A Winter Day

and today certainly was.............a WINTER DAY that is. 

My friend Tracy and I decided to head for a local garden centre for coffee and a scone .....they make particularly yummy scones:).......before going junk shopping.............boy was it COLD and even tried to snow at one point...........as soon as we had bought what we needed we headed home!

I could happily have spent the rest of the day on the sofa and dozed with a book but instead decided not to be lazy and to work on another page in my map journal.

Foundling, a girl 11868

 Yesterday I spent the day in London. I met up with a friend at The British Library where we saw an exhibition of Illuminated Books that have been owned by royalty.........it was beautiful.

After that we went to The Foundling Museum to see an exhibition of paintings by Quentin Blake, great fun and quirky................but I have to say that the thing that stays with me from the day was something I saw in The Foundling Museum itself.

 These postcards show scraps of fabric..........many of the children left at the Foundling Hospital had these scraps of fabric attached to their clothing by their mothers in the hope that they would stay with the children so that if they could ever retrurn to collect them they could identify their children.

There were also display cases of  other tokens that had been left with the children...........from coins and medals to tiny twists of wire to little strings of beads to scraps of sewn fabric, whatever the mothers could afford to leave with the children they could not look after..............I have to say the heart shaped pieces were the most poignnant especially when we read that the tokens etc were not kept with the children so even if they did return the mothers couldn't identify their children...............it was heart wrenching.

 So, today, unable to get it out of my head I decided to make a journal page to remind me of the day...........this is my tribute to all those mothers who could not look after their children and had to give them up.

The children were given numbers..............foundling, a girl 11868, b.1759

The background to my page started out as squares of paper ( my shopping from Anthropologie was wrapped in it......love that shop!) glued to the page so the edges were not stuck down completely.......I like the way it came out, will use the idea again!

Big hat?

 This is another page in my new map journal (see previous post). I have decided on a sort of theme for this journal............I am going to keep it simpler than usual as I don't want to cover over the maps completely......especially those pages that have more mappy bits on them.....so, I'm going to use black and white images and probably only a quote......we'll see how it goes!

 Answers on a postcard please!!

 I love this image! 

I drew around the bloke a bit as he had faded into the background with all the red and black inky circles and drips but had to stop when he was in danger of getting drawn on glasses!

 Black and red inky circles, drips, spots and spatters! Oh and a long-legged beastie!

 Did you know that I LOVE alphabet stamps?? Well, I do!

I popped into Hobbycraft at the weekend.....was meant to be going to Currys but Hobbycraft is only two shops down so rude not to.................and they had these little alphabet sets for only £1.50!

I like the slightly Gothic looking one very much!

"edit"...I just saw that MACABRE MONDAY has the challenge to use a map......so as this qualifies I'm entering it to the challenge!

Rabbit hole

 At Christmas my friend gave me these three really big maps (thanks Zoe)......they are large scale maps of Essex printed in 1920. Apparently they were being sold as alternative wrapping paper......it's a bit of an artsy place Suffolk:)

 So, today while I am confined to this little space in the kitchen (wood floor being fitted in living room) I decided to chop one of them up and make myself a journal...........the paper is pretty thick so I think it should stand up quite well to being painted etc.

 I cut the map up and stuck pieces back to back so the pages were a bit thicker and had map on each side....................

 ......then I bound them together with a very simple 3 hole binding......I used this ribbon cos it's all I could lay my hands on.......

 some of the corners are nice and ragged and aged.........

 and some edges have the original binding......I tried to keep those things visible..........

 mmmmmm I wonder what "Poor law unions" are? 
edit.....curiosity got the better of me, I looked it up.....click here if interested!

 Then I decided to decorate the front cover......mmmmmmmm what to use? I know, I have that Dracula Rabbit image...............it will go with the ribbon!!

 So, here he is searching the map for his rabbit hole!!!!

I'm really pleased with the way this came out......I love recycling old stuff and I now have a fun new journal to play in!!

Finally.................

.

 I could stand it no longer.........the not making anything that is.........so even though my studio is still full of stuff (that's wood flooring in 7/8foot long boxes)............. I climbed and clambered over the boxes, moved crates and doors and furniture and pulled some bits and pieces out into the kitchen

 and made this journal page using a couple of postcards  I bought at the Grayson Perry exhibition at The British Museum recently.....it's not the best page ever but at least I got to play a little!

 

The exhibition was fascinating and the one phrase that has stayed with me and danced around inside my head ever since is this one

HOLD YOUR BELIEFS LIGHTLY

which I take to mean...... believe in what you believe but be prepared to accept that others believe different things and sometimes to be persuaded to change your mind......

I find it a very thought provoking statement.

 

  this slightly risque chap is a tomb guardian!

 I used the pipette thingy inside a bottle of ink to write my words.......they came out a bit blobby but I quite like that!

The final piece in the exhibition was this FANTASTIC cast iron ship......

...it was huge and FABULOUS! 

I knew very little about Grayson Perry before this exhibition......other than that he is the artist who dresses up as a woman....... but now I'm a FAN!

If you want to read more about the exhibition I thought THIS LINK was good and has a couple more pics of pieces from it.

Is Spring sprung?

 When we had the wall removed (see previous post) we had to have a radiator moved.........while doing that the plumber looked at our boiler and discovered that it was in pretty bad shape! As you can see above it looked like some weird rock formation going on inside it. Poor thing is.....or rather was.......21 years old!

Although not in the original renovation plans we took the decision to have it replaced.............so, my studio has looked like this for the last 2 days......the boiler lives in the corner...........will I ever get back in there!!!!??LOL

 

 So, having spent all of yesterday sitting on the sofa I couldn't face another day of that so I headed into the garden. As we all know the weather has been very mild recently.......... (for which I've been glad the last 2 days with no central heating......I do have a gas fire but that's another story......it's in nearly as bad a state as the boiler :( .............

................ I was surprised how many bulbs are coming up..........I just hope that if there is a frost that they don't get nipped...................the ones above are Fritillaria Persica........not grown them before so I hope they survive.

 These are..............can't remember! They came free with a bulb order............whatever they are there's lots of them!!

 Here are some Aliums peeping out from under some Foxgloves......I'm hoping they will look good together!

 And these I THINK are English Bluebells!

Next I decided to get some leaves out of the pond..............and out came this very sleepy frog......put him back quickly so he could go back to sleep!

Happy New Year!

We had a fabulous time over New Year.....we stayed with a friend in Suffolk and headed into London for the day on 30th Dec......we went to the Grayson Perry exhibition at The British Museum......it was very interesting........go if you get chance!

we had dinner at CAFE PACIFICO......a Mexican Cantina.... in Covent Garden

the margaritas were yummy!

 New Years Eve itself was spent in Sufolk.......we had fireworks!

 New Years day was walking the dog! We came across this old moated farmhouse.

 

 Festivities over we headed home on Jan 2nd to get ready for the next stage in our house renovations......the removal of a wall between our new kitchen......you can just see it here through the gap in the wall.......and the old dining room that didn't really get used

 

 As a consequence of the ongoing work my studio has ended up as storage space for all the furniture and building materials and so I can't get in there to do anything.......hence the lack of any artwork!

 It will be worth it in the end.......the extra usable space will be lovely!