This One Took a Little more Staging

This is Fenella in her cottage.  Not the best picture I know, I can never seem to manage the perspective of their big noses or the whiteness of the faces.

As well as her favourite crystal ball, cauldron and candle holder she has a few trinkets hanging around including gold blackthorn wands.

And all sorts on her shelves.  (This is why we spend months collecting 'stuff'!)

Lotions and potions and mysterious additives.

And even her own little Fae familiar.  If he looks a little red in the face it's because he's been tucking into that bottle of single malt whiskey that Elsa and Mike brought him back from Wales and he has another hidden behind his shell.  (His face is about the size of a 20 pence piece).

  

I'm really quite pleased with the whole set up.  

John also drove Elsa and I up to Ally Pally for the Knitting and Stitching show last week.  It was great to meet up with Dale and Ian again, so looking forward to next year with them!  I thought the whole show seemed a little more crammed in than previous years and didn't enjoy it as much.  In fact we totally gave up about half way around the main trading hall, we had done the first hall by then but we didn't do too much of the exhibitions, and the small hall was just too cramped and crowded.  I shot in to see Margaret Beal and shot out again. From reading other comments on line I'm not the only one who was a little uncomfortable.  

This Sunday we flew over to Dublin for a couple of days.  We are so fortunate in having Southampton Airport 45 minutes away with a great domestic airline in FlyBe.  Everything always seems to work well there and the aircraft all have enough room for John's rather long 35 inch legs.  Always a bonus! 

We had a trip up to Newgrange, the 5000 year old passage tomb.  It was bucketing down so I didn't risk the camera but you can see more about it HERE. I hope the weather is better for the solstice in December!  We also saw an exhibition by Leonora Carrington, a 1930's surrealist, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.  We didn't think a lot of the rest of the exhibitions, a hung up piece of blue polyester fabric or a block of wood leaves me cold when it's classed as art, but each to their own. 

We also went to see the fantastic gates at Harlech House. 

Aren't they fantastic??? What an entrance.  Our guys work in metal at the factories so I'm just wondering if there's any way I can wangle something similar for our drive.... lol.

Thank you for the comments on the blog it's great reading them.  I do try to reply to you all direct but I have been a little busy lately.  I also see Diana LaFaro you are set to no reply so I can't answer you.  Thank you for your company over here though!!


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It's Good to be Back Fiddling!

One of thing's I've been wanting to do for ages is use polymer clay.  As you know I've made with bronze and silver clay and I do love my little people so when I came across Dee Schiller on Facebook through Carol Douglas who I did a workshop with a few months ago I was over the moon.  

I first bought her book and then a couple of her Oddfae creations and then joined a Yahoo workshop she has to make her Shellfae.  And this is my little chap.  

I'm over the moon with him!  I don't think his head has cooled down enough yet as he hasn't told me his name, I'm sure he will in time.   *he now tells me his name is Douglas.  Must be a reference to his origins, see above!! *

I must just confess to going into overdrive at Michaels in New England, several of them actually, and one thing I did buy was polymer clays.  I contacted Dee to ask for the best colours as I didn't have her book with me and soon managed to find the right suff, some of which I'm not sure I can't find over here anyway.  It's quite a bit cheaper because of the tax differences but I didn't think of how it would all scan going through the airport. Anyway picture a rather large selection of metal findings and Tim Holtz items and quite a few large blocks of a dense plastic type material in an x-ray.  I did have a polite slip of paper in amongst it all when we arrived home.  Luckily I had packed sensibly and, other than a few socks, underwear was not present!  

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A Whole New England

We've just spent a lovely couple of weeks over in New England with friends.  I haven't been to America before and John has only done Los Angeles and Arizona so it was something new.

We started on a bit of a back foot when there had been a fire at the fuelling depot in Logan Airport Boston.  Our flight was delayed 4 hours, a bit of a pain which meant we landed at 2am but the earlier flight had been cancelled altogether so we are grateful we flew at all.

Dawn from our hotel was pretty fabulous though.

We bought a Boston trolley pass each and did the usual touristy things.  Like the Cheers Bar...

 ...and USS Constitution.

Lunch in the Prudential Tower.  Great shopping mall underneath too. 

Another lunch in the oldest restaurant in America, the Union Oyster House.  Peter is taking a photo of the booth next to us which is known as the Kennedy Booth where JFK always insisted on eating as it gave him some privacy.  A long waiting list to sit there but there was a better view being next to it!

We then moved on the Kennebunkport for a couple of nights and then further into Lake Winnepesaukee.  Another good view to wake up to!

It was then across to Saratoga Springs and finally back to the coast and Cape Cod.

It was a great trip away but very much filled with too much food.  I don't know how they cope with so much at every meal!! lol  Back on the diet before Christmas.

Must now seriously get on with some creating!!!


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