We went to a local State Park yesterday and this lovely creek was perfect for this week’s Through the Lens Thursday prompt which is ‘Clear’. It snowed the whole time we were hiking and it was a super pretty walk through the trees and across the creeks. I took these photos at the beginning of the walk when the snow was just starting, by the time we were done there was a couple of inches on the ground. Happy Thanksgiving!
It is my birthday today and it is snowing! Hurrah! I snagged an idea from the lovely Greta at Gfunkified to write 45 things about me on my 45th birthday. So, here goes. 45 at 45. 1. I am 45 today. 2. I have a degree in Fashion Design. 3. I am reading ‘Everything I Never Told You’ by Celeste Ng. 4. My favourite music at the minute is Twenty One Pilots, George Ezra and Max Jury. 5. I was a teen of the 80’s and my favourite music then was Madness, The Specials, The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. 6. I would like to have met Roald Dahl. 7. I like caramel shortbread very much, thankfully I don’t see it much over here. 8. My favourite season is Autumn. 9. I prefer to be cold than hot. 10. I like scarves. A lot. 11. My favourite way to exercise is hiking, pilates, yoga, boxing and running (sometimes…). 12. My favourite films ever are Cinema Paradiso and Pretty in Pink, although I haven’t seen either …
My hair is almost all ‘natural’ now, only about half an inch of colour left at the ends of my fringe. Last time I got it cut, I nearly went shorter just to get the dye out, but decided to wait a little longer and keep the style I like. I snapped a few polaroids today to show you where the grey is. It is fascinating to see the grey allocation, the back is pretty much all brown and the front is all Cruella Deville. So how am I feeling about it? Reaching for the dye yet? I am absolutely not going to be dyeing it anytime soon, I would predict that I will never dye it all over again. I am tempted to have a little crazy colour in there though, a spot of blue or purple maybe. It is white for goodness sake, the blank page on my head, waiting for a little colour! I am rather happy with the hefty chunks of grey/white, I quite like them. I am also …
1. A snowy walk to school on Monday. 2. New neckace added to my Etsy shop. 3. Ready to try a new workout. 4. I have been busy making jewels this week. 5. Potato chips – instead of a salad – they’re delightful! An advert from an old newspaper. 6. Library activities, making button badges and magnets. Here’s looking forward to a great week!
I was digging around and found some books from when I was little, I still have a few, some paperbacks, my first cookbook and a ‘Magic Roundabout’ story book! Sadly, I don’t have any books from the ‘Ant and Bee’ series which was my absolute favourite when I was a kid and learning to read. I remember visiting the library and making a beeline (ha! see what I did there) for the ‘Ant and Bee’ books. They were lined up on the top shelf and I gathered all I could and checked them out at the desk where the librarian took the tickets from inside the books and stamped the return date on the label inside the front cover. Remember when libraries were full of tickets and drawers and it was all kept track of by pieces of paper which were taken in and out of books as they were borrowed and returned? Of the books I have, I think I have read most of them to my kids and my youngest and I are …
Do you have a baking list for Christmas? It is forecast to rain tomorrow, so I plan to get a start on the Christmas cake and mincemeat for mince pies. Happy weekend!
This week I have been brimming with creative inspiration which has been manifesting itself in painted cards, jewelry and letters. I bought some new inks today which took me right back to college days when I was studying for a degree in fashion design and Windsor and Newton inks were one of my favourite illustration tools. I can’t wait to get playing with them again. The necklace with the orange tassel is about to be put on the shelves of my Etsy shop. These books are inspiring me – The Busy Girls Guide to Photography and The Art of Everyday Photography. These blogs are inspiring me – Milk Please Mum, Susannah Conway and Hula Seventy. This course is constantly inspiring me – Paint. Plan. Play. from Studio Calico. These prints and products are calling to me – Orla Kiely for Target. Happy Friday, I hope you are looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow I will be doing a Six Word Saturday. Want to join in? Please do!
I can’t believe that we are into the last 10 weeks of the year and this project. I will soon have 52 photos taken from each week of this year, following the prompts thought up by Through The Lens originators Alison of Writing Wishing and Greta of GFunkified. This week’s prompt is ‘Gloom’ and although the weather this week has been cold, it isn’t gloomy at all, the sun has been out and the skies blue. Then I thought about the ‘creepy bridge’ the nearby bridge over the creek where we go and adventure all the time. We call this bridge the ‘creepy bridge’ because from certain angles (and I usually focus on these angles) the bridge is just a regular bridge over a creek with some cool reflections and natural features, but look to the other side and there are dropped concrete blocks from some old construction and graffiti all over it which changes regularly. When the boys were little they named it the ‘creepy bridge’ and it still is known …
I miss Malt Loaf. Dark brown squishy cake loaves which are best eaten sliced with a slap of butter alongside a cup of strong tea at your Grandmas. A British delicacy if you will, malt loaf is the best tea/coffee time treat. I can’t find it here in the Mid West for love nor money! So I sought out a recipe and found one which involved yeast and kneading and one which was full of dried fruit soaked in hot tea. I tried the second recipe and it was a hit! I am so pleased to find a good malt loaf recipe, I am going to get stocked up on raisins and barley malt extract and get baking! Here is the recipe, taken from the BBC Good Food Magazine online. Sticky Malt Loaf Pre heat the oven to 300 degrees F and line a loaf tin (the original recipe recommends making two loaves, but I made one and it was just right for me). I also read that someone made Malt Loaf muffins which is …
Surfset is a brand new workout in my world and I couldn’t wait to try it. Look, you just sit on a wobbly board and take photos in the mirror. Easy peasy! Not so much with the easy peasy, nor the camera for that matter! This is an all over workout and is so much fun, you forget that your arms/core/legs are starting to ache! I took this photo post class and here I am with legs as wobbly as the board that made them that way. We are lucky enough to be getting a new studio opening here in snowy Brentwood in the new year which will also include TRX classes and Real Ryder cycle classes. I am already a fan of TRX (straps which hang from the ceiling and provide a major core workout), but I am keen to try the new bikes which have moving handlebars which I may well fall right off! Talking of falling off, I only fell off the board a couple of times while ‘surfing’, you …
Clare Davis Etheridge 