No Completed Crafts Today …….. But Ideas In The Pipeline

As you read this I will be enjoying the pleasures of Bournemouth and Poole’s bracing sea air, café society and the very finest of charity shop shopping!  Our stay was all part of a “Gift Experience” given by my sister in law for Christmas 2019, but we all know what happened shortly after that Christmas ……. but 20 months on and several bookings and cancellations later, we’ve finally been able to use it!

However it’s also been another disruption to my efforts to get crafting and posting again  ……. so rather than no post at all I thought I’d share some ideas that I haven’t quite pulled off yet.

I’m really into tins at the moment after seeing some lovely ideas at a craft fayre at the Wedgewood Visitors Centre in Stoke on Trent where we went for afternoon tea recently.  I just wish I’d taken more pictures, as is always the case when looking at new ideas.

But look at the price?  However, I soon found that old tins, no matter how small command a quite a high price, so still inspired I went on the search of new ones ……….

….. and found these 20ml rectangular tins, with hinged tops that measure 60mm x 47mm and cost me £4.25 plus 73p P & P from eBay, which I can spray if I want.

I’ve only had a little play with them so far.  The front backing paper is a little pale for my liking at the moment.  Lining the tin with scraps of paper was an awful lot easier than I had anticipated. I quite like the inside with a textured painted background using Aleene’s True Snow, but I need to lay it on much thicker.  The tree, which I think I will add baubles to (flat backed gems etc.) is set in air drying clay, which needs to be a less deep/thick and then painted again with Aleene’s.

On the blank side I think I will use small letter squares to spell out Merry Christmas or “Oh Christmas tree”. I might also put a small bail on the back so it can be hung up as a tree decoration, however I think I have a basic idea to develop further here.

I also looked at small cigar tins winning these on eBay for £1 for 10 plus £3.80 P & P, so roughly 50p each.  They measure 10cm square and are much deeper at 2cms than I first thought, but opens up more possibilities for contents.

Again I have done very little with them so far, but with Halloween in mind  I did try spraying them black ……….

Which worked out pretty well. When dry I tried to rough the tin up a bit getting perhaps not quite the effect I was looking for, it looks a bit scratchy rather than weathered, but it’ll do.

I think I am going to put a haunted house in the bottom section, changing around the laser cut embellishments on another house I made earlier to fit, with a large skeleton in the top, with trick or treat in a jumbled array of various letters (?). On the front I may put something like “open if you dare”.  Again it’s a nugget of an idea.

So, that’s where I am at at the moment, a little frustrated in getting started, but at the moment, while the opportunities are there I think I should really be out and about and not stuck indoors at the crafting table or computer!

Malvern Flea And Antique Fair–August Bank Holiday 2021

I think the August Bank Holiday Malvern Flea/Antique Fair Lu will be the last one Lu and I attend for this year ……..

…….. there’s a couple more in the coming months but as the days get colder and wetter we’re pretty much fair weather friends and we can wait until next Easter now I reckon.

As I always say, for us it’s the best day out for pure pleasure for just £5 (there’s not even a charge for the parking) we could wish for …………

…….. with hundreds of antique and/or bric a brac stalls all in one huge field and under several assorted sheds ……..

……. and as per usual I took plenty of photos of the things we drooled over wishing we both had much bigger houses to fill ………

…….. made us smile ……..

……. or lusted after as objects of great desire.

We both fell in love with this tableware by Rob Turner, I don’t think there’s any age to it, but it was just so pretty.  I love my Royal Doulton Minden, but this sorely tempted me ……..

……. and I intend to do some further research on it when I have a spare five minutes.

The cocktail cabinet above is what I will regret and remember for the rest of my life!  It was only £40, I would have bought it in a shot had I got somewhere to put it and then bought it lovingly back to it’s former glory. The picture doesn’t do it any justice at all.  The mirror on the back was painted with red and gold cocktail shakers, glasses etc. and the red and silver mirror section at the front only turned all the way round to reveal spaces for bottles and glasses!  Can you imagine what state I was in, in the presence of something of such great beauty?  OMG I wanted it soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo badly.

I am still looking for my little bit of Lourdes, this (above) was a little too battered and I did find a tiny holy water bottle, but the price was a little to much for my purse, it seemed as if the seller was just throwing prices out left right and centre and I couldn’t be bothered to haggle, so my quest will deliciously continue.

I did however buy this ………….

I’ve never seen anything like it before.  I thought it was glass but on picking it up it was a heavy plastic. It was so unusual and quite large. I picked it up and put it down several times and then decided to haggle as there was one broken flower on it. I got down to £3, which wouldn’t even buy a cup of coffee and it now sits in my autumnal themed lounge atop a Poundland mercury glass candlestick with a smaller glass encased candle inside.

It was another brilliant day, I bought a couple more things, one in particular that required Lucy and my taking turns in carrying it round for the rest of the day  ……….but that’s for another post!

Autumnal Door Wreath

This is the first bit of crafting I’ve done in a long, long while, summer adventures and the school holidays have just got in the way, as they should have!

I used a basic twig wreath (£1 I think) bought from the Home Bargains Christmas Range (2020) with this sort of idea in mind.

Considering just how out of practice I have become, it all came together quite quickly and well.

I started by glue gunning fabric leaves from The Works (£1 for a bag of 50 assorted Autumn colours) all the way around at various angles.

I then added three packs of these paper flowers, also from The Works. I believe I bought them in the Christmas sale, possibly a couple of years back now. I don’t think they’ve had any in recently.

I had collected some small beech cones (well, I think that’s what they are) from the nearby park the other day with this specific purpose in mind. I think they work really well, despite such a mismatch of materials, something I don’t usually feel comfortable doing, but they successfully filled in the gaps.

Smaller gaps were then filled in with sections cut from a green glitter necklace I’ve had forever, but knew I would eventually find a use for.  I’m not now 100% sure about including them, but I think that’s me being super picky.

I thought I was finished at that point, but when I held the wreath up there was still something missing, more foliage (?) but I didn’t have anything of a natural type nature, then I remembered some wooden laser cut sprigs I had, would they work?

I coloured the sprigs with a green pen and think I got away with it ……….

…… despite, as I said, being totally out of my comfort zone using so may varied materials.

The wreath is now hanging on my door as I post.  On looking at the pictures I can see it’s not quite as rounded on the left hand side as I would like, but I know I am super critical of my own work.

It’ll be in place until just before Halloween when I will probably replace it with something more spooky and then put it back for perhaps for more few weeks until December 1st when I will going into festive mode.  Happy days!

Antony Gormley’s Another Place, Crosby Beach, Sefton

No trip to Southport would be complete without a trip to Antony Gormley’s Another Place, an installation of 100 cast iron, life size figures on Crosby Beach, in Sefton.

Another Place, Mariners Road, Crosby Beach, Liverpool, Merseyside, L23 6SX

The haunting sculptures are spread out along three kilometres of the foreshore and stretching almost one kilometre out to sea.

Each Another Place figure weighs 650 kilos and are made from casts of the artist's own body.  They all look out to sea, staring at the horizon in “silent expectation”

“According to Antony Gormley, Another Place harnesses the ebb and flow of the tide to explore man's relationship with nature. The seaside is a good place to do this. Here time is tested by tide, architecture by the elements and the prevalence of sky seems to question the earth's substance. In this work human life is tested against planetary time. This sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body. It is no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing a horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufactured things around the planet.”

I have been several times now, and love it more each time I visit.

It would be so wonderful to live close enough to visit every day, to see how the beach and installation change with the seasons, light, weather and tide.  I have only ever seen it on a dull day …………..

…….. with the sea so far out its almost impossible to pick out against the skyline.

It’s without doubt, not the prettiest of beaches ………….. but what’s been created there is special and holds a very special place in my heart …….. perhaps even more so than the beautiful beaches of my beloved Greece, this place makes me feel peaceful and calm, and weirdly, very safe.