Green Knowe

As a child I read the books written by Lucy M Boston about the house of Green Knowe, and found them magical.  Years later when I had my own children I bought the set so they could read them.  However, it was only a few years ago that I discovered that Lucy Boston had lived only a few miles from where I do now, and had based the house and garden in her books on the house she lived in.

This week I finally booked a tour of the Manor House, and we were shown round by the author's daughter in law, Diana Boston, who lives there now.  It brought the magic back to walk through the rooms and gardens where the children in the books had walked, and see the artifacts that appeared in the books!  It was also lovely to see Lucy's own patchwork quilts that she made during her lifetime.

I have scrapbooked some of the photos from the day:

As you can see, the main picture hinges back to reveal the other pages hidden inside, together with a bit of journalling about the visit.

Junk Key: Round 2

I currently have Yolanda's key, which is an Alice in Wonderland theme.  I have added a printed charm of Alice, with a little silver teapot and teacup plus blue and white ribbons (the colour of Alice's dress)

May Calendar Journal

I decided to get this done early, as I will be busy up to the end of the month.  My inspiration was the bunches of May (or Hawthorn) blossom that traditionally start to open on May Day.  I painted the background and added die cut flowers (Tim Holtz Tattered Florals dies)  with stamped centres and stamped leaves around them.  I also added little stamped and coloured bees around the flowers.

Unfortunately they don't look as much like May blossom as I planned, as I couldn't find the watercolour paper I wanted to use.  I'm still happy with how they came out though.

April Calendar Journal

I got painterly with this month's pages as I wanted birds eggs, I'm really pleased how they came out!

I Dream of Antlers

I have some poetry that I want to add images to and print.  This is just a try out, using a photo taken a few years ago by my lovely daughter Gemma and edited in Picasa.

Angel Canvas Swap

This is a swap on the main UK Scrappers forum, based on a decorated canvas in a recent copy of Craft Stamper magazine.  It involved painting a pretty teaspoon and adding wings to make it an angel, then attaching it to a decorated canvas.

I was asked to make mine for Lynn, who wanted some blues and gold for her colour scheme,  The canvas came together quite well, with texture paint through stencils, papers and layers of paint.  The spoon proved more difficult as it took a few layers of gesso to cover it up, then I added a special iridescent paint and the gesso softened and wiped off!  I had to peel it all off and start again, this time I used ordinary acrylic paints and thicker layers of gesso and it seemed to do the trick.

 I am no artist so I refused to try and paint a face in the bowl of the spoon;  I thought I had suitable face stamps but it turned out I didn't!  Plan B then was to use air drying clay with a set of face moulds, and once they were dry I could pick one that fitted best, paint it and add it on.  The wings are a wooden butterfly that came in a free decoupatch kit from a magazine;  this was painted and then microbeads were added at the sides.

Lynn has now received her canvas and is pleased with it,  and I am looking forward to receiving mine in due course from my mystery swappee.

Junk Key

This is another 'circle' swap I have joined on the Secret Swappers.  Each person starts with a key, either a real one that has no use, or a decorative one, and chooses their theme.  They then add a key charm on their theme to their own key and pass it on to the next person who will add a charm in the key's theme and so on.  There are only five people to add to each key as it might get a bit bulky otherwise!

My theme was Gothic/Edgar Alan Poe, and I made my key charm about his poem, The Raven.   I had a metal wing charm big enough for me to add a tiny quote to, and a silver bird skull that I sanded and painted black with Humbrol enamel paint.  I hung the skull up to dry, and watched the paint slide down and drip off the end of the beak, I had to keep mopping it so I didn't end up with a big solidified drip hanging off it!

 However, in the end it looked quite effective, so I hung the charms off the key on a bit of silver chain and threaded some black cord through it all.  It is now away on its travels, and I look forward to getting it home in a few months with other people's work hanging from it too!