Christmas in February.......

.........on Friday evening I spent one of the most special and enthralling evenings I have ever spent in a theatre.  My daughter took me to see Hamilton at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London.  It was a Christmas present from my son and daughter.    I have been playing the music for some months and this was such a wonderful surprise because tickets are like gold dust and I didn't think I would be able to go for another year.  So witty, so clever and the artistry of everyone involved was outstanding.  I am sure it will never forget it.


There has been some crafting this week. Two collages.

I particularly like the red one, reminds me of Uluru

Tidy? Moi?.......

.... no matter how many times I tidy my desk(not often) it always ends up looking like this, I work in a space that is approximately A4.

 

 

However last weekend the rest of the house was tidy because my lovely sister-in-law came to stay. She came down from the north of England leaving sunshine behind and didn't see it again until she was on her way home.  So much for the sunny south. However it didn't rain and we were able to get out and about.  One of our trips was to the Antique and Vintage market in Faversham. Lots of temptations..

Brenda bought   me the smallest thimble I have ever seen, under half an inch in diameter.  We tried to imagine the tiny mite who had used it to stitch. We found a lovely charity shop ( just like the ones before Mary Portas) and I collected this lovely bundle. 

Particularly pleased with the stamp album which still has stamps. The book with Chinese writing and the Classical Review in the picture came from another place.

Had a real senior moment when Brenda came down, when to meet the train at Euston at 11.29am and had to wait until 2.15pm. I had mixed up the times of her leaving and arrival trains.  Made good use of it though and had a lovely wander through a bit of London I hadn't visited before. Found this beautiful terrace

it had this park in front of the terrace, an energetic lunchtime game of tennis going on.

Not far away from here I found an amazing second hand book shop, that's where the other treasures were found. I was just wandering so hope I can find it again. Wandered into this

with this at the end of it.

I love London.

On Monday night we had a real treat.  42nd Street at the the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.  Lovely to see a show with such a large cast.  My goodness those dancers work hard, exhausted just watching.  Brilliant.

One of the reasons my desk is particularly I have been working on two books, one of them a special secret.
Pleased with this one though.

Lovely wrapping paper from John Lewis.
Some pages, don't know how to make those "flip though"videos so just a lot of photoas.

Last one is Turkish Map fold I have just mastered. Yes it's a junk journal, the funny thing about it is, I keep making journals but the nearest I get to journaling is this blog and we know how regular that is.
Addicted I have already started next  "journal".

Nothing to see here.....

......bit of an up and down week, started off OK with a "laundry" visit to the see Their Finest .
Enjoyable would be the verdict.  The Wednesday to the local theatre to see "Made in Dagenham" performed by DAODS my old musical society(I was given a life membership when I retired).  Very proud of these young people.
Then the cold arrived...................I don't have colds very often (thank goodness) but when I do....suffice to say I am at the "sitting on my chest" stage, still feeling like a dish rag.  As my mother used to say "A seven days if you treat it and a week if you don't", so only three more days to go.
I did take the opportunity to catch up on Line of Duty  in time for the last episode.  Friends had been urging me to watch it and I can see why.  Good Telly. 
 I have made a couple more Mystical Lanterns and I have started on a secret project but no pictures so as I said "Nothing to see here" Pass the Benilyn!

Childhood visits........

I have spent the last two days immersed in stories.
  The first was the film of "Into the Woods", Stephen Sondheim's  weaving of well known fairy stories into an exploration of the aftermath of "happily ever after". I love the music and  I enjoyed it immensely but I didn't have the same emotional reaction that I have had in the past watching it in live theatre. "Be careful what you wish for..."

Last night, however, was a very different.  .  We went to see "The Railway Children", a live performance with real train at Kings Cross Theatre. I was completely engaged.  Excellent acting by all, clever direction full of those little touches which lift productions out of the ordinary, an evening I am sure I will remember. For those of you that love the book or remember the film, the "Daddy, my Daddy" moment was wonderful.  I have to mention my daughter's god daughter(the reason we went) who was one of the Perks children and did it very well.

One more story this evening, (everything comes at once).  "Love on the Dole" at our local little theatre. "Something completely different" as they say but something I am looking forward to.

Wk 6 Documented Life....

I seem to be all over the place with my numbers and last week was indeed Wk 6.  A bit more drama this week,a trip to August. Osage County at the cinema, strong stuff but riveting and good acting and a trip to see my daughter in From Here to Eternity the musical. strong stuff but riveting and good acting and then a  pleasant day at the Maylands stitching group.  All of which helped take the mind off the rain.
The Documented Life prompt was "Open your Pinterest board and be inspired".  Didn't take me long to try an emulate the work of Jill Ricci. I love her work so this is my attempt.  Gelli print background, snippets of other gelli prints and another old photograph.

 

Because it had to be folded into my journal I needed to make a cover so another photograph received the treatment. Don't do pink usually.

and for the runner I had palm trees and an aeroplane and the date of Pearl Harbour which is the climax of "From Here to Eternity". The sea is both for FHTE and for the dreadful battering our coasts are taking.

Wk 4 and Oh dear!...

For Week 4 of the Documented Life the brief was to "add a doodle border to your page".  This tied in nicely with one of my latest book purchases "Zenspirations Dangle Designs" by Joanne Fink.







So far so good.  Then I decided I would throw out a lot (and I mean a lot) of old photographs and it was going well until I saw one and thought, I wonder what that would look like if I put it through the Big Shot.  
What happened became the theme of my page, here it is the larger circles are from a very out of focus photograph.

Oh dear, a use for the photographs......another thought this is a piece of sky from a very boring photo put through with an embossing plate, painted with craft paint, stamped with Distress Stain, there was a piece of paper on my desk which had the words in it, so here it is mounted on a piece of gelli print.

 Oh dear another use for the photographs...... and then this for my present "tree" decoration.

 The photgraphs have gome back in the box.

My runned band for last week has teeth, which were a big feature and celebrate an outing to see an amateur production of  "Avenue Q" performed by some very talented friends.  Great fun.

So that is January been and gone already.

Keeping up........

...... Just.

Bust week last week with a meeting of The Girls where we tried to get to grips with the mysteries of the Needle Punch.  I failed miserably but as a reminder of the fun trying I looked for a stitch for my  runner that would resemble the loops. Thanks to Mary Corbet I found Turkey Work and after a bit of trial error I managed two lines.

Documented Life this week was to use an envelope from the mailbox.  I received a store card and it was in a very nice folder which I decided was more interesting than an envelope.  Thursday was a trip to the pantomime at Erith Playhouse, "Beauty and the Beast", written and directed by a good friend, Great fun to boo and hiss and watch other friends being extremely silly,.  So I popped this into my "journal".

 

with the programme inside

Saturday was a trip to Bromley Embroiderers Guild to hear a talk by Lynda Monk.  as ever she was informative and amusing.  So generous with her knowledge and such wonderful things to see.  I bought two or her screens for printing and trying out some of the techniques she spoke about, so watch this space.


I promised myself that when I put something on my Pinterest board I would also put it here. The other  morning I found this.  Adding fabric to a tag..  I have done it to make book pages before but thought this has many possibilities.

 You can see the full tutorial here at Yours Artfully 

and this morning thanks to BJ of ccrafts corner I found this great use for old Christmas cards,


 I only hope I can remember it when the season comes round again.

A Wet Friday.....

Yesterday it poured, all day,  but I had been invited to the workshop of a new musical so I boarded the bus and went to a part of London I had never been before.  I made it to The Hackney Empire in spite of the fact that the bus windows were completely opaque with condensation. The musical is  called "The Silver Sword" and is based on this book which I somehow missed out reading. I do hope it makes it to the big stage because even in workshop form I laughed and cried and I liked the music and would like to hear it again. Well worth the soaking.


Have you noticed, I have received a gold star for my "A" entry of the Craft Barn Alphabet Challenge. Very pleased.

We are going north for a week so I will have to contain my impatience at trying out this technique from Gelli Arts.


Have a good week.

Happy New Year

This was taken from the television. The end of the wonderful year for London and hopefully the start of a good one for all of us.
Last night I went to see "Merrily We Roll Along" at the Menier, a Christmas treat. I was a little disappointed in some aspects,  I have magical memories of a production long ago but loved listening to some of my favourite Sondheim melodies.
I arrived in London with time to spare so I took a little walk , I usually only see London at night as I leave on the train so this was a treat. Some place you might recognise.

An unusual view of Southwark Cathedral, the bells were ringing which made it even more special.

Christmas decorations still around

(The lights were not blue by the way). Even HMS Belfast looked festive.  How do you decorate a battleship?

I don't do Resolutions... no will power but I have signed up to Nathalie Kalbach's  Creative Jump Start, so we will see how long the will lasts.

Who is GaGa me or SAGA?...................................

It is a long time since I had a rant!... Three weeks ago DH renewed our car insurance with Saga.  Two forms, one cheque in the same envelope.  He received his new cover note but I didn't.  We waited a couple of days to take account of the variance of 2nd class post and then I telephoned to find out if  my car insurance was on the way.  No!...........because he had paid on one cheque "they" decided that he had overpaid and they were returning a cheque for the over payment.  No one could  explaine what had happened to my original form but they would send me some more forms.  They sent the forms which we completed and sent off with a new cheque. As of today still no "over payment "cheque! Another phone call tomorrow!!
That was yesterday.  I was told that I had now been insured and the second cheque would be returned to us.   Today my cover note arrived but another phone call had to be made because,  on checking the bank, they had cleared both the original cheque and the second one.  I was told it will take TEN DAYS to issue the cheque for the money they owe us.   Luckily for you words fail me and I won't even start on the press this button, key in this number calls I had to tell the bank we were going on holiday.

Photo is me as Old Min in "The Matchgirls".
I

Lazy bones.....

lying in the sun.....yes we have sunshine, proper warm, clear blue sky sunshine. At the weekend too. What a treat.

I haven't really been lazy, spending most of my time defending my lettuce from the invasion of slimy creatures. Ugh.  I was going to cut one pot and thought "No, I'll leave that another day"  Next day...gone! Ah, the joys of vegetable gadening. 
My other achievment is that I completed my vessel from my day with  Lynda  I loved the whole process of turning a cardboard tube and a piece of felt, through this (please notice the tasteful artistic background)

to this

I have also turned the piece which started out like this.

into this book cover.

I wanted to go to Lynda's two day workshop at Art Van Go in June but unfortunately it clashes with something I haven't mentioned yet.. 

"The Matchgirls".  I have been helping out with the Youth Theatre of the society I have been associated with for 30 odd years.  I retired from "performing" some years ago,or so I thought,  but when I was asked to play a gin soaked old biddy, how could I resist?  "The Matchgirls" is a musical  based on the strike by the workers at the Bryant and May factory in 1888. One of the first time women bnded together to stand up for themselves against their working condition, which for them included the risk of  the horrors of "phossy jaw".     I am putting the costumes together which is going very slowly at the moment and gives me a huge guilt complex if I pick up any other kind of sewing. 

But for now the sun is shining and the garden beckons.  Have a good weekend.