Finally made something

Well, strictly speaking I didn't just make it,  I only finally got around to finishing this brooch that has sat in pieces in a box since last year waiting for me to get around to it. It is for a friend, so I hope she likes it.

It is hand drawn on a scrap of vintage linen and then bonded to two layers of felt. The body is copper wire and seed beads.

Gekkos

In 2000 we moved to Belize in Central America for 2 years. The best part of it for me was all the wonderful people I met while there. My husband worked as the Principal of a small Christian school and through that we came in to contact with some amazing people. I have many fond memories. However, life there was not as comfortable as we have grown used to in the UK. We frequently were without water, did not have AC, had no hot water for washing dishes, and the only hot water tap was in the bathroom- not attached to a shower, so we used to fill a bucket with warm water and then wash ourselves with the aid of a plastic jug. It would have cost too much to fill a bath, but I do have some hilarious pictures somewhere of my daughter having a bath squashed into a blue plastic tub - I wouldn't dare embarass her by sharing those!

Food was expensive and we often had to trail round several shops to get the things we needed at a price we could afford. Sounds like I am grumbling about it, but no, it taught us to be more appreciative.
Yes, food is getting expensive here too, but the food on offer in the supermarkets is incredible. The first time I visited Tescos after we returned I felt overwhelmed by the choice.

When we moved back to this country, I said I was going to paint a lizard or a gekko somewhere on the wall of each room in our house to remind us to be thankful for all the blessings we have in this country that I used to take for granted.

OK, so where are all the gekkos in my house? Well, I've told you how long it has taken me to get around to doing all the rooms, and now we are finishing it all off with a view to selling, so the number of lizards now totals one! Yes, that's all I am afraid. He's in the master bedroom. I wonder what the people who purchase this house will make of him?

So...the next house we get...Lord willing...lots of gekkos!

new butterfly brooch

I recently finished this butterfly brooch. Wouldn't like to admit to you how long ago I started it!

It is hand drawn onto vintage cotton and then bonded onto felt and stitched. I used copper wire for the body, and little seed beads for his eyes.

Do you like this interesting fabric he is sitting on? I just bought it. It is in fact a cheap dust sheet from Lidls. I can't wait to make something out of it. It is backed with a soft plastic, so not sure yet what I am going to make, but the colours in it are just sumptious! There is even an occasional glittery thread in there.

Orange tip butterfly brooch will be in my Etsy store soon.

Free Houses!

If anyone wants to use this houses image for their jolly jam jar, then help yourself. Free for your own personal use, or for gifts, but not for reselling. Just click to enlarge and then save to your hard drive. Add your chosen text in your favourite Desktop publisher, make sure it is the right size for your project, and ENJOY!

Story Stones

I've been meaning to make these for some time now. I started a long time ago with the butterfly which I had painted quite detailed. But after seeing this great inspirational blog the other day, I was inspired to get on with it and paint some more stones keeping my drawings very simplified. It would have taken me forever otherwise. To give you an idea of size, the bunny stone here is about an inch and a half wide.
I had a pebble with a natural hole in it and it was perfect for a toggle on the bag cord.

The way we play the Story Stone Game is to take turns pulling a stone from the bag, and as each stone is taken out, the story must be continued to include whatever it is you have taken out. My little girl has also been having lots of imaginary fun playing with the stones by herself. Her favourite is the duck. When I get time, and when the snow melts, I have a stash of smooth little pebbles outside somewhere that I can bring in and make some more story stones.

Twas the hooting of an owl...

It's an owly rambling I have for you today. We were woken last night by a screech owl. It was REALLY loud and it was ages before I got to sleep again, and as a result, I am a bit tired and grumpy this morning. It reminded me of a poem a wrote when I first moved to this house. Thing is - (and this is a bit weird) - when I wrote it, I heard the voice of Pam Eyres in my head. Now if you've not heard of Pam Eyres. She is a poet who became a bit of a household name in the UK a number of years ago. She's a bit like Marmite - an aquired taste. She's part of my youth, so I look on her fondly - and I like Marmite. Anyhoo, when reading my poem, be sure to embody Pam Eyres, otherwise it doesn't work so well!

Twas the Hooting of an Owl (With apologies to Pam Ayres)

Twas the hooting of an owl wot woke me,
Twas the hooting of an owl last night,
It’s wot woke me up from me beauty sleep
And gave me a terrible fright!

Twas the hooting of the owl wot woke me.
Woke me up in the middle of me dream.
Twas the hooting of an owl,
Wot ‘as made me feel so fowl.
It’s ‘is fault I’m so grumpy and mean.

Twas the hooting of the owl wot woke me,
Twas ‘im wot disturbed my REM
Twas the hooting of an owl
On ‘is nightly prowl.
Well, e’d better not do it again!

Hmmm, maybe someone will find that amusing!!! MAYBE !

(The owl illo is one I did a while back, it's in Karisma/Prismacolor pencil on black paper.)

I haven't shown you this yet, so I thought I would. It's the first in a series of polymer clay teapot brooches that I started on a while ago. The black and white design I drew on paper first and then printed it out on my laser printer and applied it to the clay. That is my three year olds hand showing it off (complete with grubby fingernails), so it actually not that big.

I have always loved to collect smooth beach pebbles and have painted on them for years. At one point, when we lived in Belize, I was painting local wildlife on them and selling them as souvenirs to tourists for a bit of extra cash.

I had intended painting all the garden birds on these rocks for Gabriella to play with, but I only ever got as far as drawing the outlines. I wonder if I will ever get around to painting them?
This is a tiny pebble I painted with a peacock butterfly. It was kind of fiddly to do at that size. In reality it is only about just under an inch long.

I've Picked a Winner!

Umm, yes, I know, I am a bit late in doing this. I don't know why life is so hectic at the moment, but it is. So anyway. I used random number generator to pick a number, and the winner is...mandapanda. So mandapanda, please get in touch with me and let me know your address so I can post your prize.

I've been busy with a lot of different things lately. There are "in the house" jobs, and when the sun shines, there are loads of gardening jobs to be done.

One of my in the house jobs at the moment, is helping to develop armadillo magazine

This is something I have been involved with for a few years as a book reviewer, but now I am in on the web design side as it has recently changed hands. Our web editor Louise has just started a blog. So if you have an interest in children's books and writing, please add this to your favourites as I am sure there will be some interesting posts in the future . (As you can see, I've been playing with my watercolours to make the blog header).

Pot Project

As if I haven't got anything else to do with my time, I decided to revamp an old plantpot. It was one I had picked up at my local auction and had peeling blue paint on it. Sorry - I forgot to photograph the "before".
I gave it a rub with a wire brush to remove the old paint, and then a scrub, and about 4 coats of cream masonry paint, and it was ready for a bit of stencilling. This is something you could do to jazz up any plain plant pot. It's really quick and easy.

I rummaged through my stencil collection - I didn't want to go cutting a new stencil this time.
My stencils have been used for many projects over the years. Walls, furniture, fabric, home accessories etc. Some are made from the kind of acetate that you use for overhead projectors and others are recycled out of shiny card used for the cover of sales brochures and other similar types of card. I simply draw my design and cut out with a sharp scalpel. Mind your fingers!

Here are my tools. I have a number of stencil brushes, but also sometimes improvise a little sponge pad out of a six inch nail and a bit of foam. I wrap the foam around the head of the nail and fix either with a sandwich tie, or a an elastic band.

There are various methods to stencilling, but I prefer the repeated stabbing motion method. I place a little paint in a tub - I reuse milk bottle lids for small amounts of paint (and mixing glues and all sorts of other uses). I load my brush, and then on a spare bit of card or paper - or in this case a scrap of wood, I pounce my brush to remove most of the paint, and then I do the same pouncing motion over the stencil, reloading my brush when needed, until the whole area is covered. Then I remove my stencil and tada, a lovely crisp pattern is left (or nearly crisp as it was a bit of a rush job). I use masking tape to hold my stencil to the pot. Low tack masking tape is best, but if you take a bit of high tack stuff and stick it o your clothing a few times first, it loses some of it's tack and then you have just made your own low tack version!

I will post it again once it is planted up.
I hope this inspires you to give some new life to an old pot.

The last pyramid...

This is all that is left from a batch of about 200 coconut pyramids I made for a Passover Seder Celebration. They always go down well. Here is the very simple recipe.

200g packet of desicated coconut
2 eggs
 100g sugar

All you have to do is combine the ingredients. It might seem a bit dry, but you have to work it all together by mixing and pressing with the spoon. It is hard work! Eventually when it is well mixed I cover and leave it for an hour or so. Then with wet hands I form pyramid shapes and I bake at around 170 until they are golden on top (about 10 minutes)

I hope you can figure out how to convert my UK measurements and oven temperature to US standards if you want to make some. They are yummy at any time of year.

This is one of my painted and stencilled Seder plates I made a few years ago. It started life as the same kind of wooden platter that the coconut pyramid is sitting on.

Blast from the Past

Or you could even say , a quack from way back! Groan!

My dad just came across this photo of my bedroom wall when he had stripped off the old Hector's House wallpaper. I obviously had taken advantage of this occasion and left my mark for posterity beneath the new paper. I must have been about 9 or 10 years old at the time.

When I was a kid, I invented this duck character named Peekiboo. Here he is with the little poem I wrote on the wall. It really gave me a laugh to see it. I think I've progressed a wee bit with the writing and drawing since then. I hope so anyway! The text reads...

I am me, I'm not you.
I'm a little duck called Peekiboo.
I've got a bright blue ribbon, that's tied in a big bow.
But how it actually got there, I really do not know.
I think I'm really handsome, though I really shouldn't say it.
I'm worth 500 dollars. That is if you could pay it.
I am me, I'm not you.
I'm just a little duck called Peekiboo.

Something Fishy

I am in the middle of a few projects at the moment,

and haven't really got anything to show you...

So I thought I'd let you see some more of my silly fish,
like the ones in my header. I have a whole range of silly fish.
They are for my greeting card range called
'Something Fishy'. I need to go back to them sometime.

(Just noticed that I seem to favour the left facing fish.

They suffer from the same directional problem as my birds!)

Here's a couple of corny jokes...

What happened to the shark who swallowed a bunch of keys ?

He got lockjaw !

What do you get from a bad-tempered shark ?

As far away as possible

...and now, let me suffer you to a limerick!

There was a young fish named Belushi,

Who was terribly bossy and pushy,

One day he pushed too far,

And was caught in a jar,

Now he's on someones plate as some Sushi!

This last image is my Something Fishy Logo Fish

Scented sachets

This is how the other two 'babies' turned out.

Filled with Provence lavender.

I might list the shell one on Etsy.

Now I'm in the scented sachet mood,

I might even make a few more.

All my fabric drawings were done with Pitt artists pens.

They are waterproof and I love using them on fabric.

I have a set in black and sepia.

Pillow talk

Way back in this post,

I showed you my fabric panels.

After quite a number of years, (about 8) I finally

got around to making cushions with them.

(I still intend to make tassels for the corners)

But look what happened when I left them alone !

This little baby one is actually a bean bag/juggle sack
-whatever you like to call it. It has some lavender
added, so that when it is thrown about,
a sweet aroma fills the room.
There are more babies on the way.
I have a few scraps of the striped ticking fabric left.
I just love the look of this fabric,
and I don't want to waste ANY of it.
I think they might just turn out to be
lavender sachets. Perfect for slipping into a pillow.

...and talking of pillows, please set me straight...
in the UK, a pillow is the rectangular thing you sleep on,
a cushion is the square one, that goes on a chair
or sofa, or in this case also a bed!
What do you call them in the US?

More necklaces...

Some more of my experiments with texture.

And if you were wandering about the weird background,

it's this cushion that I made ages ago.

It is drawn with permanent pen, and then quilted.

Done!

I have to admit, I did rush this a bit.

But it turned out not too bad.

If I did it again I'd change a few things,

but I don't think I'll redo it. I'm too lazy.

I hope she likes it.

I think if I mounted it and put it in a bigger

frame it might look better,

but I don't have a bigger frame right now.

(Do I sound a bit insecure - that's because I am!)

My toddler has now commisioned me to

paint her a picture. So I guess that

is next on my list. I wonder how much she

is going to pay me for it. A BIG hug, I hope.