Pearls and herbs

 

I've been playing around in a small sketch book. Practising drawing again and working out ideas. Some are just chicken scratches on the page. Others, like this little sketch are finished ideas. Maybe ready for a future painting.

 

I was inspired by the Dill we have in our backyard. It's quite tall.

On Monday night I had a chance to return to the Simple living cooking from scratch workshop and we made the most yummy pizza bases of two kinds one for pizza and another for a sweet base. When I took them home everyone approved of both.

 

My aunt brought me this adorable owl necklace. She knows my likes well. It is sitting on top of a page from a mini album I am almost finished with. After a disastrous attempt with the album I think it turned out alright. More photos to come.

Merry and Bright

 

On Saturday the Simple Living group hosted a Christmas card making workshop. For a couple of hours a small group of us enjoyed learning how to make some simple cards ready for Christmas.

Everything was generously supplied and with a few basic items everyone made some really lovely cards. Which goes to show cards do not have to be exspensive or even take a lot of time.

 

I did like learning how to make the tree with the folded paper which was something I had not done before.  The workshop was very entertaining and it was nice to see a few mums with their kids helping them make cards.

Stories Stitched

 

While sorting through things and cleaning I can across my Magpie Magazine issue. Just in time to help with some art inspiration.

 

My mum's sister is down for a visit and her, my mum, and another sister of my mum's is helping me with some sweet surprises for swaps.

 

It's fiddly work but a tin of sweets and cold drinks with lots of chatter help the work progress quickly. My mum and her sisters are all crochet ladies and have sewed, knitted, and crochet all their lives. Mum used to make all our kids clothes and if you have ever seen those crochet bells and such she has made all those too. My talent from them all is hand embroidery which none of them do. At least this year I did learn to crochet finally!

milk and cream

 

One night for dessert we made up a Lemon Sago. I've never had Sago before and all I can say about it is it was very lemon-y. We had it with whipped cream and extra ice cream. After a few hot days the dessert was a welcome treat. We are not even finished Spring yet, Summer is going to be a sorcher.

 

 

Spring is out in full bloom and there are plenty of flowers out and about to admire. I must take some photos of the Jacaranda trees as their purplish pale hue are gracing our town streets and looking particularly pretty. Some people don't like them because they don't smell nice when wet.

 

A fairy chair left out last winter to weather. The bark is all smooth now on the thin branches I used and they are pale as can be. The long thin green grass leaves I used to tie everything together so I didn't use glue, has also weather and now the grass leaves are brittle too. I'll put the chair back in the garden for a restful place for a fairy.

 

 

I've been playing in my art journals again. Scratching on paper, thinking about moon things and field flowers. I've always liked owls so an owl or two has to feature some where.

Fairy Greens

On Sunday last weekend I told my aunt about the Mummy Tree markets being held and she and I went to have a look. I brought this suncatcher.

 

 

My new "bulletin board" on my inspiration table. I'm inspired lately to return to painting of more magical whimsy's.

 

 Drawings and snippets of inspiration. The cross stitch is from a tiny chart I did and stitched it on a full length of aida band. If I were to do this again I would leave spaces to cut the lengths.

I'm finding fauns and faery folk very inspiring and have ideas for some paintings.

 The garden is over grown and there's plenty of weeding to do after some heavy rains.

 

Madienhair ferns and a big giant leaf in the shade. I can just imagine all sorts of things peeking out from underneath this.

Keepsakes

 

I've spent my day sorting through many of the little things I've aquired over time. Most are from the thrift store or given to me by others. I don't pay a lot of money for things unless quality is needed for tools because you can't skimp on good quality tools like paints or paintbrushes.

 

Over the years I've become less inclinded to hoard a lot of things but I still like to keep things I might one day use. But sometimes rarely do.

 

 

On the bookcase I've sorted through are some junk journals...mine and one from a swap. Many papers and things I don't want to throw away end up in the journals.

 My books have dwindled down to a very select few to the many, many, many, ones I used to have. I think sometimes it can be overload to have too many books. Time is spent dreaming about making those projects in the books and never do. I know I have. Eventually though there are some I will make and will share too. As always any project will be paper, paint, or fabric. My three favourite things to keep too. I still have more things to sort through and declutter but it is fun finding some interesting things I forgot I had. It's like shopping in a thrift store...oh wait ...most of the things are from the thrift store!

Fancy pretty

 

I've been making some more tags to put in my mini albums. This one is a little more fancy than usual ones. I added fibers at the top and a pretty pink bauble gem.

 

 

The stamp I used I got off ebay. Not sure about where the stamp came from as it was in a unmounted set. 

 

In the background I used the divine swirls embossing folder and really went to town, inking, and using modeling paste, pearl ex powder, and I used a silver paint to rub over the embossing. It is very shimmery. The image is downloaded from magic moonlight free images I also used some bling swirls brought from the dollar store. I made a scrunchy paper flower, and added some bling mesh strip with a stick pin. At the bottom of the tag I added lace and feathers.

 

 

On the back I inked and inked and inked up the tag and then stamped it lightly here and there with a Tim Holtz script. I dded some bling mesh at the bottom with a scrap of unknown scrapbook paper.

 

You can see the bling mesh I cut into strips and the feathers and the bling and the inking more closely here on the back of the tag.

As always I use what I have when making these sorts of tags, and nothing was brought new.

Morning Tea

 

Saturday saw me returning to attend Morning Tea with the local Simple Living group. I had some extra carrots, cherry tomatoes from the garden which I brought along to give away. 

On the handmade swap table I brought along some crochet and knitted fancy coathangers, which I can't claim to handmaking but my mum made them so they count as hand made. Annette brought along lovely handmade tags and cards which are going to be great to my Christmas additions and Margy brought along some Rhubarb.

I finished up the warm day cleaning out the vegetable bed, the beans and snap peas are finished, so out went the spent plants My beans ended up with some powdery mildew I know next time to spray them with a bit of baking soda in water. There's a few carrots left and the only thing to grow is onions and chokos. I also cleaned up the cherry tomato vine. My dad came home from his country music day out and ask me why I was cutting off the vine and not stalking it up...oops...I'm such a noobie.

 

I made a salad with the cherry tomatoes for dinner and fresh homemade bread.

 

Next year I am hoping my salads will be all home grown! It was a good day out with nice company and later, nice food.

 

Henry and Esther

 

Of late I've been inspired to pull out my paint brushes and paints to paint. The portrait inspiration came from a vintage photograph I brought off of etsy. I used the girl on the far right of the image as a starting point.   I call her Esther and she is waiting for her beau to come home from the war. They'll get married in the church up on the hill just away from their homes.

 

While Esther waits for Henry to come home, she'll plant gardens, bake bread, make quilts, write in her diary and write long letters to Henry.

 

And whereever she is, Esther always carries a picture of her beloved Henry.

 

Esther's garden will of course grow peas and beans!

 

And she'll always have a nice loaf of bread to serve up to her visitors for supper. 

Hmm, I think we'll see more of Henry and Esther. I will like to see what her home looks like inside. I think it will be very differnt to Olive's home. Which sadly was flooded out and ruined when the shed her home was stored in leaked during heavy rains and Olive's place no longer is :( . Ah well, at least I have the memory here.

 

artful paper

 

I made some tags to go into my mini albums and such. These are pretty straight forward and easy to create but they do end up being super nice. To create the tag I used the Tim Holtz tag die - using one as a template and cutting the rest out so I didn't have the hole at the top.

 

For the stamps I used a variety from Tim Holtz. The music notes are a stamp from KaiserCraft and the journal box on the back of the tag is from KaiserCraft as well. I used a faux paper torn edge look on the back of the tag, that technique from a youtube tutorial I think on the channel by aweeziechic? I'll get back to the correct channel once I remember.

 

The tags are created using a resist technique. First use versamark embossing ink then I used a holographic embossing powder, which makes the tags very shimmery. I then used momento dew drop inks in Pear tart. Lilac Posies Danube blue. I inked it up lightly at first then gradually building up the color. Finally the music notes stamp was used in the same inks.

 

Lastly, I also made a card using one of my photographs. The stamp is by tim holtz and the paper is KaiserCraft. the flower die is Joy Crafts no: 6003/003 vintage flourishes and that cut out was embossing with an embossing folder: Swiss Dots. After I finished the card  I sprayed it with some homemade glimmer mist which has a goldish shimmer. Nothing new was brought I am using what I have in my stash.

Tea for health

 

After a particularly bad night of being crook, I’ve decided to clean up my own health. I’m starting up my walking again and I’m cutting out coffee altogether. I usually drink two cups in the morning and up to four during the day so I think a coffee quitting attempt is reasonable. I’ll take up on more tea and water. Oddly I drink my coffee with sugar and milk, but with tea I can do without both so I think more tea drinking will benefit me. I’m currently finding some herbal tea recipe drinks too and recently brought a packet of chamomile seeds to start growing for tea!

 

Hopefully the weather will remain fine enough to get into walking. I live in an area that is pretty enough and well footpath for people who exercise. I’ll share some images on my walks.

 

Now off to finding some tea drink recipes. I’ll be looking at the Homestead Blessing Herbal DVD again as the ladies did show some chamomile tea making.  

 

homely comforts

 

While not extacly vintage, I do get a lot of enjoyment out of surfing the web to find 'vintagey' ideas. This is my watching tv as I don't watch tv at all.

 

There's all sorts of wonderous free ideas out there on the web. And if you are trying to be frugal like me, the free web things make up for not buying millions of books and magazines like I used to. Oh I still buy magazines and books, I can't help myself but I don't buy as many.

 

The web can give you free recipes like the scone recipe I used this morning to make some rather looking rustic scones. They're not perfect.

 

Not perfect, but the scones are edible. 

Lately on the web I've been enjoying watching a set of series from BBC which a kind youtuber has uploaded to give all of the episodes and shows in the series. If you like historical living shows this will make you happy like it did me.

 

BBC Wartime Farm part one

 

BBC Edwardian Farm part one

 

If you watch the BBC Green Valley also Ruth Goodman shows you how to turn homemade cottage cheese into a hard cheese like cheddar. I think of all them my favourites are the wartime, edwardian and Green Valley one.  Find all of them on Maddie Gillett youtube channel (scrowl down to find them)

Barn potholder project

I have for you today a potholder project to make. It is very simple and even a beginner should be able to complete this project. I count myself as a beginner in patchwork and managed to make the project. I hand sewed my project and appliqued the doors, windows and door decoration on (just two triangle pieces). For the batting I used an old kitchen towel.

 

Click on the image and it will take you to the larger image to print out. I added the sizes for all the edges of the pattern pieces to help if needed.

 

Materials:

¼ yard blue for background and backing

Scraps of red, dark red, pale

Batting

Bias binding (optional)

Method:

1. Pre-wash and iron all fabrics, Press all seams as you sew.
2. For hand piecing cut seam allowances away and transfer pattern pieces to template material trace around templates on wrong side of fabric with pencil to mark seam lines and add ¼ “ seam allowance to each piece as you cut the fabric.
3. Always cut and stitch a sample block before cutting an entire quilt
4. Cut block as follows: cut 1 each of the barn pieces. Cut 71/2 inch background square. Piece the barn and attach to the background square.
5. If preferred use bind to finish edges and make a hanging loop.

Overall a couple days hand piecing this project was time well spent I think. But don't do the boo-boo I did and put the hanging loop on the wrong side! With Christmas looming around the corner this could be an early start to presents. If you want to make a nine patch potholder to go with your barn I did a lesson here (adjust the pattern size for a potholder.)