Photo Art Friday

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Photo Art Friday

Bonnie at Pixel Dust Photo Art is very generous about giving away her fabulous textures. This week she asked us to create some digital art to hang in our virtual gallery using her latest free texture called Leafy Landscape

This is what I came up with.


It is two close shots of the same beautiful pink lily.

Last week my son and his girlfriend bought me flowers. She apparently took ‘forever’ to choose, she wanted something autumnal and eventually came home with a lovely bouquet of red and yellow roses, orange chrysanthemums, red cotinus and a lovely green feathery grass.
He, in the meantime, got fed up with the choosing process and picked up a bunch of very tightly closed lilies for a pound. He didn’t think they would come out but thought they looked like something I might photograph. Bargain! he said.
Both boquets have had many pictures taken of them this week. The lilies are absolutely fabulous, they opened over a couple of days to show a profusion of very delicate pink flowers and perfume to die for.

I can’t wait to see how others have used Bonnie’s new texture over here this week

Simple Moments

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Simple Moments: Something lovely started by Alexa
I have just visited her blog, she has a gentle reminder that it is the 15th of the month. The day she writes her Simple Moment.

16.43 Monday 15th October 2012.
I am at my desk, my mac is whirring very quietly, I have just put my phone in it’s charger, it will spring into life and wake the mac up in just a moment.

Opening the window I hear the traffic, it is heavy outside this afternoon with people coming home from work. I hear a plane in the distance, it must be up high.
I can see the seagulls gliding in the sky but they are quiet today. I imagine their throats are sore after the row they were having yesterday.
I don’t hear the garden birds at the moment.
Neither of us has any music on this afternoon.
The house is warm: I have the heating on. Although it was a lovely bright and sunny day it was only warm behind the glass in the car.

Paul has been working here today which I am pleased about. He has been working so many long hours and travelling so many miles just lately. He is cheerful if exhausted because he has work after so many traumatic months without.

Pepsi is here behind me on her princess bed. She is dreaming, kicking her legs and bleating like a lamb!

Ben will be home in around and hour, he will be starving; he will open the fridge and find something to eat, something to drink and then ask me what I have planned for dinner. He does it every time he walks in from work. I love the predictability of his ritual.

It is mostly just an ordinary day for us except that we have Lotta here.
She arrived from Glasgow last Wednesday. It was their third anniversary of ‘going out’. (I don’t remember us celebrating any ‘going out’ anniversaries!) Ben had booked a lovely hotel in Birmingham, a restaurant in the evening, a pub lunch on the way home and the rest of the hours? Shopping! Which is, without doubt, Lotta’s favourite pastime. They had a fabulous time and came home loaded down with bags. I am thinking about it at his moment because I have just seen her beautiful, tiny, new, bought at the weekend, shoes in the hallway.

I have had an extremely busy day at work again. I feel as though I could sleep but that will eat into the evening and then my night will be disturbed.
I have started dreaming again. It is stress brought about by work. I still love my job but it is getting harder to do.
Am I feeling my client’s pain more deeply? It is sometimes hard to be strong and supportive for them.
The job is certainly very demanding with visits, phone calls, meetings and the never ending, always-changing paperwork!
Or am I just older and more tired?

I am so thankful that I have a wonderful hobby that takes my mind away from work.
Time to think about drawing the blinds; the darker evenings are with us and it will be time to prepare our evening meal.

This Autumn picture has Ruth Wests texture Shake on.
Alexa is linking Simple Moments from around the world on her blog, I am so looking forward to reading them again this month.

Confessions and Obsessions

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Part Two

Until I read Rinda’s post I didn’t know about Cairns. I also had never thought about taking a picture of the stones that live on my desk.
Then Helena made some rather splendid Cairns that put my little pile to shame so to thank Rinda & Helena these are the stones that have been living on my desk for years and now, for the purposes of art, are making like they are a Cairn 🙂

I was searching for something on ‘tinternet (like you do) and saw some embroidery hoops not framing finished pieces of embroidery as they usually do and thought they looked beautiful. I had a play. They were quick and easy and once I started I only stopped because I ran out of hoops!
I wish I could remember where I was inspired to make them.
Oh …and I never did find what I was looking for.
Silk and buttons

Jute, buttons and beads.

Black felt, purple bugle and seed beads and a needle felted heart.

Silk with seed beads.

Blue felt, buttons and beads.

And then I saw an article in a Cloth Paper Scissors e-mag about Upcycled Art. I fell in love with RecyclaBabes.
They are such fun to make and keep me busy while watching a film on the iPlayer.

These are my RecyclaBabes Peggy & Jane with some Topaz watercolour love.


Is it too personal to ask what your latest obsession is?

My first confession to an obsession is here.

More Childhood Food Memories

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Following on from this post. One of my brothers sent me e-mail asking if I remember how to make soda bread, “like mum used to make”
Paul Rankin makes a fabulous one you can buy in the supermarket! is what I was thinking.

We began to recall some more childhood food memories

Fresh Bread in the morning.

Mum used to make soda bread plain or with fruit. Both were equally delicious spread with her Irish butter.
But how could something so beautiful come from something so frightening that sat on the kitchen windowsill for days on end prior to the making?

The first day was fine: an open bottle of milk just sitting quietly in the sun.
The next day the cream on the top of the milk looked decidedly thick.
The following day the contents of the bottle had separated into three distinct parts: The milk at the bottom of the bottle, some watery yellow stuff in the middle of the bottle and then the cream beginning to emerge from the top of the bottle.
Now don’t forget we were young and easily scared. And we didn’t know that milk could grow! How could we?
The contents of the bottle on the fourth day no longer resembled the contents of the bottle on the first day.
“Tomorrow we will have some bread,” said mother brightly, inspecting the horror on the windowsill.
What we didn’t know the first time we watched the bread making was, when mum added the contents of the bottle to the dry bread ingredients the smell of the now sour milk was enough to send a child running out of the kitchen!

Thank goodness for my local supermarket, they sell very clean and healthy looking sour cream that stays put in the pot if and when I want to make a sourdough loaf.

Bread Pudding

Now the whole street loved this, warm from the oven, soft and moist with huge plump raisins.
I can see it and smell it even now. Mum used to mix the ingredients in her washing up bowl and then poured it into a huge tray. She sprinkled sugar on the top of the mixture, which then caramelised in the oven to make a beautifully crunchy top. Oh my I could eat some now.
I have never made this and on the very few occasions I have been tempted to buy a square from the bakers I have been terribly disappointed. I expect if I had a nice recipe?

Are there any out there?

I don’t have a photo of soda bread or bread pudding but I did see a heart in my loaf yesterday.