MIAM

MIAM

Tuesday 30 April 2013

April Scavenger Hunt

I've found a new photo challenge, new to me anyway. I'm hoping I might get around to taking more pics as this one's not a snap a day, but several during the month.  Here's my entries for the 


Pink




6



Your Town (or village in my case)



  

Sport


Night Light



Something You Collect


Big




Dinner




Texture



Curl



Take Off




Plastic



Is anyone else having a mare trying to upload photo's in Blogger?

Thanks for looking, go take a squizz at the other great entries.
xx 

Sunday 28 April 2013

I Know Better Now

Thanks for all the 'congrats' messages last week after my recent win at LIM, it certainly lifted the spirits as did your kind words. Onto this week's challenge which has sketch inspiration.

  
After one abortive attempt I came up with this which I'm also entering at Addicted To CAS where the theme is FLOWER 







Stamps used:
Poppy - Papermania
Text - Hero Arts
Sentiment- Kaisercraft

Apologies for the wishy-washy snaps which were taken outside this morning in the sun!   Going to make the most of it so I'm off to Dad's now to sort out his garden. I've nothing much to report this time as I've worked every day since my last visit so I'll give you something nice to look at instead.
xxx
  

Monday 22 April 2013

Magpie Monday

The chazza's were quite fruitful this morning, I came home with this lot.

Linen Skirt £4.50 - Hospice chazza
Green Cardi £1 - Happy Clappy Church charity shop
Pink Cardi- £3.50 as above
Necklace £1 - Cancer Research chazza

I'm not sure if the crocheted cardi looks like something a granny would wear, although I am old enough to be a granny I don't wanna look like one! I tried it on and thought it looked OK but now I'm not so sure.  I also picked up these...pumps (is that what they are called these days ?? I'm fighting back the urge to call them plimsolls!)


At £4 they were a bargain from the Teen section of New Look.  I won't be wearing the laces tucked in as is the trend tho' for fear of looking like a saddo trying to get down with the kids.

Linking to Magpie Monday.

Sunday 21 April 2013

Boot Fair Bits and a Birthday Card

The bloody cat was prancing about on my bed at seven 'o clock this morning, after trying to ignore her for fifteen minutes and because I needed a wee I decided to give in and got up to feed her.  Never one to waste a bargain hunting opportunity, I decided as it was so early, to head off to a local boot fair.  It was fairly heaving when I got there shortly after eight thirty, no doubt due to the fine weather but I managed to get these bits. 


  Set of wooden drawers £2,  
 Mrs Henderson Presents DVD £1
 Set of The Times crossword/SuDoku puzzle books 50p

At last Spring seems to have sprung, and not before time either!  My daffs have finally bloomed, the trees are heavy with blossom  and the sun's been shining. 


I've been busy in the garden this weekend tackling the random turds found in the undergrowth that was the lawn, before mowing.  Lovely, thanks for sharing that.... I hear you say.   Don't mention it! 
I have had time though to whip up this card for LIM's current challenge which is to CASe one of the designs featured here.  I'm also linking to CAS-ual Friday where their current challenge is Birthday Bash.



I need a few blokey type cards for my stash and thought these colours were masculine enough. I followed Jen's design fairly closely and die cut a label for the stamped SU sentiment.  One of the pennant tails was embossed in a folder. Finally I added some wonky dots around the edge with a Sakura souffle pen! I won't tell if you don't. 
Gotta go now and watch last week's The Village before tonight's episode.

Have a great week and thanks for looking.
xx 

Saturday 20 April 2013

Parks

So, a couple of weeks ago Dad and I went up to London to see an exhibition of Norman Parkinson's work at the National Theatre.  We travelled up by train and on arriving at London Bridge station we alighted from our carriage only to look up to see this.





I'm afraid to say my only knowledge of The Shard was limited to how much it cost to go to the summit (£25!) and had no idea that it was situated at London Bridge.  Impressive as it is, we were not tempted to part with fifty quid and made our way on Shanks' pony to the National Theatre on The South Bank to view the exhibition where admittance was free.
 
Norman Parkinson's career spanned seven decades and during that time he enjoyed a long association with Vogue.  This together with his numerous assignments for Harpers Bazaar, Town and Country and other international glossies brought him worldwide recognition. I found it so difficult to limit the number of shots to post as so many of them are stunning in my opinion, but here are just a few of my favourites. 

 (Apologies for the quality, some were taken from the web and others photographed from a book as I don't have a scanner)

Post war New Look







 In the Forties Parkinson first photographed model Wenda Rogerson whom he later married.








He photographed many of the greatest icons as well as some of the
worlds most beautiful women.




Jerry  Hall 1975

 For me, his photographs just exude style, show his unique eye for glamour and beauty and have a timeless appeal.




You can see more of this great photographer and his work as tomorrow 21st April, on the centenary of his birth, Arena are presenting a profile of him on BBC4. 



 



The sun has finally decided to put in an appearance so I've got a date with a lawnmower now.  

Have a great weekend and thanks for looking in.
x









Saturday 13 April 2013

I Want To Feel That Galactic Thrill

Blogland has been responsible for bringing a few ladies together this week but although sadly I was not one of them, I did have a 'virtual' meet-up with Clare, Helga and PicMonkey genius Curtise.




Don't we all look fab-u-larse ?    Lovely Curtise has sent me step by step 'how to' instructions for this procedure, it's bound to have some techy name but don't be asking me!  Not that I will be snapping myself this week as I look like a bag of shite, full of cold and bucketfuls of snot and feeling very sorry for myself indeed.  Although a couple of nice things happened yesterday to cheer me up. I received some lovely congratulatory comments about my 'scallop' card which has been 'showcased' at Less Is More and down at the nursery I just happened to ask if they had any hardy Osteospernums (can't get 'em anywhere) and the kind lady said she had four cuttings of her own and gave me two of them....for the grand sum of 50p!  

On to this week's challenge at LIM which is One Layer and Film inspired theme.   





The butterfly stamp which I masked, is by SU and the papillon text is by Isabelle Morris for Katzelkraft.I used earthy coloured inks for this one - Vintage Sepia, Pistachio and Desert Sand.



I was hoping to get in the garden this afternoon for some long overdue tidying up but it's peeing down so now I'll be forced to curl up on the sofa in front of the idiot box and work my way through a man-size box of tissues. 

My sixteen year old self viewed this dance routine as quite raunchy at the time, now it seems dreadfully tame.....not one of Arlene's triumphs I fear.





 Acknowledgments to Curtise for the fab photo above and to Clare and Helga for appearing without first giving their consent!

Wednesday 10 April 2013

London Calling

On a grey Friday morning last week Dad and I took the train up to London principally to see an exhibition of Norman Parkinson's  work at the National Theatre.  While we there of course, we took in some of the sights.  (Jacko if you're reading, please note one of your 'Gonad' trees in the top pic!)



 After visiting the exbition (more about that in a future post) we walked along the South Bank.  Stupidly I hadn't even thought about the Easter holidays when planning to go and it was even busier than usual  but this didn't spoil the enjoyment of our stroll where every couple of steps along there was another street performer or attraction to behold.



This unicyclist had just extricated himself from an unstrung tennis racket which he'd placed over his head and amazingly squeezed around his torso.





 After a spot of lunch and a delissimo carafe of red at an Italian restaurant we walked towards Trafalgar Square where we encountered Tamils demonstrating......





......and then on to Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, down Regent Street and on to my desired destination Oxford Street, or more specifically Selfridges.

 


It was a quick visit for a solitary purchase of a Suquu eyebrow pen, (a great product which is only available there or online as far as I know  Dad was keen to make a quick getaway from the Selfridge splendour but the Suquu stand was right opposite the Creme de La Mer counter so I waved a £190 60ml pot of this product around and said "I bet you can't guess the price of this?"  After some derisory guesses from him a well groomed male assistant politely asked "Can I help you Madam?" 
Instead of replying 'not today thank you' I  said "Oh, I was just telling my father the cost of this creambut I think I'll be buying my moisturiser from Superdrug, thank you."  He did have the good grace to laugh, lets face it I hardly looked like his usual type of customer did I ???



I thought the famous window displays were a bit disappointing on this occasion and all featured shoes and a fairground theme.  Not a great subject for a good snap plus the reflection from the window made it difficult but I quite liked this one of these fab Jimmy Choo's.

If you're interested in photography, pop back soon to hear about the exhibition.

Thanks for coming.




Thursday 4 April 2013

Knit One, Purl One, Drop One.

Did you see the BBC programme The Great British Sewing Bee this week?  I'm no seamstress but I thoroughly enjoyed it. What with this and all the other shows encouraging us to bake or make, it seems that there's a renaissance for all things home/handmade.  I'm not sure why this is, could it be as a result of austerity or brought on by a desire to make something original which in turn gives one a sense of enormous satisfaction?  Whatever the reason there's no doubt that sewing, knitting and crochet are definitely en vogue.  


 
Last week at 'Stitch and Bitch' the ladies persuaded me to pick up knitting needles again, the last time I did so was 1977 or thereabouts and I was rubbish thenFast forward thirty five years and I'm still rubbish although valiantly trying not to look stupid before my group of accomplished knitters.  I have started a jumper to be knitted in one piece for an African baby as according to the pattern, newborns are often wrapped in newspapers.  It also informs the knitter to use a vibrant colour, not pastels as the garment may never get washed.  The pattern says an average knitter can knock this out in one evening and I pointed out that I was very much a-less-than-average knitter but they chanted 'it's easy' and against my better judgement persuaded me to go ahead.



As you can see I haven't progressed far in a week, I keep dropping and picking up stitches, then I get very cross and revert to my crochet where I know what I'm doing.  In order to embark on this knitting project I obviously required needles so I went back home and found mum's knitting basket containing an abundance of needles, wool and 'vintage' patterns.



I don't know whose dolly this was for.... even I wasn't born in 1961!




I remember wearing this fright to school, which my nan knitted for me in maroon. I loathed it and desperately wanted a deep rib cherry red V-neck jumper from Chelsea Girl.  Worse still my brother had to wear this!



I was knitted a few things I liked such as this waistcoat on the left that Mum made for me when I was about ten, I remember wearing it often. 



And I unwrapped this lovely Sindy bridal gown one Christmas morning even though I didn't have a Ken...or whatever her boyfriend was called.


 Times move on but this outdated phraseology still caused a snort

  .........we'll never see the like of these two patterns again.



I should think ones mood might be changed abruptly if this was worn nowadays!  Anyhows, do check back same time next year to see how far I've progressed with the knitting.

Judging by the weather I'd better get a move on with the crocheted blanket I'm making, as even though we're in April there's been more snow today.



 
When will it end?