Making sand castles...

The thing about sand castles once they're made

is that they're so tempting to touch...

... and destroy...

Beautiful Play-dough

Lucy - my new theory on play-dough is if you are the supreme creator, make sure you love the colours, it is so much more fun. By the way, the brown was made by adding cocoa. The kids are bound to taste it even if you warn them.... but it is hilarious watching them try.

The simple things...

I missed you on the phone today, Kate, so haven't had a chance to fill you in on the past couple of days.  We spent last night and today in the north-east and Tom and Sophie loved catching up with their special family up there.  This morning reminded me of school holidays in years gone by where our adventures were defined by the parameters of this farm and what we found on it.

The kids played for ages in the truck, going off for a 'drive', the four of them together taking turns at the wheel.  The dust, leather seats, squeaks of a door needing rust - they all took me back to the simple times of years gone by - our years gone by, not even our parents' time.  What a lot has changed since the 1970s and 1980s of our childhood?!  Sometimes I think our beckonings can just be answered by a walk in the fresh air with the kids - or a drive in a stationary vehicle - to remember the joy in simplicity. 

One of the biggest excitements for the kids - and the adults, for that matter - was seeing this European Wasps' nest that had been discovered in the creek wall.  Its outer layers form what looks to be an intricate ceramic sculpture and its interior features complex, beehive-like structures.  It was fascinating to think that this had been built underground - the only sign it existed due to the wasps hovering above its surface.

April challenge - the school holidays

Dear Kate

I've only just got used to school lunches and now they're being taken away from me for two weeks.  I've been thinking, then, about what we can be doing on The Kate and Lucy project this month and I've decided that the school holidays, for me, could be termed a challenge!  How about we concentrate on projects for kids, outdoors and in, to keep newly busy minds occupied??  What do you think?  I'm thinking long walks, hopefully a trip to the beach, catching up with cousins far and near, learning new games...

Lots of love always

Lucy xoxoxo

The Obedient Plant

This is my favourite purple in the garden, my Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana) so named because the flower stalks are very wiry and will stay wherever you push them to.

Playing with the grasses...

Apologies for the late start to our week in which we prove that purple is under-rated.  It's the perfect foil for the blue of the grasses - more picniking for me this afternoon!  Where would we be without purple?!

He coloured with pink!

The day after I blogged about how Tom didn't like pink, I found him creating cars with pink highlights.  When I queried him about this, he said he only liked it sometimes.  But at least he's helping Kate's and my dictum that pink isn't just for girls!

Watermelon, watermelon, I love, you love watermelon...

Pink, fleshy, juicy watermelon.  Planted as a seedling and raised by Joe to a huge, delicious specimen on which we are feasting.  Just served plain, or in a salad with feta, balsamic and mint.  It has been worth the wait!

Don't tell him it's pink!

Tom has a typical male attitude towards pink - he thinks it is just for girls.  As his mother, I disagree and I think that this shirt looks particularly lovely on him.  I don't think he would wear it if I commented on its pinkness, so it can just be a secret between you and me!

Pink - Not Just For Girls.

This week's colour in our month's challenge is pink - or more specifically, that pink can be for boys too!

My Last Green Notebook

In my mother's house there is a cupboard way up high in her studio where she keeps a rainbow stack of spiral bound notebooks. Reds, yellows, purples, blues and greens all waiting to be filled with words and drawings. Sometimes she leaves a notebook on the bunks as a little present for grandchildren when they come to stay with a fresh pencil, long lead sharpened waiting soldier-like by its side. Last time I was in Australia, Mum let me choose a notebook. I nursed it to my chest with as much happiness as a seven year old and started immediately to write in it of craft plans and tempting ideas. Now when I open it, it's like a conversation with an old friend. Things I quickly forgot and am so grateful to be refreshed with.

Of peas and turtles...

The last green peas we harvested were juicy and sweet.  We ran out a month ago.  Thankfully Joe received his seeds from the Digger's Club today and will be planting all sorts of delicious peas next week - including snow peas, delicious!

Unfortunately I didn't managed to get a good photo of what I hope will be the last green long-necked turtle to squirt me with its stink glands!  I saw it ambling along the culvert on the side of the driveway as I was going to pick Tom up from school this afternoon.  I stopped and picked it up to show Sophie and it obviously wasn't happy, so released the wicked scent straight away.

I had a sudden memory of a short period of time during my childhood when we had a pet turtle.  The bathroom, where we kept it at least for a day, had exactly the same foul stench as I was shot with today.  The turtle disappeared eventually - I'm sure I remember my older brother and sister telling me it was stolen by the neighbours (!),  but Kate says she was told it had been taken to a nearby park to live.  Apparently its fate, however accidental, wasn't as peaceful as the neighbour's garden or Hedgeley Dene, although I wouldn't want to publish an unsubstantiated rumour!

Regardless of what happened to the poor turtle, I will never forget that smell.  When I was using my old friend 'Google' tonight to try and work out which turtle I'd found, I came across this article which referred to the long-neck as being a 'stinker' - 'silent but deadly' and that they have glands above each leg which squirt the foul liquid.  (By the way I wasn't sure whether it was a turtle or tortoise, but the article goes on to say that 'although sometimes called a tortoise, the longneck and all other Australian turtles are indeed true turtles...')  So if you see one, look but don't touch - or be prepared to pay the price!

Waiting for rain...

If it doesn't rain again soon, this may remain one of the last green patches on our lawn.  We were lucky to get 12mm of rain on Tuesday night, but we would love some more!

Hop bine shade

This is the last green glimpse of the hop bine that shades a favourite house each summer.

The Last Hydrangea Green

Early summer.

Early Autumn.

The last, nearly ripe watermelon...

Here lies a watermelon with the hope of a family resting on it - the hope that we will manage to let it ripen without picking it too early!  This is the last one in its bed that's almost ripe and we are watching it very carefully.  There have already been three casualties...

The first one was at my own hand.  There are a few signs to look for when testing ripeness of watermelons - and it's best to make sure they're all there before proclaiming the fruit ripe as they do not ripen off the vine...  It sounded hollow and the skin underneath had turned yellow, so I decided to harvest it...  but I hadn't checked its pigtail, which is where it joins the vine.  This has to be brown.  Unfortunately I read this part after the early harvest.  Casualty number one.

The next sad watermelon tale was of an accidental harvest.  Someone (who shall remain nameless - and it really wasn't me) decided to check if the watermelon had turned yellow underneath.  Whilst turning it over, the pigtail snapped off and we had casualty number two.

A day later, Joe and I and the kids went to do our usual weekend harvest.  Joe and I were looking at the corn, when  all of a sudden Tom appeared, proudly cradling a watermelon in his arms - casualty number three!

'Look what I found!' he said, delighted with himself.

Joe nearly dropped to the ground.

So he feels like putting a 24 hour guard on the last, nearly ripe watermelon in its bed.  We are all fans and can't wait til it's ready.  But we'll leave it up to Joe to decide next time.  After all, he is the gardener!

A Month of Colour

A little hint of this month's project - photography by colour. How appropriate for the beginning of Autumn - this week is the last green. We had better catch as much of it as we can before the trees' reclaim it for their winter soul.

Tree and Button Collage

It's done. Farewell February.

Machine sewn collage brooches

I've been wanting to make fabric collages for ages.  Last night I sat at the sewing machine and it all suddenly clicked.  I've had these beautiful pieces of material - and not much of them - that I can finally put to use - machine sewn collage brooches.  Even Joe, who doesn't usually comment on what I make, says that he likes them!  What do you think Kate??!!

Tree and Flower Collage

Here is the beginning of my next collage - although I must admit I am still working on my last collage still. I have a leaf-shaped hole punch and I was sharpening it by using foil with it (I don't know how it works but it does) and was amazed by how effective the silver leaves were. Consequently I have stuck silver ones over the green ones on the collage below and will probably feature some on the one above. I have actually painted some silver birch trees on since I took the photo and can't wait to finish it off tomorrow.

I am also really excited because I found some really good quality canvas pads which means I can continue using acrylics but also sew onto the surface as well. I can't believe February is almost over when I am just getting into the swing of it.

Love Kate xxooxxooxx

Bird and Tree Collage

I think collages can be quite hard to photograph. I might try again tomorrow in better light but here it is. I had a bit of time today when Hugo was doing some gluing so I thought I should get a bit of a push on. I have used acrylic paint on canvas, felt, buttons, cut up pamphlets and some watercolours that I did a couple of years ago.

Lots of love, Kate xxooxxooxx

Collage - An Early Glimpse

This is definitely a work in progress. The paper cut-out trees are only marking where the painted trees will eventually grow. Collage has not been forgotten. It is still just assembling itself.

Love Kate xxooxxooxx

Paper Crane Collage

This looks much better enlarged so click on it to make it ginormous. It's a combination of watercolour, origami and picnik editing. I like the graininess of it. Hope you are well,

Love Kate xxooxxooxx

If it's February it must be collage...

After googling 'collage art blog' I found Michelle Caplan's blog.  Whilst it hasn't been updated recently, I found a couple of inspiring images that I tried to emulate (above).  I did this on the computer using Pages.  I made the images of Sophie and Tom black and white, then overlaid them with coloured images at 40% opacity.  I assume you can vary the opacity on Windows as well, but I've never tried before and don't have a Windows computer anymore!

Kate and I are collaging this month.  Hopefully this will be more successful than our month of felting which didn't work due to a number of reasons, mainly being a combination of the heat (have you tried felting during summer?!), school holidays (both of us have had two kids at home full-time) and we've both been sick.  We'll come back to the felted vessels during the year as we definitely haven't finished with them yet.

Our collaging will be very experimental and you'll see our evolution throughout the month.   I'm planning on doing a combination of collages both on and off the computer.  We're both going to use elements of our own images - whether they be paintings, photos, drawings, writing etc - as well as using images garnered elsewhere - magazines, newspapers, etc.  And with Kate's eldest starting school this week and my Tom starting school tomorrow, we should become a lot more productive very soon!

This month has been geared more towards school holidays than personal creative development I have to admit. The felted vessels have been so much fun but then again, so has watching the boys hack into ice with a screwdriver. Hopefully next month with small boys at school this blog may become a little more prolific. I will follow up with tutorials on what we have learnt in the next few days though. Next month embroidery challenge do you think?

Wish you were here...

Dear Kate

I'm still feeling really pathetic and look forward to getting back to normal.  I can't believe this month has been a write-off for me creatively, although I have to feel that perhaps the universe was telling me I needed to slow down?  Who knows, but it's getting a bit boring!  I wish you could have been with me when I picked roses on Monday.  I walked through the garden smelling them and remembering doing just that with you only a few weeks ago.  I made my selections on both smell and looks and have been enjoying them dotted all over the mantelpiece ever since.  The roses above are so exquisite looking - do you know what type they are?? 

We had a wild storm come through here this afternoon - only half an inch of rain though - and it felt like we might blow away at one point - and that's in a brick house!  We were lucky that nothing major came down on the house, but there are plenty of branches down around the farm.  Sophie slept through it, thankfully - it was enough trying to calm Tom, who is petrified of thunderstorms.  I had to talk him through all the good reasons there were to have storms - they bring rain, they clear the air, etc, etc. and then he calmed down enough to lie beside me on the couch and read.  It was so companionable having him there and he was so quiet, I kept on peeking looks at him and thinking: I can't believe he's going to school in less than 2 weeks time!

I loved hearing all about Archie and Hugo playing with the ice - can't wait to see the pictures.  Tom's been drawing pictures of buildings, cars, trucks over the past week and then cutting them out, ready to make his own city.  We still had your tent box here and I cut it down the side, turned it inside out and stuck it back together so you could only see the cardboard, rather than the printed outside.  We then stuck the pictures all over the box and he's had a great time playing with it.  At least one of us 'bunch of Bowlers (as Tom calls us) is being creative at the moment.

Speak soon.

Lots of love always,

Lucy xoxoxo

PS  Is one of your boys missing The Sleep Book by Dr Seuss??  It appeared in our bookshelf as if by magic - or as if it could have been left here by a Bruning...

On doctor's advice

Dear Kate

As you will know, I'm practically a doctor and am prescribing a dose of chocolate for you to eat every day.  Brand and type are immaterial, although the benefits of eating dark chocolate are becoming a mainstream belief.

I enjoyed seeing your milk bottle butterflies this afternoon.  I don't know whether you remember the mobile I made for Tom at our last house?  It was a milk bottle mobile - inspired by -- was it Hugo's or Archie's? -- that I saw at your house in New Zealand.  Anyway, it had milk bottle butterflies.  They looked great but they nearly killed my butterfly cutter - did you have any problems pulling them out?  Mine didn't seem to cut neatly, I recall, and it was a bit of a pain.

I hope you're feeling better tonight.  I'm still not 100% and look forward to what will hopefully be a quiet week at home.  It's interesting to read your take on letter-writing.  I actually have most of the letters you've ever written to me - as with letters from the rest of the family.  I have trouble throwing them out.  They're a record of our lives up until the point of email.  In fact, I even printed out a few of the early emails, especially when Tom was born.  Some day I will work out a good way of collating these letters, but for now they're in a series of boxes.

Speak soon.

Lots of love always,

Lucy xoxoxo

PS I've posted my yummy chocolate brownie recipe, in case you're interested!

Milk Bottle Butterflies

Dear Lucy,

It's really hard getting into the habit of having two blogs - I think you are a succour for punishment having three, it must be like having an extra mouth to feed except that the extra mouth wants to suck from your creative mind, in a really nice way of course. If you read my last post you will see that I have been sick so the creative process has slowed down a bit. I have had lots of constructive time staring at the ceiling visualising ways to cover felt vases in resin.

I hate writing in the form of a letter. I am just not a letter writer. Every now and then I force one out but I would almost prefer to lose contact with someone than write to them. I find it so hard to use my voice in it because something in my urges myself to be my most polite version and it just stultifies me. Then you are besieged by the vision of an actual person reading with a smirk, screwing their face up if you utter the phrase, "utter the phrase" or something like that. Writing a letter challenges my every insecurity so this is fun for me.

Anyhoo, enough of the whinge. Not much felt making this week apart from starting on a felt bird necklace, however, Archie and I did make a discovery. You can use paper-cutting stamp things, you know what I mean, on milk bottle plastic. Very exciting... our floor is littered with translucent butterflies as though they all flew in one night to our warmly lit house and promptly died. It makes me think that I had better get onto my next felt vessel so I can stick felted birds or butterflies to them... and then hopefully sink them into resin.

Love you like I do my toes,

Kate xxooxxooxx

Too hot for felting!

Dear Kate

It was far too hot for felting this evening, so I've been sewing instead.  I worked on some of my felted flowers (which I've been making my brooches from) and the more I looked at them, the more I found myself imagining how they'd look adorning a felted vessel... and I'm looking forward to trying it out.  I bought some baking paper today to use as a template for my next lot of felting.  Hopefully we'll have some cooler weather towards the end of the week and I'll be able to work on my next felting experiment.

Speak soon.

Lots of love always,

Lucy xoxoxo

A Little Felt Balloon

Dear Lucy,

I am about to go for a nap so thought I had better pass on these photos to you. The balloon was perfect at the end for shaping the felt once the structure was thick enough. It also squeezed a lot of water out too which was an added bonus. I can't believe how much stuff sticks to my felt at home. When I was felting at Mum's, everything remained pristine. Maybe I should change my headquarters over to Mum's house, think she would mind?

Love Kate xxooxxooxx

Wet felted bird's nest

Dear Kate

I'm sorry it's taken until now to write.  We had friends to stay last night and I haven't managed to get around to any further crafting.  Instead, I've uploaded my images from creating my wet felted vessel on Thursday night.  I just love this one.  It reminds me of a bird's nest.   I want to fill it felted balls and eggs tomorrow and I'll post better photos then.  I can't wait to make some more vessels but I'm having trouble fitting everything in at the moment!  Don't worry, I will get back to them though and try some more shapes.  

I can't wait to see your efforts from today.  Inserting the balloon into the vessel at the last moment (to hold the shape) sounds like a great idea.  I saw an article about felting in an English Country Living (from Eve) and they used an old detergent bottle filled with warm soapy water to wet the wool fibres.  This seems like it kills two birds with one stone and could be worth trying.  I'm not sure which liquid soap though?  I'll have to read the article properly and get back to you.

I hope you'll send me some real letters this year!  Remember when I was in Ireland, we were both great at letter-writing.  You always used to send your beautiful cards with pictures of baby Archie - what a lot has changed since then.  Joe's just calling out in the background to say it's going to be 41 degrees on Tuesday - you were lucky with the cooler weather when you were over here.  I'm not looking forward to that intense heat.  Hopefully it's not too windy and we don't have to worry about fires...

No doubt we will speak tomorrow.

Lots of love always,

Lucy xoxoxo

Felted Vase

Dear Lucy,

The surprise is, I am going to be the first to write to you. How long have we spoken of writing to each other with our ideas and now with the tiniest bit of courage in my tea-warmed hands, here I am. So, as previously discussed, January is felted vessel month. As this is just a first letter, I am going to include some photos that I took last week when staying in Australia with Mum. We will both have to do tutorials at a later date because all I really am doing is breaking the ice that stretches between our two countries.

Hope you are well and I love you,

Love Kate xxooxxooxx

January project - felted vessels

This month we are making felted vessels. As many as we can and with as many techniques as we can discover. Toward the end of January we will start posting tutorials on our most successful attempts. Until then we will continue experimenting and will show all our workings....