Byyyyeeee Dover

Our first beach!

MY BOAT. Like how Mick turned my jeans up so I wouldnt get them wet? Looking cool.

Gaufre chantilly (YUM!) Nice and hot.

In Étaples.
In Étaples they were having a Festial of Gôut… don’t worry, that means taste. In the tourist office they had some samples of fish andddd

The Maéris museum is attatched to the Tourism Office and is all about the fishing history in Étaples sur mer.  I don’t eat sea food so I didn’t read the signs and just enjoyed the sea life and things like stroking this…

This ones name is Bernard… see?

It made me jump and nearly scream when this scallop moved!

And Kyla screamed when I touched this anenome; it’s an anemone really but I forget it’s called that.

Those are all the things I touched. These are thigns I didnt touch =)

Colin the cod ^ (Kyla and Mick bought breaded cod fillets called Colin)

Dogfish!

A sinking boat…

(my friend)

I made a fire =)

I want curly lamposts!

Kyla had me roll down the hill =D

Thank fashion for knitted leggins =P
I also forget leggins are really called leggings.

Beussent Chocolate Factory

I bought a chocolate conker (see above).  Michael Bought a long, violet flavour, chocolate covered marshmallow.

Machines moving white, milk and dark chocolate

This lady was painting faces in empty ghost molds =) she was smiley

English tourrr

Samples for us and the school kids!

And orange colour white choc for the chocolate pumpkins they made…

Model Village

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This is kitten Mimi or Meow Meow or No Name. She lives at this Model Village. As do a couple of other cats.

Olive and beetroot juice from the salad, yummm

there was a sign saying not to need them but I took some of Kyla and Mick’s sandwich ham and fed her… then she wouldnt leave =P

And on to darker pictures…

beach twoooo

Here we bought a macaroon each, I had coconut, Kyla had salted caramel flavour and Michael had pistachio…

Le Chat Bleu

<3

… are you no more use than a chocolte tea pot?

Beauuuutiful

Le Fin

These are my pretty new cushions! I made them for our living room… but people and three dogs hang out in the living room… so i’m  bit scared for anyone to touch them! O.O

I bought these fabrics for a £1 a meter in chillwell! Except for the sequin organza, i had to ebay ‘embroidered organza’ after an incident involving the iron and the normal embroidered organza and a stiff breeze that make my freezer paper and organza move. >.<  OOPS!

Many more cushions to make! With practice I’ll be speedier =)

An owl and dog we met on Monday. Beauuuutiful. and soft.

Courgette & feta and sweet potato & feta “patties”. Yummmmmm. I served with greek yoghurt with cucumber and mint in it and stuffed vine leaves (from a tin).

But we, us crafty lot, are distracted easily.

Firstly Claire introduced me to an embellisher. I was a bit scared about getting started – 5 needles moving VERY fast!? Unsure – but the sizable finger guard is immensely lovely.

OOH! Just had an idea, I should needle felt a little embellishment on to my khaki satchel.

So firstly Claire showed me how to make a wooly flower on the embellisher… and that became a bit addictive.

Some contain loose angenlina fibres for happy sparkle times =) Puuuurdy.

Then I went a bit (experi)mental and felted a feather, angelina and felt in to some organzas!

Sooooo, Queen C brought in some booooooootiful fabric that many people thought was handmade. She wanted to make a big pencil-case for herself, Blackberry holder for her bestie friend and a … whatever for me =). Problem was that She didn’t know HOW to make one, I couldn’t remember how, so after asking Queen Hilly, we got to work! In fact, she was already at work, so I excitedly did most of it =P Sewing machines I missed youuuuuu!

And so, much like the Choconana vegan cake recipe that’s on here somewhere, this is a note to myself for when I next forget, here’s a bit of a ‘How to’ on making a lined and zippered case/purse.

I uuuuuuuuuuuused:

• PINS
• Paper
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Scissors (actually I used a roll-y cutter doo dah)
• Lining fabric
• Display fabric
• Zzzzzzzzipp
• Iron

This is Claire’s:

Next up I made a square-y one for myself and my bobs and bits and as a bit of a test go for the square one Claire wants.
HOWEVER! I just found out, by eavesdropping on another class, that you can cut shapes out of the angelina by using a kind of Sizzix contraption!

So before doing this:

I free-machined some shapes on to my display fabric:

and here’s the…front? back? other side!

plus

Do you know how to make such things? I had an idea after seeing it done at Harrogate Stitch and Knit but figured it had to be trickier than it appeared.

All it needed was a sheet of freezer paper, angelina, an iron and ironing board ! And then sequins, ribbon, lace, yarn and whatever else for embellishing.

this is foil-y eyelash yarn!

It all works like a sparkly sandwich…

Just lay out some angelina fibres (I do it quite thinly, Claire does it little thicker, but neither of us use much)

Fold over the freezer paper

Iron

Unfold paper

Lay down some ribbon, lace, sequins… NICE FINGS.

Lay a fine layer of angelina

Fold over the freezer paper

Iron

Unfold

DONE!

Except… then Claire showed me how to needle felt, and felt in to angelina!

oooooooooooooooo!

So, angelina + felt =

and the back?

And it’s really a brilliant, un pricey thing! The needles (huge things!) were two for £1.50ish, the bags of felt and angelina cost not much more than that per colour and £2.something for a cocktail of colours!

And… I made a couple of ladybirds!

First

and then

Two is larger than One, because I couldn’t remember how much felt I had used for ladybird One, and so One has tiny, happy button eyes and lives with Claire and Two has big green bead eyes and lives with me =D

Later, mooore felting  and some sewing and free machining =)

On the first page, something I read on the first page one of my sister’s book… way back when she was in comprehensive school… chaned the name of course =)

Lots to add and lots to do…

I have a few more pages started but shh!

And at class a week before last Claire had me making a foldy bewk =)

(at the top of the list is rock star)

and

the covers are up cycled from a couple of unsure attempts of pictures from months back =)

Okay, a lesson for you to learn in arts and craft:

On Saturday I had a fantastic day with friends. It started when we met up and started searching for the venue of the event we wanted to attend. From one end of Mansfield Road, to the other, to the center of the street.  We checked on the internet for the address of the “Culture Box”. One friend said “It’s at Noel Street” and so off we walked. 20 minutes later another friend rang, “Where are you? It’s not on Noel Street, it’s somewhere near Mansfield Road!” and we walked back, UP HILL to meet my lovely Amy, who had found the venue in MINUTES!
The lesson of the story is that when you nick TWO fliers for an event you want to go to…

…don’t just ruin them for use with image transfer solution, take down the address and number of where you’re going. You know, just so you don’t spend an hour walking in humidity and rain looking for the building.

I don’t know about the friends that walked with me, but I thought it was totally worth it! BBQ, lotsa drumming, dancing, improvised music, laughing, learning some more about circus-y tricks. I’ll try and remember to get some pictures next time =)

Here are some of MarieDrouin’s vibrant pictures from Breakin Boarders a couple of weeks back:

Great times =)

So, I visited the Luminarium (by Architects of Air) at Lakeside Arts Centre. You haven’t been? You should go! Anyway, a Luminarium visits once a year for a week at a time. Last year we got a visit from Levity2 (there is no levity1… I know, I know, don’t ask, I don’t know). My FAVE bit from Levity2 is this ‘ceiling’.

from the outside:

(these pics are borrowed from the architects of air webby)

And, sorry to ruin the magic, this is what it looks like WITH flash:

Look at all the pretty diamonds they piece together! and the dots!

This year we had LevityTHREE (and yet, where’s LevityOne, ay?)
Day one I went with:

Daniel, Amy…

…lovely Zara

Image by Marie Drouin

…and genius Marie who was off taking photographs with her technical camera.

It was 26 degrees that day, even hotter in the inflatable sculpture.

Lovely and relaxing though:]

chillin’, looking up at one of my fave bits of this one

Day TWO:

We posed before going in boats… it was a long queue! We’re boats people.

L-R: Amy, Alberto, Sam, Anna (again!)

Amy : Be a praying mantis!

Anna “what’s a praying mantis?”
Sam”it’s a kind of fish I think”
Me “I’m an evil one with the stuff on the legs who eats the man one”
…and then there’s Alberto’s brilliant ‘praying’ mantis.

Thankyou to Shay Perry from Linby Primary School for his praying  mantis obsession, else I might not have known how to pose.

We rowed!

amy and I were purple/lilac pirates in our two person purple/lilac canoe and crashed in to people when we could… only once or twice by accident.

Amy and I sang “Just around the river bend” from Pocahontas and THE song from POTC by Klaus Badelt.

We were speedy and I felt stronggg!

Sammy, Alberto and Amy sang “rock the boat (don’t rock the boat baby)”

After a looooonnnggg wait for Luminarium I really hoped that my beautiful friends would enjoy this thing I’d spent a week trying to convince them to see and over an hour we spent in a queue for. So, I take the billions of pictures as a great response!

through all this amy was having me pose, it was very fun!
then she asked me to look sad, like I would cry. I can cry on demand… as long as I havent had just a brilliant time! So to help the sad thoughts she said “look sad! like you’re going to cry. like a water buffalo died and it’s YOUR fault”

But the intruding camera edging in on my peripheral vision and on my sad thoughts and Amy saying “WAATTTEERRRR BUFFALOOOOO had me laughing til I couldn’t breathe.

moooreee silly smurf coloured poses

we only left when the workers warned us they were closing and about to deflate

Also, we fed geese, ate out

(twice Japanese- this is sweet and sour tofu, once brazilian and twice cake. Mwhahahahah!)

I’d never eaten brazilian food before and by the vibrancy of brazil I was thinking before the restaurant what the food might be like. I had black bean fritters with cashew and peanut paste and salad, Sammy had a meaty curry and Alberto had a prawny curry type dish that was very coconutty and tasted yum! But they had no vegetarian curry option so at home the next day I looked it up and made my own brazil style veg’ curry. Brazilians seem to like two types of meat and two types of sausage all inside one meal… so I did quorn chicken and quorn sausage in my version! Brazilian curry has ginger, lime and coconut as well as curry powder and is very yummy!

Also to pass time there was a Maniere Des Bohemiens album launch! There was a fantastic violin quartet, a sweet band I enjoy called We Show Up On Radar

This and following images by brilliant Marie Drouin!

and… Maniere Des Bohemiens!

These people were also at Sounds on the Downs at Lakeside Arts Centre behind the University, on after a hilarious, brilliant band called Satsuma who most memorably did a cover of “I wanna be like you” from Jungle Book.

Later on it poured with rain at the festival and we had to wait a while, hiding in tents, until we could paddle through huge puddles and find the bus, face paint smudged to hell!

Green Fest:

funnnnnkk

Also I walked the sausage dogs (who are actually cavvies) through sunshine, streams and mud.

… but I crafted too =) LOTS.

And spent money on craft items that have yet to arrive and I’m waiting, excitedly, like a kid before christmas!

… also i bought two pair of handmade earrings, a new release comedy book by Jon Richardson (no relation) and a £1.50 pair of shoes…but we’ll let that go shh!

Okay! So Queen C (tutor of mixed media canvasses AND art journalling) got us started on a lovely lil’ canvas.  And after one lesson this is the result =D

It might look like “WOW! All that in one class!?” because that’s how it feels for me… but an added bit of trivia is that we tend to start the lesson with a nice catch up and chat about our week and a cuppa… so really, look, all that in one session PLUS a lovely big chat! We do good work don’t we =D

Another bit of trivia: Though I could, if I want, shrink down this picture a bit so it fits in the blog better, but I want you to see the size of my hands. I see my hands every day, but I saw this and thought “ooer, tiny!” but then I put my hand to the screen and sadly realised this photo is a ‘actual size’ picture. I’m a bit magic. Like a leprechaun.

This week the canvas turned in to this:

I’m kinda proud of all these layers and the… everything! I luff it! It’s like something finally ‘clicked’. Week ago we each had an A5 piece of card to work with and I was having issues and difficulty with the background anddd the foreground. Ouch. And it felt awkward. But I’m happy with this X-D *happy happy joy joy*

Still not complete but I’m getting there =)

Also we had a stoodio shoe day =D Shoes so dangerous and ouchy that they’re best worn when not standing. Like… when in the studio! We forgot to take pictures though so we’ll be doing it again soon hopefully =D That night I had a spectacularly evily painful  cramp in my calf muscle, could the two thing be connected? Maybe I wont stand washing tea cups and stencils while wearing the studio shoes next time- the warning’s in the shoe title!!

Next up, art journalling =)

Robert’ wedding…

Animation!!!