Look up, look down x

Hello and welcome to this weeks Look up, look down.

A couple of weeks ago I took myself off to Tyntesfield which is a beautiful Victorian gothic house owned by the National Trust. It is a constant state of flux because it is an ongoing refurbishment house so each time you go you see something a little bit new inside. Sadly you can't take pictures inside but the outside is beautiful too.
As you approach the house from the gardens and look up you can see all the beautiful gothic styled designs on the roofs................

the amazing chimneys and the iron detailing on the weather vane .....

you can also see the stonemasonry carved above the windows in the shape of birds and flowers............

You then look down the stairs to the garden veranda which is lined with.................

blue and purple geraniums....................

and if you look up you will see the blousey blossoms of the wisteria...........

You now come to the house and looking up you can see a wide assortment of gargoyles above the windows..

and the latin motto above the front entrance......................

and if you listen very quietly at the door you might have heard me playing the house piano.......

and finally if you look down you will see the family chapel which nestles next to the main house.

on your way back to the car you will find yourself looking up to the Rose garden............

and down at the perfect orbs of star like flowers on the Aliums..............

look up again and you will spy a wooden gazebo nestled into the corner of the garden adorned with handmade tiles..............

and if you look down in the gazebo you will see more mosaic tiling set into the floor in a wealth of designs.......

I hope you give Tyntesfield a visit if you are ever nearby.

Rinda's scavenger hunt part 2 x

Hello and welcome to another selection of photographs for Rinda's Summer 2013 Scavenger hunt.

So firstly here are 2 entrants for the something or someone sleeping:

first my dad relaxing after the big lunch he had on Father's Day, aww...........

and secondly Willow sleeping on my bed and wrapped up in my favourite scarf.............

 

Next Rinda wanted us to take a picture of a dinosaur and for this one I was not really sure what would happen. Then yesterday I was buying some rose creams for my mum when there I spied chocolate dinosaurs. Well Rinda didn't say they had to be real..............

 

They actually look quite yummy................

 

And finally for this entry, a view of my favourite coffee shop which is Caffe Nero in Wells. They serve lovely Earl Grey tea and cappucino cake and the staff are always friendly and helpful.

Happy and very exciting news x

Hello and welcome to a very excited and happy me today. I have been keeping a little secret from you all which I am now allowed to tell you.

I was a brave little toaster and recently applied to work with a rather wonderful scrapbooker/designer and blogger whose class I told you about. Her name is Kristin and her new class is called ''Find your Voice''. I had to send her several projects and links to my blog and also my Pinterest and social media sites. I was a bit nervous about applying but I went back and re-read Julie Kirk's brilliant series on applying for design teams and took alot of her advice. I used 3 project examples about storytelling including one layout, one minibook and a Storytelling Sunday post (thank you Sian).

 Then last Sunday Kristen sent me a very lovely email inviting me to be a member of the team. I was doing a happy dance and trying to explain to few non-blogging/non-scrapbooking friends and family what I was going on about, but now I can tell all the lovely people who I know will understand just what it means.

Here is the BIG announcement....................

''I am so excited to announce the names of all the amazing women who are going to be helping me out this summer. They are all incredibly talented, eager, and enthusiastic and will be a huge part in making this workshop and the Find Your Voice community a success. Please join me in welcoming them! 

Jessica Bree, Emily Dismukes, Molly Porter, Emily Hathcock, Lisa Wilkinson, Veronica Milan, Michelle Wear, Laura Kate Is Crafty, Jen Ritchie, Allie, Katie Stories, Shay Tibbs, DeeDee Catron, Megan Anderson, Nirupama KUmar, Eden Hensley, Margrethe Aas Johnsen, Jo, Kim Poplaski, Ruth Bonser, Fiona D'Elboux,, Alissa @Lifeonlakeland, Kristin Long, and Melissa Priest.

These women will be sharing their thoughts, feelings, and creative projects with us as we all work together this summer to find our voices. Thank you again to all of these great women!''

Kristin will be adding links to all our blogs so you can see what we are all like and how we tell stories.

 So we all have specific roles to play in the class which include creating projects but also to search participants work and blogs for projects to share and of course to spread the word about the class and the projects as well. It will be a very exciting 8 weeks. I hope some of you will join in. The class itself is free and will go live on June 24th on Kristin's blog. There is also a forum on Facebook where we can all meet and share. 

If you would like to find out more about the class then pop over here to Kristin's blog for further details. It would be lovely to see some friendly faces in the group. I will of course be sharing more about the class and my work, and my fellow team mates work as class begins. 

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and giving me the confidence to go for it xx

Look up, look down x

Another week and more photographs for Helena's meme, Over the last few weeks I have been adventuring out to far flung places so I am collecting some lovely photos to share with all on this meme.

So this week I am sharing a walk I took..........

Sometimes when I am depressed I can literally walk it off and so last week on a particularly sunny day I did just that. I walked, and walked,........................ and walked basically because I got slightly lost. I have a habit of following my nose when it comes to walking and so I ended up walking to a village I didn't expect to. But it was worth it for the views and the feeling of happiness it brought.

The fields were full of beautiful wild flowers when I looked down including buttercups, daisy, clover and I am sure some wild orchids.......................

If you looked up you could see the way through King's Castle Wood and up to the fields.................

Looking back and down, you can see the old hospital where I live with the spire of the chapel in the distance......

Looking up there was a wonderful map of the woods and information about the nature reserve.................

Looking up you could the gnarled old tree bark..................................

and looking down you could see holes where animals had probably burrowed......................

Looking down you can see a closer look at the hospital and the beautiful cows eating their grass in the field.

And finally my poor foot which after 4 hours did not look quite so clean, pretty or unblemished................ they hurt for 3 days x

Rinda's Scavenger hunt 2013 - part 1 x

Welcome to another week on the blog and the beginning of my scavenger hunt results. I've had a bit of a run of luck and got several categories sorted already so here is the first batch.

The first item on Rinda's list is a street market which I found yesterday in Bath................

Next a theatre. I won tickets on Twitter on Friday to go and see a play called ''Fifty words'' at The Ustinov Studio in Bath yesterday afternoon so here is the main Theatre Royal.................

and this is The Ustinov where the play was held.................

Next candles, these are some of the candles lit for prayers in Wells Cathedral where I have been worshipping recently................

Next a stained glass object or mosaic. I took a picture of one of the beautiful stained glass windows in the Cathedral.....................

A tower and this is one on the cathedral again.................

And finally today a civic building, this is Wells Town Hall where The Mayor sits and the town council works.........

So off to a great start, anyone else taking part and how are you doing so far?

How to make a lampshade x

So last weekend I went to my local fabric shop Millie Moon for a class on making your own lampshades. It was by far one of the best classes I've done because it was fun and relatively simple to make.

So Harriet took us step by step through the making of our lampshade which required alot of sticking and a small amount of cutting out. We were able to choose our own fabric from the whole shop and I chose one called ''Get a clue Nancy Drew'' by Moda  because I loved the TV show as a child and the fabric design was vintage Nancy Drew books.

We were each given two lampshade rings one for the top and one for the bottom................

So the next part was to choose which part of our fabric we wanted to show on our shade and then to cut a piece of special sticky backed white lampshade plastic to strengthen our fabric on the back. We then had to stick special doublesided sticky tape onto the fabric, I kept saying ''It's just like scrapbooking!''.........

This is the fabric all ready for unpeeling the tape backing.....................

once unpeeled it was a simple case of sticking the bottom and top edges of fabric back on itself to form a neat edge.............................

and this is the right side of the fabric all stuck down.....................

Next 2 of us worked in unison to roll the two lampshade wires onto the fabric top and bottom and then to stick the bottom pieces of fabric over the rings for a lovely neat finish.

And here are all our finished lampshades (mine is top right)..............

And here we all are with our completed lampshades and our brilliant teacher Harriet who is next to me with the long hair and fawn outfit.........................

Service with a great big smile x

So today I wanted to share with you 2 companies who have provided me with service and then some extras.

Firstly I would like to thank Sarah from SJ Crafts. I have purchased scrapbooking supplies from her on a number of occasions and she is always very helpful, but on this occasion she went above and beyond. I received an email from Sarah explaining that one of the items was out of stock due to selling more than expected at local crops. So I said that was fine and to surprise me with something.

So the parcel of goodies arrives and along with a lovely sheet of Glitz design labels and stickers were several off cuts Sarah had used and given to me. So that was rather lovely as I'm sure there is more than a whole sheet of bits included.

this is the sticker sheet I'd been after for the doilies x

Secondly, I wanted to purchase 2 die cut shapes from Lawn Fawn who are an American company. One is available in the UK but I thought if I really want the other then I'll buy them from source which I did. Imagine my excitement when they arrived, with no extra customs payment required. This had caused a problem from another American store when I needed to pay another fee on top of what I'd already paid. Anyway inside the envelope along with my lovely die cuts was a ''Thanks'' stamp and several sheets of patterned paper.

So I would like to thank both Lawn Fawn and SJ Crafts for amazing service and I would recommend them to anyone to try.