a walk into town...

Yesterday i left the kitties at home (they are settling in nicely) and Alice and i took a walk into town with Rufus. It was a beautiful day that had started off on the chilly side but soon become much warmer. I never know what to wear when the seasons are changing and as someone who feels the cold had put on a thermal cami underneath a long sleeved top and a lightweight jumper and then over the top my denim jacket, a scarf and my wool peaked cap which i love. I soon became overheated. The scarf and jumper were discarded into my shopping bag first and later the jacket. I love my hat and it was doing a good job of covering up hair that needed washing.. but i realised how foolish it was to be wearing a wool hat when most other folk were still in short sleeves and sandals. My head was hot. I reluctantly took it off.

We stopped off at Waterstones to discuss arrangements for next week's book event. I am a little nervous i have to admit. The shop next door sells fabrics and although we mainly use recycled, if we are looking for something specific we sometimes use new. We found some perfect linens to use as base cloths for a new project idea. Our reason for the trip was to source these fabrics and check out the charity shops. There are a lot of charity shops in town, seven to be precise. One was closed for refurbishment and two we had checked out earlier in the week. We went into the other four. We found a wool cardigan which we are going to felt in the exact colour we were after - a real result. We also sourced some tee shirts which we hope to repurpose.

I have never bought Christmas cards in October but in Oxfam i noticed these.. 50%recycled charity cards in beautiful designs.

I bought them. It was a morning for bumping into people we knew, catching up, chatting to strangers and of Rufus being admired buy all. I think the sunshine must have helped put folk into a good mood as the atmosphere wherever we went was light and friendly. Alice managed to buy a present for one of her boys birthdays and an outfit for Rufus to wear at his christening. It's coming up soon... i wonder if a 'fairy' godmother should have a new outfit? I do need to finish making that wand.

I do love charity shops and have a skill of flicking through the rail at a great speed to see if there is anything there that interests me. This is a skill i learnt when in my early working life i had to costume 30 dance students on a budget of £100. Lots of ingenuity needed there, so i often hit the charity shops with gusto. I have always thought that the less budget you have the more creative and innovative you are forced to be. I love looking at all the bric a brac too but as our new kittens are rather lively decided that it would not be wise to buy anything breakable. I was delighted however to find this.



An original Mary Poppins souvenir song album with piano music and lyrics. It also contains beautiful drawings and features photographs from the film.
My eldest is learning the piano and as my husband plays, we had a little family sing song last night before the girls went to bed.... 'practically perfect in every way!'


Wishing you all a happy weekend.
g x

dreaming...

I am a bit of a dreamer. I like to muse over things and always have ideas bobbing around in my head of things i am planning or the seeds of new creations. This past week i have been musing about flowers for the garden. I mainly grow herbs and veg with a bit of fruit but really fancy introducing a bit more colour and tartiness to the garden. On Friday i treated myself to a little wander around our local garden centre with only myself and my thoughts to accompany me. I wandered around for ages. It's a good time to go to see the variety of plants available and to get ideas. I wasn't intending to purchase anything but something wouldn't let me leave empty handed. After coveting a beautiful heuchera, a replacement eucalyptus (yes mine died) and a nostalgic hydrangea (fond memories of visiting my granddad's house with a lilac hydrangea to the right of his front door), i came away with two dramatic 'gallery' dahlias (art nouveau) and 3 blue trailing verbenas. I wasn't even sure were i would put them. It wasn't until i got home that i realised my chosen plants reflected the exact colours i was wearing.


Have you ever done that? Deep pink really does seem to be a favourite just now....

my gardening gloves...

... and my new tulips are a similar colour.

Later that day i sat outside with all my gardening books dreaming of flowers and sowing my new seeds. Early that evening i started digging up a bit more lawn to make a bit more planting space.




My favourite flowers are echinacea or 'cone flower'. My clever youngest daughter discovered this and brought me two types of echinacea seeds for my birthday. They were sown a few weeks ago in a heated propagator and are doing well, so fingers crossed that they will be successfully potted on.


I also have studio progress to report...

The old purple wooden door was removed and a huge hole in the end of the building appeared late on Saturday afternoon.




The idea was to reuse the window we took out last week and put it where the old door was. This is a south east facing aspect so it made perfect sense put a window here to allow more light into the room.




The windows were originally recycled from an house near my father in law's some 7 years ago. Much as i hate UPVC i would rather reuse them than for them to go into landfill. Why buy new when you can recycle? You can see from this picture all the crates of fabric and stock piled up inside. Not long now before i can start to unpack.




My good man worked late into the evening to finish off the block work. He was able to reuse some of the original blocks which we discovered were actually sandstone. Unfortunately they had been painted a shitty brown colour so we hadn't realised . I had over painted them 'fly blue' some time ago... this was his first ever bit of wall building i might add. It's taking shape now. We covered it with a tarpaulin for the night just in case of rain....


and on Sunday morning the window went in, much easier than we had anticipated. So now the new shell is complete and it's just two more interior walls to finish. We sat outside last night drinking beer and marveling at what had been achieved. I want to move in now, but it'll be a few more weeks at least... so i shall continue dreaming for the time being....

A manic day, a givaway and some perfect cards

Today has been manic.. i just haven't stopped.. even my hour off whilst the girls are at Brownies didn't happen. We were invited to join in a 'fairtrade' talk with guest speakers which was really interesting, and better still was the chance to buy some produce... so Divine chocolate and double choc chip cookies for us..mmm! so all good in the end. It is Fairtrade fortnight at the moment, for further information check out fairtrade.org.uk.

Whilst at the studio today Al and I sorted out a little bundle for the mystery photo draw. So if you would still like a chance to enter and win a few little Springtime crafty goodies...

(sneaky preview of a few of the bits)

then please leave a comment with your guess.(see last post or click on mystery photo link). I will give you a few extra days and will draw at the weekend when i am less busy.

I will leave you with a link to my friend Caireen from the patchwork dress.

I brought some of her eco card packs recently and wanted to share with you how fabulous they are. Each card and envelope is made from carefully chosen pages from beautiful magazines. She has such a flair with theming each pack (comes in a set of 4) and they were such a delight to write and perfect to send as thank you letters.

My friends all loved them.
(thanks Caireen)

Caireen has a beautiful blog and for anyone interested in a great original eco product you can buy her cards here.

Have a good Thursday!

p.s. did you know that the Fairtrade logo depicts a person waving? I didn't. Have a look.. it's such a strong recognisable image but i suspect if asked to draw it from memory most of us couldn't.

g
x

The Festival of Craft and recycling

Recycling is important to me. My family have recycled as long as i can remember. It is not a new thing. My folks, with no money and three small girls in the late 60's, early 70's .. well you just were thrifty. I think perhaps 'saving' things for possible future use in my genes, along with my tendancy towards clutter!
When i was 16 i took an evening class in indigo dying and batik, funnily enough with Alice (we have known each other a long old time!). My dad made us both a batik frame from the old wooden clothes horse that my mum had used to dry my cloth nappies on. He had kept it in the loft and then reinvented it years later. Also my mum was a primary teacher so egg boxes, cereal packets and the like were always saved in true 'Blue Peter' style.
Nowadays we are all more aware about waste and are hopefully moving towards reducing what we consume as well as continuing to recycle. I am always interested in how materials are reinvented and recycled and i would like to share with you some interesting products and people i have come across. Please click on the highlighted links to view their websites.


A friend of ours has just turned 40.... We went to his party in Dorset a while ago (our recent camping trip) but have just got the present we had ordered through. I saw these on not on the high street, by pop guru and thought they were fun....

Bowls made by recycling old LP vinyl records.

We were after a particular artist so emailed them and had to wait a bit but it was worth it. The bowl arrived and we were delighted. What's more we didn't think about the date which would be on the record and by shere fluke it is 1967 the year he was born! wow.. how about that.. very pleased.. now i hope he will like it.





A few weeks ago i went a local Festival of Crafts and came across Joanne Tinker who recycles metal bottle tops from beer bottles and creates beautiful pendants, earrings and brooches. I was excited by these and very tempted, but she was very busy and i didn't get a chance to speak to her. Her necklaces were my favourite pieces.


She also had little box frames containing tiny sweet wrapper cups, a great idea and so colourful. My sister and i used to make these when we were children so they felt particulary nostalgic.



There were a few other artists recycling.. Elizabeth Cook recycles fabrics.. mainly old woolens which she felts... not a new technique to many bloggers yet i thought her use of colours and the simplicity of her designs was good.

I was also inspired by Julie Roberts who uses textiles and handmade paper. Paper making and papier mache are techniques i loved using whilst at art college and hope to experiment with again soon. Her lampshades were like jelly fish sea anenomes. They were quite large and in real life stunningly beautiful. She is based at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading if anyone is near and is interested in searching her out.

Another interesting exhibitor from the festival was....Elizabeth Beverley with her beautiful plant dyes wool for knitting. I would love to do some natural dying. I have my mum's old recepies from when she studied natural dying.. i even have her old dye vat in which i remember her steeping onion skins and other such raw material, when i was a child. I always loved the wooden tongs she used.. i wonder if she still has them. I would also love to knit. I come from a family of knitters.. even my dad knits. I am the one that sews rather than knits but i had the urge the other day to do some knitting when i saw my girls knitting with 'nana'. I went out and brought some yarn and am now the proud owner of a cotton dishcloth. I already have 2 bought from a friends craft stall a while back, they really are good and have a great abrasive quality. I think i will make some more.. it may help me to enjoy cleaning a little more.

Other interesting recycling sites to look up...
Anna Roebuck's Bags to riches.... Anna is an artist who recycles plastic bags in to jewellery, art and lights.
Doy bags ......colourful, fun bags and home accessories made from recycled juice packs by a women's cooperative in the Philippines and Remarkable recycled stationary goods.

Hope you find some of these links useful and if you know of any interesting other links please leave a comment.
g
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