This sheep fellow is off to Skipton in Yorkshire, to join a huge flock of sheep to be sold to raise money for the Martin House Hospice – a Yorkshire-based charity that supports the care of terminally ill children.
Full details about Yarndale, the hospice and the crochet / knitting patterns for the sheep can be found here:
Or go to Attic24’s blog – Lucy’s blog – the lady who worked out the sheepy pattern. She has the pattern and photos to help stitch it all together.
I picked up a bunch of stones on Bray beach recently and gave a couple a make over. This one was coated with Gesso to provide a white background and to give it some tooth. I used gold, silver and bronze Sharpies to draw a mandala design then Mod Podged it all over to give it a seal.
I snipped a few beautiful Sweet Williams to bring a little bit of the garden indoors. The teapot is Polish pottery that has lost its lid.
Before I go, a little story for you. I went for a tinkle only to find a bee in the bathroom (all the windows are open – we’re having a heatwave). I had a wooly-fibre duster to hand and wafted the duster close to the bee and the little bristles on its legs caught long enough for me to poke the duster out of the window and let it fly free.
Still wanting a tinkle, I sat down again only to hear the bee buzzing behind me having flown back in again. Talk about feeling vulnerable!
Anyway, the bee was gently hooshed out again to carry on with proper bee business and leave me to mine. Lol.
Mark Twain:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?…
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
–Marianne Williamson
I also find this adaptation of Desiderata very beautiful arranged as a positive affirmation:
Desiderata
I go placidly amid the noise and the haste, remembering what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, I am on good terms with all persons. I speak my truth quietly and clearly; and I listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant–they too have their story. I avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.
I try not to compare myself with others, for I know there will always be greater and lesser persons than myself. I enjoy my achievements as well as my plans. I keep interested in my own career, knowing it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
I exercise caution in my business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But I do not let this blind me to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. I am myself. I especially do not feign affection. Neither am I cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment I have seen it is perennial as the grass. I take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
I nurture strength of spirit to shield myself in sudden misfortune. But I do not distress myself with dark imaginings. I know that many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, I am gentle with myself. I am a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; I have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to me, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, I am at peace with the world. And whatever my current labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, I keep peace in my soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. I am cheerful. I strive to be happy.
Adapted by Rachel Grey
Original by Max Ehrmann
Home-Made Crackle Glaze and how to use it
1. Dilute (a little) some PVA glue with water and apply a layer of the glue onto a primed or painted surface.
2. Before it’s dry, apply another coat of paint (can be a different colour or same as the first coat) but make sure you apply all the strokes of paint in one direction only. As the paint and glue dry at different rates, the top surface cracks open and gives it the ‘crackle’.
Wonderful spam.
We definitely get irked while people think about worries which they just do not necessarily know about. You managed to hit the toe nail upon the superior and also defined out the whole thing without having complication , people might take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
Love that my ‘hitting toe nails on the superior’ skills have been acknowledged. It’s now a bullet point on my CV.
12 x 12 is 304.8 mm x 304.8mm
A6 105 x 148 mm
A5 148 x 210 mm
A4 210 x 297 mm
A3 297 x 420 mm
C6 114 x 162 mm
C5 162 x 229 mm
Conversion calculation: Inches to mm: multiply inches by 25.4 to get millimetres.
My beautiful and most beloved cat, Homer, who died Sunday 25th September aged twenty.
Night Night and God Bless little boy. x x x x x
The Singing Ringing Tree.
It centres on a prince seeking the hand of the local Princess in marriage. The Princess is very spoilt and sends him off on a Fool’s Errand – fetch the Singing Ringing Tree. The cast of tens (as my partner snarkily commented) were shaken to their boots at this outrageous demand! It’s halfway across the world (that is, the known world at the time which was obviously shorter than from here to the library and back).
Away rides the prince, galloping past watercoloured backdrops and chocolate muffin mountains, and stops to ask a man looking uncannily like the ‘need a number nifty? Dial 11850’ man pruning trees… he didn’t know, then he meets a dwarf ( looking very like the love child of Peter Cook and Frankie Howard) who has the information.
He is prepared to give him the tree providing that by sundown he has both delivered the tree and the tree has sung! The singing of the tree, is, in addition, conditional upon the princess falling in love with him! He jokes ‘May I turn into a bear if that is not so!’
We’ve all seen enough of these wish fulfillment type fairytales to know what happens next…
Yes… he delivers the tree, Princess Bridezilla doesn’t want it and the prince returns to the kingdom of the dwarf and duly turns into a big brown bear – well, a bear outfit covered in what looked like hedgehog prickles.
He can only be freed if the princess falls in love with him in the kindgom of the dwarf! The dwarf is the embodiment of Schadenfreude and delights in every misfortune and unhappiness of the bear. Especially when he cries and wipes his tears away with his plastic-clawed paw attachments.
Meanwhile, back at the palace where no expense has been….. the king (looking like a proper mathematician in a thick wooly beard, sufficiently thick and long enough to hide at least one albatross, a slide rule and a set of compasses) has been sent to find the prince and bring the singing tree back to the fickle and fey Bridezilla who has changed her mind and now wants it.
The king meets the bear and the bear agrees to giving him the tree providing that in return, the king gives him the person who meets him first on his return… (guesses on a postcard please).
She sees the king coming and rushes to meet him – making her the currency of exchange.
Cutting it short a bit here… she ends up back at the kingdom of the dwarf with the bear. The dwarf turns her hair green (haven’t we all done this with a cheap home colouring kit at some point?) and makes her ugly in a nose-like-a-pickled-gherkin sort of way. She starts to treat animals and others of the dwarf kingdom with care and tenderness and gets a little less ugly with every act of kindness she performs.
The dwarf is beside himself with rage and has an absolute abundance of magic dust that can be swept, blown and brushed about to turn anything into stone, stir up violent storms, freeze water to ice in a matter of moments, etc.
He really is a nasty little bugger (makes the toilet germs you see in the Domestos ads look attractive) but the new animal friends come to her aid and save every situation. Eventually, the tree sings, the bear turns into a prince and they get married.
Just sharing. I’ve sat through the whole thing on video just recently.
I have found a couple of beauuutiful words/phrases to share with you! Both German:
Dunkle Stoffe – dark fabric (as seen on the side of a tub of fabric paint). Somehow, the prospect of all that unseen dark matter in space sounds so much friendlier if you think of it as lots of dunkle stoffe.
And, how about this lovely word?! Morgenmuffel? It means a person who is grumpy in the morning! I am not (usually) a morgenmuffel but have known a few morgenmuffels in my time.
No More Mondays 