Its a nightmare lol!

I am wondering why did I even think of using this trim for this fabric. It is a nightmare fixing it to such sheer fabric. Oh well I shall keep plodding on now that I have started.

Fruits from the garden

I seemed to have fallen by the way side with the photo of the week challenge. The weather has not been very good to go out and take photos and then I thought since you all have seen every nook and corner of my garden I had better not bore you to death with more pictures of my garden. However this morning when I took a stroll in my garden I spotted these grapes in the grape wine. I didn't think we would get any but lo and behold there were at least 3 bunches that I could spot how exciting! Lol! I am sure they won't last long there as the birds will get them sooner or later. I have seen the blackbird disappear into the branches so we shall see how long before they go. We get quite a few apples in this vine every year. There are 2 varieties there Golden delicious and Granny Smiths.

I have noticed this patch of leaves from my window so I had a look They look very pretty although that is not the colour they should be at this time of the year. Do they know something that we don't I wonder? They have very pretty lavender colour flowers which have not bloomed yet. I shall take a picture when they do.

Just a cute little bird house that I found in a shop recently.

Ok the reason that I have been rather silent is I am trying to finish a doll for a challenge. I am sorry I cannot show it yet because it is for a challenge.

So I have been pulling out fabrics from this box....

and this box...

and ending up with this chaos!

Canvas completed

I have completed my canvas and here she is. I purposely made her neck very long and her face is also a bit on the long side not very pretty either. I am not sure if I like it very much , but it is done and I hope my friend will like it. The colours are a bit brighter than what has come out in the photograph. I created the textures with modelling paste and bubble wrap which I am sure you all know how. I spread the modelling paste on to the canvas where I wanted it and then pressed a piece of bubble wrap over it to create the impression simple. I also made a crude stamp with cardboard by drawing on it some shapes and cutting it out then applying paint to the cardboard and stamping it on the canvas. The shapes didn't come out well in the canvas but I like the hint of the shape on the canvas effect so I left it. I think if the shapes had shown up it might not have looked as nice.

New Canvas

I have started a new canvas. Another gift for a friend and this is how far I have got with it. So far so good. But as usual I didn't start out with any theme in mind. I am just going to go with the flow.

Today

Today I met up with some wonderful like minded ladies. We met up with the hope of forming a doll club. Now we have decided that we definitely will meet up again and have even chosen a name for our club. We are going to call it Fancyful figures. It is all very exciting. We had a lovely time chatting and exchanging views and also made a pin doll. Well none of us completed it so I shall post a picture when I do complete mine. However here are some pictures of the dolls some of the ladies brought along to show. Yet again I have to apologise for not taking my camera with me so the pictures that I took with my phone are not brilliant. The ladies are all very talented even though some of them have only started making dolls recently. I am looking forward to meeting up with them all again in October.

Last day of water colour painting.

Friday was my last day of water colour painting for this term. We were asked to do an abstract of all the studies we did. So here is what I did. I am not good at abstract so this is not so nice as I would have liked it to be. We did lot of our studies at Somerset House. In the winter the courtyard of Somerset House turns into an ice rink

After the class I walked to Waterloo Station as it was so very pleasant.

The river Thames looked beautiful so I decided to take a photo with my phone and as usual the photo does not do justice to the scene. Seeing me several people decided to stop and do the same with their phones. I wonder how many showed up in blogs lol!

Weekend was spent at a friends house in the courntry. Needless to say their garden is lovely and they get so many different birds and animals visit their garden.

A pheasant has adopted their garden so I saw him early in the morning strolling around. I managed to get a shot from inside with my phone. A pity I didn't have my camera to zoom in.

While I was sitting and having tea the wood pecker made an appearance. I had to keep extremely still to get this shot of him. You can just about see him near that chair. He does blend in with the background a bit as he is green too.

So this is how my weekend went. How did yours go?

Summer time

Sitting with the fan on. Eating strawberries

While my dog keeps me company.

The garden bursts into a kaliedascope of colours.

Weekend in Spain

I was away in Spain for the weekend and I had a lovely time. The weather was hot infact I found it a bit too hot. I seemed to have lost the ability to tolerate heat after living in England for so long. Anyway I have some photos to share. This is birds eye view of cloud formation from the aircraft. I am always struck by the beauty of cloud formations from up above. They are so dramatic.

Birds eye view of land below.

We stayed in a small and very quiet village in Alicante. This is the street at night. Notice there is no traffic at all. It was a Sunday but there was a fiesta taking place on the next street where families were have a nice time but still no traffic. People just walked to the fiesta as I imagine they all lived close by. It was lovely to see that even this day and age there is a community spirit where people get together and there were kids of all ages playing and the parents sitting and just chatting and having a meal together.

This was the only historical building in the village. It is supposed to be some sort of palace but unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to go inside.

I saw these succulents and the shoe flower while walking in another town aren't they lovely.

We had to take a trip to the beach even though it was extremely hot. I always wonder how people can actually lie down face up towards the sun when it is so very very hot. Even I who is from a hot country and I am dark, cannot tolerate such intense sun light, my skin simply burns inspite of putting sun blocks. Surely it must be worse for people with light skin and they must be putting themselves in danger of skin cancer just for a little bit of tan. Well that is what I think anyway.

There were lots of sand castles on the beach which were made I guess by this man and who was looking after them constantly spraying them with water. They were all lovely.

Foot steps in the sand. Isn't the sky and the sea a beautiful colour. I love that blue.

These pictures of the sunset were taken while travelling to the airport. The pictures actually are no where near as beautiful as it actually was. I took several of them but none of them seem very satisfactory to me. I shall show you just these 2 which I think were the best of the lot.

Progress on Pandora

This is how far I have got to with my Pandora. I have a feeling I will have to reglue the arms again with a different glue as I feel that super glue is not good enough to hold it properly. I have to also repair one of her fingers which I managed to break. But for present just a few embellishments and she is done. I didn't do the Monday challenge as I didn't have anything interesting to show. I know you must have got fed up with the flowers but these bloomed after a heavey shower last night and I thought they look lovely so I wanted to share.

All done

I have finished this painting. Couldn't get it uploaded yesterday as too many things were going wrong. Firstly my camera was not working properly then the computer got invaded with viruses ,thankfully a friend who looks after our computer was able to sort it out last night. Anyway here it is. I tried to follow the book as much as possible but I did not have any of the distress inks or the paints that the author has used but I used other stuff instead. I used a lot of metallic rubs where ever she has used ink pads. The paint colours are slightly different as well but I think that is what art is about. To use what you have to create art and this turned out ok I think. I also did not use the method of making the heart as in the book as I thought it was easier and quicker to use paperclay to make the heart or I guess any other airdrying clay would do even though I did have the plaster. Then I had to add those dry flowers to cover up some mistakes which looks ok but in the picture it doesn't seem that nice.