Sea side days

 This weekend my family and I are off to Dartmouth which is hosting it's annual regatta. My parents have a flat in Dartmouth so we try and go there whenever we have a spare weekend - especially if the sun is shining! Devon is a beautiful place and something about being by the sea is so calming. The view from the balcony of the flat just never gets old - even when it is raining there will be boats going in and out, fishermen looking for lobsters and crabs. As it happens Dartmouth is an excellent place for crabbing - I once spent the day sitting on the sea front and managed to catch 60 crabs just with a simple crabbing line and some raw bacon! 

I have so many happy memories of days spent in Dartmouth and hopefully the weather will improve for this weekend so that all the scheduled regatta events go ahead and we can sit out in the sun and sea air!

I made and sent the card below to my grandparents who are rather unwell at the moment. I'm sure they would love nothing more than to be able to join us as they also love Dartmouth. Hopefully the card will help them to remember the times we spent there and they can imagine they are sat on the balcony overlooking the river watching all the activities and goings on.

The photographs below were taken by my Mom who could probably fill many albums with her shots of the river and coastline!

Grandparents who eat grapefruit...

Isn't it funny how we come to associate certain smells, colours or sounds with a particular person or moment in our lives? This week I passed by a fruit stall and the display of pink and yellow grapefruits instantly reminded me of my Grandparents. Every morning without fail they would both share a grapefruit for breakfast and I can clearly remember as a young child sitting in my Grandma's bedroom as Grandpa bought her breakfast in bed and watching as they ate their grapefruits out of matching bowls. I can also remember when staying with them being offered a grapefruit of my own for breakfast and finding it far too sour in spite of sprinkling sugar all over it! When my Grandparents came to stay at our house, my sister and I would watch them unload all their bags and every time without fail my Grandpa would have packed some grapefruits - so intent as they were to keep to their morning routine!

Now my Grandma and Grandpa are both in their 90's and live in a care home, so I am not sure if they eat a breakfast that is provided or whether they are able to choose. However seeing and smelling those grapefruits the other day desperately made me want to visit them so I could take some grapefruits and we could all sit and share them together.

   

Father's Day

In preparation for the coming Sunday - I have made a card for my Daddio! Not great photo's at the moment but will try and get some better ones and update them. Also I now realise that I need to add some apostrophes here and there!

I could write many a blog post on stories about the man who is my Father but this weekend I'm going to show my appreciation for everything he does for me. My Dad is one of the most determined, ambitious and hard working people I know and he has always fought for me and been there to make me smile! Love you Dad xxx

April Updates

It has been a bit too long since my last blog post, I have been busy celebrating Easter with my family and keeping busy with various bits and pieces.

As a little update here is another one of my Mom's latest felt creations she made for me - a little wild goose as featured in the name of my blog. The photo was taken among some crocus flowers in our garden which have just about survived this cold weather!

Mothering Sunday

"What is a Mother but the sunshine of our days and the north star of our nights?"

Robert Braun

To a special Mom  who keeps hope in her heart for me when I have none, gives the best advice and always knows how to make me smile.

I love you, Happy Mothering Sunday xx

Sea of Love

Happy Anniversary to my parents - this is the card I made them. Unfortunately they are going to get it a day late as I  missed the post on Saturday...

Mosaic Woodpecker

I am creative because I have an equally creative Mother. She made this in just one day! She has been going to mosaic courses for a while and has made some amazing creations. Anyone who assumes that mosaics are tacky should see some of the beautiful things that have been created by my Mom, her class mates and tutor - they are works of art.

Hansel and Gretel

On Saturday I watched a performance of 'Hansel and Gretel' at a theatre called The Tobacco Factory which is just down the road from my house. Last year we saw an excellent alternative version of Cinderella put on by The Travelling Light Company which was probably best and most original pieces of theatre I have ever watched so we were excited to see what The Tobacco Factory had to offer us this year. 

Like 'Cinderella', The company of New International Encounter used a small cast of just 5 who were all amazingly multi talented and were each able to play a range of instruments (such as a huge double bass - shown in my illustration above) as well as singing, story telling and acting!  

The play was humorous and charming and the style of performance worked particularly well in the small, intimate theatre space. My favourite part was when Hansel and Gretel first saw the Gingerbread house in the distance  - a tiny dolls house version of the gingerbread house floated through the audience, complete with a tiny smoking chimney. Another highlight was the performance of The Wicked Witch who was hilarious and had some great lines which had both the adults and children laughing.

It's refreshing to see different approaches and styles of theatre, and as much as I love big west end musicals, there is something special about minimal, intimate productions like this one where you can really appreciate the craft of the actors and each element of the production and performance.

Above is an illustration I did based on photo that was on the front of the programme.

Snippets of Christmas...and hopes for the New Year.

Christmas seems a long time ago now and it definitely flew by far too quickly this year. I loved being with my family - I just wish I could have spent longer at home!

Since beginning this blog my posts have not been as frequent as I would like at all, and definitely one of my goals for this year is to change the format of it a little bit - hopefully to include more work of other artists and bloggers I follow as well as books, articles, stories, theatre, films - any source of inspiration!

Once I manage to take some better photographs (hopefully on Thursday) I will post some of the projects and presents I made over Christmas for family and friends. Also this week I will include posts about:

Hansel and Gretel
The Life of Pi

My favourite blogs

Pin of the week

and thats all I can think of right now! My thinking is if I write on here what I intend to feature then there is no backing out and I have to post frequently (even though today this blog had a grand total of 1 pageview so its not as though I have thousands of expectant followers but still...)

Happy New Year!

(click picture to enlarge)

Picture credits clockwise from top left:

1. Polar bear Christmas Card (Own design) 2. Mini Christmas Trees taken from Cubicle Refugee Tumblr.

3. 'Warm Winter Wishes' - Own Christmas Card Design. 4. 'Soft Night Descending' - Catherine Hyde

5. Robin Mittens - Own hand embroidered Mittens. 6. Sparkle taken from Bibbity Bobbity Boo Tumblr

Busy Busy

I have been bad at updating my blog lately but have been kept busy moving house and making all sorts for my Sister's wedding. With Christmas coming up there is plenty for me to do at the moment as I love to hand make as many cards and presents as I can. 

Here is a picture of a card I made for Gilly - a great friend who I met in hospital over the summer. We both share a love of cats and I know she misses hers a lot. The quality of this photo isn't very good (as is the case with most of the photo's I upload on here because I am a bit rubbish with photography/editing) but oh well!

Hopefully I will be uploading pics of the 'Save The Date' cards I have made for my Sister soon but I want to wait until I have sent them all out first so as not to ruin the surprise for any guests who may also follow my blog!

Engagement!!!

 Big congratulations to my Sister and her partner who got engaged over the weekend! I am so excited for the wedding and we have all been coming up with ideas already! Here is the engagement card I made for them, which hopefully they should receive today in the post.

The Importance Of Home....

Never underestimate how wonderful it is to feel at home with someone or somewhere... 

Birthday cards, party ideas and creative frustration....

I think I mentioned in a previous post that my Grandma would soon be celebrating her 90th Birthday... Well time has passed very quickly and it is now less than a week before her birthday and I feel quite annoyed with myself for not having started making a card and present a bit earlier. Ideally I would love to visit her on Tuesday when she will be having an afternoon tea party to celebrate both her birthday and her 60th wedding anniversary; I have so many ideas of how I would decorate the room: diamond bunting, place cards, sweet pea garlands, party hats, helium balloons, ahh the list goes on. However time and distance means that all these big ideas will have to wait for another occasion - next time I vow to be more organised rather than wasting my time moping around the house and lazing in the sun!

This evening I did start work on the birthday card; I chose the theme of poppies as this is the birth flower of August. My mood this evening wasn't the greatest, and so the card I started got ripped up and thrown away as I wasn't happy with it. However the envelope escaped my anger outburst so here is a picture of that:


 

The card itself will be similar in design, I would like to find a short poem either about August or poppies but have had no luck so far (except from the famous Flander's Fields one which isn't exactly appropriate!) so if anyone knows of one please let me know! I will post a picture of the card when it is finished - that is if it doesn't get ripped up again!

Tea Party Invitations

This August my Grandparents it will be both my Grandma's 90th birthday and their 60th wedding anniversary  which is certainly worth a celebration! They have decided to invite friends and neighbours to an afternoon tea , and I offered to make the invitations for them. Here is the final design I came up with:

I chose sweetpeas as these were the flowers at their wedding and in my Grandma's bouquet. The little teacup is detachable so that invited guests can simply fill it out and return it to my Grandparents - and can then keep the invitation as a reminder of the date and time. Overall I feel pleased with the finished product, I would have liked the writing so be a little more elaborate and decorative, but as the majority of the invited guests will be elderly, I felt it needed to be clear and easy to read.

Happy Birthday Grandma and congratulations on your 60th Wedding anniversary!  

Mint Humbugs

Today marks 2 years since my Grandad passed away. He had a talent for writing funny poems, a song for every occasion and he always had a mint humbug in his pocket! We miss you Grandad!