HALLELUJAH

it's CHRISTMAS!
You may have seen this Youtube thing already, it's doing the rounds but it is so funny I thought I'd share it here!


MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I am probably not going to get around to blogging again till the New Year so I hope you all stay safe and warm over the festive period.
ENJOY!

Not very Christmasy

in fact, not Christmasy at all!!
But totally inspired by my recent visit to WHITBY.

 BRAM STOKER had an interesting life apart from writing DRACULA in1897

 I was pleased with the way this came out.......I printed photos taken of the whale bone arch and the abbey......trimmed the middle from the arch and added the abbey pic to the space, next trimmed around the outside of the arch.

 A naff DRACULA postcard!!

 Stamped AMMONITE FOSSILS in tribute to one of the other things WHITBY is famous for!.

And finally nothing to do with Whitby or Dracula but just cute! This little bod was on our bird table this morning.......who'd have thought squirrels (and thrushes) would like STOLLEN!!

SLOE GIN AND BEESWAX

TO CELEBRATE THE WINTER SOLSTICE!
It is hard to believe with the freezing weather we have just now that we have turned a corner and the days will now get longer! 

 This year like most years we made SLOE GIN.Tonight we removed the sloes from the gin and poured a glass or two to celebrate MIDWINTER.

Here the candle is placed behind the sloe gin bottle so you can get a hint of the glorious colour!
You will have to take my word for the taste..........also GLORIOUS!!
That spiky onion head decorating the pic grew in my garden!!............ALIUM SCHUBERTII.....a reminder of warmer days gone by and yet to come.

NOT EVEN A MOUSE

 Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse etc etc
This comes, of course, from the poem THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS also known as A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS

 Now here I go again with my bits of useless information that I can't resist looking up!....ignore if not interested, read on if you are!!!......apparently the authorship of this poem has always been controversial, it was written by either CLEMENT CLARKE MOORE or HENRY LIVINGSTON.........rather than bore you with the details LOOK HERE if you want to know more!

 OK, back to the journal pages!! This is made in one of my little passport sized journal again.....am having fun playing with them.........I just acquired the row of houses and the snowflake border dies (by Tim Holtz) and wanted to have a play.......used the snowflake one as a mask to colour around before laying another over the top.

Like these little houses!! My husband says......it looks like they left all the lights on for Santa!!

DO YOU THINK SNOWMEN HAVE POCKETS?

or is that just silly!!!

 I've had this page part done since last weekend but couldn't decide what else to put on it..........then the "catch a falling star" song came into my head and wouldn't go away! I took a bit of license and changed "rainy" for "snowy" and it fitted perfectly.......well apart from the snowman not having a pocket!!

 I used a big die cut star as a mask to make the star background for the snowman and rather than waste it I used it on this crow page in my little passport sized bird book.
The snowman page is also in a passport sized book.......I bought two!! It is quite fun working on a smaller scale.

 The small stars were on the same die cut so I used the hole to stencil the small stars on this page and three of the actual small stars for the hanging stars on the snowman page.
Waste not want not!!

 The crow stamp is from LOST COAST DESIGNS.

I KNOW I'M LUCKY

 as I have been off on my travels again. This time I have been to one of my favourite places......WHITBY....in north Yorkshire........home of the fabulous 
WHITBY ABBEY......as you can see from the above pic it was COLD......the pond in front of the abbey was frozen!!

 I love all the arches and columns of the ruined abbey

 Whitby is also the home of the whale bone arch monument to  
CAPTAIN COOK.......the original arch was erected in about 1853, a replacement arch was donated by Norway and erected in 1963 followed by a third donated by Alaska and erected in 2003.

 There are also huge cliffs that are full of fossils like this ammonite

  It is also home to FORTUNES SMOKE HOUSE......famous for their kippers......not my thing but my husband loves them.......my house will smell of them all weekend!

 The 199 steps up to the abbey and the more recent church where there was a display of decorated Christmas trees and school children practising for their upcoming carol service.......very festive!

 Quant narrow streets with lots of shops selling the local gemstone.......WHITBY JET......I got my Chrstmas present!

As I said Whitby is one of my fav places......if you get chance to go I recommend it!

Owls by the spoonful

 While I was looking up collective nouns for owls for my parliament of owls post I came across this......ASSEMBLAGE SCULPTURE.........KITCHEN OWLS
I just HAD to have a play! I have been working on these on and off for the past week or more, whwenever I got a few mins. This afternoon I finally got chance to finish them.

 This one is a flattened spoon........a big hammer outside on the concrete for this..........

 .......eyes are a couple of old Meccano wheels with rusty washer thingies and a black crystal.......the eyebrows are something from the inside of a clock and the beak is a pen nib.......

 

....... this one has the back off a clock as his body......the eyes are big washers scratched with a needle and black paint added to age them, cup washers added to the centre and mother of pearl buttons.......pen nib beak again..................

 

 ......and these are three spoons flattened as before........each one has flattened bottle caps as the base for the eyes........

 ......this one has flat and serrated washers and black crystals.......nib beak again......

 ......this one serrated washers, brass curtain rings and some half circle metal pieces and crystals.......nib beak....

 .....and finally this one has serrated washers, cup washers, wing nuts and crystals......nib beak....

 Finally.........sorry for the long post but I got carried away making these............this one is not mounted onto anything yet but will be soon..............it is made from the plunger part of a small coffee cafetiere (the glass broke so I kept the plunger!).......buttons for eyes and a pen nib for a beak! The wings are a Sizzix die put through a Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Too busy

 having a good time to spend time in my work room making stuff to share here!!

Yesterday my husband, my sister, her friend and me headed to Manchester to see "WE WILL ROCK YOU"......the musical by Ben Elton based on the music of QUEEN! It was FABULOUS....go if you get chance! Afterwards we had dinner at WAGAMAMAS......a noodle bar restaurant.......YUMMY!!
Then today we were meant to go out to lunch but the roads were so bad with lots of accidents and closures that we decided to stay at home and decorate for Christmas.

 So, I thought I'd share some of my decorations with you.........here is part of my SANTA collection........with one of the beaded night lights I showed a couple of posts ago...........

 ....and here are a couple of SNOWMEN with the other night light.......

 ........and a big metal bowl with candle, pretend greeenery and baubles..........

.......and part of my CHRISTMAS tree..............for years I had a real tree but the last few years we have had a false one.....by GISELLA GRAHAM.

Oh what a good day

I had today!
A while ago I spotted an exhibition being advertised on HENS TEETH blog, see HERE and HERE
The exhibition is by ROB RYAN and is being held at Staffords Shire Hall Gallery. As Stafford is not that far from us (about 25miles-ish) my husband and I decided to head down there today..........it was so worth the trip! If you get chance I recommend you to go.

 It was full of the most fabulous papercut pictures.......these photos don't do them justice......

 .....hopefully you can see the 3d-ness of this!

 Also on display were the original papercut pictures that were used to illustrate this book by
Carol Ann Duffy.......who is the current POET LAUREATE........I bought a copy of the book in the gallery gift shop.

 The book above is written and illustrated by ROB RYAN and the one below is another collaboration between ROB RYAN and CAROL ANN DUFFY........I had previously bought both from AMAZON.......the Christmas one is particularly lovely.

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ROB RYAN also has an ETSY SHOP, a shop in LONDON and a BLOG