The Birthday

Alfie after the cake!


Not to sure about the candles



Showing sister Sophie his motor bike.


A quick play before opening the next present.

Here are some pictures I took on Alfie's birthday. It wasn't easy to take pictures as he was moving around busy opening his presents.
He is having another party today with some of his little friends.

Cake for Alfie

Bob the Builder
It is my grandson Alfie's second birthday tomorrow,so I thought I would attempt to make him a cake. I am not a cake maker as you can see but I do like a challenge. I made two Victoria sponges which I filled with jam and butter cream. The face is one of them. The second cake I cut each piece in half and sandwiched three of them to make the hat. The last bit was used for the ears nose and the bit on the hat. I bought ready coloured icing but there was barely enough. which made it a bit tricky. I would have liked it to have been thicker. As you will see from the picture it did pull into holes in places which I did my best to repair. I built bits of structure to the face with icing for the ears lips and cheeks. The icing is not stuck to the cake very well. I did not have any brown icing for the hair so he had to make do with black His nose is a bit mucky and his skin is a bit pale. I am satisfied that I did my best with the equipment I had and I am confident that it will taste fine. After all it is the thought that counts.



Alfie enjoying the pond and wet

Arch for Gillian

I have just completed my October arch for Gillian. She likes seahorses, leaves and anything Egyptian. I decided to do the sea horse. Although I can draw sea horses I had a stencil which had come free in a magazine years ago and have not done a lot of stencilling. I stencilled onto felt and add some puff paint to give it a bit of texture. The background is layered chiffon. The edge is painted Vilene to look like rocks(although I have added so much stuff you can hardly see them now)I stitched over the sea horse and background, then attacked it a bit with the soldering iron. I loosely added some chiffon as sea weed. I then got out the glue gun and did some foiling. Finished!

The next day as I was getting it ready to post, I decided on second thoughts it was not finished. It needed something else. It was lifeless. It was a bit flat so I tackled the for ground by adding the shells. While looking for the shells I found the leaves and then the bits of painted Tyvek. I now feel it is finished and will again get it ready to post

Arch for Hannah

I have just finished the arch for Hannah. I worked it on the embellisher using felt, wool and chiffon. It is worked from the front and the back. The candle is a print of one of my encaustic pictures. I have done some stamping and added some foil. The problem I find with the embellisher is that the work grows. I embellished it onto silk this time thinking it would hold its shape but it didn't make any difference. Originally the stone arch was bigger but it had to be trimmed down to fit the template. I enjoy using the embellisher and don't break so many needles now (since I found out how much they cost.
My work space is getting more organised and I feel much more comfortable with it. Ever since we moved in I have been moving things around to make the space more workable. I make cards and jewellery for a living and need to be able to get at all the components easily. I think I am nearly there now.

Attic finds continued

Attic Finds

Yesterday my son went into the attic to remove some suitcases and boxes that were up there behind the water tank. We are hoping to have some insulation put up there sometime, so new it would have to come out. We did not know who it belonged to or what it was. There were two suitcases one was full of rubbish - empty chocolate boxes bits of tinsel. It had made a nice nest for the mice which had lived up there. When I opened the next one it looked more interesting. A collection of items which were probably used in pantomimes but the items had a lot of work in them and looked very old and interesting. There were several jig saws and an Alfa Romeo car which my grandson Alfie decided he was keeping. It was still in its original box. Then there was an old carrier bag which looked like the contents of a drawer. It had pens and pennies,smelling salts all sorts of rubbish then I opened a little box and out came the beautiful watch. I also found a ring and some chains. I was really enjoying this now. Another box was full of dress patterns from possibly the 40's and 50's and yet another box full of fabric but it was all nylon and crimpline.
I did not recognise the name of the person who owned all this but we are the third family to live here since them. They are sadly no longer around. Next time my son comes over I might send him up there again to see what else he finds.

Cornwall

Tin mine


View through an arch at the derelict tin mine


The remains of lunch


View through the resturant window


A posing seagull

Well we are back from our creative travels. The weather was on the whole kind most of the time. Sarah's converted dairy is fantastic and I can thoroughly recommend it. There are some pictures here
On the first day we visited a couple of local churches, a tin mine and a tropical garden centre then the other three walked up a Tor/hill to admire the view. I stayed in the car as I have a dodgy knee. They tell me that you can see both coast lines from there. We then spent the afternoon working on various projects. In the evening we prepared some screens and fabric with flour.
The next day we spent in St Ives visiting the shops, the Barbara Hepworth Gallery and The Tate Gallery. We even managed to have lunch outside overlooking the beach. In the evening after our meal we did a bit of felt making, some sketch book work and some printing using the previously prepared screen.
On the final day we stayed in and did projects including photoshop, sketckbooks, fabric transfer crayons and paint and embellishing on the Pfaff embellisher. We rounded the trip of by going out for a lovely meal in St Ives. It was absolutely pouring down but thanks to Sarah's daughter Helen we were dropped of and collected from the door.
I was not as productive as the others because I was in constant pain. I will post some pictures of the work I did when I have taken pictures of it. Until then here are some pictures that I had taken