I as some of you know am a watercolour artist, recently, just for fun ,I decided to paint my interpretation of a song, what the music and lyrics inspired in me in order to come up with a composition that represented that.
The song I chose was Bicycle Race by the band Queen. Particularly the lines I want to ride my bicycle etc..... I hope what I came up with makes you smile.
Last week, the weather was so lovely that I spent most of my time in the garden. I finished potting all the seedlings that my husband had grown in his greenhouse. We have dahlias, nasturtiums, Livingstone daisies, calendulas, lobelias, and cosmos. The cosmos are already starting to flower.
I have read about them and realised that I should have pinched out the main stem before they flowered to help them become bushier and produce new stems and buds.
However, I didnt want to ruin the lovely flowers, so I only pinched some of them. I will pinch the others as each flower fades. I am loving the colours, they look so dainty. I cant wait for the rest of them to bloom!
Last Saturday was my youngest grandsons ninth birthday. His gifts were all very sporting themed. He is a massive Manchester City fan so he was thrilled with the latest football strip.
Most of his gifts were football related, with the exception of a fancy pair of boxing boots as like his big brother he also boxes.
When asked what he wanted to do for his birthday he said he wanted to go to the golfing range.
So thats where they went and he had a great time.
Well weve had a few warm days, particularly Monday and Tuesday when temperatures rose into the thirties, which in this country we are not used to.
On Tuesday early evening we had a strange yellow orange light so I popped outside to have a look and took a couple of pictures of how low the clouds were in the sky and the formation of them which I thought were quite beautiful.
It was eerily quiet with not a sound from the birds. I then sent the pictures to my daughter describing the strange lighting and the cloud formation. She immediately sent me a photo, now on first glance it could be mistaken for a beautiful sunset on the plains of Africa.
I imagined the silhouettes or giraffes strolling along. However, it was indeed the stunning sunset from my daughters house at RAF Benson in Oxfordshire. I think her photo definitely trumps mine.
I decided to join a bag-making challenge on Facebook just for fun. The bag was made in stages, with the template released on the first day, along with a live video tutorial for the first part of the bag.
There was a new live video every day, and then we all shared our completed bags in the group. The pattern wasnt released for us to refer to, as we were all making it together. It was a simple project, but it felt strange not having a pattern to guide me.
The bag included reverse appliqué, which I had never tried before.Unfortunately, the fabric I chose wrinkled easily, and when I was cutting out the center of the heart shape, I accidentally cut through the main panel.
At that moment, I wanted to give up, but I decided to cut out a new outer panel and keep going.
Im quite happy with the final result, and it was fun to sew alongside both experienced and new bag makers.
Plus, there are prizes up for grabs!
Recently it was Mothers Day and I always create a digital card or two to put up on Facebook or to send to people individually with wishes on them.
My daughter has discovered ChatGPt and different apps to put together stories or videos.
So on Mothers Day I fired up the computer and found these photos. A lovely mix of love, memories with a touch of humour.
The first one is of my birth mother, the next is me and her brother when we went down to the snow (was on my bucket list to build a snowman) and some random icy person, the next: My daughter and I taken in January this year when we went to see my mum and the last one is at her new house when I told her she needed to remove a tree before it does root damage to her house.
I just think it was so clever/cool to make it up like a magazine issue. This weeks designs are both from my floral swirl series. Check them all out.
In a bid to strive to give my home an eclectic vintage feel I embarked on a piece of 3d artwork.
Now I have always loved the art and designs of William Morris from the Arts and Crafts movement, known for his art and textile designs.
My favourite design of his is called the Strawberry Thief which has a very organic floral background with birds having strawberries in their beaks.
I wanted to build on this for my piece of art. A couple of months earlier I had thrifted a slim vintage frame. I wanted a Strawberry Thief background so I bought some William Morris wrapping paper and used that.
I cast birds and strawberry vine from fast cure resin and painted them in antique metallic colours. I arranged them on the frame and put a strawberry in the mouth of the flying bird.
I was so pleased with the picture, and when I hung it I also hung a larger bird outside the frame with a strawberry in its beak as though flying away from the picture.
A few weeks ago, our Golden Retriever, Billy, celebrated his 8th birthday. I can hardly believe that our playful little puppy is already 8 years old! Hes starting to get a bit lighter around his face now, which is why I affectionately call him my little sugar face.
His breeder used to call him a cheeky monkey for leading his siblings astray, and I still use that nickname because he definitely lives up to it.
As one of his birthday gifts, we bought him a Cheeky Monkey soft toy, and he absolutely loves it. Happy birthday, Billy-bubs!
It seem like only yesterday since our eldest granddaughter was born. She only weighed five pounds and in her baby seat looked tiny, we used to call her Darcey Dot. As she grew up she was a great kid, sadly she last her dad (my son) before she turned three.
Over the years weve watched grow into a beautiful young lady. She did great in school, shes in college and also working part time At nineteen now she still remains very loving and although we dont see her often as she lives in Leeds she texts us regularly even just to say Hi and how much she loves and misses us.
We are so very proud of her and I wish her dad had been around to see the beautiful young woman she has become.
Had a wonderful Mothers Day a day early this year. My daughter, son and their families and I went out to lunch on Saturday for a couple of different reasons.
We went to an old historical house that is now a restrauant.
Believed to be the second oldest house in the south east of the state, being built in 1845 it served as a homestead, stage coach depot and holding yards for the famous pioneering Cobb and Co stage coach company.
Today it sits in the grounds of Hills College and is operated by them. The atmosphere was wonderful, the staff went out of their way to make sure we had everything we wanted and the meals were just spot on.
I was blessed with lovely gifts but most of all I was surrounded by the love of family. It really was a wonderful Mothers Day celebration. Todays designs are both beautiful rose designs. Check out all eight in this theme.
last week we went on a coach trip to see the tulips we have been to Keukenhof before but we always fly this time we stayed in Valkenburg which allowed us to go through Belgium and into Germany ,we were much later than usual so the flowers wernt as lovely as before but still really pretty and where we stayed was lovely with statues of people everywhere and a fort on the hill that we climbed up to it was a lovely trip and really enjoyed it
Ive slowed down my sewing in the past few weeks because Ive been focusing on my garden. However, I did manage to make this cute purse for myself, which matches the sling bag I created earlier. It was definitely much easier to make than the sling bag.
The purse features a couple of card slots inside the main compartment, along with extra space for cash, lipstick, and other small items.
I can even fit my glasses in the front pocket. The sewing pattern I used is The Starlight Wallet by Spencer Ogg.
Last October my daughter and family were fortunate to go to Finland and stay in their friends cabin in a forest.
Now I have no idea of location other than its about an hour away from Santas Lapland village. There was no internet, and generator electricity, but they loved it.
At Christmas we were given a framed photo of the family outside the cabin, which was lovely. But the more I looked at it the more I wanted to embellish the frame with 3d trees. So months later out came the resin and moulds to cast the trees, branches and birds. I used a wuick curing casting resin which can be remoulded after 10 minutes.
It dried white so needed to be painted which I did to the trees and the birds. Once attached to the frame I further decorated with fake moss for the leaves. I love how this has turned out, its like peering through the trees to the cabin.
I am a fair-weather gardener; as soon as the sun comes out, Im outside weeding, pruning, and planting. I love flowers, but since our garden is mostly covered in shingle, I have to rely on plenty of plant pots for colour.
I wanted to create a flower bed, but the ground under the shingle is really hard and has been down for years, making it impossible for me to dig.My husband noticed some border edging, and we thought it would be perfect for a raised bed.
So we mapped it out and filled it with bags of compost and topsoil. After that, I researched which flowers to buy and had a great time in the garden centre selecting all my favourite perennials.
My husband is also growing some bedding plants from seed, which will be ready to add in the next few weeks.
While it doesnt look like much at the moment, I believe once those flowers grow and blossom, it will become the beautiful flower bed Ive been dreaming of.
Last weekend my youngest grandson Harry ran the London mini marathon for school children. Its a mile in distance and children from as young as four can take part with adult supervision.
Harry is no stranger to running distance, even at the age of 8 he can run well over a mile with great time.
He does cross country try at school and its part of his trying in boxing. There were a number from his school who participated and the weather was lovely but perhaps a bit hot. Once completed everyone gets a medal for participating.
Harry enjoyed himself and then demolished a hotdog and extra large chocolate croissant.