Blissed out

Would it be wrong to sell my son's artistic services?

OK I'm not really serious about the title and I'm just so impressed with how this has turned out.  I was off last week with Cole and there's a local photographer who takes fantastic pictures of the local area.  His pictures are presented as collages with a theme - lots of close ups of parts of buildings, signs, front doors - anything really.  He then arranges them by colors or have a group of road signs or front door handles.  Combined together they look really effective.

So I suggested to Cole that he take some pictures of the local area using a theme.  The theme he chose was words and then he took the most fantastic collection of images which we put together to form this picture.  It's up in pride of place in our front room.  Cole's proud as punch (and lets fact it, so am I!)  But not only that, one of John's friend's came round last weekend and asked where we'd bought it!  So now we're threatening to hire him out - maybe send him on a national tour where he can compile pictures of towns and cities across the land!

Of course that could just be my wanderlust kicking in again.  I know we've had a ridiculous amount of fabulous holidays over the past 12 months but both John and I keep dreaming of our next trip.  John spent hours on Trip Advisor and Hotels Combined tonight looking at various reviews and ideas of where to go.  I don't think we ever care too much where we go - but a bit of sun would be lurvely.  Of course, as we're still paying off the wedding and having a loft conversion it's unlikely that we'll be going anywhere for the foreseeable future but we can dream anyway!

Christmas in New York sounds lush or chilling out on a beach, or how about Barcelona?  I've never been there.  Or I've always fancied New England, or Arizona, Austrailia, New Zealand - actually anywhere but here where it does nothing but rain!  For anyone outside of the UK, please don't be alarmed.  As a nation, the UK is suffering from mass craziness because we're all sun deprived and fed up with grey, sodden rain! 

Sunlight pictures

I'm slowly feeling like I'm getting back into the swing of things and am back at work this week.  I can't say I relish the thought but it's got to be done, I can't avoid it forever (although I'd like to!)

This weekend's been nice, spending time with Cole, visiting my Dad on Sunday (father's day)  Cole made a card for his Dad and one for John which I thought was really lovely.

I also put together a picture frame with some of the photo's John took while we were away.  I think they look fantastic and every time I look up from my little spot on the sofa (does that make me sound really old - having my own 'spot'?) I can be reminded of all of those beautiful views.

The new picture collection looks fantastic next to the sunlight pictures that are already up there.  Cole and I made them last summer and it's such a easy and effective thing to do. I love the slightly bleached out quality and the blue is such a lovely shade. 

I had seen them in a few places and had always loved the effect.  In fact, I already had a print that had been done in this style and loved the color and slightly ghostly effect.

Then I saw an add for sunlight paper in a catalogue selling creative toys and ordered some for Cole.  We collected things that he thought would give good outlines - buttons, coins, keys, toy cars, flowers, leaves and experimented with different exposure lengths to see what results we got. 

The toys and flowers didn't come out so well (the outlines weren't precise enough) but some of the others were great. 

We chose our favorites and framed them. 

I love having them up there and Cole sometimes refers to them in that 'remember when we did that' kind of way. You can  get sunlight sensitive paper from Amazon and lots of craft suppliers.

As you probably already know I love making things with Cole, it's such a nice way to spend time together and he loves being creative.  I try and encourage him to make things whenever he can and I think it's a lovely gift to pass onto a child - the confidence to create and use their imaginations.  (we also did lots of lego building and made some chocolate cakes - creating can also be sweet and yummy too!)

And I did say I'd been tagged didn't I?  The lovely Christy and Vicky have both tagged me and I've been very remiss in completing it so it's about time I got my but in gear!  Here goes:

The rules: I answer 6 questions about myself. At the end of the post, I tag 6 people and post their names. I then go to their blogs and leave them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read my blog. Finally, I let the person who tagged me know when I’ve posted my answers.

What was I doing ten years ago-1998?

I was working in Munich.  I'd run off there to escape an unhappy marriage (we'd been together 8 years and split up 12 weeks after we got married) and as we worked together I'd taken the opportunity to do a secondment in Munich.  While I was there I was head hunted by a consultancy firm and went to work for them.  It was a strange and testing time, I was very green and didn't fit into the super driven culture.  It was a great opportunity and I learned lots but it just wasn't my kind of place - it was filled with VERY ambitious people (think The Apprentice!) trying to climb the corporate ladder and that just wasn't me AT ALL! But Munich was lovely and I met some great people and learned a lot, both about work and myself.

5 things on my to do list for today

• Exercise - some yoga and at least 30 minutes of walking (I've been sat in a car for a week driving across California - it shows
• Read through and respond to the gazillion work emails I've been sent while I've been off (that could take a while!)
• Ring the after school club at Cole's school to see if they have a place 2 afternoons per week for Cole - I tried in September last year and they didn't but as I'm back to work and John's so busy it's a real juggling act to collect Cole at 3.30 - if he could go to an after school's club it would make life so much easier.
• As I dusted, vacuumed and polished downstairs yesterday, today I've got the upstairs to do.
• Go to the shops and get some food for dinner - chicken and salad I think.

Things that I would do if I was a billionaire

After the obvious things like pay off my mortgage, sort out my friends and family etc.  I'd set up a charity to run confidence and self esteem programmes for children and young people (I'd love to be able to have a job doing something like that)

Oh, and I'd buy a house in Santa Barbara because it's sooo lovely and I'd buy every item that anthropologie stock!

Places I have lived

Runcorn, Liverpool, Chester, Munich, Manchester, Stockport

Snacks I like

Cheese, berries (any), marmalade on toast, toast generally, carrots, ready salted crisps, dried fruit and nuts, chocolate (I like snacking a lot!)

6 people I want to know more about

This is a challenge because it seems that so many people have already completed it!  But here goes:

The lovely Marmadaisy - her of the fat quarter Friday

Jane of Jane and the ducks fame

Vicky at Knitted Dragonflies

Christine at Sew Christine

Manda at Tree Fall

Wheat Bag Cover

Thank you again for the kind messages you sent me after my up and down weekend.  It's so lovely to have words of support and they really helped me to keep things in perspective and feel a lot brighter about things.  I had a great day in work yesterday and am working at home today so feeling pretty on top of things.  Cole's got quite into the embroidery idea recently and I've given him his own hoop to work with.  Thank goodness he's only 7 because he sees nothing wrong whatsoever in a boy sewing whereas I'm sure it's going to be  a very different story in a few years time! 

This week he's been working on a picture of a house he's drawn.  I keep meaning to try the freezer paper technique of transferring designs onto fabric but Cole sees nothing wrong with just drawing directly onto it with a felt tip pen so we're going with that slightly lower tech technique for now!  When he finished the sewing I made it up into a cover for his wheat bag.  It's still mighty chilly at night so he takes his wheat bag to be with him most nights but it was a bit grotty looking because it was only in a plain white cotton bag which had started to go a big discolored from all the use.
I used some of the green polka dot sheeting I'd used for the lounge pants because a) I have lots of it left and b) the fresh green matches the thread Cold had chosen perfectly.

After a good rummage around my stash bag he found a nice petrol blue ribbon to use as ties and voila!