Holiday?

Where did my holiday go? 4 weeks and 1 day til I move back to sunny Preston.

I got a confirmation of my place on the textiles course this year (yay!) and in the envelope was also my holiday project....(grrrr, how could you, UCLan?)...and a letter saying that the uni are running a trip to New York in February/March next year! Better get saving, since it's £600!! Very exciting, I've never been abroad! :D

Going for lunch at my brother's new house with the parents tomorrow, then a friend's birthday party in the evening, then to a festival in Bedfordshire next weekend - hopefully it won't be this rainy! Busy busy busy! My knitting is progressing very slowly.


The holiday project is fairly naff, though...we have to collect things that reflect our personal interests and experience of Summer, put them in a bottle, then do a sketchbook based on the objects. I was thinking of holding it outside in the rain. But that doesn't really reflect my interests... and wouldn't be very fun to draw.

Here are a few bits and pieces I've done so far -

Print blocks

Prints


Ink and Glue

Sneak Peek

I've been working on some new brooches over the past couple of days, there are 17 of them now! Here's a sneaky peek at them... proper photos and listings soon!



This is my Summer reading pile. Good reading makes for a happy Mrs Toad!

Decisions

What to do with my spending money?

Keep - I have extra funds for the rest of the Summer.

Spend - I buy this book, which I have been wanting for at least a year now.


Use - I get some greetings cards printed of my Snow Queen series of illustrations, and possibly approach a local bookshop to stock them.

Tricky.

Also, as of yesterday, some of my brooches are being stocked by the lovely Queenies Cupcakery in Ironbridge! Very excited about that, as it is the most gorgeous shop, selling the loveliest cakes and other treats as well as tea and milkshakes. Well worth a visit if ever you're in the Ironbridge Gorge.

Sorting

Spent the morning sorting out my laptop, I'm really disorganised about where I save stuff. Going through my art folder and found this!

Aaah!

I just got an email from uni, saying results get posted up online tomorrow, terrified even though I already have an unconditional for a textiles degree in September. I need to distract myself!


Thinking of entering the young people's open exhibition in Oakengates on Sunday - but I'd have to get the piece of work framed up before then - I'm not sure how to frame a piece of felt? It can't really have anything pressing on the surface of it, as the embellishment is pretty delicate... I'll have to phone up Maws, they're usually pretty helpful :)

Been making some new items over the past couple of days, and working on my Autumn/Winter range, too. Sneak peeks and new listings soon!

Ouch

Yesterday was filled with running back and forth with heavy things, getting locked out of my flat twice, hours on the M6, and a bit of unpacking.

This morning, let Peps out for a bit of a walk round the garden (she likes exploring outside her pen when someone's there to make sure she can't get into too much mischief!) - but our next door neighbour had left the gates open, so she made a run for the road! Fell on my knees as I was stopping her, and now have an attractive de-skinned look going on.
Ah well, back to the unpacking/football avoidance. :)

Sorry, this is going to be a huge post!

Well it's been quite some time since my last post, but I've been so busy! Making these -

Mixed media wall-hanging based on the Harris Museum, Preston.


Wire prawn mini sculpture.


Textural ceramic pieces.



Made into a little sculpture.


Piece of ceramic 3d illustration work based on The Snow Queen, designed to have a light source behind it.





Textile orange with multiple layers - wrappings project.

- what do you think? All comments and criticisms are welcome!


When I've not been making stuff, I've been drawing, and spending far, far too much money on this book... ...trying to convince myself "it's research for my essay!" and being thoroughly unsuccessful... I just wanted it because it's beautiful. I do love Jan Pienkowski's work.

Back page from The Nutcracker.

Also found a whole fairy lustre tea set (minus the bread and butter plate, but I can live with that!) in a little charity shop, along with 4 tea cups and saucers - £4.74 for the lot! Bargain.



In between all the work, I've had a couple of trips home to Shropshire...

Braved the Ironbridge floods...

...to get some Queenie's Cupcakes!

Which are absolutely gorgeous, my family and flatmates agree!

You can find them on Facebook, or visit their website for more info.




Yum yum yum!


Also found a lot of lovely vintage glass baubles in the Severn Hospice shop in The Gorge - 10p each! They look very sweet on our tree.

More lengthy posts to follow soon...

A rather *Special* week.... :)

This was what was outside my flat window a couple of days ago -

Right now I can't even see out of my window for rain!! Hope it's gone by tomorrow!



Had a brilliant night on Thursday, went to see The Specials in Liverpool with a friend. It was amazing, despite the fact that drinks were hideously over priced!We missed the last train home, too, so had to wander round Liverpool for a few hours until the trains started up again. Found a sweet little Chinese though, depressingly a really nice eat-in meal for two from there cost us less than 4 drinks at the Olympia! I was pretty shocked!

Ended up mooching around outside Lime Street station until 3:20am, then catching the Manchester Piccadilly train.... then more waiting there.... didn't get home until about 7am. Good times were had though!

First day off

since Sunday! I'm completely shattered!! Just my luck that my course started this week too (a week earlier than all my flatmates :( ) so I'm currently getting back into drawing and spending days here -

- since I picked it to study for our first project.. (it's the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston).

Also, you might have noticed some new brooches in my various shops, this is them in progress a couple of weeks ago, not looking too promising...

..but now look! Magically transformed into lovely, frosty, metallic leaves! :D

Large Silver Oak Fallen Leaf Brooch - $19.00/£11.00
Available on Folksy, Etsy and Coriandr

All packed up & ready to go

Really should be sleeping now, as I'll have to get up at about half 5 tomorrow to be in Preston for 9 to collect my keys... scary stuff!!! Have so many photos from Staffs and a little trip to Lake Vyrnwy in Wales, will post some up here soon, just haven't had the time! Been packing and tidying since goodness knows when! Anywho, I probably won't be posting for a little while, and won't be adding anything new to my shop for a bit either, since I can't fit my masses of felt, threads and other things in my little student room, I don't think..

Bye bye Shropshire, bye bye Bun, bye bye April & Chin :(

Getting away

From this (rather dreary) town for a little bit should be nice - going to stay with my Nanna in Staffordshire tomorrow for 3 days. Hopefully it won't rain so we can have our traditional visit to Dovedale in the Peak District, and do some work on the farm - mow the lawns, cut the hedges, mulch all the flower beds, and any other little jobs that need doing - normally bonfires are heavily involved! The forecast isn't amazing though, so I'll be taking some felt and sewing supplies with me in case of downpours!!
Then it'll be a busy weekend when we get back, craft market (aaah!!!!) on Saturday, and a kind of 'leaving party' type thing in the pub that night for all of us leaving here to go to uni - will be nice to see everyone, but terribly sad as well, since many of them I won't see again for quite some time, if ever in the case of some people. :(

Last week Katrina of Tomato Tea blogged about a yarn making mishap, and I rather cheekily asked if I could buy some of the resulting fibre... Katrina was lovely and wouldn't take money for it, but we agreed on a trade, and I made her a custom wool brooch in return for this absolutely amazing green fibre! :)


It's (well, some of it is) currently waiting to be incorporated into a textile piece similar to the garden-y one in the first picture in this post.

When someone's 'mishaps' are this lovely, you can't possibly go wrong with their actual items! Check out Katrina's shop for beautiful hand spun yarn, hand dyed yarn and ace accessories!

Fear

I have so much to do this week, but can't concentrate on any of it because the much dreaded and awaited a level results are looming tomorrow. I'm really not expecting good or even half acceptable grades, last year was a bad year. I just want to get it over with! So glad I had an unconditional offer from UCLan, one less thing to worry about!

I've also booked a table for a craft fair on the 5th September - the week before I have to leave this town, and the day of Catton Hall Festival of Fireworks in Derbyshire, which is usually a nice night out, especially since we got some free tickets - am a big lover of fireworks. :) Going to be a busy week!
The table at this craft fair's massive compared to any I've had before - 6' by 2'6" or something along those lines - I'm sure most people wouldn't be phased by it, but I'm a bit worried about how best to display my brooches and jewellery... any tips anyone has would be lovely!

Baking has featured in a fairly large way this week - mainly cookies. The sort that morph into odd shapes when baking -


Was digging around in the harddrive of my laptop earlier and found this picture I took for the compostion of one of my final paintings for art, had forgotten how much I liked it until now.

A bad blogger

I have been, indeed. So, so busy lately with sorting out my room so it'll be in a fit state before I leave, organising all my crafty stuff so I can take it with me, sorting out all my A level work from textiles and having failed trips to the cinema with friends.

Proper post soon, I promise.

A good weekend...

...was had - apart from the weather being completely freezing! Was a friend's 18th on Saturday, so an interesting time was had by all, sadly v. expensive though, silly pub!

Scary Stuff

This is where I'm going to be living in 7 weeks and 1 day's time.

It is MASSIVE.

I think there are 11 blocks. Needless to say, I'm petrified. :)

The Real One

While having a clear out of my room, I found the contents of the doll's house I had when I was little stashed in a box - all the furniture, pretend food I'd made from salt dough, everything! Including the little family of fabric toads I made because I didn't want dolls living there - Mrs Toad, Mr Toad and the Young'ns. When I was small I used to invent businesses that the Toad family ran together (bit odd, eh?) - the Toad House Hotel, and I believe Mrs Toad had her own range of jams and other foodstuffs at one point! All in all, a very enterprising amphibian.