flour and apples

flour and apples

The last few weeks seem to have gone by in a blur of getting H ready for school, and running around like a zombie chicken with my head cut off (decapitation is not an effective means of incapacitating poultry). I baked a loved cinnamon apple crumble on Saturday after visiting a lovely little apple stall on a farm not far from here. I haven't tried to write a recipe because I just threw things together and then added more cinnamon just to be sure in was autumnal enough.

mmmm crumble

The last two Sundays M has taken us to Tansley car boot for a wander around and I managed to find a few little gems to play about with for not much money at all. My favourite item is the tea cup which I bought with the intention of turning into a tea cup candle but I have yet to order any soy wax or wicks yet, but I will do....one of these days... The glass jar was 50p and is filled with some mother of pearl buttons that I'm sure will be put to good crafting one of these days. I miss yardsales and thrifting in the States, its just not the same here.

boot sale treasure

We (and by we I mostly mean me) have also been working in the garden, I took down the plastic green house and stripped the few weedy tomatoes from it which now sit in a dish on the windowsill slowly turning ripe. And with a little help we have the shed/summer house up and painted except for the windows. When it is finished I will order M out with the proper camera to take photos and make everything look much prettier than it actually is.

one, two, three little tomatoes all forlorn

gardening, baking, playing

H doing very important planting

Yesterday H and I did some baking and gardening, what else is a boy to do at half term? He helped make some banana coconut and pecan muffins, and had been practicing his barista skills with M making coffee. We haven't really got much done, but that doesn't matter he has helped to plant a little plant in the garden, and played at being dragons, monsters, Jedi knights and Darth Vader, most of this didn't involve me as he was twirling around the garden having a merry time for himself.

liliac in the garden

About five minutes ago H went off with his grandma to go to his swimming lesson so I have the house to myself for an hour or two before M comes home, I'm not feeling particularly motivated to craft, or bake or clean, but then again I rarely ever feel the desire to clean, Martha I am not nor will I ever be. Instead I'm watching an episode of Veronica Mars that I downloaded and mulling over some ideas for working on the fairy tale I still haven't finished writing (honest one day it will be done) and thinking about all the comments that were left after my last blog post. Thank you so much everyone who shared their thoughts and themselves with me, it means agreat deal to me, and I will attempt to email you all back individually, but as you should all know by now I'm very slow at writing emails.

banana, coconut, and pecan muffin

p.s. I'll write up a recipe for the muffins if anyone requests it.. they did turn out very nice and got rid of half of the bananas in the fruit bowl that were turning a nice shade of brown.

Painting with Thread

the button thief

Or my feeble attempts at embroidery.

I have harped on an on about my inability to sew anything more complicated than a button so this weekend I decided to do something about it. I bought a little booklet on beginning embroidery, a hoop, some needles, and some embroidery thread. I looked through the book, ignored the patterns, grabbed a pencil and doodled Olwyn and the notorious button thief, and let fly with needle and thread.

Well perhaps not so easily as that, as the back looks quite horrific, but I'm still quite proud as these are the first bits of textile art I have ever done. In school I opted for pottery, art, and mirror etching over home ec. I already knew how to cook and clean, and take care of animals, so really didn't see the point of having to carry around a flour sack baby. So I never learned more than the replacement of lost buttons.

Little Owlwyn

oh and here is a picture of my greenhouse bounty, a purple pepper, 2 red chilies, some red and yellow tomatoes, and a mini cucumber.

espresso got framed

espresso vintage painted page in frame

Doesn't it look fantastic? I think so anyway.. although it won't hang on the wall until we move. I had it framed for M as a gift.. then gave him the invoice for it as well... He was most amused, but can you blame me? he does get a discount with the framers via the studio. A bit of good news as well, three of the bracelets I took in for display and sale at the same framing gallery have sold! I am so very pleased at that, unbelievably happy, and she has requested some more bracelets at the end of the month to mix with whatever is left. I was so happy, but I was not going to spend my heard earned jewellery money on the framing of the pic for M.

beautiful bookmark and crocheted brooch

A little while ago I said that I never win anything, and apparently that is not true because I won this beautiful bookmark and crotcheted flower brooch from Sarah at Pink Petal Designs, that the postman delivered to me yesterday morning. Thank you so much Sarah, the book mark is on its way to nestling between the pages of my latest book purchase, the new Laurel K Hamilton Anita Blake novel.

and last but not least this is one of the little purple peppers growing in my green house, I shall miss that greenhouse when we move.

Illustrator at large

Strawberries

I am so proud this morning H and I picked the first two strawberries of the year from the little strawberry plant in its little pot in the green house! I'm so pleased becuse the ones we tried last year didn't grow very well and seemed to go rotten before they ever got ripe. I didn't get to taste them as H dissapeared with the strawberries in a bowl with a tiny sprinkle of sugar and then re-appeared with an empty bowl 2 minutes later. I have been assured that they were very nice.

This morning after seeing M and H off to work and pre-school, I has a quick tidy and dragged my little paint box out and some book pages. Armed with a cup of very strong black tea, with the bar still in I stained about a dozen pages then proceeded to paint a few that were dry and a few that were still damp with tea. I really can seem to tear myself away from painting these little pages. There is something so romantic and bookish about painting on stained book pages, I love the effect. The only painting that didn't turn out the way I wanted is the tree one, it didn't turn out even vaguely similar to what my intentions were when I set out to paint it. I''m not sure about it yet, I will let in grow on me a bit and see what happens.

Lily

Little White School House

Anne

Defiance Tree

And to prove that I am not all together a coward I have added 4 painted page originals to my etsy shop we shall see if anyone out there likes them as much as I do. Oh and apparently I'm now an Illustrator, thats what Etsy says these paintings are called, Mixed Media Illustrations, very nice.

The Poison Apple Tree

The Poison Apple Tree

Is there ever an evil queen around when you have some poison apples to sell?

I can't seem to leave these vintage story book pages alone. And as I have a special fondness for drawing trees I really couldn't resist combining the two. As for the apples the tree just needed a splash of colour, there for some blood red poison apples on black tree limbs. The tree calls to me, its dying leaves whisper when the breeze is still. It says it needs a mount and a frame and I'm inclined to agree.

I have also been dabbling in a bit of monochromatic bead work, The bracelet below is Black agate, white jade (or possibly white quartz as they look pretty much identical), and silver, I am so tempted to keep it for myself, I have a lovely black blouse it would go great with. I am in dire need of some more silver beads so I have come up with a diabolical plan to drag M and H to Lichfield for the day tomorrow and disappear to Spellbound Beads for just a little while... honest.

Then I really must get to work on the garden, the poor little bean plants and pepper plants in the green house are desperate for re-potting, but at least I have some beautiful lilacs to sniff.

monochrome bracelet

lilacs

Wilted Green Tomatoes

My poort tomatoes have been woefully neglected this past week with everyone having been sick in some way. Poor Starbuck the cat was attacked and his face was punctured in to places, it got infected and was oozing some not very pleasant green pus. Whe had to take him the the vets to get him patched up, the poor thing looked like a monster.

Starbuck as Frankenstien

Starbuck is much better now his wounds are healing nice and cleanly and he seems quite happy again... Well as happy as Starbuck ever gets, he has never really been the life and soul of the party, but he choose us and we choose him so there we are. He is a good cat despite his grumpy disposition, I often wonder why we didn't call him Oscar, as in Oscar the grouch... I will tell the tale of how starbuck got his name in another post, and its a bit more complicated than the coffee place!

Anyway I took care of a poorly cat, a poorly son, and a poorly husband, and just when i thought i was going to be ok I got the virus as well, and am still recovering now, as the cold left me with yet another throat infection which i have had to go to the doctors for and get some penicillin, which is making me feel rather neaseaus, and throw up a few times, but M says I have a weak stomach after all so I shoulden't be suprised.

Anyway my poor tomatoes have been brought back from the brink of withering away several times this past week and seem to keep going on strong, which is good that i haven't killed them, and bad becuse if all those tomatoes do survive its going to be one hell of a crop, I don't know what i'm going to do with them all.

The House of Green

I seem to have underestimated my ability to not kill off the seeds I planted, because they have all turned into rather large plants in the greenhouse. I have tried somewhat successfully to unload some of the tomatoes, and courgette plants on pretty much everyone I could convinced that they needed them, I even gave a few to my neighbours, see I'm very nice, but still they keep growing, and I'm quickly running out of space for them. I have taken most of the courgette (zucchini) and pumpkins out to be planted in the flower boarder, between the rose bushes, or should i say rose sticks after they got trampled by the work men putting up the new fence. I'm not happy about that they destroyed my best rose, not that I really did anything to the roses but they were pretty and smelled nice and now the bush is no more. sigh

Anyway things are all growing beyond my skills to tame them and I really haven't got the heart to let perfectly good plants die. On the other hand I'm quite confused as to how everything is doing so well in the garden but my houseplants never seem to last very long before giving up the ghost as it were. I'll have to see if I can sucker anyone else into taking one of the left over tomato plants as they are desperate for bigger pots and compost which i havent got, and even more desperate for space, which there is none.

Apparently I have green thumbs, I just haven't a clue what I'm doing.

Pumpkin Flower

Peas

Black Thumb Green House

I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time in the garden clippers and trowel in hand of late. I don’t know where this has come from but I feel a bit like the Magician’s Apprentice as I seem to keep going at it trimming plants playing search and destroy against an army of invading weeds. I am not now nor have I ever been a gardener but it appears I seven years of living in England have taken their toll. Next I’ll be saying that anything over an hours drive is just too far and watching Midsomer Murders. Somebody shoot me. Its good grimy fun and god knows the garden does look better, next I’ll be talking about planting bulbs and perennials. Help me. I need a big dose of Krispy Kreme to get me though this trying time. Give me Cinnabun, give me Denny’s, IHOP and all things good and American turn me back from this path I have strayed. I knew we should have got rid of that greenhouse, It all started with one rather sickly tomato plant two years ago and now its seeds sown, soil turned, trees trimmed, weeding sorted. It’s a very dark green affair, courgette, tomatoes, pumpkin, and peppers all sprouting happily. I just have one question why do all my house plants die?