Choccie Box Village

This afternoon we went out with some friends for a walk through one of Devon’s prettiest villages – Lustleigh near Bovey Tracey. My hubby went there the other day and knew I would love it, and told me that it was full of thatched cottages, every one of them fit to go on a chocolate box! May is the loveliest month in our part of the world, with all the wild flowers coming out in the hedgerows, and as it was such a beautiful sunny spring day, we decided to grab the opportunity and go. Of course, later in the year, there will probably be more flowers in the village proper, and lots of roses around the doors of the cottages, in true choccie box style!

As we walked along the lane approaching the village, we saw the first of an absolute profusion of wall pennyworts growing out of the stone walls. These insignificant little plants with their tall green inflorescences are one of my favourite plants – they have round fleshy leaves and grow bravely in the most inhospitable of environments! They love shady, slightly damp places, stone walls under the trees, and as such, they often don’t get noticed.

Dry stone wall. All held together purely by the skilful placing of stones of different sizes, these walls go back many hundreds of years.

A mossy roof with wall pennyworts growing on it. This was the entrance to a cottage garden; it looks like a church lych gate.

The lane winding down the hill towards the village.

Wild honesty growing in the hedgerows.

Perfect thatching.

One of many thatched cottages in the village.

A narrow lane leading to more thatched cottages.

The beautiful entrance to a thatched cottage.

To the left of the gate, another thatched cottage, with a beautiful ceanothus shrub growing against the wall.

This was an interesting cottage with a picket fence at the front.

Beside the front entrance is the old stone trough and water pump.

The stone doorway. On the left at the top of the stonework, the date, 1680, has been cut into the stonework.

Another thatched cottage with a pretty garden.

Pink campions growing in the hedgerow, another of my favourite wild flowers.

A beautiful red acer growing in a cottage garden.

Little white stitchworts, and blue speedwells.

Speedwells.

Don’t our British wild flowers have charming names?

Walking further on, we crossed over the stream.

A view towards a larger house, possibly the manor house of the village, with the church beyond.

A long stone wall. This one is not a dry stone wall as it is constructed with mortar.

Under the railway bridge.

An ancient water runnel.

Entering the village entre, with the green, and the church beyond.

More thatched cottages. The one straight ahead has a Clematis montana growing on it.

The church and the war memorial. This made me think of the young men who went off to fight in two world wars; they left this idyllic and quintessentially English village with its peaceful atmosphere and ancient roots, to mortal danger and scenes of unspeakable carnage and horror, never to return.

Primrose Cottage and tea room.

The steps in front of Primrose Cottage – such pretty flowers.

Looking down on the village from the green.

The curious iron and glass lamp outside the church.

Looking through into the pub garden.

A couple of painted sheep!

My hubby opening the gate into the orchard.

The orchard, with seats, picnic area and children’s playground, is a perfect place for recreation in the village. The trees were covered with apple blossom.

The throne of the May Queen. This is an ancient English tradition, rooted in paganism – the most beautiful young girl in the village is crowned queen and enthroned.

The names of the May Queens since the 1950s, cut into the stone.

In the orchard.

The view as we left the village.

Such a lovely afternoon out! We are so glad that we grabbed the opportunity to go, because the weather is probably not going to be so good this week, and we didn’t want to miss seeing this gorgeous village at its best. We are so fortunate to live with such beauty within easy reach, and to have the opportunity to visit, in the company of lovely friends.

To finish, here is a photo I took of Phoebe, dead to the world, sunbathing on the concrete path at the back of our house.

WOYWW 150

What’s on YOUR workdesk this Wednesday? To show the world, hop over to Julia’s blog (click on the WOYWW link in my sidebar) and the Queen of Desks will enable you to join the happy throng!

On my desk this week:

Slow progress is being made on my Choc-a-Bloc mixed media project. In the black bowl you can see the little pebbles I’ve made from Fimo air-dry clay (packet on right hand side of desk). These haven’t taken long to dry as most of them are very small, but I’m leaving them another few days just to make sure the big ones are thoroughly dried through.

At the back of the desk, on the left, you can see my Polyfilla One Fill which I have used to fill the spaces on the choccie box insert to make the panel, together with my new large tub of gesso. On the right are some of my Golden products – gel medium, gesso and some GAC-100 polymer which I am going to use to make up some acrylic glaze, and also as a sealant between the various layers once I get painting on the Choc-a-Bloc project. Just in front of those you can see a plastic wallet with pens in it – these are the new archival black pens I bought at the art shop last week for my Zentangling.

At Spyder’s request, I have put in the latest Zentangle – a drawing I have done from a photo she kindly sent me of the beautiful Venetian Carnival mask she put on her WOYWW post a couple of weeks ago. This is actually a smaller-than-original print I’ve made, and mounted in black, ready to send this lovely lady as a thank you for letting me loose on her gorgeous mask! Here’s a photo of the original Zentangle so you can see the detail closer up:

I have done a separate post on it. I have been delighted with everyone’s response to this – quite overwhelming in fact! Everyone has been so kind.

I cut the black mount for Spyder from black card, using Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine. First time I’ve used her for ages and she was very pleased to have the dust blown off her and get her teeth (tooth, actually!) into something again!

Also last week, I had a lovely card from a very poorly friend and her mum. At the end of last year she asked me to help her with some alphabet album pages her mum had bought but couldn’t use because they were in a file format for a cutting machine (which she doesn’t have) and asked me to convert them to pdf for her. Not having the correct software for doing this, and deciding anyway that they were pretty inaccurately drawn, I redrew the whole lot from A-Z! I really enjoyed doing it and certainly wasn’t looking for any reward for helping two special ladies, but her mum made me this beautiful easel card with so many of her skills evident in it – beautiful decoupage etc., and also a generous voucher for anything I want to get from Joanna Sheen’s online shop! I am so thrilled! Here’s a photo montage I created in Serif PhotoPlus, of the pictures I took as I opened the unexpected parcel.

Wasn’t that a simply lovely gift?

Hope you all have a happy WOYWW, and a creative and fulfilling week to follow.

WOYWW 149

Well hello again everyone – it’s Wednesday again, and that’s Desk Day!! Julia over on the Stamping Ground organises us week by week and we show off our messy (or otherwise) work desks for the world to see – click on the link in my sidebar to join in the fun.

My “Choc-a-bloc” mixed media project is progressing slowly. The first choccie box insert has now had its depressions between the projections filled with Polyfilla One Fill and it’s been in the airing cupboard all week! It’s had its first coat of gesso. The one on the left is ready to be filled with Polyfilla when I get time, and meanwhile it’s sitting on top of my hand-made paper from last week, and my Indian flowers. I have got a clay extruder coming from Ebay, and when this arrives I will be able to pipe some stems onto the project and really start to develop the piece.

Busy day today – we went into town this morning and went to the art shop where my hubby bought my birthday present (I’ve got to wait a while for it!) – he’s giving me a set of Derwent Inktense pencils – these are totally awesome! There will be more on this in due course. I also bought some nice heavy paper for mixed media work, and on the right of the desk you can see the new pens I bought for my Zentangling, together with a lovely fat 8B soft pencil for shading, and just beyond them, some cheapie little rollers and sponge applicators for my mixed media work. I bought a nice big tub of gesso too – less expensive than my Golden gesso. (That’s the tub that looks like ice cream lol!) Just beside that, the small white objects are some old fridge magnets that I’ve painted with gesso and which I will Zentangle eventually.

Finally, on the left, propped up, is my latest sheet of Zentangles – I’ve done a separate post about these. I am very pleased with how they are going!

I haven’t put my knitting on my desk this week because it looks pretty much the same as last week, only a bit longer!

The main thing I’ve done this week is revamp my blog background, which I hope you all like! It’s still a work in progress – see the post I did yesterday on it – and hopefully soon it will be as I want it.

Happy WOYWW everyone, and thanks to everyone who visited me last week – I hope to visit a few more people this week.

WOYWW 147

Good old Wednesdays! Another one has rolled around again before we had time to notice, and it’s time to show off “What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday” to a nosey world! Thanks to Julia for organising us all and doing her best to keep us under control. If you want to join the fun, click on the WOYWW link in my sidebar.

Well, my ARTHaven is certainly a lot tidier than it was last week, and you can see the desk again! I haven’t done a lot sitting at it this week as I took a dip health wise after doing all that shifting of stuff last week, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been creative – on the recliner instead.

I have started knitting my unravelled dress, and in the foreground of the picture you can see how far I’ve got. This is the bottom border complete, on the back. I’ve now got quite a lot of straight knitting to do in the tan coloured wool before doing some more pattern at the top. I don’t suppose I shall complete that in the coming week, but hope to make good progress.

The other thing I’ve found myself doing this week is a new craze – Zentangles! I have done a couple of blog posts if anyone is interested, and on my desk you can see my Art Journal that I’ve started, open at the latest page where I’ve done a series of small Zentangle designs in the form of a sampler for easy reference. Some of my finished pieces are on my other blog posts.

I’m trying to restrain myself as this is soooo addictive, and I’m likely to empty my pens before I can get some more!

At the back of the desk you can see my Choc-a-Block mixed media project and the tub of Polyfilla Once (US: Joint compound) – I’ve made absolutely no progress on this at all. Still mulling what to do, and don’t want to rush into it. You can also see one of my small Indian flowers that I cut with Sheba, my Cougar cutter, a few weeks ago.

The other thing I’ve done (starting yesterday) which isn’t on my desk, is that I’ve signed up to Deviant Art – a huge website/worldwide community of artists – anyone can upload their art in any shape or form, of any standard, to be shared with the community, and there is the opportunity to sell prints of your work through the site.

http://www.deviantart.com/

My album (not very full yet, but watch this space!) is here:

http://shoshiplatypus.deviantart.com/

I hope you’ve all had a good week, full of creativity and fun, and I look forward to visiting as many desks as I can over the next few days. Happy WOYWW, everybody!

WOYWW 145

A whole fortnight has gone by since I last did a WOYWW – I didn’t manage it last week for various reasons, not least that Blogger was really playing up and it was taking up to 20 attempts to get any blogs to load, and I got totally fed up with it. I do wish they’d sort it out…

Anyway, for those who don’t know what this is all about, it’s “What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday” – a weekly nose into everyone’s work spaces to see how messy and creative they are being! Thanks as always go to our wonderful Julia who organises us all. To join in, click the link in my sidebar.

Not a lot of activity this week – I’ve done a little bit on Inkscape but that’s about it. I’ve also done a bit more on my current mixed media project, which I am calling “Choc-a-Bloc” because it is based around a chocolate box insert.

At last the Polyfilla One fill in the cavities is completely dry – it did take a long time, even being in the airing cupboard. On the right, you can see that I have applied the first coat of gesso to the projections – this is going to be the right side. I need another coat to give good tooth to the working surface, and then hopefully I shall begin to have some fun!

As well as progressing slowly with this, I have been unravelling vast amounts of knitting – I am trying to have a clear-out, and found my two beloved knitted dresses that I have not been able to get into for several years but couldn’t bear to part with. The first I bought at a craft exhibition centre, and the second I made myself, taking the basic shape from the first, but using different colours and designs. I have decided to recycle the wool (beautiful pure 4-ply in fabulous colours) into jumpers. I’ve also got a tunic top I made which is getting the same new lease of life – it’s many shades of yellow with multi-shaded purple spots!

I shall knit this up using the same design as it works well.

I belong to a forum called Ravelry (celebrating knitting and crochet) when the site behaves itself and actually loads properly and lets me on! I am thinking of starting a new one called Unravelry, the way I’m going at the moment!!

Got our new (terrifyingly expensive) TV arriving tomorrow so I’ll be busy setting all that up, so not sure how many desks I’ll visit. Also it depends whether Blogger decides to play ball this week or not…

Happy WOYWW everyone, and have a good week.

WOYWW 143–More Stencils, Choccie Box Inserts, and Heat Insulation

Thanks again to our wonderful Julia for hosting another weekly hop around the world’s most creative, amazing, tidy (not!) and interesting workdesks. To join in, click on the link in my sidebar which will take you to Julia’s place.

Not a great deal going on Chez Shosh this week because it’s mostly been on the computer, in Inkscape to be exact, working on vector drawings for Sheba, my cutting machine.

Having more or less got to grips with cutting ordinary cardstock, I wanted to branch out a bit, so I’ve been cutting stencils (see my last post). What’s on my workdesk this week is the next one that I have cut – a polka dot design consisting of 1/2-in circles on an A4 sheet. I have been having problems getting it to cut right but I’m on the way now.

To the right of the stencil you can see some recent sample cuts I’ve made with Sheba – my Indian floral border and my silver mirror butterfly on its mat layer, and beyond them, the doileys still waiting for me to do something with them lol! On the left is just a pile of stuff waiting to be put away – nothing a bit interesting.

Above the stencil is the plastic insert from a box of choccies. It fell on the floor upside down (empty!) and when I picked it up I thought it looked really interesting from the back, and wondered if I could make it up into some sort of mixed media art project. The bottoms of the depressions are very thin and flimsy so I’ve been trying to think of a way to strengthen them. I’ve put a bit of acrylic gel medium (thick moulding paste) in one, and although it’s not quite dry yet, I don’t think it’s the right stuff, and anyway I shall end up using far too much of this rather expensive stuff! After doing it I remembered my Polyfila that my hubby bought for me last year for my mixed media stuff, so I’m going to use that. Once the depressions are all filled and the stuff is dry, I shall paint the surface with gesso and take it from there. I want it to end up totally unrecognisable as a chocolate box insert!

Back to the drawing board now, and more work on my stencils (really struggling with the flower one but have some thoughts on how to proceed, having slept on it) and also my designs based on Indian fabrics.

One thing on my workdesk that you can’t see, because it’s under my craft sheet, is a new heat proof mat that I got this week. It’s made of a substance called Cogetherm, an asbestos substitute made from mica, which is supposed to be extremely heat proof and insulating. I have yet to put it to the test. You wouldn’t believe how many green cutting mats I have warped – if you look at the top of the photo above, you can see my latest effort (that’s quite a new mat…) – that wasn’t done particularly carelessly either, as I had a glass cutting mat (heat-proof, kitchen variety raised off the surface with little feet) and then my non-stick craft sheet on top of that, and I was using a heat gun, admittedly for quite a long time. I’ve warped mats by leaving my melting pot switched on for quite a while, also standing on this glass mat, and the radiant heat is enough to warp the mat. Although non-stick craft sheets are always advertised as “heat proof,” they are only resistant to heat themselves, and they offer absolutely no protection for what’s underneath.

I thought it was time to think outside the box, because no craft suppliers seem to have addressed the problem of heat insulation. I found this rigid mat on the website of Presspahn and thought it looked a good bet. I’ll let you know how it fares.

Have a great week, everyone!

Personalised Choccie Boxes

When I opened the choccies my hubby gave me for Valentine’s, there was a leaflet inside saying that Thornton’s are now doing personalised boxes. You can upload your own photo and they will put it on the lid of the box, and you can choose a message to go on the side, and you can even choose which choccies they put in!

What a gift for digital scrapbookers! There is a limit to the size of the file you can upload, but they don’t tell you the measurements. I measured the little window on their web page and the proportions are 3:2, so I’ve designed a layout 9 in x 6 in to comply with those proportions, which I am going to have done for my hubby for our Silver Wedding Anniversary in May. (I just wish I didn’t have to wait that long before I get it done!)

I did this using Serif CraftArtist, which has a marvellous tool for extracting images from backgrounds. I spoke to the man from Serif on the phone the other day, and told him how much easier this tool is to use than the one on their PhotoPlus photo editing software, and he said that they are going to put it in the new version, which is good.

I also used the transparency tool to fade the main image, and the text, into the background.

One thing I really like about Serif software is that once you’ve got used to one program, the others are really easy to learn, because they tend to keep the interface the same, and many of the tools become familiar.

The picture shows Beatrice with my hubby. After lunch she always comes up asking for Dreamies, which are kitty snacks. These are the kitty equivalent of crack cocaine. Both our kitties adore them! Beatrice has a special relationship with my hubby and I have to prise her off him if I want to get anywhere near! In the small picture in the frame, you can see our two girlies together, with Phoebe at the top.

I can think of several other people I would like to get these personalised choccie boxes for. They do a range of prices depending on how big a box you choose – you can have more than one layer of choccies. I think it’s such a lovely idea!