Week 32: POINT

painting stars with yarn

to cover girls a-slumber

and bring sweet dreaming

~

I’m so excited to show you what I have done with the Scheepjes Stonewashed Yarn that arrived here this week. A Spiro Star at the centre of my second Mandala Madness, both patterns designed by Helen Shrimpton.

The colours are wonderful and slightly mottled, very restful to work with after the bright Stylecraft Special DK in my other crocheted mandala. I am really enjoying having both to go to for different moods and different times of day.

Even more exciting is that I have put together a photo tutorial showing how to marry the two patterns together. Helen has kindly given her permission for me to share it with you and I will do that tomorrow on W.I.P. Wednesday.

Little twirly happy dance!

oh

and another skippy dance!

Tweeeeeeerrrrrrrrllllllll and skip …..

learning how to skip and type at the same time …….. * ……. ! ………^ …….. \ …. > ….

Stop – silly woman!

Eight pointed stars abound in the beginning of this project so I was able to sneak it in as this week’s One-a-Week Photo Challenge entry. Cathy and I have put a list together for the whole year so that you know what to look out for when you are out and about with your camera.

 

also joining in with Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge, prompt words: PAINTED and LADY

(Substituting ‘lady’ with ‘girl’)

Please leave a link to your POINT in the comments.

Now back to the pointy mandala, its’s hard for me to put it down.

Silly Saturday

I don’t know

You tell me

I’m all of a fluster

Where can they be

 

Cache

This photo is of the first (and only) Geocache we found. I find the idea of Geocaching exciting and so do the grandchildren. I need an iPhone to do it – but – I am taking a veeeerrrrrryyyyyy long time to get one – so many decisions to make. I’m not good at decisions.

However I’m glad to have at least one find to fulfil this week’s Photo Challenge  on Lewesdon Hill in Dorset, with the help of my daughter’s phone. We left a Love Rock in it and added our names and date we found it.

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Crafty

My whole house is my studio

Every room a cache

The dining room – full of beach clean finds

The bedroom – yarny stash

 

My kitchen has experiments

From mould growth to tea bags drying

The spare room houses WIPs and HOTHs

And other things I trying

 

Obsessions and excitement

Fills every single day

The internet is full of stuff

With which I want to play

 

Try out this, try out that

and sometimes get things done

But mostly I’m deep in happy-land

Being messy – having fun

The inspiration for this little ditty came when my friend sent me a poem by Dr John Cooper Clarke (see below) as she said it reminded her of me, it prompted me to write the one above

ARTS N’ CRAFTS

Out of bed into the Shed
To paint the wooden roses red
To ride a rocking quadruped
With a big idea in your head

Form and function in a line
The rudiments of good design
From the oaken leg to the fine wine
To table tops of melamine

There’s nothing that you couldn’t make
No effect you couldn’t fake
A pebble sprayed with metal flake
Would make a precious paperweight

Teddy bears to stuff with stuff
Like nylon mink from a lady’s muff
Cotton balls and a powder puff
Pom poms and pocket fluff

Stainless steel and a rock hard aura
The marble glance of a lost explorer
A heavy heart for the love of Nora
Chains of flowers on a draped amphora

Time time time to slay
Each crowded hour of every day
Where indolence is kept at bay
In an arty-crafy kinda way

poem by Dr. John Cooper Clarke

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My entry is a little late this week – trouble with internet connection – soooo frustrating!

Joining in with the Daily Post: HIDDEN

Feel free to join in with the Photo Challenge Cathy and I have put together, by leaving a link in the Comments – we’d love to see your Cache’s.

Waste

lend me your ‘shell-like’

this girl dislikes pink

innovate for her

~

Ronovan’s Haiku Prompt words this week are PINK and SHELL.

Yikes – how to marry that with what I had already planned for our Photo Challenge prompt of WASTE.

It is the extra creative challenge I like to give myself each week. Well Miss E does not like pink – I know that card does have a bit of pink on it but ……. hey! I did my best!

~

Anyone who has been reading my blog for a while knows I’m an obsessive recycler AND like to try new crafty things, so this week’s Photo Prompt is right up my street!

~

Life-cycle of a tea bag once it enters my house:

It sits in its box in a cupboard full of all manner of black, white, green, herb and fruit teas. I have at least 12 different varieties in there.

Then in it goes –  into my favourite mug

This is a mug from Dunoon. I wanted a big white bone china mug. I contacted Dunoon and asked if I could have the Nevis Design in plain white – I could! and for about £10 cheaper than the decorated ones – I got two. I LOVE them. ❤

After first use the tea bags sit in the little coloured dish to be used, three together, for another cup.

I told you – obsessive recycler!

And now, courtesy of Pinterest, I have discovered there is a whole new world of art materials to be explored – used Tea Bags! I was astonished to see how much amazing art has been created with used tea bags. You can see some examples on my Pinterest Page, ‘Art Tea’.

Of course I had to give it a go.

So instead of going into the compost after their second use, the tea bags are now emptied and dried. (The leaves still go in the compost) My bean-sprouter works well as a drying rack.

Cutting or tearing some and leaving others as two ply paper

Now ….. how to turn them into art ……

 

A bit of collage using some paper napkins and some hand and machine stitching.

The circular tea bag has a picture of a cup stuck on the inside with Modge Podge and  is re-stuffed with a little wadding. I downloaded the picture of the cup from this Education Site

I’m wondering about this art form – it nudges towards the “just because you can, do you think you should”. I tried putting it on canvas to go with my ‘making art with found and discarded objects’ collection, adding and expanding on the Beach Clean Art theme. Using waste in art.

I’m not sure it stands up as an artwork so I turned it into a greetings card, with packaging paper put between the layers to stiffen the card so that it will stand up

A little pocket for a gift (in this case a fresh teabag) or message. Then it can be recycled once more and re-used as a card with a different message in the pocket.

And then I realised there was a certain person about to have her 10th birthday – perfect

She was thrilled with it and her friends intrigued.

I’m really not sure if my experiments will produce ‘art’ that I feel worthy of exhibiting , but has been fun to try and I can’t throw a teabag away at the moment –  I’m amassing quite a collection, so I’ll have to come up with something arty to do with them.

Update

Coincidentally, I’ve just seen that there is a programme on BBC2 tonight about the making of tea bags: http://www.radiotimes.com/tv-programme/e/fsq8rq/inside-the-factory–s3-e1-tea-bags/

and here is the programme on BBC iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08ywhdn/inside-the-factory-series-3-1-tea-bags

The sheer scale of tea bag production is mind boggling – and I’m shocked to discover that 25% of the materials used to make tea bags is plastic – Yuck!

 

 

 

Wave

remembered childhood

when the flames of friendship grow

embers never dim

~

Combining our One-a-Week Photo Challenge and Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge: prompt words – EMBER and FLAME

This photo was taken on a very special New Year’s Day on Mwnt beach with my cousin.

You can see more about the event in this post: Mwnt beach on New Year’s Day

Gosh the weather was fierce that day – the wind blowing up spray from the breaking waves.

My cousin and I met as small children, but not since, and now over 50 years later we have discovered a very special friendship. I do love the way life goes round full circle.

More Wave – related goodies:

Have you heard of the book  The Wavewatchers Companion by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

I hadn’t either until listening to the Museum of Curiosity which is my absolute favourite Radio 4 progamme.

Then there are the wonderfully relaxing waves of crochet in

Attic24’s Neat Wave Pattern, Crochet Wavelength Stitch

and this ripple pattern which has featured in quite a few of my cushions and throws

 

 

Please leave link to your WAVES in the comments and I will include it in our monthly round up.

Some old photos of my children waving …….Bye for now

~

Later addition – after Alastair’s comment (below) I had to go on an explore and just look what I found

Spectral Waves

How cool is that!

Fiction

deep thinking

even at six years

darkness lurked

~

Ronovan has given us DARKNESS and DEEP this week in his weekly Haiku Challenge.

Mixing that with our Photo Prompt – FICTION.

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My childhood was not always a happy place to be. There is a hint of that in my expression in the photo of me at about 6 years old, that little frown. The photo is in its original 1950s frame.

My Grandad and step-grandmother, Dabbity, provided me with a haven of books, cooking, gardening and needlework, I was always supremely happy when I was with them.

I learnt to read early and loved reading fiction as an escape. Perhaps that is why I hardly ever read fiction nowadays – no need to escape.

These are three favourite books of my childhood: Swiss Family Robinson, Monty Woodpig’s Caravan and Miss Richard’s Mouse

The illustrations in Miss Richard’s Mouse are a bit deep and dark and I remember feeling a bit scared of this book

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Please leave your link to your work of FICTION in the comments, we’d love to see them.

Lunch

spying from my seat

beach activities below

wonderful delight

~

Our Photo Challenge Week 15 : LUNCH

Ronovan’s Haiku prompts (10th April): WONDER and SPY

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Two weeks in the Caribbean! Lucky me!

I’m playing catch-up. Thank you so much Cathy for keeping the Photos purring along.

I can’t just leave out the two weeks of our One-a-Week Photo Challenge I missed – not after nearly three years of weekly postings, so I will be catching up with a couple of posts today.

A few more scenes from that balcony – not a bad place to sit and have lunch 😉

Looking towards St Kitts

Pelicans bobbing on the water in the early morning light

diving for fish

the boys going snorkelling

fishing

evening

storm brewing

Click on any photo to see it larger.

I was staying at The Hamilton Beach Villas which were beautiful, but not quite what they promise on their website. No Spa. When we questioned this we were told that they “had got a bit over enthusiastic on their website” !

There seemed to be a lot of that going on in the Caribbean. Often when travelling I have found people tell you what they think you want to hear – anyone else had that experience?