fabric from photos

I have been playing on Spoonflower again today.  I have ordered some test swatches of fabric from some of the photos I took at the weekend of trees and lichen.  I have left the scale quite big so they are quite bold especially with the bright sky blue and yellow of the lichen.  I thought that if they came out ok I could make some easy gathered skirts with them. Or some cushion covers.  Or some fab frocks.

Some of them wouldn't come up on the link for some reason 

blue sky, lichen yellow

We had a family walk in the winter sun-shine this morning, the dog sniffed and sprinted around happily and the kids had fun despite their usual protests.  And I found some bright yellow and pale green lichen to photo against the bright blue sky.  It almost looks unreal it is so blue, but this was it.

 posing amongst the dead lupins

Also had a good weekend, I went to Hot Yoga and sweated a lot.  I went dress shopping with a couple of girl-friends, which was fun. I wasn't shopping for me but I did end up buying something.  Tut tut.  And I went running and looked at a really nice house that I want but can't afford. 

birthday cake

My big girl turned thirteen over the weekend,  a milestone to become a teenager, and a little traumatic for her mother, to be old enough to be the mother of a teenager.  Actually I am old enough to respectably be the mother of a child much older than that, but I am not.  In good english style she wanted to go to the pub for her birthday, so we went to the pub with friends and families and ate curry. very nice!

I made her a chocolate trifle cake (chocolate sponge with chocolate custard and cream) which is quite delicious, I have eaten too much ( I should not be left unattended in the same room as a cake).  I found a graffiti rendition of her name from here.  

I will not be applying for any food photography jobs.

snail graffitti

I was searching for some graffiti writing of my daughters name to print out and put on top of her birthday cake and I came across this.

I am tempted to go out in the garden and find all the snails for some graffiti time.

found here

on further investigation I found these ones too.  

 pretty

 London

 festive snail

deviant art

Slinkachu Snail

It seems it is quite last year darling!  But I still like the idea.  I can't wait till morning when it is light enough to find those little slimy creatures.  None will be harmed in the grafitti procedure.  

magnetic poetry

I found these poems on the fridge this morning, I don't know what they mean but I like them.

From the hand of a ,nearly, teen-ager!

patio make-over.

"The Mediterranean Courtyard Garden" as we have fondly called it in its general state of appalling slovenliness.  It started as a nice brick and gravel area, when we moved in, went on to become a rather nice vege patch, and then a rather weedy patch and a down-right wild-life reserve.  It had been a mess so long we didn't notice it, except when we had visitors with which came a timely reminder of the state of disgrace we were in.  So finally we got the impetus to sort it.  Its a little bare now as it is winter and plant growth is slow, but we have sunshine and even now it is a great place for tea and toast/cake/whatever you fancy.  The dog is a little confused as this area is where she goes to the loo and it keeps changing, but she is coping ok I think.

I removed the ivy on this part of the fence over christmas, which nearly finished me off, see here,  

 We managed to lay a nice square brick patio, small and sweet

It is certainly much more calming to look at than it was, can't wait till spring when everything starts to grow and the blossom trees start a bloomin.

swedish fabric

I was feeling a little Scandimanian, so I looked up Scandinavian fabric.  One fabric caught my eye so I checked out the web-site The Swedish Fabric Company to see what else was there and it was all wonderful and fabulous and I wanted lots of it.  Especially after my recent cushion cover extravaganza here and here and here.  Anyway here is a selection of fabrics I liked.

I don't know how people design stuff like this but I am glad that they do.

it's a wild day today

Today our little town has gone from blue skies and mild mannered sunshine, to wild and windy and all rather dramatic really.  Occasional mad downpours of torrential proportions. and biblical style clouds, which I like but have failed to completely capture the pure drama of.

 above, orange things found on the beach yesterday.  From a boat I think.  I contemplated drilling a hole in the orange plastic thing and making a necklace.  My husband gave me that look, or possibly made a comment, about this idea.

And today I must paint this yellow wall  a nice white colour.  The yellow was chosen by me because I had some fabric with this colour on it , (below),which looked really pretty.  It does, however look a bit different on the wall and although nice and cheery, and it goes and amazing colour as the sun goes down, it has to go.

kate mccguire

No fluffy feathers here.  All dark and powerful, I imagine Greek myths, mythical beasts, avenging Angels, gushing, pouring and creeping about the place.  Imagine one of these coming out of your oven when you're cooking the dinner!

Oh to have the imagination and ability and patience to make one of these.

 White feather sculpture from her web-site

dinner anyone? what the cool

 dark at visual sundae