Marc and Rick’s Cottage Garden

Every time I stay with Marc and Rick at their Worcester cottage there is always something new to see …..

…… often new plants have been bought in or old plants have been moved to a sunnier or more sheltered spot and, more often that not, Rick has put large pieces, once part of his many (pre-covid) furniture shows………

…… but may have had a bit of a doink or two, but wouldn’t matter in the slightest in the garden ……..

….. or he’s added things that are now out of fashion …… but perfectly lovely in the garden, especially when they’ve gone a bit green or rusty and then it’s like they’ve always been there.

I like to have a wander ……..

…… never knowing what I will find to coo over round the next corner.

I mean how can you just love this little makeshift shelf at the side of the house, and the mirror? You know how I LOVE a mirror!

Believe me, this gave me a very serious bout of garden envy as soon as I saw it. It made me want to done a battered straw hat, find a trowel and potter for England!

I believe the plants Marc and Rick used in the pots, bricks and bowls are called hen and chicks (?), but I will stand corrected. How beautiful and simple. It made me hanker for my large garden in Wolverhampton and all the things I could have done to it to make it “cosier” and more “cottagey” ………

…… but there again, if I was still there, I would probably still working, having little time to garden, so you can’t have it all.

……. I just wish I could just have a little space under my two back windows to do something really simple, however it’s just not allowed.

After four years at The Towers I admit to getting a little restless, I really would like a tiny garden, that is all mine, with perhaps a little summer house or pretty shed and lots of solar lights. I would also like to be able to hang out my washing outside to dry and a  proper front door and porch to dress up according to the season …….

……… I just need to do the sums, get The Towers valued, see what’s out there in Evesham that I could afford (not a lot) and then “maybe” just “maybe” take the plunge.  I’ve done it once, it wasn’t all that daunting, I am just doing an awful lot of if and butting at the moment ………..

The urge is strong at the moment and it’s there for a reason ………

…… I know “someone” is pushing me and telling me it will be alright. 

I need to mark this date in next years calendar to see if I actually act on these feelings and if I have set anything in motion.

We shall see ………………………………

Wooden Halloween Ghost House Craft Stick Decorations

If I don’t say so myself, these are Halloween ghost houses turned out to be pretty flipping cute!

I started by making up the houses using coloured mini craft sticks from Hobbycraft (£1 for a pack of 50).

……. and then added trick or treat, made using my ancient Dymo label maker

The ghost and bats came from different sellers on e-Bay.  The ghosts were covered in Ranger Enamel Accents and a tiny sprinkling of iridescent ultra fine glitter ……

……… and the bats coloured with a black Sharpie pen and given two tiny, red flat back gem eyes.

I glued one ghost to the back of the house ……

…… one on the shelf and the bat on the roof ………

…… and then, I thought the shelf needed a little something else so I made some tiny Fimo pumpkins to fill in the gaps, using an ultra fine Sharpie pen to draw on the faces.

But it’s the Dovecrafts green 3D Enamel Effects (eBay) that brought the whole thing together, covering the roof and shelf with slim.  I’ll admit that when I first got it, I was a bit disappointed, the test sample I made using the green and other colours (purple and blue) on white looked translucent and wishy washy, where I had expected it to be a bit like Ranger Enamel Accents, however on this project it couldn’t have been more perfect. I have since ordered another two bottles of green and am desperately searching for the white and black options too, but every where I look they are sold out and I am not surprised.

In full swing now I added a small finding so that the decoration can be hung and a confetti cobweb ………

…… before going the whole hog and adding a confetti spider too, please excuse drying glue blobs.

A scattering of tiny silver stars completes the idea, which as  I said at the beginning I am really thrilled with ……. I am now wracking my brains thinking of other MDF shapes I could use/adapt to add to a  range of Halloween houses, perhaps a mummy or twisted tree?  Looks like another search on eBay!

Wooden Ghost Halloween Pin Badge/Brooch

Following on from last weeks Halloween bat pin badges I have the ghost type version this week, which I think have turned out a little better.

Again using the extra small Christmas domino pieces I buy especially for crafting, I covered the picture side with a plain orange paper and coloured the plain side with an orange Sharpie pen.

I then covered the small MDF ghosts (eBay) with white Ranger Enamel Accents with a sprinkling of iridescent ultra fine glitter to add extra and catch the light on a Halloween night.

The ghosts were then stuck on to the covered domino which I had edged with a little faux stitching using a black fine liner pen. When the ghosts were on I put  a few tiny silver stars in between them, again for extra spooky sparkle.

All that was left to do then was to add a tiny brooch finding on the back using an epoxy resin glue as I don’t want to risk the pin coming off when Iris and Bertie in particular wear them.  I also coloured the back of the ghost black to make the brooches look finished off and more professional (not shown).

A really simple project that I am thrilled with, so much so that they then spawned another idea that I will show you tomorrow.

The Connection Between Live Writer, Changes to Blogger and Not Being Able to Save Pictures to Pinterest - Answers On A Postcard Please!

This is just a little information/winge for fellow Blogger bloggers who, like me, may have had difficulty in saving pictures of their projects to Pinterest recently......

As you know I have used a programme called Live Writer to set out my blog posts before publishing via Blogger for almost forever.  I just loved Live Writer because it was far easier to arrange a post, allowing you to add watermarks and borders to photos, as well as size and arrange them on the page far better than Blogger, a very common complaint with other users, which is why Live Writer was so beloved among bloggers.

A while back there were huge problems with Live Writer being "retired" and therefore no longer being updated, which meant changes to Google photos had a massive impact on bloggers (including myself), in the end, GitHub took it over and miraculously created a fix after many months of hard work. In the meantime I had to readjust to using the clunky Blogger interface, so it was a great relief eventually when I was finally able to rekindle my relationship with Live Writer after downloading the new fix.

Then just recently Blogger changed their interface again, I had to move over to it but only used it as a vehicle to publish my Live Writer posts through,  and that's when, in hindsight, my problems saving my photos to Pinterest started.  To start with it was hit and miss, then became an outright refusal to save. I spent a whole flipping day, uninstalling the Pinterest "save" button, I even e-mailed Pinterest (still waiting for that reply!). I am pretty convinced (like the last time) there must be some connection between Google and Blogger that is preventing this, as I need a Google account to log into my blogs, but I haven't been able to work it out yet and don't think I have the will to now!

However, in the end something made me try simply writing a post with pictures using the new Blogger interface, publishing it and then seeing if I could save the pictures .......of course it worked!

I have put the issue on GitHub but I doubt it will be picked up, however I am sure I am not the only blogger who has been affected.   So sadly I am back to using Blogger for FiddleFart in order to save projects/pictures to Pinterest.  

If anyone has had a similar problem and solved it I would just love to know

My Barbola Mirror–Still A Work In Progress.

My version of a barbola mirror is still not put together, I am biding my time  …….

Marc and I put a great deal of time and effort into the Utee flowers I made using my Meltpot when I recently stayed with him at the Worcester cottage ……..

….. in fact we fair transformed them, from dull and flat to vibrant and polished, using goodness knows how many different paints and finishes, it was such fun.

The metal leaves, taken from several identical necklaces found in charity shops and eBay also received the same treatment.

I was also particularly thrilled with how the rather insignificant metal Craft for Occasion flowers turned out ……..

……. after being painted to an inch of their lives and these, along with the leaves will now remain untouched.

However, on getting home and looking at pictures of original barbola flowers ………

…… I want to try to add a few more colours to the utee flowers to see how they look before committing them permanently to the oval mirror I aim to set them on ……….

…….. just in case an extra subtle paint stroke here and there adds something special.  I have more than enough flowers to experiment with a few, so if it doesn’t work, nothing will be lost, I just need to see ……..

….. and after that and with the purchase of a large tube of E6000 it should be mirrors akimbo ……. fingers crossed!

Wooden Halloween Bat Pin Badge Brooches

I think at least four of these pin badge/brooches will find themselves in crackers for my annual Halloween sleepover party later on in the year, Covid-19 obliging.

The badges were made using MDF bats found on eBay, mini Christmas dominoes that I buy specifically for crafting and starry patterned paper.

The plain side of the dominoes were coloured using a black Sharpie pen and the fronts covered with the paper.

The bats were also coloured in black on both sides and then glued to the front of the domino with two tiny red flat back gems added for eyes.

On a few I added a “boo” using my Dymo label maker, but I wasn’t sure if I liked that idea or not.

I wish I had then simply varnished the front with PVA glue instead of using a generous layer of Ranger Glossy Accents ……

……. because I think it’s given them too much shine and somehow the bats and background are lost under it, but that being said taking pictures so close up don’t exactly do them justice. 

I then had another “play” with the idea, using a plain orange background paper and without the Glossy Accents to see if I was right.

Hmmmmmm, I am still not sure, I now don’t like the Glitter Modge Podge I added to the orange paper to seal it ….. and I don’t think the white dots on the bats add anything either. I think I could fine tune the idea again, but to be honest there are only so many badges we can wear on the day …… so perhaps I’ll just leave it at that ……. for now.

Acorn Peg Dolls Christmas Tree Ornament

The new set peg dolls I had ordered from China arrived much faster than I thought they would, two weeks must be a record, but what to do with them ……… acorn peg dolls!

I started by making a house base using plain mini craft sticks from Hobbycraft (£1), colouring the roof with a red Sharpie pen.

I used a small Christmas domino piece (painted white) that I buy especially for crafting for the shelf,  because the doll would have otherwise hung over the narrower stick everso slightly and I didn’t really want that.

I then took a peg doll and gave him an acorn hat, admittedly, at first, it looked a bit big, but there again it also looked pretty cute, so I went with the flow.  This autumn will now be spent looking for more acorn cups,  the ones I used on this project go back at least three years and I only have a few left now.

The peg doll was then given a green felt scarf, tiny, black, flat back eyes and brown flat buttons, left over from my daughters diamond art project.

I then attached the doll to the house base with a good dollop of Aleene’s Glitter Snow.  I have got through my first tub already but as I have enjoyed using it so much this past month or so I have ordered another two tubs, it’s only August, so with five months to go before Christmas I am sure I will be wanting to use it an awful lot more.

I also added the Glitter Snow around the top of the roof, the red Sharpie pen did bleed a little bit into it, but nothing a few dabs of white paint couldn’t hide.

It was then time to add the little Christmas Trees (Amazon), removing their original base and replacing it with a smaller bead to get a slightly better proportion and also trimming the bristles on the back so that the tree could be glued flat onto the house frame.

I can’t say I particularly enjoyed added all the flat back gems to the trees, it was blooming fiddly and I probably used far too much glue, but I think I got away with it.

The last thing I had to do was add a small finding on the back so that the finished decoration can be hung up on a Christmas Tree etc.

Voila, I managed to make twelve of these decorations before running out of suitably sized acorn cups, the rest were just too big.

I may however make a few more …….. if mission acorn hunting 2020 is successful.