Ooh sparkles...

I'm so glad that you blog readers understand my autumn/conker fascination.  I'm not sure whether it was the windy weather on Sunday (it's a well known school fact that the kids go wild on windy play times...seriously it's true), my love of all things autumny or that I felt excited about all my crafty stash I had just bought but I definitely felt a little over excited that day.

Anyway on my return home (and after arranging my conker collection) I felt inspired to make a card from a new LOTV stamp.  Plus the fact it was a colleges birthday on Monday.  I love these cute baking mice, not sure I would want the little critters scurrying around my cupboards but even so baking mice are kinda cute.  I had fun with my Promarkers, inked a doily and glittered the edges with stardust stickles.  Got to love a bit of sparkles.  I like to glitter the icing sugar, the edges and well anything not moving really.

Not a bad photo considering I had to take this at seven on a dreary Monday morning.

I was hoping to have more of a play with my stamps this week but unfortunately it is a busy one, what with my sons open evening at college tonight (never thought I would be going to view his artwork as he showed absolutely no interest in art or crafting as a younger child) Also I  am trying to get the house\laundry all in order before I go away on a residential trip to Devon with the year sixes.  Yes it is that time of year again where I will be praying it's not too cold as we don wetsuits for surfing and kayaking.

My week in pictures

I think I must have been a squirrel in a former life as I kept exclaiming, "Look, conkers, acorns, leaves, trees". Or I may just have been giddy with joy after visiting the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexander Palace. Going to arrange my conkers now....

My Sewing Story....

Well, what a lot of nice comments about my sewing abilities.  But maybe I should explain when I state 'I can't sew'.

By rights I should be able to sew very easily, my mother is a seamstress by trade but then I should also be able to crochet and knit because she can do that very well too.  Can you see where I am going with this?  Here lies the problem, I have always had a mum that could make dresses, knit jumpers, make alterations.....so I didn't need to try.  My mum could make dresses out of curtains....no really she did once.  I called it (unsurprisingly) my 'curtain dress' and it was all silky, jade green, eighties dropped waist, fifties curtainy.  It doesn't sound it but it was fab.....if you don't believe me look....


I can't believe this is about the only two photos of the 'curtain dress'.  This in a nightclub in Palma, Majorca pre party  scene.  It was in November on a travel agent educational visit.



Wearing my curtain dress on my 18th Birthday.



So now I am interested in trying myself I don't have much of a clue to more technical problems like inserting zips and cutting patterns.  Plus I use my nan's lovely old electric converted Singer machine.  It's older than me (and that's old) so it is doing well really but it has the total of one stitch type.....straight!. 

 

 Of course I have picked up a few things, mostly from my needlework classes at secondary school where it took a whole term to make a pencil skirt and so by then you couldn't of cared less if you didn't finish it.  Honestly isn't life too short to pin AND tack AND press it.....No?....Oh that's where I'm going wrong.  Lack of patience and the unwillingness to read instructions.



Mum made these bridesmaids dresses...I'm the one on the right, don't know why I'm smiling, they itched like hell.



I did manage to make this 'Emma Peel' of the Avengers shift dress last year.  Nearly chucked it in the bin in the process out of frustration though.

**sigh**

I suppose I will have to cut the short cuts and buy a pattern and a book.  But I am scared it will all go wrong. Not that I mind failure.....I just won't try sewing again, hold my head in shame, be cast out by my family and hunted down by marauding seamstresses.....maybe.











My week in pictures

This week started with a little sewing, fabric art, maths training and finished with a woodland walk....in the rain. Hope you all enjoyed your week too:)

Sewing, baking and a rummage.

I have a few projects on the go at the moment.  All of them are sewing projects (yeah I know get me....and I can't sew)  After seeing some Cath Kidson fat quarters I was wondering what to make with them.  So I decided to make a little pinny to wear when I bake.  I didn't have a pattern so used an old pinny as a guide and thought the process through as I went.  It's not perfect, I made a couple of mistakes along the way but now I know what to do next time .  I really quite enjoyed it.

I wanted it to be reversible but co-ordinating so chose the strawberry and polka dot pattern.

The week started with a lovely Sunday at St Albans farmers market and a rummage at the retro emporium.  I have a feeling it is called an antique emporium but it isn't really.  Some of it is tut but you do find the odd gem and a lot of nostalgia. 

Like this tea pot (or is it a coffee pot)....I'm sure my mum had this range of crockery.  I really like the sixties and fifties patterns and designs and could of bought loads of goodies but alas Nigel has an aversion to second hand items.  It does have that musty secondhand smell in there and I always feel I need to wash my hands afterwards but as long as you can give what ever you have bought a good scrub I don't mind.



Zingy, citrus stripes...what a fabulous handbag but a bit too expensive for me.



Ooh, who thought Formica could be cool.

Then it was back to work and I really feel exhausted after a full week at school.  It feels like I have never been away.  To say that my days are varied is an understatement.  Yesterday I sewed up a banner made of the children's fabric artwork (on a lovely new sewing machine), cut out letters for a display, taught spelling and handwriting, took photographs of the children trying on Tudor style costumes, helped them with typing up their autumn poetry and played/coached netball.  Few....it was certainly a full day.  Multi-skilled doesn't cover it.

After all that activity I am looking forward to a restful weekend, catching up on the chores, starting some new sewing projects and a bit of baking to road test the pinny.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend too:)











Home at Last

The first thing we do when we visit Slovenia after unpacking is head straight down to our favourite cake shop.  It's not in the main square and unless you have a roam you wouldn't know it was there.  Which is a shame as the cakes and pastries are far superior to other bars and cafes.  The owner is friendly too.

I managed to scratch together a title out of three different alphas after running out of certain letters again...worked out quite well in the end though.

Call us creatures of habit (or just that we know what we like) but on our first visit of the holiday we always have the local speciality, Gibanica and a glass of the locally brewed beer, Union (pronouncing the U with an Oo.....this is so important as although the Slovenians are terribly clever and speak loads of languages, if you don't pronounce it this way they don't seem to have a clue what you are talking about.).

I see Nigel visibly relax before me after taking the first sip of his beer and a mouthful of cake.

Ahhh, welcome home.

My week in pictures 05 Sep 2011

This week I have been mostly cutting, photocopying, sticking and teaching. Yes it was back to school and 101 jobs to do on my list already.

On the crafting front I have been inspired by the Cross Stitcher magazine to get my cross stitch out again and hopefully the dark evenings will be more productive. I saw some lovely retro inspired material in John Lewis that I have plans for too. I'm thinking mad men, 50's, retro kitchens, baking....what could it be?

Somethings never change...

I'm the sort of person who doesn't like change.  I feel insecure if I don't know what I am doing or what is happening next.  So I did feel sorry for the teen this morning as he trooped out in the rain to catch his bus to college.  After I had arrived at school I worried if he had arrived at the bus stop in time, if the bus had turned up, if he had found his way to the college room and if he was enjoying his course.

But sometimes, things don't change much at all.......he still came home and I was still none the wiser of the days events....

Blogger was playing up the other day when I posted Sian's Storytelling Sunday story.  I was very near to chucking the laptop out the window.....well I would of it it meant that I wouldn't have to spend another hour downloading photos and writing stories.  So with this in mind I didn't have the energy to post my Layout that goes with the story.  So here it is.

Oh, btw, I did find out that the teen knows how to switch on and use a mobile phone when he wants his dad to pick him up from the bus stop because of the rain.....sarcastic...moi?

Hold tight....it's Storytelling Sunday

It's Storytelling Sunday again over at High in the Sky and my contribution is a story from our holidays.

This year was our fourth visit to Kranjska Gora in Slovenia.  It's a ski resort in the winter and a great base for walking and cycling holidays in the summer.  For those of you not sure where it is, Kranjska Gora lies at the top left of Slovenia (previously part of Yugoslavia) very close to the Austrian and Italian borders.

So my story begins on our first visit when the teen wasn't yet a teen.  On the first day we decided to take a chairlift ride to the very top of a mountain, where at the top a reasonably long enough walk for our first day could be taken.  Rob wasn't too keen to be taking the chairlift but we persuaded him it would be OK and managed to get him on it.  Well the look on his face (sheer fear) told us that we were not going to get him onto the second part of the journey, another chairlift right to the top.

Fast forward four years, Rob is still a little nervous but again we persuade him to try again.  This time we are all smiles as we drift silently up the mountainside taking in the views from our four seater chair.  'I don't know what I was worried about' Rob laughs......then the next part of the journey involves a little walk before we get to the chairlift station.  As we turn the corner we are confronted by single seater lifts.  He is sure to bulk at this, but no Rob is the first on.  I am feeling a little nervous myself but I don't have time to think about it too much as we are ushered on and the flimsy bar is pulled down to keep you in.  The seat is so small I can't even fit my rucksack on my lap and desperately hang onto it with one hand while my other hand grimly clings onto the side of the chairlift.



A sedate start at the beginning using the lower chairlift.



Getting a little higher....



I decide that this part of the journey I really don't like, thoughts are running through my head that include what a long way to fall into the rocky ravine it is, if we stopped how would the emergency services rescue us (no really I'm not kidding, health and safety doesn't of seemed to of arrived in Slovenia yet and a helicopter would of swayed the chair around uncontrollably, ) and how cold it is up here and would I be brave enough to let go and put my jumper on......do you think my thoughts were running away with me?.



The higher chairlift.....call this substantial?



Eek.....stop, I want to get off!



I try to take my mind off disasters by trying to take out my camera and taking some photos (again this is difficult as it involves not holding on) but strangely, looking through a lens doesn't seem so scary....until thoughts of dropping it reminds me of how high up we are.



But the views were worth it.



Resting after my ordeal.

The chairlift station is in sight now and anyone that has been on a chairlift will know how they don't stop but you have to be dragged off by the chairlift operator and run out of the way of the next chair coming in.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  After checking with Rob and Nige I find I am the only one not enjoying the trip.  Luckily the walk afterwards boasts unbelievable views from it's summit of Slovenia and it's neighbouring countries of Italy and Austria and I feel glad that we made the journey.......until the return trip.

My week in pictures 29 Aug 2011

Hello there,

Well it's been a tense week here at The Little Blue Shed household. The teen had an interview for a college placement but not before having to retrieve his Graphics portfolio from his school that is still shut. The good news is that he is now officially a student and proudly has his student card ready for his first day of his Interactive Media class on Tuesday. Sometimes things happen in life that can send you in a totally different direction and sometimes it is for the better....well done Rob we are all proud of you.

So apart from visiting colleges and filling in forms I have found some time to get all crafty and I made a little cover for my itouch. As you know I am not great with the sewing machine but I took my time and although it is a tight fit I am pleased with it.

Thanks for your replies about the postage stamps, I have some ideas forming now...

As you can see I have a new app to show my week in photos that I will be sharing with you each week, hope you like it. Thanks for the heads up on that Sian.

Must go now....the stamps are calling me.