Man, I Love My Job

Sunset, Yesterday, The Beach, 4.24pm

We were hoping to see the Green Flash, but, alas, it was not to be.

End of Week 43

Cannot quite believe there are only nine weeks of this year left.

Happy Movember

After um-ing and ahh-ing for too many years, Hubbo is finally getting on down and taking part in Movember. This was him at the stroke of midnight, clean shaven and ready for a bit of mo-hatching. I'm hoping he'll go for something Dali-esque, although I have a horrible feeling it's going be something like this.

If you would like to sponsor Hubbo, or find out more about Movember and raising awareness of prostate cancer, go here. Cheers muchly!

Trick or Treat?

Treat, I'd say. This GENIUS treat-within-a-treat cookie idea is from Megan, who runs Not Martha, a site I've heard of but not visited before today, incredibly. I hope there'll be a Christmassy version nearer the time, or maybe I could do something similar myself on a Crimbo theme.....hmmmm.

Read all about how to make these amazing cookies here. Happy Hallloooooweeeennnnn!

Stamp Lovelies

The 2012 Christmas stamps came out yesterday. Now, I have a big, old stash of blog standard 2nd class stamps that I was planning on using for my Crimbo cards (which are now at the printers, huzzah), but I think, after seeing these Axel Scheffler-illustrated beauties, I'm going to have to reconsider:

Image from the Royal Mail website, link below

I do like a Christmas stamp. Actually, any kind of unusual stamp. I have a box where I keep a both a 1st and a 2nd class stamp from each Crimbo, which I tear off from cards I receive. Sad but true!

This year's stamps are out from next Tuesday, 6th November. Check out the full set of lovelies here.

End of Week 42

Learning to Machine Knit is Harder Than it Looks...

...although I don't think this is too bad for only my second go! Tres Gryffindor.

End of Week 41

I Have Succumbed Already

Finally!

Well, after rather optimistically starting this Halloween-themed cross stitch this time last year and running out of time/energy/enthusiasm to finish it in time for October 31st, I actually got around to finishing it off sometime in the early summer. Of course, it then sat there in my floss tin unloved, unironed and unframed until this Tuesday - even though I bought the frame for it last October, too. Gah.

Excuse the rather grainy and faded-looking photos; the autumnal light is a right bugger for taking photos in at my place. The last is probably the closest to true-colour:







Halloween AND alphabets. What's not to like, right?! The kit is by Lizzie * Kate, which I bought through Sew and So, along with the "vintage" effect Aida.

So, what was missing and keeping my frame and my stitching apart was two final components: foam board and stainless steel pins. I thought the whole framing thang would be really difficult to pull off neatly, but after watching this lovely video from Sublime Stitching, it was a literal doddle:



Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right?

I've already got hold of a few mini-pumpkins of various colours that I'm going to put along the mantelpiece interspersed with the odd candle to add to my spooky decor. Bring on Hallooooooooowwweeeeennnn!!!

Cornwall

Mainly ice cream and sight seeing, then? Deffo.

End of Week 40

End of Week 39

End of Week 38

Happy Birthday Hubz

A very happy 40th birthday to my still gawjus Hubbo. I hope you have a lovely day xxx

Time for a Break

Is that daylight? Fresh air?

I seem to have spent the last week totally holed up at home, hiding from the rain and colouring for all I'm worth! The WIP photos I've been posting are from my latest project which I'm desperately trying to finish off before Hubbo and I go off for a little break to Cornwall tomorrow. I think I'm going to need a couple more days when I get back, but my publishers seem OK with that.

We also, and I can't quite believe it's taken me two weeks to write about it, popped along to Renegade in the 15th and got to see lots of fab crafty work for sale, and to meet up with Deb, who is always lovely. Thanks to a late birthday present of "Craft Fair Vouchers" (ie, cold, hard cash) from Lovely Ellie and Lovely Clarkie, I had a bit of cash to splash, and came away with these beauties:





The hedgehog pincushion, screenprinted lion Moleskin and screenprinted sunshine card are all by Deb (that's my arm in that photo there, btw. Famous at last!), the fox and tea card (foxes and tea in one image? I'm there) by Kayleigh, Deb's stallmate, and the anatomical heart screenprinted card by Kinaloon. Very happy with the haul.

Well, I'm off for my well-deserved break. I have a couple of scheduled posts popping up over the next couple of days, but I'll be back in a week. Bye!

WiP

End of Week 37

End of Week 36

End of Week 35

I'm Off to This For Deffo Next Weekend

Lovely Deb the Ladysnail is going to be there (who I'm very excited about seeing IRL again after our first IRL meeting about five years ago now), plus a whole host of other fabulous makers and craftsers selling their wares. I really wish I wasn't so skint right now. Gah.

Blummin' Delicious

End of Week 34

Beautiful stuff.

Poor Poggin

Au Revoir Orchid

A lovely leaving present orchid from my just as lovely colleagues. There was also a card and some scrumdiddlyumptious fudge to go with.

So, today was my last day in my current PT library job. Not through my own choosing, though; I've been working on a temporary contract since December last year, and, after several extensions, it's finally up. The library service here is having a big restructure and shake up to save the council some moolah, and is finally, after what seems like months and months of discussion, faff and compromise, going live this coming Monday.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I can totally see that it's necessary, and I think the new ways of working are going to be a really positive thing, but, on the other, I also think it's not going to be easy going for people who have worked in the service for a long time. We have lost a lot of staff members through voluntary redundancy and retirement, so at least there's not been any need to "get rid" of anybody as such. As someone on a temporary contract, I'm at the bottom of the pile for a place in the new system, even though I've been working on and off for the service for seven years, which is a bit annoying, but, to be honest, exactly how it should be. I have plenty of casual work booked in for the next couple of weeks filling in the gaps in various libraries, hopefully after that something more permanent will turn up. Even though the faff is annoying, I'm very, very lucky that this is not my "proper" job and that my first love is illustration, particularly compared to those who have been in the service for years and years and rely on it alone to pay the bills.

I hope this uncertainty in the PT job department means there's a lot more illustration work coming my way! Watch this space.....

End of Week 33

End of Week 32

End of Week 31

Pyms O'Clock

Looking through my blog, it seems that my recent posts have been nothing but pictures. Nowt much wrong with that, but I do feel I need to up the writing part here, if only for my only sanity/good, as I can see myself just getting lazy and slipping in to permanent picture-only posts!

So...what to put down here. As you probably can tell from my previous post, Middle Sister and I went to the Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour this week. It was AMAZING. I cannot put in to eloquent enough words how blown away we both were by the sheer level of detail and effort and love and devotion put in to everything. There was not a single "duff" or sloppily executed item to see anywhere; I highly recommend a visit. Even if you're not a huge Harry fan yourself, if you like film and are at all interested in how a production on a scale as massive as this gets from script to screen, it's deffo worth your time (five hours of it, as it turned out). I have some more photos - like, 150, to sort through, but I expect I'll put a few more up here in the near future.

And, after more work-free weeks than I've cared for, I've got a couple of jobs in. One is an ongoing kind of dip-in-and-out kind of job for a company who makes slideshows and web video promos for other companies, the other is a new book for Ladybird. It's for a younger audience than the one I did for them earlier this year and I'm REALLY enjoying it so far. I mean, I get to draw dragons. My job just rocks.



I also seem to be reading loads at the moment. I've recently discovered Barbara Pym after randomly coming across Excellent Women while working at the library one day. I finished that one pretty quickly, and I've just started Jane and Prudence and have A Glass of Blessings to follow that up with. I can't quite put my finger on what it is that I like so much about her writing. It's very, very funny, but in a gentle, very English, mid-century kind of way. It reminds me of the work of Jane Austen, Stella Gibbons and Winifred Watson, novels about women in genteel poverty who appear to be limited by social conventions of the time, but like their lot just fine, thank you very much. The editions I have from the library are fairly new reprints, each with an introduction by a modern author. I like to read the novel first, and then see what the intro says about it and whether or not I thought something similar as I was reading it. Go grab some Pym if you can, I say.

And, finally and most annoyingly, I hab a colb and the tail end of a cold sore. GAH. Illness in summer is just plain WRONG. At least I won't be ill on my birthday, fingers crossed, which seems to be approaching with alarming speed. I think, then, I'm justified in reading a chapter or two of Jane and Prudence with a pot of tea before cracking on with my roughs this afternoon, right?

Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus