Monday 30 April 2012

Little Wanted Elephant

This was going to be the flower power elephant. But there was not enough room for flowers. He was going to go into my shop. But Andy saw him and said 'I want that'-an unusual thing for him to do. So now he is Andy's little wanted elephant.
Another elephant who will be the flowery one, and who will go into the shop, is halfway made!

Sunday 29 April 2012

A Walk With Geoff Anderson

I really fancied a walk today, and planned to park in Greenwich park, and walk down into Greenwich. It was raining as hard as ever today, so I had to get Geoff Anderson out of the boot of the car. Geoff is my waterproof jacket, a bargain from a charity shop, bought just before our Skye holiday last year. It is a good make-Norwegian I think, and I was really pleased with it, as the hood stays up, and is comfortable (not my usual experience with hoods) and it keeps me pretty dry. As with most clothes I have bought from charity shops, the reason for it being there became apparent after a while. It is lined with a kind of white rubbery feeling substance, which is gradually flaking off, leaving a fine white powder all over things-me mainly. But it does the job for now! I really enjoyed my walk, and took lots of photos. Here are a few. (quite a few) I chose the extra large option for the photos, which I just noticed today. I have always wanted bigger photos but couldn't face the complicated process of doing this, so if this works and doesn't take ages to load, I will be happy!

 


 Preparations for the Olympic horse events.
 The Shard disappearing into the clouds.
 The renovated Cutty Sark has lots of little flags which looked colourful against the grey.


 Blue sky appeared as I walked back through the park.


 This colour combination is so vibrant!
 A bedraggled magpie enjoys the brief moment of sun.

 This squirrel was totally fearless. I had no food but that didn't stop him. He kept running towards me as I backed away, trying to get a good picture. I stood still-wondering-would he keep going? Yes!
 He started to climb my leg! I leapt back and he jumped off, but he kept coming. When another one appeared I left, with visions of horror stories such as 'The Rats'!
 This squirrel was quietly minding his own business, and eating a nut, in a lovely traditional manner.

Saturday 28 April 2012

Incessant Blossom

Rain every day for ages now.
Blossom makes it better.








Friday 27 April 2012

Fun Day

I had such fun in the art area at work today. Last night, while tidying up, I doodled a face on a piece of cardboard. I like to cut up cardboard boxes to paint on as they are great. I left it lying around and one of the children asked to paint it this afternoon. When one person in the nursery does something, lots more always want to. So I ended up drawing lots of faces on card (and a couple of cars) for more children to paint. (The other day I ended up making about ten greenflies with little wool legs, as one boy had found one, it had flown away, and he wanted me to find it for him! In the end, me and my colleague came up with the bright idea of making him one instead, as the obvious impossibility of finding his greenfly escaped him!) They do such brilliant art, I am always so inspired by them and love working alongside and with them. Below is my painted face (I wanted a go too!) The hair colour choices of purple and red were the result of advice from R. and N. The right hand face was a quick gouache picture in my journal.

 Here are the collected faces. One is missing-I think R. took it to put in the going home box. As she held it up for me to take a picture, the blue paint she had used for the eyes started to run down the face. ''She's crying'' she said. I asked her to smile for her photo to make up for this!

 This picture is from yesterday-and totally done by N.-following a model by another adult. It is Goldilocks. N. has recently started to say, about lots of artwork that she likes, ''I love it!"-Well Nian, I love this!
 It is interesting how they painted the shapes and spaces in blocks of colour. They came out looking quite Picasso like I think.

Wednesday 25 April 2012

Creatures On My Table

Little Rabbit Fou Fou is the name that came into my head when I finished this rabbit. It is a story I have heard of but never read. I like the name. The tiger is for an upcoming birthday at work. It will be a keyring I think. The rabbit may be a present, but if not will go into my shop. An elephant is next-a flower power elephant!

Tuesday 24 April 2012

Inspiration

Yesterday, I was reading A Fanciful Twist, and Vanessa was talking about her inspiration board/mood board. It is beautiful, and it was interesting to look at all the little details. Strangely, the night before, I had been thinking about them, and why I don't have one. Space is partly it, and the fact that I am never quite sure what to put on them. Also, the whole place is a bit like one giant mood board, as it is filled with things that I like or that inspire me. But I do have a little black foam board, and when I read the part about the little things that are lying around at the moment, and inspire you, then something clicked, and I went round and got a few of them together. It took me about five minutes as they were already there. I like the result. It is leaning against the wall on a little triangular table-one of a pair I bought a while ago-white melamine with little ball feet and wire legs-very fifties.

There are some cotton yarn offcuts from current crocheting, a pogo print of a photo of light circles, a postcard from my friend Clare from her recent Prague trip, a tag from Linda Sue which I love, a tag I painted-which reappeared in the sort out the other day, some little paper stars from a selection of stars in a small box which I cut out ages ago, a gold crinkly circle from a Sari, a circle cut from marbled paper, a jet brooch, and my silver mermaid necklace-I wore it a lot in the holidays, but don't wear it to school as it has boobs and that may be seen as inappropriate by some! 
 Then, as I was taking the pictures of the board, the sun lit up the garden, It was only when I looked through the lens, that I noticed how golden the Jasmine looks.
 There are at least ten flower heads on the irises-I can't wait for them to come out!
 The clematis, that survives in its little untended pot, is getting ready to flower too. It has large white flowers.
 The camelia is still going strong.
The squidgy apple cake is delicious!

Monday 23 April 2012

Tulips

The Orange ones are from Sainsburies and the white ones from Passion Flower, my local and lovely florist. They are brightening up the newly cleared kitchen table, which WILL stay like that! The cake is a Squidgy Spiced Apple Cake-recipe here.
This fancy new blogger posting format is quite mind bogglingly efficient so far. Interesting.
Quicker and easier? Blogger? I am impressed.

I have been enjoying a book of cat photos this evening, bought from the charity shop at lunchtime. I took a big bag of things there, and somehow twisted that one in, one out idea about purchases, to some out, some in! They always have such interesting boks in that particular shop-the Cat's Protection League-so a suitable place to buy a book of cat pictures. Meanwhile, our cats have been having a peaceful evening, with a plentiful choice of sleeping perches. Cassie was in Andy's drawer-her hiding place, from about 10 last night to 1.30 today! The stress must have really worn her out!

Saturday 21 April 2012

Done

From 8.30 yesterday morning until now-1.14 this morning. I cannot believe how much stuff I have got, and how much of it I managed to cram into that room. The cats were so stressed by it all! I had things all over the kitchen and sitting room, and it really upset them all, especially Cassie. In the end though, they did what cats always do, and went to bed. They got up to find I had cleared most of it. Cassie explored all the changes but seemed pleased-especially as her biscuits are back in place in the room. I still have too many things, but they are slightly better organised now, and there is room for one small fold out bed-or two if I temporarily remove some of the contents.

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Craft, Storage and Bad Cat Parents

This is inside Hobbycraft, a large art and craft supply shop-which is pretty good for lots of things. They have recently got into these papier maché goods, and that very expensive fancy tissue paper to stick onto them. I did actually buy an item from this range today, a papier maché hand, to photograph my unwatches on. The giant giraffe caught my eye though, just for its size, and the strange mixture of patterns against the patriotic Jubilee background. There is an awful lot of stuff aimed at Jubilee crafts-ready made bunting, red, white and blue ribbon, cake things. Commercialism rules. There is a very funny comedy here about the lead up to the Olympics, called 'Twenty Twelve'. Last week their publicity team came up with the concept of 'Jubilympics'-a mixture of the two big events this year. It was vetoed by Prince Charles' people! Here is their comedy blog.
The reason for my visit was storage-stackable see-through boxes to add to my rather large collection of stackable see-through boxes. They are great! Above are my newly organised stamps. Ideally, I like all of one type of thing to be together as it makes more sense and means I know what I have got. I am getting there. I have a neatly organised big pile in the sitting room, and less and less in the back room, with a few already in the shed. The cats are appalled at the upheaval and mess-their little routines get affected and they end up looking like Cassie below-striking strange poses with funny looks on their faces.
That is not why we are bad cat parents though. That relates to the kitten biscuits which we still buy, even though there are no kittens, just because they love them. We keep meaning to stop, but they look so sad and pitiful when they go in the back room (the original home of Cassie, and thus, of the kitten biscuit) and they are not there. There are a few left in the packet, which I gave to Cassie when I got home. She was soon pushed out of the way by Tiger, and then Lily came to get some too, before they all went. This is Tiger and Lily sharing!