Passing on an award and a tag.

AWARD

I wish I could say it has been as easy as ABC to choose eight bloggers to pass this award on to but it hasn't.  There are so many of you out there whose blogs I love to come visit.  

Well the lucky recipients are

Cowboys and Custard

A Time to Dance

Vanessa Brantley Newton

Lavenderhouse

Sea Anglels

Everyday is a holiday new

Janet Bell

Musings behind the easel

TAGGED

Eek! I have been tagged by Helen at A Time to Dance. It means you have to choose the fourth photo in the fourth folder on your computer and post it then get four people to do the same. If you go over to Helens you will see some brill photos of her!!!!  Well my fourth folder isnt that funny, its a record of all my paintings, this was the fourth one I suppose it would be good for Valantines?  

The four people I tag are

Vanessa Brantley Newton

Michelle at Cowboys and Custard

Thelma at Paintings by Thelma

Emma at Lavenderhouse

TAG....YOU'RE IT....OFF YOU GO!

Just a Quickie!

"The authors say that blogs who receive this award are exceedingly charming. This blog invests in proximity in space, time and relationships. These kind bloggers aim to find and be new friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandisment. Our hope is that when ribbons of these awards are cut, even more friendships will be propagated. Please give your kind attention to these writers."

Unlike this little cherub I am delighted to have been given my first blog award!  It has flown over from the lovely Rose and Bird, I now have to choose eight other blogs to pass it on to, watch this space!  

Corners of my life.

After spending a lot of my time with a duster in one hand and the hoover in the other the house at last feels as if most of it is tidy!!  I decided to have a bit of an early spring clean as when the sun shone in with that bright January light it showed up so much dust on everything that I was shamed to spring into action. Dust bunnies the size of kittens where sucked from under cupboards, winter grime wiped from window and floors scrubbed.  So I thought I would let you peek into some of the corners of our home while its vaguely sparkley.

A collection of pebbles from our holiday.

I love to sit and read looking out on the garden and the hill beyond.  Georgian shutters keep the room cosy at night.

Trying to keep the sitting room mantle simple! Love my Ian North painting.

Cosy corner in the kitchen, this is where I took the doors off a mouldy cupboard!  I made the lampshade the other day, thought it looked like a hat!  The painting on the wall is by my friend Sara, a birthday gift I treasure.

Fabric at last has a home all neatly stored in a old cabinet in the corner of my workroom.

A wire shelf in the corner of our bedroom becomes a shrine to the sea, bottles full of sea glass and china alongside shells and postcards.  Lawrence Henry fish, I love his work we have quite a few things by him.

A little dresser I found last year, just right for some of my toy animals and a few old books from my childhood.  Sits on top of an old Cakeoma box that makes a handy shelf. Found the puzzle blocks at a car boot 20p well spent, they will probably end up in one of my assemblages the same with the little yellow hare destined to be in an easter box.

A wire display board over my desk holds images that inspire or delight me.

I hope you have enjoyed this little journey round some of the corners of my life and I hope you will find my taste in music not to much of an assault on your ears!!

Off now to start a new project that if it works out will appear at the next Vintage and Handmade Fair.

She loves buttons

Well here we are, another Monday, where is this month going to!?  It always seems the same in the New Year,  January and February seem to wiz by so that you hardly notice they have been and gone.  I seem to be getting nowhere fast, work is progressing very slowly I only did this one painting, 'She loves Buttons' (yes I do!) last week. I experimented with a bit more collage in this one and sewed the buttons onto the paper.  Other things are demanding my attention.  We are trying, at the moment to organise all the dates of the different artists for our courses this year which isn't as easy as I thought it would be, firstly I roughly planned out the whole six months and then artists have to confirm their dates and it all gets changed around again.  We have found some new artists and Im quite excited about the range of courses we will be offering this year.  I myself want to go on most of the courses if I have time between cooking cakes and lunches!  I also have the dreaded tax returns to do, I do the accounts for both of us, so that will be next week with no painting for me!  It always seems when I cant paint I have loads of ideas but when I can sit down and do what I like I just sit there!! Why is that?

Here is a lovely flock of seagulls over our house, I love the sound of seagulls and always rush outside when they come over, bit sad but there you go!  Have a good week, think of me up to my eyeballs in receipts and invoices, where is that old biscuit tin I keep them in?

Is it really the 10th!?

Hello and a very belated Happy New Year to you all.  I cant believe it is the 10th of January already!  Here are three little chums to send you my greeting!

I wanted to do a post on the 1st but it was not to be,  we have had visitors in the house since the week before Christmas and they only left last weekend.  I did not get the chance to sit down and blog anything and this week has been that wonderful mad whirl that we all love of hoovering tidying and shopping also I decided to clear out a built in cupboard by the fireplace in the front kitchen that always goes mouldy.  I thought it would be better to take the doors off, so air could circulate, repaint inside and utilise the space for books, bits and a lamp, so of course once everything in there was removed it meant that every other cupboard in the kitchen needed sorting to make sure everything had a home, why do I have these ideas?  Well now Christmas is already a distant memory, the fruit cake just a few crumbs in the tin and only the chocolates nobody likes left in the box, time to get back to work.

I had the urge to get painting again after not doing anything for a couple of weeks.  I had thought about doing a painting with some collage in it and had the idea of photo-copying some fabric onto some lovely, really old paper I have and the painting below is the result.  I cut out the girls dress and painted on top then worked in some pencil to give a nice depth to it. I have also recently bought some 'Golden' mica flakes, which I think I am going to become addicted to, and I covered the background with that so its all sparkly. I have not finished it yet as I want to make a little sign to hang below it with its title 'Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks'. I have painted this image before but sold that one and wanted to do it again, this one is much bigger, about 22 inches sq.

Just before I sat down to write this post I had to take Midge out for a... well you know! and the moon looked absolutely amazing so I zipped back in and got the camera in the hope a photo would come out and show what it looked like.  It looked like the moon had rings of rainbows around it and I must say this picture isn't to bad except there were more circles. Im sure there must be some term for this but I don't know what its called.   Beautiful isn't it?

Heres wishing you all a really good 2009, may all your creative thoughts turn out to be goodens! Lots of love xxx