Scream!

A little while ago Sonia gave me this award. Thanks Sonia!
Spiders make me scream along with loud noises and being made jump! I am more quiet than that when reading all my favourite blogs, but they might make me go ooh, aah or oh!
As usual with awards I never know who to pass it on to for fear of someone being left out, so here is today's crafty solution. (By the way-do you know what CRAFT syndrome is? I had never heard that until yesterday and then someone at work said it today-synchronicity!)

If you are reading and you would like to scream along with me and Sonia, then please take this Gourd Queen (I love that name!) and pass her on to whoever makes you scream!

Visit this link for a funny scary spider story! I love googling phrases!

Storm Mosaic

Splish Splosh!

BigHugeLabs: Do fun stuff with your photos

Thanks Kendalee for telling me where to go to do a mosaic! I was not sure how to upload it and chose share and it gave me the title and link but not the picture. In the end I just saved it in my photos and did it like that. Big huge labs looks great though and was easy to use.
The pictures are of a new technique(new to me anyway!) I saw on a children's programme a while ago and thought looked good. You rip or cut tissue paper and arrange it as you like on the page, then just wet it and the colour leaks out, creating beautiful effects. The main problem I have with it is that most tissue paper these days seems to be colourfast! I was really excited therefore, to finally find some that leaked its colour nicely! It is fun and fast and must have lots of possibilities.

Shadow Shot Sunday and children's art

Today was hot, hot , hot and then, as so often happens after this kind of day, there was a massive thunder storm. It was great! We all gathered in the bedroom, opened the blinds and turned off the lights. The storm was most entertaining although Lily thought it was a bit too scary to stay on top of the bed for long, and soon disappeared under it. Tiger is made of sterner stuff! Here are her ears in shadow against the window. This shot is from a few weeks ago. It was another lovely day and I had the urge to visit my favourite church around here-St Nicholas in Deptford, after work. We used to live near here and found this church when on a bike ride. It is just off the main road. It is very near to the river and we used to visit a bit of the shore near here. Over the years I have lived here it has changed around there a lot-new flats, the shore is closed off and there are even more developments springing up all the time despite the recession. But this church remains as lovely as ever.

This plaque commemorates Christopher Marlowe who was murdered in Deptford. He is buried in the churchyard in an unmarked grave

I have included my bike as it is a reminder to myself to get it ready to ride on Wednesday as the car is going for its annual MOT and general replace and repair session. It will be missed but is a good reason to get on my bike!
Lichen on one of the cut branches from last week's tree work-which I have not actually mentioned but it was most exciting! There are little shadows if you look closely!

Last of all this week is my plasticene man. I was really pleased with him and even more pleased when one of the children made her own version.

This is Jessica's painting-we were using cotton buds to paint (good for hand muscle development you know!) but this was Thursday and that had lost its attraction. Hand and finger painting is always so much fun! I thought the effect she got looked like the sky in one of those beautiful renaissance paintings with angels and other religious imagery.This is a boat that Bobbie made for me. I put the boat on my wall as promised but it looked empty. The next day I asked her to make me a person to go in the boat and here he is! He has special little cut out purple buttons. I think it goes well on the polka dot wall and the face looks like the sun. It is making me think of the owl and the pussycat.

Visit HeyHarriet here to see shadow shots from all over the place!

A Mad Tea-Party!

Alice remembered something strange that had happened to her one day... It all started with the white rabbit and a fall.......

There were keys and cups and teapots and watches involved, if she remembered correctly. And a strange tea party with a Mad Hatter and his animal friends...

If Alice had the choice, I think she would have liked a strawberry or two and a fondant fancy to accompany her tea. Please help yourself!

Today though, she is enjoying a tea party in the company of her new acquaintances. It all seems so familiar...It may be a little strange, but at least the sun is shining.

We could join Alice for a little while, have a tiny cup of tea and then meander over to see Miss Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist, who is organising this Mad Tea Party! I am going to rush off there now to see what surprises will unfold and to eat a delicious morsel or two!Before we go, look who has gatecrashed the party! Perhaps she will sing us a song and then we can be off...Please take some flowers with you, they smell so lovely! Before you go-have you seen this? I had no idea that this was being made so thank you Renee! It looks great.

I will leave the washing up for later!

Air

I have been trying, and failing, to make a doll based on 'air' as part of a challenge in the ADO group. I had what I thought was a good idea but could not make it like I saw it in my mind's eye. So last week I gave up on that one as it was just holding me up from doing anything. The poor half finished thing is in the back room and may one day be converted into another type of doll. I had another idea which was sparked by a beautiful perfume advert I saw. It is not very big here but if you google dior perfume balloon advert it will appear! I just love the colours and the image is perfect for 'air'. My first idea was based on a wire body and a mask and I was going to do whispy clothes from netting. I am going to keep the whispy clothes but have made a new doll to dress. Out of the few techniques I have tried, I like cloth bodies and I like painting the faces. Perhaps I should just stick with that for a while!

This is not a doll idea but it represents my balloon focus! I also am obsessively drawing rainbows at the moment. They are just so lovely and soothing to create and the kids are always drawing them.

This is as far as I have got, but after about four weeks of struggling with the other one, this one has appeared over three nights!

Face playing.

Eggheads. There is a quiz show in the UK called that and it is the most annoying one I have ever seen. It has a team of four 'eggheads' who are supposedly really clever-or at least have won lots of quizzes. They are all really pompous and always annoyingly beat the members of the public teams who are just not quite clever enough. Rant, rant. The Weakest Link is far superior!

Picnic Time

Kendalee invited people to join her for a midweek picnic. A picnic in blogland is lovely as it is a chance to meet new people but can be prepared for in a sporadic manner when time allows! Imagine that time is blurred and no longer matters so that things made on Saturday are served on Wednesday and photographs taken in the daytime look as if they were taken at night. Kendalee asked us to bring a recipe and a flower and to wear something pretty. You will have to take my word for the last bit! My recipe is a favourite one from Nigella Lawson (in 'How To Eat')-clementine cake. She recommends making it at Christmas which I have done but I think it is quite summery too and they happened to have clementines in the shop the other day. Put five or six clementines in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil then simmer for two hours. When they are cool, drain, then mash them up-food mixer or, if that is too much faff then a fork-it works! You need to cut the knobbly bits off the ends and remove any pips but everything else (skin and pith) is used.
Beat six eggs, mix in 225g sugar, 250g ground almonds, a teaspoon of baking powder, then the oranges. I didn't have the right sized tin so used two different sized ones. A 21cm springform tin was reccomended. Bake for an hour on gas mark 5 or 190C-a skewer should come out clean. Cover the top with paper or foil to stop it burning. It is a delicious cake-puddingy served warm but lovely cold too. Very moist and it keeps well.

So, have a piece of cake and a cup of tea-the picnic is just in my garden so the kettle is nearby!

Pull up a log and talk to Tiger while I get the drinks.

Lily has come to see what is going on too!

The jasmine smells delicious at this time of year and it gets better as the evening goes on.

This moon in the moonlight is a lovely present from a friend-thank you! It shows the evening is getting late.

I have got you a lantern to light your way home. Thank you for coming and thank you to Kendalee for bringing you here! Safe journey home!

A Day With The Tudors

We went to Eltham Palace on Sunday, to the Medieval Fair. We saw genteel dancing,

basic cooking,

the old contrasted with the new,

fair ladies with owls, (though if we really had been Tudors we would have run away screaming apparently as the owl is a creature of the night and is a bad omen when seen in the daytime)

Peregrine falcons,

and King Henry himself on the jousting field.

You could almost believe you were there!

Shadow Shot Sunday

This shadow shot is of Helen McCookerybook and Paul Davey. We went to see Helen play on Saturday. She has a new album out with Martin Stephenson called Hamilton Square and this was the launch. It was great! This is Helen and Martin and you can just about make out Jim the Fiddle on the right. I was trying to unobtrusively take photos not using the flash.This is Daisy who was on the door. She was really lovely and I loved her hat. She should come to the Mad Hatter's party next week! Not all the shots are shadow shots. This is more a blurry shot but I like it. This is the Edgeware Road by night from a cab.

I am not sure what this is but there is a tiny shadow that looks like a person in the middle. For more shadows go here.

These murals are near the pub. They are mosaics.

You have to look hard for the shadow here but I like the P. I like taking photos at night as I never know what I will get.