Goodbye to Flynn, hello new house

It's been an eventful weekend. On Saturday morning our dear old lurcher dog Flynn collapsed. On examination the vet found he had a serious heart condition most likely caused by a tumour and the only real choice we had was to have him put to sleep. It was a very sad moment, but a release to his suffering. He will be much missed and never forgotten.

Happier news today - we now have a new home! It's so lovely! We've already ordered a summer house for the garden. My husband ,daughters boyfriend and I are going to collect a new dining table and move the heavy furniture there tomorrow. We've been waiting for a home together for 8 years!

Home Page Book Video

This is a video I've made of the (as yet unbound) Home Page Book Project which was organized by the wonderful Yahoo Group Vintage Photo Image and hosted by JoAnne Balaz.

The idea was for everyone to use the same template and each participant to send to the others their interpretation of the concept of home. You will see from the vid that everyone has done something different When I manage to get some 1.5" Zutter Orings, I will bind it together and add some final flourishes! It's quite something to see all the pages together.

The next project like this is to make one on the theme of Halloween - great fun!

Oh, if you need to kill the music that might be playing by now, in order to hear the commentary, just click the button on the music player on the right hand side of the screen------>

Video of Blackbird on her nest in my garden

Body Pump improvements

Whaoo! I did Body Pump ( a weight training class ) at the gym last night and I am thrilled to report that I am nearly back to the weights I did before my accident in March.

Body Pump classes are choreographed routines using a bar with weights. I guess I've been doing it for 9 years. Each major muscle group gets a 5 minute-or-so work out, and there's a warm up and cool down. When I returned after the accident I just did really light weights and endured the pain. Week by week I incresaed the weights. When I shattered my humerous I couldn't imagine it would be possible to get back to my former fitness.

I wear a brace on the wrist (I've found a strong leather one that in-line skaters use - I just took out the metal bar) and this supports the wrist which is still recovering from nerve palsy. But I can actually see and feel an improvement in the strength of the wrist, triceps and biceps, and it's all less painful recently.

The way the body can recover, given time, is just amazing. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I didn't break my spine when I fell.

Madame Talbot Victorian Lowbrow

Heather F.E. sent me this link to an amazing site if you like all things wierd Victorian Gothic. How about a real shrunken human head for the mantlepiece? Check it out...

http://www.madametalbot.com/3exhibits.htm

worth looking at!

Poetry on Motion

No, I mean...SERIOUSLY...you have to watch these guys. Comment if you want. Absolute jaw dropping stuff - you won't believe your eyes!

Nightingale.

A couple of nights ago I woke at about 3.45 am and went downstairs to get a drink. In the quiet of the night, I was amazed by the sound of a lone bird singing very loudly and so incredibly beautifully. (We have lots of blackbirds in the neighbourhood which sing their hearts out on spring mornings, but this bird sounded much different. It hardly paused for breath and did not seem to be in communication with another one.)


Although it was still quite dark, I went into the garden and caught site of the bird fom my back door on the rooftop next door - all I could make out was that it was brown, about blackbird size, with a beige coloured front. At first I figured it must be a thrush, but I have been on youtube and checked out possible candidates from the videos and it was most certainly a nightingale - once you hear one you would not mistake it for anything else. It didn't repeat it's song like thrushes do. It was absolutely magical, incredible. Here is what it sounded like....

A good day

I've had a really good day. A client of mine gave me some faith healing . And Suzi Blu sent me a hug!! because I had sent her a message thru e bay. (Catch her crazy vids on You tube.) She is so talented yet fascinatingly troubled. Love you, gal! Anyway, back to the faith healer....She said the energy in the arm was good, but got worse further down in the hand area and worked some magic to try to rectify things.

The last of the 'home' pages for the book has arrived from a partcipant, Heather Bloom. All the pages are lovely. Everyone has done something different. Now all that remains for me to do is make the covers and bind the pages together. I am so looking forward to doing that ...

And the 100 old letters arrived (see previous entry). They are fabulous - just amazing. I am going to use them on the home page covers for sure. Found items are just so much nicer to use on collages than bought stuff.

I've had lots and lots of lovely feedback on the tutorials I did on here a while back...I must do some more soon - they were fun! I'll have come up with something wild!?

old letters for collage for sale

I found a seller on e bay (UK) who has stacks of letter for sale from the 1800's. He's letting me have 100 for £20 inc postage. They are great for altered art / collage etc. If anyone is interested his e mail is the-shop@hotmail.co.uk

Scar 17th June

OK, Here is my scar now on 17th June - accident was on 8th March. Not bad eh?

Old customers returning

Having been off work for 12 weeks I really wasn't sure if I had a business to return to. I made lots of calls to those whose numbers I had, and there was an announcement in the paper to say I was in business again...but...hey... 3 months is a long time. But ...HEY! guess what...I had lots of phone calls from old customers wanting to come and see me....plus a few new customers I had never seen before...and one who is back from her travels and never even knew I'd been incapacitated! I am so thrilled. I hope the calls continue and I keep busy for the next few months! (My arm is pretty sore first thing, but by about 2pm it's eased up and by late evening it hurts very little)

DON'T BREAK YOUR F***ING ARM, IS MY ADVICE!

ALTERED TRINKET BOX

THIS SWAP CHALLENGE IS TO ALTER A SMALL BROWN CARDBOARD BOX ( KINDLY SUPPLIED BY HEATHER FENN EDWARDS ), DECORATE IT AND PUT INSIDE IT A PIECE OF 'TREASURE' - SOMETHING WE OURSELVES WOULD BE PLEASED TO RECEIVE. HERE IS MY BOX FOR KIRSTEEN....

...OF COURSE I'M NOT TELLING WHAT THE LITTLE BIT OF TREASURE IS IN THE PURPLE WRAPPING! I COVERED THE BOX IN A WEBBING TYPE PAPER THAT GIVES A MUSHY TEXTURE WHEN YOU USE DECOUPAGE GLUE WITH IT. WHEN DRY I USED 3 COLOURS OF BYZANTIA PAINT THEN JUST WENT TO TOWN ADDING FIBRES, A BUTTON, EGGS, LABEL, HEART. IT WAS FUN TO DO AND I AM RATHER PLEASED WITH THE OUTCOME. NOW I WANT MORE COLOURS IN BYZANTIA - I LOVE THE STUFF!

GOOD NEWS ABOUT MY ARM

I SAW THE SURGEON AGAIN TODAY ABOUT MY BROKEN ARM. (BRIEFLY, I BROKE IT 8TH MARCH IN 3 PLACES ON THE HUMOURUS BONE AND NOW HAVE PARALYSIS OF THE HAND DUE TO NERVE DAMAGE) HE TOOK AN X-RAY AND SAID HE WAS SATISFIED THAT ALL THE BROKEN BONES ARE FUSING TOGETHER NICELY. HE ALSO TESTED TO SEE IF THERE WAS ANY IMPROVEMENT IN THE NERVE REPAIR AND YES THERE IS! HE SAID IN THE NEXT 3 MONTHS I SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE THE KIND OF MOVEMENT YOU MAKE IF YOU WERE DRUMMING WITH A DRUM STICK AND BY CHRISTMAS I SHOULD HAVE VIRTUALLY ALL THE MOVEMENT BACK IN MY HAND. THAT NEWS MADE MY DAY!

Fairy ATC's

Vonda's Crows

Vonda, the swap hostess for ATC World, said she would kindly hold back for me on some crow swap cards...so I rushed to get 'em done today...it's taken all day and I ended up with 2 sets...won't bore you with them all, but here goes with a few pictures. I'm loving the rusty nails. I got a roll of them yesterday for 20 pence! and I think I will be calling on them lot.....

crafty individuals...

Want some Paper Artys-style collage sheets and rubber stamps from a UK store? - try these folks... I'm adding them to my list on the left
http://www.craftyindividuals.co.uk/

Crows

Continuing my passion for crows raven rooks etc....here are some lovely old book pages

magpie, raven, jackdaw, and on the second picture carrion crow, rook, hooded crow