Smoothing out the creases

Cherry Choker

For one reason & another, I haven't had many opportunities to flex my creative muscles recently. I'm not a good person to be around when this happens - I become twitchy, impatient & unable to sleep because I get stuck in overdrive.

Yesterday I struck gold because my son wanted to practice drawing some Marvel superheroes ( as well as an actor, he also wants to be a comic book artist & a game designer; preferably all at the same time!!) so I shut the study door on my computer & using Dan Jurgens' book for guidance,we spent the afternoon drawing in my beloved Shack. Drawing Captain America & Cyclops might not sound exciting, but spending 'Shack Time' with Tom & all the other super heroes was cool.

We have our best conversations in the Shack! Everyone does. People wander round to see what projects I've got on the go or look at books & then - wham!! They're sat in the rocking chair & we're talking about life, the universe & everything. My Shack nestles amongst trees & shrubs & has a panoramic view across the golf course to the other side of the valley, so it feels calm, restorative & peaceful. There's no noise except bird song & no clocks to watch. 'Shack Time' is good time!

Most of the knots & needles of tension which I'd collected over the week were relieved by Daredevil & Nightcrawler. Laura Sparling swabbed my petulance today because I played with some of her beads - yeee haaa!

Cherry is quite a big girl - she's about 3½ inches across. I need to take some more photographs of her because the dull background has interfered with the colours of the leaves - they are composed of shades of fresh green & olive in reality. I'll add that to my list of things to capture the next time the sun shines for my camera.

I'm celebrating because I'm back in the groove - I want another dose of beads - I'm a full blown addict today!

Fondant Fancy - my entry for Art Bead Scene's June challenge

Are these delicious cakes decorated with chocolate & dusted with icing sugar?

No, they're art glass beads by Emma Ralph and another bracelet which I'm going to add to my website soon.

Oceanic Splendour!

Aegean Heart Pendant

This pendant is one of the pieces that I'm going to add to my website over the weekend.

Isn't Laura Sparling's heart bead stunning? It takes my breath away! I'm very lucky to have the opportunity to hold this focal bead in my hand & study it. This is a luxury bead!

What they don't tell you!

Leather Garland Necklace

I have a question. It's a topic that no one addressed in any of the child rearing manuals that I poked my nose into when coping with Child Number One. ( When I finally realised that children don't always do what the books say they will, I threw away the earnest tomes thinking that this might help me discard the 'Bad Mother' label that I'd cemented around my neck. Only after I read, 'Families & How to Survive Them' by Robin Skynner & John Cleese did I finally quit the road to perfection & embrace the more realistic goal of being a 'good enough' parent.)

Rewind to the question. My children love painting, making, shaping & decorating things. They have a large craft cupboard (handing over the largest cupboard in the utility room was one of the most sensible decisions I've ever made) in which all manner of fascinating things are stored. I enjoy a good rummage in there - I think anyone would. Pipe cleaners, sequins, Mod Podge, googly eyes, foil, stickers, stamps, multicoloured ink pads, ribbon, beads, buttons, wool, art straws - I think it's one of the coolest cupboards in the land! BUT!

In England, the architects who designed the majority of the housing stock in our shires would appear to have shared the opinion that people can live in a house without ever wanting to store anything for a reasonable length of time. I lie. In theory, there's the possibility of storage space in a loft, but gaining access to one of these can usually only be achieved with the help of two strong men & a very long ladder. There's also the drawback that the hatch to the loft is usually smaller than any cardboard box you might want to stow up there, so let's just agree that the only things you can sensibly store in a loft are your Christmas decorations.

Most modern houses now assume you wear clothes so a built-in wardrobe is likely. An understairs cupboard is a possibility, but once you've got an ironing board, a vacuum leaner & room for the gas & electric meter reader in it, the storage space it offers is fairly limited.

Are you beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to ask my question?

Children throughout the land make things. Miriam Stoppard & Penelope Thingy urge parents to encourage the creative juices which are rampantly flowing through their children & quite rightly so. Parents & grandparents love seeing rockets made out of plastic bottles, masks from paper plates, cars out of boxes & strange animals if you're a Lula. Clay platters, paper flowers & newspaper trees are tenderly handled & admired by proud parents everywhere. So...here comes the question that the architects plus Dr Spock & his progeny do not address.

Exactly where are we supposed to store all these things?

Un-tweaked!

This Year's Blue

This bracelet is tweak-free. Look at that blue - we simply don't have skies this colour!

To tweak or not to tweak - that is the question!

By rights this postcard should be lingering in the art of curiosity's postcard competition blog but this particular pillow needs plumping up so I'm going to post it here instead.

This house is not Italian - Osbourne House is in England. This wannabe Mediterranean 'holiday home' belonged to Queen Victoria and can be found on the Isle of Wight.

This postcard has been in the make-up department. In fact the reason why I love it is because it's had a humdinger of a make-over. In the UK, we occasionally have blue skies, but electric blue?

The water in the pool is a beautiful colour, but either it's suffering from an overdose of Miracle Gro or it's been tweaked.

I love playing 'tweak the black & white photo' almost as much as I like Technicolor films & the fifties' colour palette. If I'm having a wobble and I can't face reading a 'Battle Book' ( there are times when concentrating on one sentence is a challenge), I've found that my form of colour therapy helps and in my particular case, the more saturated a colour is, the better I like it.

My colour exercise is a simple game. Open up your photo editing suite and tweak a photograph. On those deep dark days when you have no choice, but to stay in bed because the world has become a brick wall, try to fire up your lap top & play the tweak game. What colours lift you? Which palette of colours makes sense?

If you find yourself lost in this game for a minute or more, congratulations! You have experienced mindfulness & this is an invaluable tool when dealing with depression. Patches of mindfulness heal. Trust me. I know.

I've come back to soothe my blog

Beach

I've neglected my infant blog in favour of the competition's site, but its guardian has now returned ready to do battle with words.


I haven't brewed up an entry yet, but I've got sleep to look forward to so I may find something in my dreams.

In the meantime here is a fresh picture of the first prize entitled 'Beach'.

Over the weekend, I'm hoping to slot in some time to assemble the selection of pendants that I am offering as a second prize. When I woke up this morning, it was the first thing on my 'things to do which I actually enjoy doing', but sadly the 'life crap' list has presidence & it took me over today. I don't know which is worse - 'life's crap paperwork' or 'life's crap chores'?

Put on the imaginary boots & wade through the mire - the island you're trying to reach is a worthwhile goal , but you may not manage to reach it everyday.