Far Too Hot

Hasn't the weather been glorious?  But now a little too hot for me.  The thermometer we rely on for a consistant reading is in the north facing back porch in an airy out of the sun position.  When that reads 33C you know it's hot! Even the early morning dog walks have been at 22C, not good for them or me.  Lots of lazing around. I do keep trying to do bits but they soon get put aside.  I'm sure some of you are enjoying it but the House household is struggling a little!

We did have the village fete a couple of weekends ago and I picked up these three.

They are huge and rather heavy, especially the green one, to carry around for too long so that was my limit of purchases.  1963, '65 and '68 editions so quite interesting to flick through the demographics.  John can remember the Oxford one from school, I wasn't even born then. Some nice papers to add to something someday though.

I also have had another play at making some of the little books. Not quite as 'fluffy' this time, I wasn't sure about all the fabric in the last one.

Raw, as it were.

The small weights being very useful!

Left, Fairy Tales, is 2.5 x 3 inches and right, Wishes, is 2.5 x 2.5 inches.

 1.5 inches thick.

This has snippets of fairy tales in it...

 ...but also lost of blank pages to add drawings or stories.

 A slightly different spine treatment.

 And this time mostly filled with captured wishes instead.

Quite simple in the clasp and 2.25 inches thick. 

I hope you're coping with or enjoying the weather where you are! Have a great weekend.

A Christening

Yesterday was Olivia's Christening day at Salisbury Cathedral.  It was a lovely service and the choir sang beautifully.  The meal afterwards was really nice too and Olivia behaved impeccably.  She wore the gown her Daddy was christened in and some silk shoes I made for her.

Olivia with her Godmother Catherine, Dad and Mum, Godmother Elizabeth and Godfather Owen in front of the living water font.

Have a lovely week.


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Now What's Next...?

This week I have actually been using a sketchbook!  I know we are all supposed to be excited by using sketchbooks and keep copious amounts of them but they have never been my thing. I have a few that are more like scrapbooks but very few, apart from the C&G ones, that are actually filled with my dabblings and experiments.  I'm more your hands on kind of girl.  But I have now opened a new one and used it!  

I have been collecting a few motifs and ideas and making stamps.

I've then pulled a few prints off my gelli plate (something I'm very new at and still not too sure about) and added them to a pile of my fancy fabrics.

There are also a few bits going on with the experimental emblems department,

There is something fluttering around in my head that keeps knocking to come out.  Trouble is when I give it the opportunity it runs hiding at the back there somewhere again!  Anyone else have this problem?  Thoughts are just to keep fiddling about and hopefully it will be encouraged forth.

I'm having huge trouble with my keyboards at the moment.  The silly, tiddly thing that came with the Mac likes to put in extra symbols when it feels like it and the larger one I bought (the one with the delete button and proper number pad, I do finances for goodness sake and you can not calculate with numbers when they are in a line!) has the idea I need to capitalise everything every now and then.  It's favorite letters for turning this on are S, W and P at the moment but that changes at will.  Apologies for any un noticed typing booboos.

If you follow me on Faceache you will know about our latest neighbours, the Blackbirds.  We are lucky to have dozens of bird nests, high thick hedges and a large feeding station has encouraged them in.  That and John's ability to manically shoo away any predators like cats and rooks.  These Blackbirds have decided to nest outside the backdoor.

Last week on 1st July I waited patiently for mum and dad to leave, have a good zoom on the little point and shoot and took a quick photo.

On Thursday we found one of the babies in the garden, probably the little one you can see to the bottom right of the picture which didn't react to the possibility of food coming its way.  We suppose the siblings edged it out and one of the dogs found it.

Yesterday there was a lot of Blackbird scolding going on and we couldn't see any cats but the the Sparrowhawk shot through and John thinks it caught something.  We patiently waited to do a beak count and were quite relieved to see mum and dad come back to the nest.  There is still possibly a nest somewhere that has one parent down but it's not our little neighbours! And we love the Sparrowhawk too.

Today's quick snapshot of the two babies.  They are very vocal now and don't react the same way to our presence anymore.  Like the Robins earlier in the year we made the decision to carry on as normal and they would become used to us, which they have.  I think I will be keeping a close eye on them over the next week and being careful when the dogs go out though.

We have the F1 and the tennis finals and Olivia will round off the weekend by being christened so lots to look forward to.  Have a great one yourselves!

*Edit*
About 12.40 today they flew.  So far so good.  We can hear them but don't want to poke around too much to find them.  Mum and dad are still about feeding.  Fingers crossed for their onward journey. Aren't nests amazing?!

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