An early birthday gift

At the weekend I got an early birthday present from my Nan. In the town where she lives they have recently opened up a ceramics shop, where you can go and create your own dishes and mugs. Here is the plate that she made for me for my birthday, isn't it wonderful.

Knitting

I saw a beautiful shawl hanging outside a knitting shop this weekend and thought it would be perfect to make for when we go on holiday this September. It turned out that it was made using a free pattern so I just had to buy the wool.

I haven't done any knitting for ages and it is made using very chunky needles which I have never used before, it took me a few rows to get the hang of it but it's starting to come together really quickly. Here is a close up which shows the colours a bit better, though the photo was taken with a flash so it's still not that accurate.

Once I've finished the actual knitting, which I think will only be another evening's work then I just need to add simple tassles to the sides and it will be done!

Mythical creatures

I recently took part in a swap on the Advanced Fiber Postcard group called mythical creatures. I had a difficult time picking what creature to go with as I love everything in this genre. Finally I decided to go with a unicorn and here is the card I made. I used a plain blue cotton background and then laid a piece of glittered angel hair over the top. I cut an orange sun from cotton and then used satin to make the unocorn. I finished it off with silver stitching to represent the unicorn's mane and used a green bead for it's eye. Finally I used some hot glue to attach some crystals to the background. In the end it turned out to be quite a simple design but it took a long time to stitch.

I'm a Listmom

Well recently I've started a new venture and have taken over ownership of one of the postcard groups that I belong to

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artsnthemail/

So far I have only posted a couple of swaps but they seem to be going ok. I hope I can keep this group together ok. It's my first try and managing a list, it's exciting and nerve racking all at the same time.

Here is a picture of a sunflower card that I made for a swap on this list a while back, before I took over.

A Fun Day

Yesterday I spent the day in the pretty village of Castle Combe. My quilt teacher Ann Chapman is involved with a charity which helps children from Belarus, an area which will contibue to be affected for many, many years to come by the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Twice a year they bring groups of children over to the UK for a month for vital medical care and of course lots of fun.

Ann and a group of other volunteers make quilts for the children and they have a day of craft activities. Ann asked if I would go along and teach the children how to make fabric postcards so they can send them home to their parents. I had so much fun and I think it was a great success. This time the group was all girls and they seemed to really enjoy making their cards. I took a whole pile of fabrics and embellishments with me and they had a couple of hours cutting sticking and glittering. We had a fabulous BBQ which was put on by one of the families in the village, and in the afternoon the children made friendship bracelets while me and another friend Barbara stitched all of their cards together. Emily and Tyler came along too, Tyler had great fun, he made a postcard too (his has Scooby Doo on), but I'm not sure he quite understood why the girls didn't seem to understand him when he was jabbering on! Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera so I didn't get many pictures of the day, but when Mark came to pick us up at the end of the day I used his camera to take this picture of all of the cards together. D0n't they look fantastic!





In the evening we went to the free concert in the park in Chippenham, part of the Northwilts festival they had several bands including Bucks Fizz and Go West so a bit of an 80's fest. It was lots of fun though and they had a great fireworks display at the end.

Frustration

Well my self challenge of trying to post every day this month has been a huge flop. I honestly do not know where the time goes to. My time really doesn't seem to be my own at the moment and I am feeling very frustrated.

I have just spent an hour touring around some other people's blogs and they all seem far more exciting than mine, I really must get a life. I hate my job at the moment but do not have a clue what I would like to do. That has always been my problem if I new what career I wanted I could follow that dream but here I am about to be 30 next month and am still drifting through life without any aims and very few achievements.

Why does everything have to come down to money. I would love to travel more, I'd love to attend more art workshops and would love to treat myself to some wonderful fabric and embellishments but everything costs money and I just don't have any of it at the moment. When will I win the lottery (well I guess I should start by buying a ticket someday).

I'm full of cold and off work today but we are in the middle of a heatwave and I just can't settle to try and do anything. It's too hot and I can't breathe. RANT OVER!

Failure

Well only 3 days into my self challenge and I already failed. I forgot to post yesterday. Well not so much forgot as just felt completely whacked and fell asleep on the sofa way to early yesterday evening. We are having a mini heatwave here at the moment and I'm really feeling drained.

On the plus side before I dropped off I finished up another set of postcards for a swap. This swap was on the Postcard Pals yahoo group and the theme was red. When it actually came to it I found that I was lacking in inspiration. Emily kept saying I should go with the title 'Simply Red' So here is my card a basic red background with some cord and sequin embellishment.

Almost Midnight

Well it's almost midnight here so I may have failed my challenge at just the second hurdle as I don't know if I will get this posted on time to count as the 2nd July.

Went to Circencester today to see an exhibition of Textile Art by the Bath Textile Artists. It was really interesting to see all of the different methods they had used to come up with some really beautiful pieces.

All of the work was for sale, I wonder how well the artists do at such an exhibition? I think it would be great to have art works for sale but I don't think I could ever be that good I am still very much a crafter rather than an artist.

Well unfortunately I could not afford any of the larger pieces but I did buy a greetings card made by one of the artists I will post a picture tomorrow if I get time

A cat called Rosie

Well today is the first day of my self challenge to make a blog entry every day in July. I have plenty of pictures to share as I haven't been very good an making entries here this past couple of months.

Because my sister and nephew have been staying I have managed to get a bit behind with my swap commitments, but today I have been taking advantage of the fact that Tyler is on hols with his dad and have managed to start catching up.

However my main project today was to make a postcard for my friend's daughter, whose beloved cat Rosie passed away recently. So here is my tribute to Rosie card. I hope Ruby likes it when it arrives.