Silver Wedding Celebrations 1/5: Arriving at our Hotel

We’ve just got back from a short break to celebrate our Silver Wedding on 24th May. We picked up my parents and drove up to Woolacombe on the North coast of Devon. One tends to forget just how big Devon is until one travels from south to north! We arrived at our hotel at about tea time and my poor hubby then had to get all my clobber up to the room – my dad helped, but there was masses! I always say that going away with a disabled person is as bad as going away with a baby, the amount of stuff you need!

Our room had one of these balconies:

Coming in through the main entrance (I had to come in the side with the wheelchair – Tradesmen’s Entrance for Shoshi!!) we saw our first magnificent chandelier.

The reception desk is under a wide arch, beside which is a gorgeous antique long-case clock with a painted dial and inlaid wooden case.

When we’d got everything in, we sat and had a cup of tea in our room, which had plenty of space, and was very bright with its large window opening onto the balcony.

The bathroom was ultra-modern with a lovely comfortable bath (although I did miss Boris, my bath lift, and struggled a bit to get out!!) and both the bathroom and bedroom had the large mirrors that featured everywhere in the hotel.

Silver Wedding Celebrations 4/5: Exploring the Hotel

In addition to the health suite, the rest of the lower ground floor, at the further end of the slope into which the hotel is built, consists of a fabulous dining room/ballroom where they have weddings, which has steps up to double doors which lead into a lounge, which reminded me of a gentlemen’s club, with its separate areas and dark, sumptuous look.

Everywhere in the hotel, including in the corridors, there were mirrors and beautiful chandeliers, which made the place sparkle and add spaciousness.

There were also interesting paint effects and textures.

The hotel wasn’t terrifically wheelchair-friendly – my hubby had to drag my wheelchair up and down the few steps up to the dining room each time, but there was a lift up to the bedroom floors, and our room was close by. Everywhere else was accessible; the Brasserie was all on the level, and there was level access to the outside via The Mews, as the main hotel entrance was up a flight of steps to a revolving door.

Here’s a link to the hotel’s website:

http://www.woolacombe-bay-hotel.co.uk/

On the final morning there was a very strong wind (too strong for my hubby’s kite!) and the surf was up.

We returned home on the 26th May after our last breakfast and some considerable time packing everything up! My hubby had borrowed a trailer from a friend, so all the luggage went in there, giving plenty of room in the back of the car for my mum and dad. We stopped in mid-Devon for our final meal together, a lovely lunch at Bickleigh, and then we drove back to my parents’ house where we had a cup of tea, before we returned home to two excited kitties and back to normal again!!

We’ve had a wonderful mini-break to celebrate our Silver Wedding, staying in a very expensive hotel – not something we can do every year but for such a special occasion it was well worth it; it was an anniversary to remember, and lovely to share it with my elderly parents as well.

For more pictures, see the sub-albums in my Photobucket Album:

http://s496.photobucket.com/albums/rr328/shoshiplatypus/Silver%20Wedding%20Anniversary/Holiday%20at%20Woolacombe/

Devon County Show

Yesterday was my hubby’s birthday, and we decided to have a day out to celebrate. We decided we’d visit Knightshayes Court, our favourite local National Trust house, which is a neo-Gothic extravaganza built by a Victorian entrepreneur on the fortunes of what my hubby calls the Knicker Elastic Factory – in fact the vista from the main rooms of the house has as its focal point the distant factory chimneys! We were driving along towards Exeter when we both spotted to signs to the Devon County Show and said together, “Shall we go there instead?”

It’s been many years since I’ve been to the County Show and I absolutely love it, and all shows like this. It was a beautiful warm, sunny spring day, ideally suited for a day in the open, with so much to see and do, so we quickly turned off, and began a really fun day out.

It is primarily an agricultural show, with different breeds of farm animals being judged, but there are many other activities going on as well, like demonstrations of dog training, equine sports, and usually a display by the Red Arrows Motorcycle team or some other spectacular group to wow the crowd. There are several main arenas where these events take place, and surrounding these, the showground is criss-crossed with wide, paved paths lined with stalls and stands of every description, selling, displaying and advertising all kinds of goods, products and services, and there are large tents with craft exhibitions and flower shows, and small animal competitions. There are bouncy castles and other kids’ attractions, and food stalls and live music, and there’s far too much to see in one day! The event is on for about four days every May, in the same venue as the other shows I’ve been to, which I have posted about on this blog, such as the South West Disability Show, and the various craft shows.

Here is a general view of one of the areas with stands.

We sat and watched the show jumping for a while, and as always, I much admired the beautiful horses, so supremely proportioned, powerful and beautiful, and marvelled yet again at the perfect partnership between these magnificent creatures and their riders, the combination achieving so much more than either could do alone. At the show, of course, both riders and horses are turned out to their very best appearance, with smart riding clothes, and glossy coats respectively.

There was a tent containing examples of the blacksmith’s art. The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths is one of England’s ancient guilds, and it’s lovely to think of the continuity of this historic craft from the earliest times to our modern era, where functionality has been combined with beauty in a way that reflects our times. I find it unbelievable that from such a seemingly unyielding and hard substance as wrought iron, such fluid forms and organic beauty can be produced – they look soft to the touch!

During the show, blacksmiths’ competitions take place, and alongside the display tent was an array of temporary forges where the smiths could be seen at work.

We then moved on to some more equestrian delights, this time the carriage driving. I have never seen this outside the shows, and what a delight it is! Dressed as from a bygone age, the elegantly turned out drivers sit straight-backed in their carriages and again, the wonderful teamwork between human and horse comes into play as the beautiful creatures obey the lightest touch of the whip. Each competitor had to fulfil certain manoeuvres, including backing and turning, trotting and standing, and they came right past where we were standing. It was hard to photograph them because they were one minute far off (zoom lens time) and the next minute right on top of us, and moving quite fast! I belatedly discovered the video feature on my digital camera and managed to capture a few seconds’ worth!

The horses are trained to prance with this high-stepping gait which looks sooo elegant!

I could have watched them all day.

There was a stand exhibiting egg-craft, which I always enjoy looking at – I’ve seen it at the two craft shows I went to last year.

Then we discovered this wonderfully coloured stand. The gentleman came from the Midlands, but his wife is from Russia, and they import Russian dolls and other items such as boxes and spoons. They know the artist, who paints traditional dolls as well as having a more modern take – with political leaders (both in and out of favour!), British royalty, and even the Simpsons!!

This was such a colourful display with the printed fabric behind.

There are many different animals on display at the show, and we came across these two little donkeys enjoying a bag of hay.

As well as four-legged animals, there are also plenty of birds, including this collection from a local owl sanctuary. These birds of prey are all tame, having been hand-reared, so they know no other life. The man told us that the barn owl on his shoulder was a bit shy and felt safe there; sometimes he had his face so close to the man that he looked as if he was whispering sweet nothings into his ear!

I zoomed in on the beautiful plumage of this extraordinary native British bird. Anyone who is fortunate enough to see them in the wild – and they are getting pretty rare these days because all the old barns have been converted into houses – they could be forgiven for thinking they are pure white; they fly by in absolute silence like a ghost on the wing, but close up, in daylight, you can see that they are very beautifully marked with subtle greys and browns. Their feathers are so soft that they make absolutely no sound when they fly, so the mice and voles that form their diet have no inkling of the danger until it’s too late!

This Harris Hawk is a very powerful and substantial bird of prey – just look at those talons…

From one extreme to the other, we then moved on to the poultry section and found these delightful ducklings.

We saw displays of vehicles of every kind, including motorbikes and these gorgeous Morgan cars. My dad told me that he saved up for a Morgan once, but then decided to spend the money on an engagement ring instead – good thing he did, or I would not be here to tell the tale!

Of course, being an agricultural show, there was no shortage of agricultural machinery. We are always amused by this, because the ones we see around us are never as clean as this!!

Finally we saw this stand full of baskets of every description.

At this point, unfortunately my wheelchair battery decided to die on me, and in manual mode, the wheelchair is extremely hard work to self-propel, because the motors and battery weigh a great deal. The back is low, as are the fold-down push-handles, so it’s a strain for my hubby to push me. At this point we decided to call it a day, and then my own personal battery failed too and any remaining energy drained away leaving me like a limp dish rag! I was sad not to be able to see the Alpacas and the Angora rabbits, and the small animals tent - always fun seeing the guinea pigs! I was also hoping to see the prize bulls, rams and pigs, all scrubbed and groomed for the occasion, being led around by men in spotless white coats, but it wasn't to be; we made it back to the entrance OK and my hubby fetched the car.

We were going to my parents’ for a meal in the evening, but it was still too early to go there, so we found a quiet place to park the car and both had a sleep! I really had overdone it during the day, so was really over-tired all evening which was a shame, but all in all it was a brilliant day out.

By the way, my hubby simply loved his mechanical card which I blogged about recently. He’s taking it round showing it to everyone today!

Next stop, Silver Wedding!

Silver Wedding Shadow Box

It is our Silver Wedding anniversary on 24th May, and I was at a loss to know what to get my hubby, that would be special enough to show how much I love and appreciate him, but which I could also afford! I searched the Internet and all I could find were things that seemed to be there just for the sake of buying, but which didn’t mean anything. I was getting desperate, and then my friend Wendy (I follow her blog, which you can see in my blog list) suggested I made some sort of plaque with something nice written on it – a friend of hers had given her husband something like that and he’d loved it – I thought this was a brilliant idea, and came up with the idea of making a shadow box.

I found a marvellous Ebay shop called Lord of the Mounts - http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Lord-Of-The-Mounts?_trksid=p4340.l2563 – he makes loads of different shapes and sizes of frames, including a selection of box frames, with plain wooden surrounds that are crying out to be altered! I was very impressed not only with the speed of delivery (I ordered 2 one afternoon, and they were with me the next morning!) but also with the quality of the workmanship – they are beautifully finished – lovely quality.

I got 2 of these small box frames, 6 inches square, and quite deep, one for this project, and the other to make something similar for our nephew who is getting married later in the summer.

It seemed a shame to rub off all that nice varnish, but it was necessary if I was going to paint it!

The next step was to line the inside of the box with silver mirror card. I originally planned on using Cuttlebug-embossed mirror card with the embossed part picked out in white, but my experiments proved very unsatisfactory, and even when I devised a way to make it work, I didn’t actually like the result in the end, so I just went for plain, unadorned mirror card, and this was the result:

You will see that I have constructed an inner part, also lined with silver mirror board. This is made up of two layers of mounting board, glued to the inside of the box, with narrow double-sided tape stuck to the top edge, to provide a platform on which to glue a square of acetate with some text printed on it.

I designed this in Serif PagePlus, my desktop publishing software. The words are a quote from the Bible, from the Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon). I printed it in dark blue on some inkjet acetate, which I then trimmed down to size.

The next picture shows it resting on its distance piece, about half way up from the bottom of the box, so that the back of the acetate reflects on the silver on the bottom of the box.

I was in two minds whether to use the mount that came with the frame, as it is quite wide in proportion to the size of the box, and I didn’t want too much of the width of the box to be obscured, but in the end, I decided to use it, as the inside did seem to be visible enough. I created an embossing design in Serif DrawPlus (my vector drawing program):

This has now been uploaded to my Microsoft OneDrive (see the left-hand side of my blog for details on my free cut files). Using Make The Cut software and my Cricut Expression, I embossed a piece of silver metal with this design:

I filled the embossed part of the back of this with Pinflair glue to help prevent the design being squashed from the front, and glued it onto the glass from the frame, cutting a narrow strip of silver mirror board which I glued with Pinflair glue to neaten the edge where the metal met the glass. Here is a mock-up of it on the box with the acetate “floating” in the middle:

You can see that the cream-coloured card of the original mount is reflected in the silver on the bottom of the box, which I didn’t like, so I cut another shape in silver mirror card which I glued underneath my metal mount, and this reduces the reflection considerably, as you will see on later pictures. The double-sided tape on the edge of the acetate distance piece also caused a reflection, and I got rid of this by sticking some narrow silver tape around the top edge of the acetate before gluing it down. This is a mock-up of the work so far, with the stripped frame in place over the mount.

This is a detail of the embossed metal mount:

showing the silver mirror card edging glued on.

I then moved on to a major part of the project that took quite a long time: the painting of the frame and box, which needed various coats. First of all, I painted the box and frame with two coats of gesso, as a primer.

I wanted a crackle-effect finish with silver under a pale grey top coat, but was not sure if this would work, so had to do a bit of experimenting first. Many years ago I bought several packets of bronzing powder when I was doing some work with Fimo modelling clay, and I still had this, virtually unused. Unlike Perfect Pearls and many mica powders on the market today, it has no binding agent in it, so needs to be mixed with something. It is very fine indeed, and as soon as you open the packet, it flies about and gets into everything, so it needs handling with care; you also have to wear a mask while using it, because it could be hazardous if inhaled. Worth the trouble, though, because the results are fantastic! I mixed a little with some acrylic gel medium and painted the frame with this; it went on extremely well, and after two coats, I had a surface onto which to apply the crackle glaze.

I have also had this crackle glaze for a number of years, having purchased it when doing some house decorating. Buying it this way is a lot more economical than buying the small quantities supplied by many craft materials manufacturers, and it does the job just as well. After experimenting, I’ve discovered it goes on best with the foam brush, as does the top coat – the secret to getting good sized cracks is to paint both the crackle glaze and top coat quite thickly but without drips, in one direction only, and not to over-brush, and the foam brush does this very well, which this mock-up shows:

As a final touch, I painted the inside edge of the frame where it meets the embossing, with dark blue acrylic paint to continue with the blue and silver theme. I didn’t bother to paint the back of the frame or the box with the silver and crackle glaze, but simply used two coats of the very pale grey emulsion top coat.

I was then ready to move on to making the embellishments and attaching them. My theme being silver and dark blue, I found some lovely quality dark blue card on Ebay, from which I cut some of Penny Duncan’s rose design shapes, and made them up – she has a video tutorial on her blog about this if anyone is interested. I have made these roses on several occasions and they look marvellous, belying the simplicity of their construction – it’s a very clever design and I’m very grateful to Penny for her generosity in sharing her designs freely with anyone who wants to use them.

I made them up in several sizes; to make smaller ones I just left out one or two of the layers. Of course, you can make the cut files whatever size you want, so you are not limited.

Before making them up, I painted the edges of all the pieces with Perfect Pearls in the Perfect Pearl colour – this looks like white powder in the pot, but comes out silver when mixed with water.

I then cut some of Penny’s leaf shapes for the large leaves, and some leaf trails from my own designs – these are also available on my OneDrive.

These were cut from some dull silver card, and the larger leaves I embossed by hand.

The final stage of the project was to attach these embellishments and assemble the box. I put leaves and roses on the bottom of the box, on the acetate, and on the frame. I am very pleased with how they are reflected in the silver card on the bottom of the box, giving the impression that there are more embellishments than there actually are.

The flat leaf trails were stuck down with Pinflair photo glue, which I have a love-hate relationship with! It’s really messy and gloopy to use, and it smells awful, and half the time it doesn’t stick properly first time, but eventually it does, and then it sticks well, and the major advantage is that when it is dry, you simply rub the messy excess away with your finger, and it leaves absolutely no trace!

The large leaves and the roses were attached with glue from the hot glue gun, which I definitely have a love relationship with – no hate here - it’s an awesome tool – the glue is extremely strong, and you can stick down non-flat things like flowers (and use it to construct the flowers, too) – it dries very quickly, and I also really like the smell of it! (Ooooooh! Is Shoshi hiiiiigh???)

I could not use it to stick the roses onto the acetate sheet, of course, because the heat of the glue would have melted the acetate, but my other favourite glue came into play there – regular Pinflair glue which is lovely and dimensional and can be used for things that you would use the hot glue for, but it takes longer to dry.

Here are some further views of the finished project.

Although this is called a “shadow” box, I think I’d rather call it a “light” box, because the silver lining causes the light to bounce around inside the box, and it seems to have a radiance of its own.

I have made a five-part video of the making of this project from start to finish. As it celebrates 25 years since we were married, and it has been making me think a great deal of that wonderful day so long ago, I have incorporated some of our wedding photos into the video (with a layout I created in Serif CraftArtist digital scrapbooking software) and also used the organ music we had at our wedding – my hubby chose the Purcell Trumpet Tune for my entry with my dad, but I chose the rest of it – all Bach (my first love!) and it was all beautifully played by an old friend of the family, now sadly deceased. I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane, as well as seeing this project growing from start to finish.