Autumn decoration

October is the start of the crafting season - in my life anyway as Christmas isn't far away.  And a change of season is the cue to bring out my autumn decorations.  It seems this autumn's must have is the white mini pumpkin.  They are in all the most beautiful Instagram photos.  I think they may be called Mini Boos but they haven't reached us up here in North Wales.  So I thought to make my own.  Its an easy crochet pattern I found at Plant June and you can make two or three in an evening - well, perhaps crochet one evening and put together the next.  June crocheted her stalks and so did I previously, but for my little white Boos I used a small stick from the garden or a cinnamon stick and a die cut felt leaf hot glued in place.

Next I stitched acorns using this pattern from Tatiana Maximenko.  You might have seen I used her pattern for the mushrooms I photographed for my last post.  Tatiana's patterns are beautiful, simple and photographed in detail to help you in your sewing.  Her stitching is perfect and I must admit it needs time and patience to achieve anywhere near the same results. I need to try a few more as, of course, practise makes perfect - well as perfect as I can get.

My last project was somewhat easier to execute.  I was looking through my pile of Landscape magazine back issues for a cake recipe I remembered - I thought last year.  But I was distracted by the cover of a winter issue featuring decorations using Honesty seedpods.  I'd collected the dried pods earlier in the summer and they were stored in my shed waiting to have their seeds saved for next year.  I sacrificed a few to make these lovely window decorations.  I stuck the seeds to the "silver pennies" with a dot of liquid craft glue and then used the same to glue them into a flower shape.  When the sun shines through the window they light up!

Have you ever noticed the seedpods are three layers thick.  There is a stronger outer layer and inside is the silvery tissue paper thin layer with seeds on each side.  Such a clever design!  Its quite easy to peel the layers apart with your fingers and of course easy for the winds of autumn to separate those layers too and fling the seeds far and wide.  Isn't nature amazing.

November in the Garden

Well November passed in a flash! We had some gorgeous days and some wet ones but luckily I was able to rake up the leaves in front of my mother's house before they got too wet and soggy. As you can see there were rather a lot - this picture shows them during mid-rake. There seemed to be more than ever this year and believe me there were a lot more than shown here.

As well as the grass in front of the house there's the drive and the border to clear too. I did have company though - the birds really enjoyed mooching around picking out little tidbits as I raked and of course my most helpful companions were these two. Don't know what I'd do without them!

Blue plastic rake is much better at leaf raking than a metal one which just gets clogged up with the leaves, and Red snow scoop is her perfect partner.

Whilst I was raking a flash of gold caught the corner of my eye. When I went to investigate I found a beech leaf on the path caught in a ray of sunshine. It really did look like it was coated in gold leaf (no pun intended!!) November 2016 has certainly been a good one for catching autumn's beauty in the camera lens.

Can't resist sharing a few more photos.....

September's Song

September is ending and its been mostly sunny and warm here in North Wales. Its a month for gathering in what you can from garden and hedgerows and stashing the bounty away for winter. The ancient pear tree in my mother's garden still produces fruit but much of it looks uninviting as the skins are scabby and mottled but underneath the flesh is sweety and juicy. Perfect for a fruit crumble pudding or two.

As I mentioned in my August post, my little garden is being resurected and is now almost finished. Its rather bare of plants at the moment but I'm hoping next Spring perennials and bulbs I put in many years ago will stir into life and I will see exactly which patches of earth need filling.

There's slightly more paving than I would have planned myself (I let my handyman have a bit of a freehand as there was so much to do) but I have space for plenty of things in pots now! And I've a sunny spot for sitting with my crochet if weather and time permits. I'm joining in the 60 Million Trebles project and am currently on my third blanket.

I'm hoping that Mr Handyman will return next year to put up a bit of trellis along the boundary to make my space a bit more private and there's an old shed that could do with a bit of work!

 

I'm still enjoying the sewing illustration style of applique and recently stitched a small thankyou for Mr Handyman's birthday using Altenew's Garden Grow stamp set for inspriation. 

 And there have been a few more birthday gifts needed - September is a busy birthday month for our family!

Autumn in the mountains

We're enjoying a long weekend at our very favourite place away, Tyn y Simdde in the mountains of North Wales. I've blogged about it here and here on other visits so won't bore you by raving about the cottage again. Suffice to say it never disappoints and we regard it as "our" cottage as I just can't imagine anyone else being here - even the owners!!!!  (Who are lovely lovely people by the way.) However reading the visitors book I see I'm not the only one who thinks of this place as their own private paradise! ;o)

Anyway, we arrived on Friday night and I soon realised I had left the bag with my crafting supplies in it on the chair at home! Oh no! I'd planned to get a start on some Christmas gifts and had bought yarn especially for these few days.

However I knew there was a savior nearby in the form of Knit One, a tiny wool shop just down the road in Dolgellau. I could buy crochet hooks there and luckily I did have a couple of balls of cotton yarn in my bag so could get on with some snowflakes for Christmas fair bunting.  And as I was on my holidays I couldn't not treat myself to some yarn at the same time - could I?! I went for this beautiful lavender fingering I'd seen on the Knit One blog. Unbelievably its 450m of 100% YAK! and is so so soft. It will be my Christmas project for myself when everyone else's gifts are done and I can enjoy choosing a pattern.

We leave for home in the morning and as usual don't want to go! The weather has been dull but dry and very quiet, making for pale grey days and dark dark nights with no sun, moon or stars to be seen. Yesterday we took a trip to Harlech to see the castle and the new Caffi Castell Harlech I'd seen and heard so much about.

I may be biased towards my homeland, but I don't think there are many cafes in the world with better views - even on a dull day. And the cakes were to die for!!!  Its a very modern building sitting next to the 800 year old castle but I don't think it detracts from the drama of that looming front gate. In fact it rather compliments it as it would be difficult to resist buying a ticket and exploring those high walls when you've been sitting right next to them enjoying tea and cake!

If you are interested you can read more about this castle and other medieval castles in Wales here. You can see some spectacular photos taken on sunnier days too!!!!

One of the best things about Harlech Castle is being able to walk those high walls and on a dry day climb to the top of one of the turrets - if you have a head for heights and the puff that is! I took this photo from there and you can see the lovely sedum roof of the cafe way below.

Anyway, we've had a lovely few days here; seeing Titch explore the great outdoors again, feeding and watching the birds, and enjoying the autumn colours all around us. 

And yes, there was a hint of a sunset on the mountains on Saturday evening for a few minutes, though I have to confess to a slight photoshop enhancement colourwise!  My pocket camera is not the best in near darkness.

See you again next year Tyn y Simdde!

World Card Making Day.............just!!!

Didn't realise it was so late in the day! However as a cardmaker I thought I really must post today.  I don't think I'm going to make it by midnight UK time, but as its an American celebration there's still time, right? And I have been cardmaking this week using some of my old favourite Christmas stamps and a fab new set from Clare at Waltzing Mouse stamps.

Clare comes up with a design I can't resist every year and this year its Scandi Doodle Christmas. I'm a real admirer of Scandinavian design, especially at Christmas. You can probably guess which are Waltzing Mouse stamps in this picture! There are some other brands though. The two little elves are Hero Arts Stamps by Lia and the All is Calm set is from Neat & Tangled's 2014 release. The other designs (Father Christmas, Christmas Pud and Reindeer) are so old I can't remember where they came from but are real favourites I use every year.

Well its now half past midnight here in the UK so I have missed the boat big style, but I'm going with US time - its still 3rd October there! As you can see its been stamping in the sunshine here - not very Christmassy but glorious just the same.

More like midsummer than Christmas, but with the added bonus of Autumn colour! Just fabulous!

September's here!

There's a purple haze on the hills which to me means Autumn is here.  But it seems Summer doesn't want to leave us just yet. The last two days have been beautiful but there is definitely an excuse to light a fire in the evening when that nip in the air is felt.

My colouring (yes, I'm still at it!) has taken on the colours of Autumn too. I know I'm going on and on about these Zig Clean Color pens but I'm so enjoying them. I love to make single layer cards and as these colours don't bleed through to the back I can get out my outline stamps again without having to add another layer to my little cards. And an imminent birthday has allowed me to add new colours to my collection as I asked all my family to buy me a few.

I've been experimenting with larger cards too - very brave of me! A friend asked for some birthday cards so I put together a little bundle for her and packaged them up in a recycled acetate box. I'd love to do more of these boxes for an upcoming craft fair but the only ones I've found for sale are very expensive - £15 for 25 - so I'm not sure its financially practical. They do look good though.  If anyone has found less expensive boxes (C6 size) in the UK I'd love to know where.

Autumn leaves

Daytimes are still Summer around here but I have to admit there is a whiff of Autumn about as the evenings draw in.  And there is a definite change in the look of the trees, as if they are preparing to put on their Autumn colours.  So I thought I'd make an Autumn garland in readiness.  I used leaf dies from Papertrey Ink, gorgeous plant dyed wool felt scraps from Myriad, plastic pony beads I found in a charity shop and some delicious thick orange bakers twine.

With garlands there is always the difficulty of how to photograph them satisfactorily and here I resorted to the old tumbledown shed outside my backdoor once more.  I just love its faded grey paintwork.  Sadly its slowly disintegrating as bits fall off it every now and then - the window fell out last year but it made a perfect sunny morning sitting spot for Titch. :-)

PS - I've hear nothing about the little bat since the bat man took it away on Wednesday - but he did promise to let me know how it gets on. 

Apple Day in the garden

Today is Apple Day here in the UK - a day for celebrating this most familiar fruit.  However 2012 has not been a good year for the fruit trees in my garden - the harvest has been small and of poor quality.  However the birds and other garden wildlife will be celebrating the day as I've left a lot more fruit than usual on the ground for them to feast on and fatten up for the cold days to come. 

I'm rather sad that I wasn't able to get to any of the Apple Day events as it has been a really beautiful day.  I had to be content with a wander round the garden with my camera as the sun started setting.

 This amazing crop of fungi was hiding behind the main flowerbed.  I haven't identified them yet but they are a bit too overgrown to be appetising even if they do turn out to be edible.

The leaves on the beech trees are always beautiful as they start to turn colour - looking up through the branches when the sky is blue can sometimes take your breath away.

Unfortunately it won't be long before all this colour will be on the ground waiting to be swept up - a huge job ever year.

There's no denying my garden has been very neglected this year but I'm rather inclined to leave all the tidying up till the spring - its all very overgrown and tangled but a sunny, still, late afternoon in autumn can make even a jungle look beautiful.

Autumn, lovely Autumn

 

Saturday there was a definite nip of Autumn in the air.   On the way home from Llandudno we opted to drive 'over the tops' rather than on the busy A55 and were rewarded with long shadows, golden fields harvested of their crops and glimpses of the sea glittering in distance as the sun was setting.  My frequent shouts to stop the car to take a photo were not appreciated!

Time to pick Elderberries ripe on the bush in the garden and the perfect preserve for me is Elderberry and Apple jelly as I've collected lots of windfalls too.  I'm not that keen on making jelly preserves as they always seem a bit wasteful of the fruit, but this one is a tried and tested recipe torn from a magazine many years ago and stored in my Successful Recipes file.  I've put the fruit pulp out for the birds and hope they will find it to their taste.

I was tempted to buy some Joanna Sheen Country Kitchen stamps I spied in the craft shop in Llandudno at a bargain price.  I've not tried this brand before but they were just the job for decorating my jam jars.  I always think I will remember what's in a jar just by looking at it but I have to admit I've opened more than one jar of jam only to find its chutney!

Supplies: Joanna Sheen Country Kitchen Crabapple CL05; PTI Tag Sale #1 die; various Copic markers