More fun on the roller coaster

I'm getting ever closer to the finish of Module 1 on my C&G Diploma course, and I do think I've made progress on this last chapter here.

Love it or hate it the above sample is certainly a leap outside the box for me.

Good finish

Thanks so much to all who commented on our exhibition, your enthusiasm and encouragement was much appreciated.

We had a great finish with lots more visitors than we expected and all made good sales.

We're already planning our Christmas one in mid November and are hoping to move into our local town of Farnham, where the museum has a newly erected Garden gallery, fingers crossed for a good visit in a week or two.

Private View

Well here I am all dressed up, well casually, my interpretation of 'arty', (wearing my lovely b/day wrap from my DS, bought back from his holiday in Dubai) for our private View, pics here.

We had a great time and I was delighted to sell a large piece on the night another one today.

Hope tomorrow goes as well.

Alice Holt Artists Summer exhibition

Our little group of artists has expanded this year from 3 to 4. We now have a lovely ceramic and glass artist Claire who does some amazing work and we are very happy to have her with us.

We're exhibiting in a new venue this year, very close to where we live so that will be handy.

As I was in the throws of revamping my web site I decided to open anotherblog so visitors could see some of my work before or after the show.

I know most of you will live too far away, but if anyone is in the area do drop in we'd love to see you.

Still on a French theme

I decided to take a short break to catch up with my everyday blog, as opposed to my C&G blog, which has just taken me an unbelievable 4 hours to update the new chapter. I can only assume that my brain, which has never been the fastest on the block, has now decided to go on OAP mode, hmmmm! (actually no disrespect to other OAP's, I think this is more a me thing.

Anyway as it would take forever to post up even some of the pics from our recent French holiday, so I thought I'd post some of my journal entries. I'm a real newbie when it comes to creative journaling and tend to go for the obvious on most of my pages, so those of you who have wonderful examples, these are more modest offerings.



This was made with the lovely bread wrappers you get for your bagettes, and pics from promotional leaflets.

and here's me working in my portable studio :-)



.........and the result, dadah!



And the wonderful Chambord !



Not forgetting the glorious opportunity I had to sketch there, transporting me into another unseen world.



Oh! and how could I forget the magical, privately owned, slightly distressed Chateau De la Ferte Saint Aubin, where we lived the dream for a day, ahhh! what a life, I knew I was destined for aristocracy !!!!!!!


Sorry about the sideways recipe in the middle if the page here , but it's the back of the previous page's PC and I couldn't think of a more inventive way to show both sides, so had to cut a hole in the page, I told you I was a newbie :-(

And what a wonderful surprise this was, beautiful church wall paintings, so vibrant and skilfully painted. ( I've looked and seen I've mentioned these before, so apologies, here's some more.)



And a little bit of crafting. I got to use my mini sewing machine on holiday and the first thing I made was a quilted bag for my Polaroid Pogo printer that I bought for the holiday, it's a wicked little toy, perfect for journaling on the go.





And a plastic bag holder.



And some glass covers so they don't rattle in the cups, while in transit, my DH has a major aversion to rattles, in common with most men I suspect!



What about this for real luxury sewing, shame the shop was closed.



This pics's especially for my DD2 who loves dressing her youngest DD in traditional smocked dresses, but she'd have to pay a cool 65 euros for this one!



And just to finish off I had to include this pic, how often do you get your DH to sit on a toadstool, although he does make rather an oversised elf :-)

French holiday pics

At last my feet have finally touched terra firma after our wonderful French holiday and I have been able to process a few more pics.

 

  We started our holiday in the Loire valley with one of our daughters and her family, and here they are minus big brother, who thought it would be far too boring to come with us, so stayed behind, girl watching with his cousin.

We spent a lovely day at this chateau, which was completely unsupervised and relied on trust that visitors would be respectful. As a result we had an amazing insight into life as it would have been lived in the 17oo’s.

In the attic rooms we found a beautiful old school room which kept the youngest member amused, even if we did think the hat might mean something to do with bad behaviour.  I was also lucky enough to spend my actual b/day on holiday, so of course we had to have a champagne celebration. And presents.

The birthday cake was good too :-)  We followed my birthday celebrations with a visit to a

local village with lots of lovely art/craft shops  but they were mostly shut as it was Thursday………….. shame.

And then there was my summer residence to visit of course. I  wish.

How about these lovely curtains, they’re all over the region, but these were behind coloured glass, beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally before we left we popped into the village church and were stunned to find these amazing wall paintings.

  

I’m trying out Windows Live Writer for the first time, so I’m hoping it will publish this post Ok. It’s nice to see how your post looks with the pics and i think it’s a bit quicker too.

Home again

We're back again, after a wonderful 3 week trip to France, the Loire Valley and the Nomandie, Brittany coast.

I took over 1000 pics so that'll keep me quiet for a while, did a bit of sketching and journaling and used my new mini sewing machine to make accessories for our new van, Connie.

This is just a preliminary post as I've been busy catching up on coursework on my other blog here, here's a taster of what I'm up to.



And a couple of holiday pics of my favourite chateau, Chambord, I'm in love with it.





And of course a pic of the sea.



Will post again soon.