January Photo Challenge: Tree and Sky

I have been getting up and out to see the sunrise this month

It is part of a new sleep management programme I am taking part in to cure my chronic insomnia.

The photo above was taken on the hill about a mile and a half from my house.

The one below was taken whilst staying with a friend by the sea.

This one (below) was taken with my back the the setting sun. I felt so wonderfully at peace and full of gratitude in that moment.

I do take rather a lot of photos of the oak tree at the bottom of my garden.

To me it has a feminine quality.

Thank you to Nanacathy for hosting the Photo Challenge.

Sunrise light

Making mood feel bright

Good sleep tonight

Slow Sunday Haiku

Leaves falling

Showing front and back

Autumn’s here

 

It is a long time since a haiku popped into my head.

This one was inspired by this post by Mrs Gumboots.

Joining Cee’s Challenge FOTD – Autumn Leaves

Light

My visit to the Tate Modern on Friday 10th November, was the perfect start to my birthday weekend

The Exchange is a room in the new building at the Tate for interactive projects. I didn’t stop to make a lampshade but did watch a few people doing it. You can get a free cuppa in the Tate Exchange Room – worth knowing!

The exibition in the Turbine Hall, by three Danish artists from an artists’ Collective called SUPERFLEX is also interactive – read all about it here. And see a photo of the artists here,

‘Interactive’ is my favourite form of art.

This exhibit strongly relies on LIGHT and reflection. You can lie on a stripey carpet and watch the huge shiny ball as it swings overhead….

Click on any photo to see it in more detail.

Lots of people were enjoying the bubbles this Mum was blowing as they walked up the carpet.

Whole families could swing together in the rest of the hall, it was fun.

This next picture is taken from a bridge that connects the two buildings.

overview

broken by split layers

Tate Modern

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One-a-week Photo Challenge, prompt: LIGHT

To join in, leave a link in the Comments to your post – past or present.

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and joining in with Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge, prompts: BROKEN and OVER

Shop

spooky nights?

dark ghoulish oufit?

not for me

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Now, what do you think I’m going to do with these? Any ideas?

My entry in our One-a-Week Photo Challenge

Please leave your link in the comments here or on Cathy’s post.

These fabric flowers are my latest purchase online from a fairly local Craft Shop called Hobbycraft

And joining in with

Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge, prompt words: SPOOKY and NIGHT

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Happy Halloween

Happy Samhain

remembering our ancestors

Muddle

walk by lake or sea

to calm the mind and spirit

beachcombing works well

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As I get into a frenzy of creativity, creating patterns and people with shells, my collection gets in a right old muddle – they need sorting out again.

Joining Cathy and our wonderful band of contributors in our One-a-Week Challenge

We would love you to join us – just leave a link to your ‘Muddle’ in the comments, either here or on Cathy’s blog post.

Also joining Ronovan in his weekly Haiku Challenge

Prompts this week are LAKE and CALM

 

 

Regal

I don’t need Christmas

My heart celebrates Solstice

Turning to the light

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Using a bit of poetic licence here to meet our One-a-Week Photo Challenge Prompt: Regal

I was trying to make a tealight holder out of used teabags that was not so BROWN.

After painting it with white Gesso it somehow said ‘Christmas’ to me, so I painted the inside with some gold paint, a few dots around the outside and then it said ‘CROWN’.

Also joining in with Ronovan’s weekly Haiku challenge – prompt words HEART and NEED

Rust

 

no silk or satin

to grace my skin, happier

in a rusty truck

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Cathy-and-Daffy’s One-A-Week Photo Challenge – RUST

and

Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge, Prompts: SKIN and SILK

Join in our challenge by adding a link in the comments on either blog, we’d love to see your interpretation of this week’s subject.

Next week – REGAL

From Rust to Regal, we like to mix it up!

 

Orderly

touch, smell, remember

how did life get so busy

miss beachcombing days

 

All these shells and pieces of coral were collected in Abu Dhabi in January 2014.

Two weeks of warm sunshine, sitting on the beach, wandering slowly along the shoreline, knitting, reading and arranging shells ……. ah! ………… sigh …….

You might recognize some pieces that have been used in my shell pictures.

My entry for our One-A-Week Photo Challenge, this week’s prompt: ORDERLY

combining with

Ronovan’s weekly Haiku Challenge: TOUCH and MISS

I could happily spend days arranging collections of objects in an orderly fashion – how about you?

Found

geocache

late holiday find

left hidden

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We went hunting for a Geocache on our family holiday in Solva in Wales at the end of July. There are quite a lot registered in that area, but this one was very close to where we were staying. It was fun: first we discovered the general location from the Geocache website, and there was a code to crack to give us a clue about the exact location. But I don’t think we would have found it without the help of my daughter’s Smart phone.

Miss E, Master R and Little Miss M were all very excited to find the plastic pot. We lifted the cache and took it back to the B&B to show the rest of the family

This is what we found inside the cache

The idea is that you can take an item from the cache and replace it with a little gift. It was fun to read what others had written, but we were just a little bit disappointed to discover  a marble and some sweets. Nobody wanted to eat the sweets, Little Miss M wanted to keep the marble.  We threw a couple of sweets in the bin and the children had fun deciding what to leave in their place. This is what we put back in the cache: A sheet of stickers, a butterfly candle, a rubber, and a Love Rock

We put the cache back where we found it and covered it up with stones

 

This is my entry for our One-A-Week Photo Challenge this week, leave a link to what you have FOUND this week in the comments to be included n my monthly Round-Up of entries. And pop across to see what others have found on Nanacathy.

Also joining in with Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge, his prompt words this week are: LATE and HOLIDAY

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Solva is a very special place for me and I have been there many times: if you would like to see more photos or read more about it put ‘Solva’ in the SEARCH box at the top right of this page and the former blog entires are listed there.

Week 32: POINT

painting stars with yarn

to cover girls a-slumber

and bring sweet dreaming

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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.

Lane

That moment when you are walking in a muddy lane and just have to stand still and look at the sunlight shining through the leaf stuck on the end of your stick.

Archive photo taken on our family holiday in February 2016. We hire a big house for my children and their families, for a week, every other year. It’s wonderful to see the little cousins all romping around together. This is Twiglet, one of the twins.

Joining Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge: PARTY and ENJOY

party of fifteen

gather biennially

enjoyed by us all

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Join us in the One-a-Week Photo Challenge by leaving the link to you current or archive ‘LANE’ photo

Waste

lend me your ‘shell-like’

this girl dislikes pink

innovate for her

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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!

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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!

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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!

 

 

 

Pair

Girl Power Cerne Giant

reactions differ 

altering ancient symbols

amused or irate?

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Our One-A-Week Photo Challenge prompt this week is PAIR

Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku challenge prompts are : AMUSED and IRATE

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The photo is of a painting I did in 1994. I had just returned from a round the world trip looking at all sorts of ethnic symbols in Nepal, Australia, Tahiti and America and realised there is a very powerful symbol in my home county. The Cerne Giant.

I have written about him before a couple of times, here is one post describing a walk in that area. Rainbow Junkie has also written about visiting Cerne Abbas.

When I was playing around with the Giant design, first I gave him a mate by putting my girl version next to him in a painting, but this one is my favourite – girl power!

My 7 year old grandson, Master R asked to me the other day, “Why are boys more important than girls?”

“They’re not are they?” I replied

“Well why do we have the World’s Strongest Man competition and the World’s Tallest Man competition but not the World’s Strongest Woman or the World’s Tallest Woman?”

“Good point,” I said, “I think a long time ago men thought they were more important just because they were in general taller and stronger than women, and some of that still stays on in our culture, but we know better now don’t we, all that thinking is a bit old fashioned.”

We then had quite a long discussion about all the things that girls were better at doing, boys were better at doing and things which boys and girls were equally good at.

They take me into interesting arenas of discussion these grandchildren of mine – looking at the world through their eyes is a very useful thing to do.

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Cathy and I have created a list of Photo Challenges, just for fun. You can see them all here.

Please leave a link to your ‘Pair’ in the Comments, we’d love to see them, and i will include your link in the monthly Round-Up.

 

Turn

Oak tree turned into a sun dial by the evening sun

swirls like the ocean

running on the shore of your

imagination

 

The spiral made in my lawn this year has been thoroughly enjoyed by many – children always run around spirals – turning, turning, turning, always turning, always running, always laughing – it is a delight!

Easy to do – you cut the lawn on a high setting and then starting in the middle, mow outwards on a lower setting, keeping a gap of the mower width to your right or left, whichever way you are moving. I’d love to know if you give it a go.

I first cut a spiral back in 1999 and then came the Waves, and the Grid

What pattern would you create?

Just had to include this wonderful piece of graphic design:

I saw this on a site called ‘Trust Me I’m a Designer’. Clever don’t you think!

It’s your turn!

Leave a link to your photos in the comments so that we can all see what turns up this week. 😉

Joining in with Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge – his prompt words this week are: Ocean and Shore

and the One – a – Week Photo Challenge that Cathy and I have compiled for fun.

Wave

remembered childhood

when the flames of friendship grow

embers never dim

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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

Ripple

 

 

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

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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

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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.

One-a-Week Photo Challenge: Cross

the stars in my world

creativity blooming

with needle and thread

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Three generations of cross stitch.

The blue and yellow Binca pieces on the top were made by my children (now 35 and 41) at school. The white Binca is being decorated by Little Miss M (4) and Master R (7), he has made the first arm of the cross stitches, but got frustrated when he came to the corner, his mathematical Virgoan brain could not get it to be precise enough, so we had to take a break. I hope we can return to it next weekend. Shall I undo the corner bit? …… Hmmmm these moral connumdrums we Grannies face.

You can see my cross stitches on the fabric collage underneath, the start of another textile experiment.

Linking with Ronovan’s weekly Haiku Challenge.

This week’s prompts: STAR and BLOOM

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Cathy and I have put together a list of subjects for the whole year – jump in as and when you feel like it with current or archive photos, and leave a link in the comments to be included in the monthly Round Up.

Bird

plain grey pelican

diving into the shallows

small fry for breakfast

A joy whilst on Nevis was to watch the pelicans diving near the shore on my early  morning shell hunts

Joining in with Ronovan’s weekly Haiku Challenge, prompts PLAIN and FAST

and

combining it with our One-a-Week Photo prompt for this week of BIRD.

Cathy and I compiled the list for the year, just for fun. Join in as and when you like using new or archive blog posts. We love to see your take on the subjects – always a fascinating variety. Leave a link in the comments to be included in the Round-up.

Van

spring into action

tidy up for a fresh look

and restore order

Our One-A-Week Photo Challenge prompt this week is VAN

combined with

Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge – prompt words: SPRING and FRESH

The photos were taken when I was making a photographic record, for my farming son-in-law, of the building of his enormous new robotic dairy. The massive project took about 3 years to complete. It was fun to see all the different types of vehicles and extraordinary equipment arriving at the farm. The first van above belonged to a builder, the second to the engineer installing the robots.

Spring cleaning has been a theme for me this week as I have been tidying out drawers. Drawer number one, from this:

to this

I found evidence of moths so every surface inside and out of each drawer in the chest of drawers was vacuumed and washed. Then I sprinkled them with lavender and covered it with recycled packing paper that I ironed flat.I really don’t know if lavender works but it is supposed to. Worth a try as I have masses of it, harvested from the garden in August.

Do you have any tips of how to deter or get rid of moths?

This has fulfilled another element of my 17 for 2017 challenge! hurray!

(clearing and sorting 13 drawers, cupboards or shelves 3 done only 10 to go! ha!)

Cathy and I have created a year of photo prompts for your (and our) delight, pop over to Nanacathy and see her cute little VAN!

Historical

a light breeze blowing

primroses growing by trees

busy buzzing bees

~

and  Bentley

Combining our One-A-Week Photo Challenge: HISTORICAL,

Ronovan’s Haiku prompts: BREEZE and BLOW

and

Cee’s Which Way Challenge

My sister, Bentley and I went for a really good long walk at Badbury Rings last week, an Iron Age Hill Fort, near Wimborne in Dorset. Another walk towards my  17 for 2017 target.

I am always trying to catch Bentley unawares as, like most dogs, he doesn’t like having his photo taken

We walked round the ramparts, across the top and then round the back of the Rings

Spotting plenty of ‘Which Way’ scenes to photograph

Breeze, blow, Bentley with branch, Badbury, bees, boat and barn (and later on, back for blanket, a brew and banana cake)

This willow was a-buzzzzzzzzzzzzzin with bees, both honey and bumble. We tried for ages to get some good photos, but failed, imagine a loud and constant hum accompanied by birdsong from the woods beyond.

The boat had seen better days and was probably home to many little creatures

The barn, festooned with ivy,

another wildlife haven.

Then back home for delicious cake made for us by my lovely niece

who was very happy to receive her Dorset Hedgerow Blanket

She is at Uni studying to be a vet in Glasgow, so it will be nice to have something from home to snuggle under in the evenings, even though it is now officially Spring.

Happy Spring Equinox one and all!

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Cathy and I would love you to join us in our One-A-Week Photo Challenge, just leave a link in the comments to your Historical Photos, current or archive all are welcome.

For up and coming subjects go to the Photo Challenge Page.

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“Happy Snapping”