soooooooooooo tired...but what a fabulous workshop!

I was teaching at The Stamp Attic yesterday, my first workshop for Wendy.  And it was just GREAT!  I went down to Wantage on Friday in time to help prep for the workshop.  It was like having the world at my feet, look at all those yummy stamps to play with in the workshop :)   I don't own any Wendy Vecchi stamps, yet, so it was great to use them to demo with.

The workshop space is opposite the shop,  So I had the absolute pleasure of sitting in the quiet workshop, working away in my journal,

and being able to turn and look out of the window at the shop; it was fabulous once it had gone dark outside,  looking out across the cobbles, from such a safe, magical space :)

The kitchen area of the workshop has a very distinct roof...

Wendy said this is protected; it was the garden shed from the buildings that were here before the shops!  Isn't it fabulous :)

Anyway, back to the workshop, what a wonderful group of people they were.  It was great to meet Laura (who I spent the day calling Paula, sorry Laura, I misheard!!) who is a regular visitor to the play date cafe.  Once I'd persuaded her that she really needed to journal on paper to keep it permanent

(only joking, couldn't resist that quip)

...she produced one of my favourite pages of the day!

To me this penguin like bird looks like it's saying, "right, ok, WHAT am I doing here?  In fact, where am I?  What's going on?" and it just tickled me!  I loved lots of the pages people made, and will share some more with you tomorrow. 

Just look how hard they all worked, you can't see an inch of table!!  And at the end of the day, when they'd all gone, and the room was quiet once more, I worked hard too!  Any guesses as to what I was up to?

And sorry Mrs Roddis, you know so no giving the game away ;)

Steampunk Art Exhibition, Oxford

I just LOVED this exhibition and could have stayed looking at some of the pieces all day!  Not something my soon-to-be-fifteen son understood!  Although the children enjoyed it, they didn't want to stay as long as me. It's on 'til Feb '10 though so I may get another trip in, especially as I'm teaching at The Stamp Attic at the end of November :)

I didn't take loads of photos; I wasn't sure at first that you were allowed, but you could as long as flash wasn't used.  Don't you just love this dog?  And the same artist, Stephane Halleux, made some people too...

At the beginning of the exhibition there were some helmets and goggles, which were fun, but my very favourites were the clocks by Eric Freitas.  I would just love one of these in my house

In fact, there were a few pieces I would love in my house!  How funky to have such different pieces around.  I'd love to learn metalwork and clockwork so I could make something like this.

Sorry about the shadow on the wall, the pieces were brightly lit.  Aren't those words fabulous thought,' three' and 'six'.  Of course there were a lot more pieces but I don't want to spoil it for those who can visit.  I will share some more photos another day though.

It's my choice of colours for the play date cafe tomorrow.  The posts get published at midnight EST which is too early for me to get up, but those in the US will probably wait up to see them, I know the rest of the design team do :)  I've loved meeting lots of new people through this challenge this week, and would like to say a special thankyou to all those who visited my blog for the first time and/or became followers :)

a good storm!

Don't you just love a good storm when you are safe and dry and can just enjoy it?!  I can't say our dog Gyp was impressed, in fact, he can obviously still hear something as he's still in the cellar, even though the sun is out and the blue sky has appeared!  It's AGES since we've had a good storm.  I was sitting, counting 'elephants', as it came nearer and nearer then took myself out to the porch to listen to the thunder rumbling continuously and watch the rain and hail splash down hard.  Whilst there I finally remembered to take a photo of our new campervan!  Sorry Wendy, my memory's not great at the minute!

We bought her a couple of months ago but picked her up on our hols as she lived on the Isle of Wight.  As you can see she needs some work doing to her but she goes, and my husband loves doing projects like this (he has a VW beetle too).  My job's the interior, I've found some ace fabric for the curtains.

http://www.stjudes.co.uk/dandelion.htm

I love Angie Lewin's designs; you may have seen notecards using her prints in Waterstones.  And being a bit of a non-conformist, I'm avoiding the typical retro and surf designs that are common fabrics for these campers.  I adore seed-like images like this and it fits in with meadows and good times.  I've been collecting crockery on Ebay to go in the van too!  

Oh, and look what starts today!  6pm UK time to be precise :) :) :)  I'm sooooo excited, I can't wait!!!  It's what kept me going through a very stressful situation this am.  Right, best get back to sorting out my craft space, I'm having a really, really good clearout!