Monthly Archives: May 2011

Project 365

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Week 16

At work there is the most wonderful clematis growing over a pretty arbor, the flowers are just beginning to bloom this week.
I love the Bohm necklace that Paul bought me, and it has such pretty earrings to go with it!
I was looking for something to photograph for part of Scavenger Hunt and saw this snail asleep on my bin, It was perfect for ‘what’s in side?’ I thought. I had lots of fun trying to capture the shot I wanted!
The weather has been glorious again this week. It has been warm enough to sit out later into the evening. We also had our first BBQ one night. Is this our summer?
I saw these lovely magenta Dicentra or Bleeding Hearts on my travels and linked them to Project 64 with so many Magenta finds this week. The roses were part of a fabulous Easter Bouquet from my boys.

My layout is based on a template from Maria and week 15 is the same but reversed.

Texture Tuesday

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I am linking to Kim Klassen’s Textures Tuesday again this week. Kim challenged us to add texture to a cup or mug. I had fun playing tea parties with some pretty little cups I have. Do you remember having tea parties with your dolls? or bears? or brothers if you could get them to sit long enough?
Shall I be mother?

This has one layer of Golden and two layers of Robins egg textures all set at Soft Light blending mode and brushed lightly with a soft round brush to reveal the teapot & cups.

This has it’s base layer set to screen. Three layers of Plaster 2 are set to 50% opacity and all three layers are brushed with a soft round brush to reveal the cup and flower.

This has its base layer set at screen blending mode and two layers of Plaster 2 set at soft light blending mode and brushed lightly with a a soft round brush.

This has it’s base layer set to Screen blending mode. Layer one is Sweat Treat set to normal blending mode and the opacity set to 50%. Layer two and three are Golden set to soft light blending mode. All three layers are lightly brushed with a soft round brush to reveal the cup and flower.

This has its base layer set at soft light blend mode. Layer one is Sugar cookie and brushed lightly with a soft round brush. Layer two is Grey day at soft light blending mode and brushed lightly with a soft round brush.

This has it’s base layer set at soft light blending mode. Layer one is Dusty rose at soft light blending mode. Layer two is Dusty rose set at blending mode multiply and the opacity is at 41%. I used a soft round brush to reveal the cup and flower on the second layer.

This has its base layer at soft light blending mode. Three layers of Lifesgood all brushed quite heavily with a soft round brush to reveal the cup and flower.


This has it’s base layer at soft light, layer one is Robin’s egg at soft light, layer two is Robins egg at normal blending mode with the opacity at 51%. Layer three is Robins egg at soft light, layer four is Sweat treat at soft light and layer five is sweat treat at blending mode multiply. I lightly brushed all layers except the last which is quite heavily brushed to reveal the original pattern on the cup.

All my textures are by the wonderful Kim Klassen. There will be many more beautiful cups of texture over at her cafe…

There is a little story attached to the last cup and saucer, but I’ll hang on to it for a few days.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

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I am linking up with Scavenger Hunt Sunday again. It is such a fun challenge, but this week seemed a little more difficult for me. I had to go to my library for one of the pictures. All my pictures are SOOC, the most I have done is a little cropping.

1. Architecture
2. Rimmed with Light
3. Toes or Feet
4. This is My Favorite
5. Shade (s)

Architecture

This is my library picture.
Hampton Court Palace is truly beautiful. As you look up and up you see so many of these beautiful chimneys. The Tudor’s built chimneys because coal rather than wood, was being used as fuel so you needed a chimney to take the smoke away from the rooms. The chimney stacks were often clustered in groups, and the individual chimney columns were curved or twisted, and decorated with patterns of different-coloured bricks. Why build boring straight stacks, brick was so expensive, lets show our wealth and build splendid chimney stacks!

Rimmed with light.

I have had difficulty with this part of the challenge this week, but at the farm today I saw this.

Toes or Feet

These ‘feet’ belongs to Daisy, a four year old Saddleback pig who lives at a very lovely working farm in Somerset. I think she looks as though she is wearing heels, what do you think?

This is my favourite…Gin

Bombay Blue, perfect with tonic, ice and a slice.

Shade(s)

I love how Triggers eyelashes are shading his eye from me.

This was a great challenge for me. Today we went to a working farm especially to help me complete it. We had a wonderful afternoon in the sun. I think we saw one gate with a no entry sign, the rest of the place was there for you to wander around. The animals were all friendly, well, except for one grumpy horse and there were plenty of places to wash your hands after touching them. I have some fabulous photos to share another day.

True Stories

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With this ring…

I am linking to Sian for another Story Telling Sunday. Don’t the weeks come around quickly?

My story this week is a bit topical, it is about my wedding ring.
William seemed to have a little difficulty getting the ring on to Catherine’s finger didn’t he?
A similar thing happened to me, only it was quite a few years after our wedding and it was the other way about, I couldn’t get my ring off!
My poor hands and fingers decided to swell. So much so that I had to have my engagement ring cut off. It was 18ct gold, so very thin to start with, it began to cut into my finger.
My wedding ring began to get tight but I really didn’t want that cut off so I put up with it for ages. One day my friend saw me turning it to try to make it more comfortable, she told me about a goldsmith in the West Country, near to Bristol, who made jewellery from old gold.
Maybe I could have my ring cut off and a new one made from it?
Apparently you could take your old broken jewellery to them and they would make you a new piece of jewellery from your old gold.
We drove across to Bristol to investigate. I had a little packet of old and broken jewellery with me, not knowing if it was good enough or indeed enough to do anything with.
The goldsmith in the craft centre couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful, we decided to go ahead, he cut my wedding ring off and we added it to the little pile.
We had enough gold to make me a new wedding ring and some lovely new earrings. I was thrilled. As jewellery designing is not one of my skills we left it to them to help us. For the ring they suggested a simple twist which was one of their own designs, and they earrings would be a couple of cm long narrow at the top getting wider at the base with a hammered design (clear as mud to me). Although they drew the pattern of the ring and the shape they proposed for the earrings, really I had no real idea what it would be like. It sounded wonderful, the only thing I was concerned about was, would the ring fit!

A few weeks later we drove down to The Clevedon Craft Centre near Bristol to collect my new wedding ring.
With this ring

And these earrings

So what’s so exciting/interesting about that story?

The gold that is in my ring and earrings came from my original wedding ring, my engagement ring, my mothers wedding and engagement rings, my grandmothers wedding ring and my mother-in-laws engagement ring.
I am wearing something of probably insignificant monetary value but the family history in my simple ring is priceless.

There are more stories here