The Giant Fungus

We've been having a few more fine autumn days over here and I've been enjoying the views outside. The ivy in our garden is in flower again, but I must admit I'm rather disappointed that there are no butterflies this year. I remember last year in October we had so many I spent a whole day in the garden with my camera - it was so beautiful. You can see several LOs of butterfly shots if you click on the November link in archives (down the right side of this page) - they start on the second post of the November page.
The only special thing in the garden this year - which I didn't see last year - is a whole host of fungi, covering spaces between the herbs and underneath the rosemary. I think they may be of the same type as the giant fungus Helen and I found in Windsor Park some years ago, although of course they are nowhere near as big: that one was worth a LO of its own!


Journal reads: "We found this mega mushroom (toadstool?) in Windsor Park during our first walk with Helen’s new Spaniel dog. Unfortunately, our two “proportion props” were still so excited with each other that they wouldn’t sit still… 30th September 2003"

London Adventure

You won't believe what's happened to me... On Tuesday, I finally went into London with Eve - I needed to renew my passport and she'd offered to accompany me, so we could make it a nice day out, but of course she can only go during term breaks as she is a teacher. I'd been trying to phone the Embassy twice, to find out how much it would cost, possible waiting times etc, but both times I was cut off after over 5 minutes of holding! I wrote them a letter to which I never got a reply. Their website only says "passports and visas Mon - Fri 9am to 12nn".
BUT -- when we got their, they simply told me that presently they cannot renew passports or accept applications for new ones, as the passports are due to change to a new style, with finger prints, but they are not yet in place. Meanwhile, they simply turn people away!!! Not a word on their website, or on the spiel that you listen to while holding the phone line for ages!!!! They really are the most inconsiderate b... on the planet - I think the notion that an Embassy is there to SUPPORT its people is completely lost on them. So - for the time being I'm stuck in England, for better or worse (and I can only hope that nothing is going to happen to my Mother that would require me to travel to Germany!)...

In any case, once I'd got over the shock and anger of this, we did have a nice day out, strolling around - there is some fascinating architecture in London, even just some of the older residential blocks... We came across a beautiful, massive catholic church called The Brompton Oratory and decided to have a look inside - it was very Italianate and absolutely marvellous and we spent quite some time looking at it all; then just down the road we found the V&A museum and spent some time there seeing the textiles and silverware exhibits and also had a sumptous lunch in the "refreshments room" with beautiful stained glass windows and chandeliers - the prices were sumptous, too, though: nearly £18 for two salad plates with rolls and butter! Then around the corner into the Natural History Museum but that wasn't a good idea as it was far too crowded with families and children, being half-term, so we left quickly and went back home for some tea...

I thought it would be appropriate to add the cover page of my London album here today - it will soon get some additional pages as I took quite a few photos (it was a beautiful crisp and bright autumn day on Tuesday!).

Autumn has come

Autumn is definitely here - the leaves are turning and starting to fall. It's such a beautiful season on a day like today (the sun is actually shining!!!). So I thought it was a nice idea to dig out this LO I made some years ago of a walk I took on another lovely day like this, with my SIL and the kids at a beautiful place about an hour's drive from here, called the Devil's Punch Bowl.

Journal reads: "Our 'Test Walk' at the Devil’s Punch Bowl was much luckier than the 'real thing' – we had gorgeous sunshine and brilliant views across the gorge and from the ridge across the surrounding lands.
Fiona had chosen the location particularly as an “Autumn Colours Walk”, and indeed, the trees were beautiful, but the main attraction was an abundance of many types of fungi everywhere along the way. The place seemed aptly named, not only as a Devil’s punch dent in the range, but because one could imagine it to be a favourite spot for all his witches to descend and collect some ingredients for their cauldrons…! It also prompted Eleanor to suggest another challenge for the walk: the 'Mushroom Trail' – the person who could find the most different varieties of fungi would win the trophy (it went to Granddad Bob in the end!)."

My first ever scrapbook page

Just had the idea of showing you this one: it's my first ever scrapbook page. Of course nowadays you can buy cow patch paper, but in those days there was only plain paper, so I made it myself. I copied the journal in below the photo so that the whole thing will make sense to you: the LO was inspired by the photo, taken at a friend's wedding, as well as Sean's "Sean the Sheep" birthday card - when he gave it to me he was also carrying a single small rosebud stem in his mouth - it was soooo cute!

Journal reads:
"This lovely photo was taken at my cow-loving friend Maggie’s wedding party in November 1998. The handcrafted special picture frame was her definite favourite wedding gift. Sean’s pose was inspired by his very first birthday card he had given me the year before, and had everybody in absolute fits!"

Bellringer's Outing

Yesterday, we were away most of the day for the Bellringer's Outing, visiting 5 different churches in Hampshire with a mixed group of ringers of the Guildford Diocese. There were 9 people there from Chertsey, including Sean, his Dad and myself (with Jean along, mainly having little village walks with the dogs while the rest of us were ringing). It was the first time I took actively part in this event and got to ring at least one session of plain rounds in each of the towers. It was amazing how different the bells were - all of them lighter (some by a long margin!) and easier to ring than ours in Chertsey, and I really enjoyed it. It was also interesting to see the different churches and some really lovely typically English villages...
I took a few photos but haven't had time to make pages yet, so here's a bellringing LO which I made for Sophie after her visit here last year.

This is a digital LO made with the "Retro" kit from Club Scrap and a template from Jen Caputo. I think the journalling is big enough to read on the LO itself, so no need to repeat it...

Sean the Sheep

Thought I show this LO today - there's a new exhibition at the Lightbox Gallery in Woking, about Wallace, Grommit and Sean the Sheep which I would like to see and hope to go with my friend Monica some time later this year. We both have one of the Sean the Sheep backpacks you can see in this LO, and both use them for our Scottish dancing stuff when we go to the reel clubs - much to everybody's amusement! But I do love my little Sean the Sheep rucksack, and the LO explains why (journal below).

Journal: "I wasn’t really very much aware of the cartoon character of SEAN THE SHEEP, until I met my husband – SEAN. Needless to say, people have a habit of giving him SEAN THE SHEEP goodies as presents, and at various times he’s had t-shirts, underwear, socks, fridge magnets, pencils, mugs and of course, videos… Over the years, the little critter grew on me quite a bit, so when I found this cute little backpack in a charity shop I had to have it. That summer, SEAN THE SHEEP followed me round everywhere, reminding me of SEAN all the time. I’ve still got him around, although he spends more time in the cupboard nowadays – maybe next year I should pull him out again for the summer…"

Well, he's out of the cupboard again, as I said - on duty at least twice a week for dancing... Below is just a little close-up of the photo, so you can see him better!

LO Threads of Love

Here's another rather old LO I made which I think is interesting. It really is about charity stitching and the beginnings of Stitches for Presents, the group I run (see link in sidebar). It does have pictures of some projects I'd made at the time, as well as a few mini samples of different stitching techniques that I like: cross stitch; Hardanger; Blackwork; and Canvaswork; as well as other needlecraft related embellishments I made myself. I also stitched the green divider lines onto the paper, and the vellum is sewn own with beads...

The text reads: "Despite many years of stitching and countless projects for my own house and for friends, including many birth and wedding samplers, I had to come to England to discover stitching for charity! This pair of cats was a sponsored picture as part of a Noah’s Ark wallhanging. It was my first ever charity piece through Ladyshield Stitchcraft and brought in £148 on its own. The finished project and the total of nearly £2500 went to St Oswald’s Jigsaw Appeal for Children with Life-Limiting Conditions, at Christmas 1999. The idea, though, took hold and in the wake I started to form Stitches for Presents, a postal club for people who want to continually stitch for good causes, and to date (August 2002) the group has had 53 members!"

To date (October 2007) we have had nearly a hundred members over the years, with 40 currently active. For an update on Stitches for Presents (SfP) please follow the links in the sidebar to our website (general info) or to our blog (latest updates).

School Cones - Part 2

Just thought this LO was a nice addition to yesterday's story - it shows you that it is really not a new thing (another LO I made many years ago...):

Left is my Mum in 1935 - right is me in 1970...

I'm back

Well, I admit I lost touch with my blog - wasn't in the mood for posting and had to rethink what to do with it. My life doesn't seem to be that exciting although I'm always busy... Here's an update:
1. The shop was a flop - full stop. (Haha, at least it rhymes...) A few friends bought a few bits and that was that - I can't seem to find a way to link into google properly for OTHER people to find it, and Sean is too busy to look into these things. Maybe one day... Meanwhile, please remember my little shop when you need some crafts stuff, and maybe spread the news amongst your crafting friends. The prices are certainly good! (Link is in the sidebar!)
2. The dancing season has started again and I've already been to the Opening Dance, a Dance Scottish Open Day afternoon and several of the Addlestone and Guildford club nights. Great fun, I just love it...
3. Everything else is going it's usual way so nothing to tell really.

Now for this blog, since I don't seem to be doing too good on any of the scrapping projects I started (like the Year-a-Day Challenge and the ALS) I shall try instead to show some older LOs I made over the years, just in a random format - once a day or every other day. This should add interest for my non-scrapping friends who would like to learn more about me, as well as for the scrappers who can see what different kinds of artwork I've produced over the years, and will hopefully help me to not leave such huge posting gaps between things of interest... So here's the first LO:

A LO I made many years ago, quite at the beginning of my scrapbooking career when my stash consisted of plain papers and basic letter stickers and a few cardmaking goodies such a Mulberry paper. I had a phase of doing these kind of shape LOs - this one is photos interspersed with sweet packages. The meaning of this and the shape becomes clear from the journal:

"There’s one German tradition that has survived the purge in the aftermath of WW2 – and that is the “First Day of School Cone”. In Germany, simply known as “Schultüte” (School Carrier).

Generally, at age 6, German kids start their 4-year primary school careers, the first stage of compulsory education in the country. And on that day, every child – boys and girls alike – is given a fanciful paper cone filled with sweets and goodies as a present. It’s good-bye to the playful days of childhood and welcome to the “real world”, because although we all coveted the goodies inside, those cones are incredibly heavy and have to be carried around for a good many hours.

Here, my Mum and Nan were exceptionally kind to me: the better part of the sweets stayed at home and my cone was stuffed with crumpled newspaper more than halfway up and only topped with goodies, just in case that I was asked to share some with friends… Thanks Mum and Nan!"