pick him up without him leaping further into the house.....

.....and snapped this picture before I set him down in the garden. So, he was the cricket of my post title and the bats, well, sadly, I haven't been able to take a picture despite my best efforts, but I've been treated to them swooping really low over the garden for the last few nights. They have been coming really close to me but they do such fantastic aerobatics that I just cannot get one in frame! Fascinating creatures and I'd love to get a really good look at them. NB....see end of this post for update!

I finished another canvas today, and, at first glance it may look as if I used my Robot stamp which was released last year...or was it the year before now...eek! However, this one is an original robot which I drew onto the canvas.....

 .....he's a little more relaxed, with his bent knee, than the one on the stamp set! The canvas has a wire hanger that's hard to see in the picture, but it was more suitable than the ribbon hangers that I often add to my canvasses. He's now up in my Etsy shop and you can see some closer photos of the canvas there.

It's been too hot for T&T today! Thomas has been asleep on my bed for the majority of the day and Tara has been mostly lying amongst the long grasses at the edge of the field. She joined me on the bench late this afternoon though when it had cooled down ever so slightly....

 ....thought you might like this cute picture of her! I'm very lucky that I now live somewhere that I can happily leave every door and window open, so I've been working in my Doo Lally room but I've been able to get the breeze coming through from the back of the house. It's been so quiet here all day - I think everyone has taken the advice to keep out of the sun whilst it's so hot. I had a cold shower earlier...my technique is to get into a warm shower and then slowly trun the temperature down until the water is really cold - not so much of a shock that way! If it gets too hot in the night, my top tip is to soak a bath towel in cold water, wring it out and use it instead of a duvet - works a treat!

Oh, before I go, after a rather long and rather rambly post....I decided to make a bread and butter pudding last night. Don't ask me why! I replaced the sugar with a little Splenda and it looked great when I lifted it out of the oven....

 .....unfortunately, it was a real disappointment and tasted nothing like it looked! I think it needed more liquid, but never mind. So, no recipe for this one until I do a better job! It will still get eaten of course!

Tomorrow I'll be helping between services at church and then it is the Hog Roast in the vicarage garden which I'm really looking forward to. I'll take my camera!

Hope everyone is having a brilliant weekend and not getting overheated....any top tips for keeping cool?

Bats update! Well, after saying I'd like to get a better look at the bats, I had a couple of lucky shots tonight! I go outside at around 10.15pm and tonight decided I would sit on the bench as the bats like to swoop quite low over my lawn (for lawn, read more like a meadow at the moment!). The joy of digital photography....I was able to keep snapping away and, instead of trying to follow a completely unfollowable bat, I just pointed in the general direction and carried on clicking. I didn't think I'd caught anything till I loaded the pictures......

 .....and this one is a corker......

.....though you'll need to click the image for a better look. I don't think I'll be getting a job as a wildlife cameraman any time soon, but these pictures gave me a thrill anyway. The bats came so close tonight that I could feel the movement of their wings as they flittered past, though, of course, they didn't touch me. Doorstep wildlife....fabulous!

Juggling balls

It's been a really mixed up kind of a day one way and another. Lots of interruptions of various kinds, as well as Wimbledon to keep distracting me!

For the second day running I didn't wake until 8am which is really late for me. I tend to wake at around six or six thirty so I never set the alarm unless I have a train to catch of course! If I do sleep any longer, a certain pair of moggies generally let me know that breakfast is overdue but not today. So, I felt I was playing catch up all day really.

At about 9am my neighbour called round at the back of the house for a quick chat and, whilst we were standing by the conservatory door I noticed something appear by my gates that had obviously come from the field or the lane. It was a deer! I bolted inside for my camera, which, typically was on charge, but I was too late to get a picture. So, I shall keep an eye open, camera nearby, and will try to photograph it next time. It was quite small and a darkish brown, so I'm not sure if it was a youngster or just one of the smaller breeds of UK deer. Exciting to see though, and my neighbour and I were both saying how lucky we are to have so much wildlife on our doorstep.

The juggling part of my post refers to a canvas that I made today and which I have added to my Etsy shop. It's called "Life is a Juggling Act" and it features Gwendoline, one of my Doo Lally characters. I used some calico on this one, dying it with inks and fraying the edges to create a sort of grass effect.

 I really had fun creating this canvas and I'll be using the calico idea again too. I'm part way through some other items and this was the state of my table when I finally caved in and sat down to watch the rest of the tennis instead!

As I missed just about the whole of the first week of the championship I don't feel too guilty about spending a lot of today goggle boxing....hence the balls part of tonight's blog post title! I'll be completing the above project tomorrow with a bit of luck, so I'll share that with you once it's ready. As you can see, I remain as untidy a worker as ever!

Because of the men's semi finals being back to back and the first one lasting five and a half hours (which I only watched intermittently) I found myself trying to get things done between points, games and sets this evening! As I've been having one of those weeks where I just can't seem to get to sleep at night, I decided to change the bedding and then I picked some lavender and put some in a vase on the bedside table as well as sprinkling some of the flower heads into my pillow case. I've also had an oil burner giving off soothing aromas in the bedroom all evening, so I'm hoping that, along with my shower and fresh PJ's I might have a chance of some sleep tonight. Hopefully too, that will mean I'll be awake nice and early instead of missing half of the morning!

Dinner tonight was also made in a rush between tennis matches. No slipping of standards though, it was still freshly cooked! David would find it hilarious that I'm actually posting my "recipes" here as he was the chef and I very rarely cooked anything. So, tonight's delicacy was unplanned and not thought through as I didn't have much in the fridge really. I made a sort of (!) Biryani and it only took about seven or eight minutes in total! I chopped and fried an onion in a touch of olive oil with a pinch of salt, then added the remaining half of a yellow pepper, also chopped. I stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of Madras curry paste (I prefer it to powdered spices as it's more unctuous and there's no worry about having to fry off any bitterness) and added some vegetable stock. I put a pack of  Basmati rice in the microwave for two minutes.....I don't boil rice anymore as the microwave ones are foolproof as well as being quick and mess free. Then it was into the garden to cut some Rainbow Chard leaves and some French beans, both of which got chopped and added to the pan. I then stirred the rice through the mix, added some halved cherry tomatoes and a dash of soy sauce and dinner was served! It was really tasty and no meat required!

I thought you might like to see a couple more photos taken in the garden today as well. These are the blooms on David's rose which is called "Moment in Time"....

....he'd have loved these flowers which are a much deeper red than they look here. The climbing rose that I planted a couple of months ago is flowering now too. These little blooms are only about an inch across and so delicate.....

 .....aren't they lovely. The rose is called "Little Rambler" and there are oodles of buds on it, so it's going to be covered with little flowers all Summer I think.

Well, it's pretty late, and that lovely fresh bed is calling me, so I'm going to try and get some sleep now. Oh, before I go though, this was the sight that met me this morning when I walked into the lounge....

 ....one little pest, and I suspect it was Tara, had found the bag of catnip leaves, dragged it onto the floor, chewed through the bag and scattered them everywhere. What a mess! I didn't have the heart to hoover it up as they have both been rolling around in it off and on all day...with rather dreamy looks in their eyes! So, with the hope of dreamy looks in my eyes, I shall away to my bed!

Painting progress

Thanks everyone, for the lovely emails that I received over the last couple of days. They were filled with warm wishes and I just want to assure you that I'm doing okay in general, getting on with everything and becoming involved with new things. The love that David and I shared runs through me like the words in a stick of rock, so, that will never change or wane. It's as much a part of me as the blood in my veins.

Yesterday was my time for contemplation and today was a fresh page of course. No gardening - it was cold and rainy here, although now the sun is blazing down again! I've been doing some more work on the painting that I showed you the start of a few posts ago....

....still a long way to go on this, but she is beginning to take shape now. I know exactly where this image is going, so it's just a case of getting the pictures in my head onto the canvas. One tricky aspect of working on a boxy canvas is working on the areas near the edges, so I find it helps to put something of a similar thickness on my table to rest my hand on. I've never liked working with an easel, even with large paintings. I prefer to work at a table, hunched over and close up!

Once this canvas is completed it will be going onto my Etsy site and I hope to have a few more items listed on there over the next few days.

Tomorrow I'll be spending the day with Heather and Graham and will pass on everyone's good wishes to them.