Meowsers

 Hello there!
Hope you are well! I don't have that much to say today but wanted to post something so I thought I'd share an outfit! A vintage blouse here- check out the collar on that thing! Confession: I get 'Vintage shop guilt. Anytime I go into a vintage shop, I always end up buying something because I often worry that the shopkeeper might not have sold anything all day. This one came from a shop in a town that is featured in that atrocious programme TOWIE and the shop is not on the main high street and it was raining!  Still, it is a darling colour and shape!

 The day today was both tiresome and good in some ways. Tiresome because frankly the children are just losing it at the moment. End of term tiredness, getting sick of each other, general rudeness etc and it is just annoying and disheartening. Also, I was putting together my programme for the Summer concert and I was sad to see that last year's choir had 10 more children in it in the Summer, recorders had at least 10 more, Drumming club had more and generally year 6 attitudes were better.  I miss last year's year 6.

Still, despite this gloom, I had a very successful Recorder club and drumming club practice today- these pieces are going to be good esp when the drumming club parade in playing Snare drums whilst the Recorder Club perform the British Grenadiers march! Also made it home in time for a 45 minute swim at the local pool because my friend L came to school to borrow my Alto flute so I walked back to the station with her. I even did some flute practice when I got home because I'm performing the Flute Concerto that L's husband composed as a wedding present for their 30th wedding anniversary!

 Yes, those are cats on my trousers. You look amused. Why?

I hope your days are bright and sunny and you don't have gloom!
Smile and be happy.
xx

Cards for men- more ideas

I almost gave my sister a heart attack when I presented her with birthday and Father's day cards back at the start of April to give to my Dad and Step-Grandad. I'm not always known for my being on time with birthday cards for that part of my family given that they rely on the posting of items. However, I was determined that they would be presented.  June is a busy time for birthdays.

Here is a card for my Dad's 66th birthday. He has always been very fond of boats, having been a leisure sailor with his own boats when I was young. 

I decided to create a 3d boat using a sort of 3d decoupage technique.

Every aspect of this card is recycled.  The sky consisted of torn envelope inards, the brown textured boat bowels were made out of a posh music programme.  The deep blue sea came from some scrap card from 10 years ago. At that time, I filed my pieces of scrap paper according to colour!

As you can see, the boat consists of several layers to make it 'pop' from the card.  3d sticky pads from Poundland give it the gaps between levels. If you can cut geometric shapes with a pair of scissors and use pinking scissors, then this card is a doddle.

 This card was made of off cuts and as you can probably tell from the card base itself, it was also something else in its previous life! I used a Martha Stewart edging punch to make the swirly patterns and layered onto some scrap blue card from above with some stickers that have been lurking in my collection since the very first time I bought the Do Craft magazine- a magazine freebie!

Here's a sneaky tip for you.  You know you can buy those metallic outline stickers from Craft shops.  Well, when you pull off the stickers, you are left with the cut outs from these shapes and you can peel them off and use them for cards too. These were what was left from using the original stickers. That way, you get double for your money! This card was for my relative who is a real handy man!

Any ideas to inspire you here?  Hope that you might gain some ideas from me!

xxx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara's elusive dress

Hello there!

I missed TARDIS Tuesday last week due to a weekend camping and having a manic week at school so I am back with a favourite!

I think we all know by now that Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman is my favourite New Who character.  Something about a brown-haired teacher I think who wears nice collars!

Anyway, all the promotional materials for Series 8 had this image of Clara in a Topshop tile-print dress.  We ended up seeing it in two episodes- The Caretaker (in which Clara wears a million outfits!) and in Dark Water, the penultimate episode of the series.

I've cosplayed this outfit before, back in TARDIS Tuesday January 2015 here with a similar silky material shirt dress but somehow, I have sought the original dress on Ebay for years!!!

 And as you can see, I finally got it.  Tried to go for a direct copy of the pose- phone & post-it not included!

 She's wearing Oxford shoes and I am wearing some Topshop boots that Clara wears in another episode.  These will feature then!

 The dress is very comfortable and nice to wear but I wouldn't want to be chasing any aliens in it- it's a little too short, especially if you're extra tall!

 CBC saw me clopping around in these and asked, "What on earth are you wearing such high boots for?  He then realised and said, "Is it Clara Tuesday?" and retorted that they made me way too tall and much taller than Clara which is true- she is absolutely miniature!

If you too are seeking this dress, it is called the Topshop tileprint dress and there are several VERY expensive ones on Ebay. Mine didn't come cheap but they certainly didn't cost that!

What do you think?

xx

The Doctor Who Experience Part 2- the aliens!!

I apologise for the significant delay in my posting part 2 of my visit to Wales.  Here is Part 1.  I have no excuse other than I always dread doing posts where I have a mound of photo to choose from!

When we reached the top of the stairs on floor 2 of the exhibition,  my first glimpse was of the Face of Boe. It is said that this is the most ancient of beings at the end of the Earth!   He is wise and tells you 'You are not alone!'

 Here we had a clockwork robot who terrorised Madame Pompadour as they sought her head. On the right we have one of the Sisters of Mercy on New New York!

 The Sycorax took on the 10th Doctor on Christmas day and fell to his death on Earth!

 The sweetest of Aliens- the Hath! These ones I really liked when I saw them in Doctor Who! Such sweet and kind beings. So misunderstood! I'd like these to return!

 This balloon was made out of the skin of humans. Urgh!

 Here's a 1980's Cyberman.  The Cyberman and their lack of expression always creeps me out!

 Oops! These shouldn't have ended up here! Here are the costumes of the Torchwood team! I saw a leather jacket just like that one on the left in a charity shop and contemplated it for Cosplay but decided I didn't like it enough to warrant it finding a place in my wardrobe!

 Ot ow! Here's a line up of scary daleks!

 These aliens featured in Colin Baker's final serial, A trial of a Timelord  in The Terror of the Vervoids. These were a completely new race who the Doctor unfortunately committed genocide on. They were seriously nasty!

 Here's a sleeping Silurian! These were Homo reptilia- the lifeform who ruled the Earth before Homo Sapiens...according to Doctor Who anyway!

 I think this is a Mandril and I confess to not having seen the episode these appeared in!

 These are the Cheetah People and they were the final enemies Sylvester McCoy faced as the Doctor before the programme was cancelled and faced a 15 year hiatus!

 This is the Melkur which actually turned out to be The Master's TARDIS in disguise!!! He featured in Tom Baker's penultimate tale, The Keeper of Traken.

 The original Sontarans from Jon Pertwee's era from er- The Sontarans!

 You can see two versions of Davros, creator of the Daleks here. On the right is his original incarnation from Genesis of the Daleks, from Tom Baker's era and then his Sylvester McCoy version from Remembrance of the Daleks. His appearance was a big shock in this episode in which two rival factions of the Daleks sought to find The Hand of Omega,   a weapon which turned out to be a trick to destroy the Daleks by the Timelords.

 Here we have an original Ice-Warrior from Patrick Troughton's era. To the right we have K2, a robot created by Professor Kettlewell for Tom Baker's debut story, The Robot, designed to help humans but it went wrong!

 An original Zygon here.  These Shape shifters featured in the 50th Anniversary adventure!

Finally, we have here a Tetrap from Sylvester McCoy's debut story, Time and the Rani. This episode is the first Doctor Who adventure I remember fully as a child. I do remember part of A trial of a Timelord, but only briefly.

Do you remember any of these?

Hopefully I will be able to share some costumes from the show in my next post!

xx

Pencil it in!

 As you may have realised by now, I am a complete sucker for a novelty print and a bit of matchy theme dressing!

 Thus, I found it fun to christen the lovely brooch Lily gave me with my Cath Kidston pencil print dress (an Ebay win). I combined it with a Cath Kidston necklace with similar colours to the pencils and a much loved charity-shopped cardie! From a distance, it looks fairly sedate then up close, you realise the madness!

We've had a good day today.  Waking up fairly late, I spent the morning doing chores and tidying, then went to the library to return 2 books and pick up one that I've had reserved for ages (I was 12th in the queue for it!!!!!!!!!!) . On the way back, I popped into two of the open charity shops and ended up buying 2 items that would be good for Clara Oswald cosplaying and also ended up buying a 2nd book on Wildflowers because I am sick of not knowing what things are and felt sorry for the market stall holder!

When I returned home (with delicious milkshake), we headed off to the Leigh Folk Festival where we watched Emma Reid and Rob Harbron. Emma went to school with my husband but she lives in Sweden now so we try to go and watch kids when she is over here.  She is an amazing folk fiddler. As we browsed the stalls, it turned out one of the ladies from the support team at work was running a Vegetarian Indian food stall and gave us some amazing vegetable bhajis (I don't like Bhajis but I LOVED these!)   After that, CBC went to get his hair cut and I had a quick scout into the charity shops and returned to watch an Irish trio. 

We headed down to walk by the beach in Leigh and as we walked back to town, walked into my lovely work colleague who lives nearby who had mentioned she was going to watch something at 7pm! 

Finally, we came home and a friend came round.
All in all,  a pleasing day with a good balance!

xx

My May to June Garden part 1

Hello All,

I cannot tell you the joy that my garden has given me this Spring. With very little effort or virtually none from myself, my garden has continued to put on a wonderfully bright, colourful and entertaining show for me! Since I spent 2 hours out there dead-heading roses, cutting back brambles and weeding, I thought I'd share some highlights with you from the past few months.

 By the patio windows there is this large bushy shrub. It spent May and early June covered in these pretty white flowers.  Alas, I am ignorant of its name but it is a veritable Bee-magnet.  The little ladies were all over it constantly in vast numbers.

 Further down the garden is this magnificent tall rose bush. I'm not sure of the variety- I don't think they are dog-roses as I thought those look less 'rose-like' if such a phrase exists!  The bush has been full of these pretty pink roses for ages and they keep coming, even now!

 This form of white carnation blossomed and grew for a few happy weeks.

 I lack the knowledge of these yellow flowers but they seem to grow in abundance in the garden.

 It's not just Flora in the garden though. This is Sally Slither.  She is my resident Slow-worm in my right hand compost bin. I've seen her twice now! Apparently I am very honoured as they are quite rare in Surburban places my Mum says!

 I've had around 20 strawberries thus far and there are raspberries coming too!

 The biggest surprise was these Raspberry Ripple roses!  These certainly didn't grow last year and in fact, I cut this mean spiky looking rose-plant right down in January. It seemed to like the mistreatment as it has been covered in these magnificent roses which Hazel says sell for £13 a spray in her local florist!

 The roses have been abundant in a myriad pleasing hues.  CBC's favourites are these peach ones which have formed a dense cover on the left-hand side of the garden.

 Here's a view of the garden when I had just mowed the lawn.  This is such an arduous process in such a large plot but I do enjoy being out there despite the aches.

 This shrub is rather taking over the garden with its pinky-purple roses. I am a little nervous of how to cut it back, I confess.

 A new batch of peachy roses are growing on the right hand side.

 The fennel is growing abundantly amidst a forest of shrub. I am not too sure how to get to it.

 Delicate pink roses grown low.

 And here are some richer burgundy shades.

 I spy fruit! I can't remember if these were plums of greengages last year!

 Mum pruned back this apple tree significantly but it still bears a bumper crop.

 Ever popular with butterflies, the Buddlea has arisen to say hello.

 This beautiful, exotic-looking flower looks very bird-like!

 My olive-tree has blossomed. Dare I hope for fruit?

And saving the best till last:  My favourite  namesake Love and Peace tearose has given me two more glorious blooms with a third on the way!

How has your garden grown this month?

xx