Handpainted bird houses.....

Gardening is a fairly new interest to me....I am still learning by my mistakes! Mostly I can keep plants alive now but they don't always grow how I imagined they would. My mother tells me the Latin names and if they like sun or shade etc. Often this doesn't help as my garden is north facing and seems to have a bit of both. She has given me some beautiful books which I love to read but either I can't find the plants in the garden centre or they cost too much. Gradually over time I am getting to know what likes my boggy clay soil which is rock hard in the summer.

 

 I am trying to make my garden into outside rooms decorated with found items...mirrors...painted objects....hanging things and anything else I can make that will withstand the weather...

 

 

I bought this bird house in the pound shop and painted it with acrylic paint....I gave it a coat of varnish and it still looks pretty after two years.....

 

 

The left hand bird house above was in a sale in Sainsburys a year ago....It was already white so I just added a pattern. The right hand one was from our local charity shop which cost £1. It has a nice texture but was painted with a tacky design. Firstly I painted it with left over garden paint which had been used on my bench....then I rubbed a little pale blue acrylic over it to show up the texture. A little bit of pattern on the roof and around the hole added enough extra interest for me. A quick varnish does help protect painted items but they are still affected and weather.  I don't want the pain of putting my things away so they are left to mellow and have been out all winter.

 

Longing to be out in the garden again....x

 

Growing strawberries in the garden ...

Hi...so sorry I have not blogged for a while...no excuses really...  just that time just seems to whizz by and I have been very busy.

I thought I would show you some photos of my garden that I took a few weeks ago.I have been meaning to put them on and have more on my camera , I hope to get up to date as every day my garden seems to change.

I didn't buy many plants this year as I have divided older plants ...grown from seed and been given many from my auntie and my mum....

I have never grown from seed before and was unsure of what to do with the seeds my mum collected from her garden. Her instructions were ....scatter them!!! So I did. I was thrilled when they started growing...however... Mum took one look and pulled a face that told me all was not well. Mum said  'They are far to close together...there are far to many...you will have to pull some out'.  Well I haven't pulled any out...I couldn't bare to. I have decided to wait and see what happens!

My Bluebells....





Some Pansies...



 Primroses..

I made this trellis last year by lashing together canes...I was a little surprised that it withstood the winter... I planted  honeysuckle,clematis and Jasmin, which are now winding their way around the canes and obscuring the view .



Clematis...

 Nemesia...

Snapdragons...

 This mirror was made many years ago by my Uncle Mike who is sadly no more with us...I  treasure the mirror and have painted it many times. I thought it would look good at the end of the garden which is my special place. This little area is where is sit and chill...I am letting myself indulge in my favourite colours..it is arty and decorated with found objects. The back fence is made from pallets stood up an end and the decking is also on pallets... 

Forget-me-nots...

Clematis...

This photo is taken from the end of the garden.. Last year I bought a strawberry plant and let it run into other pots until I ended up with eight plants. This year I have put some of the plants into hanging baskets. Apparently the runners will hang down and I will have hanging strawberries..also the slugs can't get to them....

 More clematis...one of my favourite flowers...they are filling up the trellis...

The view up my garden to the sunroom....

I love my little garden...Thank you mum for showing my how to grow flowers x

Painting laminated furniture ..

I first started hand paining furniture many years ago when I moved from Sevenoaks. I was buying a house with a boyfriend who changed his mind and I found myself homeless with my furniture in store and had to stay with my parents in Horam.

 There was not much in the village but there was a secondhand furniture shop where I bought small items and painted them to pass the time and dull the pain of living back with my mum and dad.

 Inquisitive as to what I was doing the shop owner asked to see what I had done, and impressed offered me to have an area of the shop in which to sell my items.

 I moved to a farmhouse in Firle where I had outbuildings to store my furniture which I rag rolled and stencilled as was the fashion at that time

One of the regular customers to the shop in Horam was Roger Daltrey's wife, who bought a couple of my things. At the time I was teaching myself to do marbling and I was invited to Rogers house to look at the work he had been doing. He had marbled his bathroom which was quite beautiful. Sadly he was not there so I did not get to meet him.

I continued to do this for a number of years and also rented part of a shop in Forest Row.

Below is a photo of my television cabinet. It has taken me a while to do this as I have done it between other jobs. I thought I would show you the finished photo first .

I shall never know what induced me to buy this in the first place. I do not like modern furniture let alone fake wood. At the time it seemed like a good idea. I have pondered this for a while, really wanting to get rid of it, but I decided to give it a make over until I find something I fall in love with.

The first thing was to give it a sand over and wash it down with soapy water.

You can buy paint specially for painting laminated wood and I have used it in the past. It chips easily so I have just used self undercoating satin finish water based paint. I did not want to spend any money doing this so I used what I already had. If I was buying the paint I would have used oil based. I always use satin finish as you can touch up the inevitable scratch and re paint woodwork without having to Sand and undercoat. I concentrated on one area at a time and did three coats. 

I wanted to add some colour so I got samples of wallpaper from B&Q and stuck them in the backs of each area using pva glue. If this had been solid wood I would have hand painted the designs.

 I covered the top and bottom of each shelf with paper.

Sorry the photo is not very clear...it is so dark in here today with the rain...

x

Butterflies in the garden ...

Firstly I must apologise for not blogging for a while...

I have just been so busy...up to my eyebrows.

I had to take some time off with the Easter holidays to spend with my son. I had some orders to finish and my parents were due to visit which meant a massive tidy up. My parents live in France and mum had to re do her passport...it was sent back as in the photos she was too close to the camera. By the time they had the photos re done, sent them back and waited for the return of the passport Easter was long gone.

My parents arrived on Saturday and needless to say I had to down tools and spend time with them as they were very much missed. 

You may remember this photo a few posts ago....

And this one....

Well...I finally finished it...

I decided to put it in the garden ...mainly as I could find no where suitable in the house.

I gave it a couple of coats of varnish....





and hung it on the side of my shed.

I had quite a problem working out how exactly to attach it and sorting through my tools I came across some white 'things' with nails in that are used to attach cable to walls...I think!

Anyway...they did the job. I did however manage to bash a lump of paint off when I missed the nail and hit the side of it by accident... 



To the left of the butterflies is a clematis that I am going to train across it..

and I planted some white Nemesia in the window box below it..

This may have taken me ages to finish .... but I love it !



This is just a little peep at a cupboard I have nearly finished...another on going job.

This is one of those things you think about for ages...mulling over exactly how to go about it...putting it off as you know it will be time consuming....and then starting it and sort of wishing you hadn't.



x

Hippie camper van ....

He he he ....I did this some time ago and thought you might like to see it...

This is my old car...

I have a parking space at the front of my house and when I wash up I can see my car thought my kitchen window....

When I open the front door.....

This is what I see.....

A terrifying monster staring back at me.

I know it's just a car...

And I can drive quite well....

But it has an evil ghoulish face....

A creature straight from hell....!!

A camper van is what I'd like...

With flowers painted on it.

I don't care what little power...

Lurks beneath it's bonnet.

I'd like to go for long weekends....

And trundle down the highway.....

I do not care what people say...

I'd like to do it my way....!

I wish ... x

My blog header ..

It took me a long time to work out how to do my blog header. I knew what I wanted, something that would me me, represent my style of work and look as real as possible. By real, I wanted the stitches to show up and I knew that a photograph would make it look dead.

The only way I could think of doing it was to scan it in.

I cut a piece of very thick interfacing the length of my scanner and half the width. I chose my main fabric and cut it large enough to wrap over the sides. The main problem was how to applique on the letters as they had to be thin in order to fit on.... I knew that if I cut them to size I would have a real problem in that they would move and could fray and even fall apart. Deciding how to go about this went round and round in my head for days.... Thinking through all the options I suddenly hit upon the answer...

I cut some paper the same size as the interfacing and drew on the letters. I wrapped the fabric over the interfacing and stuck it down with masking tape. Next I chose and cut the fabrics for each letter into oblongs and squares a little larger that my design and laid them in place, then I pinned the design over the top. 

I have a new sewing machine and had to look up how to lower the feed teeth and altered the tension to loosen it slightly. The rest was simple...I used free machine sewing to sew over the outline of each letter through all the layers. 

Free machine embroidery is when the machine just stitches and you move the material in the direction you wish...you can go in any direction...it is like drawing with a sewing machine... There are many videos on you tube that explain how to do this.

After outlining each letter I tore away the paper and did more embroidery around each letter with sparkly silver lurex thread... when I had the effect I desired I cut the surplus fabric away from around each letter.

I am very pleased with my header. I did not want to waste all that hard work so I have made it into a picture. I sewed some strips of pretty fabrics around my design and stretched it over a canvas.

The only problem being...every time I look at it ...I am reminded that I should be working !



Handmade fabric bird ....

I was woken this morning by Charlie holding a lovely cup of tea and a mothers day card.......he made a fuss of me today. William, my middle son sent a card and phoned me...Peter my oldest son sent a text...he came to see me yesterday...Along with the sunshine, that was all I needed to make my day  special.

Charlie was doing his own thing...so I made the most of the sun and walked to B&Q in search of a roll of wallpaper to pretty up a cupboard I wish I had never bought... There was nothing I liked but I enjoyed the walk.

My parents moved to France about five years ago...I missed my mum today. I sat in the sun at the top of the garden and phoned her from there....we chatted until my phone battery died...

I hung out the washing and gave my bracket another coat of paint....It took about three coats of quick drying satin paint to cover the black...you can see how it looked before in the previous post.....

This was after the first coat of paint.........

Whist I had the paint out .... I painted this butterfly thingy. I bought this in the sales after Christmas for £1.25...It is metal and I thought it had  potential......By the time I had done this I noticed it was raining and my washing was soaking wet ....

I struggled a bit screwing the bracket to the side of the shelves.....There is never a man around when you need one ! How come men can do this sort of thing in five minutes...where as it look me ages...mind you it is on straight, more than I can say for the last thing a man put up for me.... 

I had intended to finish off all my birds today.... but it was one of those days ...I spent too long chatting on the phone..and too long chatting on line.... never mind...I had a good day and at last my bird cage is hanging up complete with a pretty little bird....

Happy !....

Paintings of mermaids angels and flowers ......

I love to paint....My mum said she knew I would be an artist when I drew a huge spider on the wall when I was tiny. I remember I used to draw inside books as well...you know the white page at the beginning  and end. My auntie said she would turn the bookcase to face the wall when I visited.... I can't remember that.

I studied art and my tutor said I would have made a good fine artist...he was quite upset when I chose to study textiles.

 I have always been torn between painting and sewing. I love design...I love to print fabric....I enjoy colours...I like to use my imagination.

 It is much the same if I embroider...I make it up as I go along. My mother likes cross stitch and needlepoint, she prefers to follow a chart. I very seldom follow a knitting pattern, on the rare times I have...I will knit it in a fair isle design and make that up as I go along.

 I have never followed a crochet pattern...I was taught how to do a granny square , the basic stitches and from then on somehow just knew how to make what ever I thought of.

I am showing you a few paintings that I have sold.....In fact I did them as simple designs, mostly to sell on eBay. I knew I would not get a lot for them so they are not great works of art, I just enjoyed doing them.

 I have produced many paintings that I am proud of...they have been given away to family and friends. There is far to much competition, too many artists so I have decided to combine what I love to do with what I know I do best.....

The other paintings are on canvas, where as this one was on a large piece of mdf ...I did a few on mdf that I had cut for me...I liked the feel of painting on it. This photo was taken in the shop I had. Actually...I like to paint on walls....huge designs instead of wall paper or hanging pictures.

The owl and the pussycat ........

This is a painting I did some years ago....a rather large painting that I did on fabric....I had it stretched onto a frame and sold it as soon as it was hung in the shop...       

This is the painting in the shop.....

My parents owned the shop which was situated very near the sea front in Eastbourne....I rented it from them and made every thing that I sold myself. I had a work area behind the counter where I painted and prepared my sewing. I did the sewing itself after the shop was closed or when my dad gave me a break.

In the summer I opened the shop seven days a week, starting at 9 am and closing sometimes as late as 10 pm..holiday makers often had a walk out in the evening. The situation was good as we were near the theatres and some good restaurants where people would take a stroll before returning to their hotel..

I worked in the shop until a week before I had Charlie....He was over a week late and an enormous baby, just under 10 lb... I walked about 20 Min's to the shop and back each day...huge and round. I bought a man's t-shirt for the last two weeks of my pregnancy...it was orange and cheap in a sale, the only thing that would fit me....I think I must have looked like an orange with legs. I returned to work in the shop a week after I had him.

Angel picture...fabric and paper collage..

This is a paper and fabric collage I did some while ago....I found it in a pile of cuttings from magazines.  I have scrap books going back over 20 years...I still refer to them for inspiration...

A little peep into my home....

Sweet peas are my favourite flowers. I love the colours and they smell wonderful. I grew so many last year that I had vases full of them all around the house. This photo was taken in my sun room, the flowers stand on an old dresser base that I shall never part with....

This is the view from my kitchen window....snow!...I like to look at it but that is about all, I hate to be cold.  I love Spring through to Autumn........I am one of those people that can not bare to be uncomfortable in layers of clothes...stuck indoors with the heating on. I need to be out in the air...windows and doors wide open...I need the sun. In the summer you will find me either working in my sun room or in the garden....I live in bare feet...flip flops...cut off patched up jeans and cool pretty cotton tops.

This is my hall way, I collect all sorts of mirrors....they reflect the light back into my fairly dark house.  The large mirror says....mirror mirror on the wall.... I painted the stair wall white to keep it as light as possible and also because I am not restricted to using certain colours to coordinate it...I can put what I want where ever I want it...i am gradually re decorating in neutrals and white to allow me to use patchwork and bold retro fabrics ...I  love patterns and like to combine them...My taste is a mixture of shabby chic...retro 70s...gypsy...boho..hippie...

This is my sun room...There is no heating in this room so at the moment it is freezing...As soon as it is warm enough I put a large old pine table out there, and use this room to sew, paint and print my fabrics....It is not a very big room so I can only print on a small scale. I hang my printed fabrics on the washing line to dry along with material...yarn.....embroidery threads..and clothes that I dye and  tie-dye....I used to wonder what my neighbours thought...they are used to me now !

This is a very large wall and I tried hanging paintings and mirrors, but everything looked wrong and lost in the space....so I painted this....