Gardening and another show :0)

Hiya all

Wow that was a busy week and went so quick, yay its the weekend again. So lots planned, doing my bit volunteering with harvest at their first Seed swap of the season details below.

Should be a good day, hopefully not too cold.

Harvest Seedy Saturday 11:00am - 2:00pm Exeter

The planning for the garden is going really well, please see extremely rough sketch below of what I am hoping to do this year, still compiling the list of veg I want to grow and will let you all know shortly.  

Next step is to hire a mini digger to come in and turn everything over, then I will be applying weed blanket then mulch (Bark or something similar), after than I can set up the raised beds and get growing. So this means I have a lot of work to do in the months to come. 

The Plan

 After my day at harvest I am hopefully off to craft club depending on how tired I am, lovely little place with some lovely ladies, tea and coffee supplied and a space to do what we want craft wise. :0)

As I said in the title I have been persuaded to do another show after the last one went so well   (Happy to report that it is still being watched and had some great feedback)

Crane and Bow

So this weeks topic is a demonstration of how I doodle, my favourite one pictured below, and also how to make Origami cranes, bows and possible butterflies if i can figure it out before Sunday :0)

Again all of this is only possible thanks to the
Massive support I get from friends, family and all of my wonderful readers.

As before the show is recorded so I will post the link to the replay

Now how does this butterfly work again

HMMMMMMM ................... :0)

Doodle doodle doodle

The show - I survived

Hello All

Just a quick update to say that I did my first ever live show at the weekend and it went really well.

Hopefully I will be doing more, possibly once a fortnight or month, not sure yet but more than willing to give it a go. 

For those of you that didn't make it, you can watch the recorded version, so if you want to see how to make origami lilies and flower decorations feel free to have a look.

Origami - Lilies and Kusudama

Like I said the response has been fantastic, the lovely ladies have been posting pictures of the completed pieces, so so happy that am able to teach lol.

A big big thanks to Pixie and Kelly for helping to motivate and encourage me to take the leap and do this. 

Garden updates to come in the next couple of days.

Until then take care of yourselves xxxx 

Origami ----- My First Live Show

Hello All 

Another day and another post, I promise that I will get more regular with my updates, still getting used to the swing of things. 

So I hope this finds you well, I have been busy with work amongst other things, also had a poorly dog which fingers crossed is all sorted now. 

As sad as it is I really don't know what I would do without her yes she can be high maintenance and a pain in the backside at times but she gives me unconditional love. Just to share a bit of her cheekiness she isn't camera shy so pictures included. She enjoys her close ups. 

Lemur Impression

Time for my close up

 

 Anyhow enough of that carrying swiftly onto the post title, on Monday while caring for the little terror I managed to log on and see some of the ladies from the Creatives group do a live show. 

They showed the process of how they paint, and also make paper beads.

Now at the end people were given the opportunity to go in and show some of their work, and as  2012 is the year of challenges I thought why not. 

I showed them some of my Origami, Lillie's and Kusudama (Paper flower Ball), to cut a long story short I am now going to be showing how to make these items on Sunday via web cam. 

LIVE !!! (What have I done)

I am currently 50/50 on the nervous/excited scale but really looking forward to it.

 Following the excitement, it dawned on me that the Kusudama takes 60 pieces of paper folded and glued, so now i am currently folding and gluing to get some of it done so we can have almost a Blue Peter moment, show basic steps then "Here's one I made earlier" 

I am looking forward to this challenge and hopefully if things go well this will be the first of many appearances. 

The assembly line

Here are some pictures of the current assembly line and a few of the origami pieces I have previously done.

Cecil the Origami Crane

 So fingers crossed please everyone for a good show on Sunday,  I will let you know how it goes. 

Thanks again for taking a interest and the time to read, further updates on gardening, 

art and a dogs life to follow 

My First Kusudama

Lilies

Until then , take care, have fun and if you can do one thing this week, please smile at a stranger, hopefully you will get one back, pass on a bit of happiness if you can find it in yourself. 

Or if you in need of a little love

                                                   Here's mine to you :0) ((Hugs)) xx

Gardening --- The Veg Plan

Hello All

Another day another post, I wanted to share with you my previous growing efforts and how it got started. 

I was wondering past a allotment in my local area and found a notice asking for volunteers on a new project scheme called Harvest, actually they asked for Growing Champions.  If you do live in my local town of Exeter please see below a link to the project for more information

The Harvest Project

 

It offered both a social aspect of getting off my butt and out of my flat, and the learning aspect as I hadn't really grown much in my life apart from the odd runner bean during middle school (yes I can remember that far back).

They gave as all basic training from a tutor at the college, how to plant seeds, transplant baby plants, making compost and the issues that will arise as we grew (Beasties and disease)

Over the last year or so the project has expanded from passing the message on to giving away free mini gardens to those without, seed and produce swaps, community gardens, permaculture projects, a touch of guerrilla  gardening. 

The biggest success City fruit Harvest, collecting unwanted fruit from trees anything from apples to Damsons, passing most onto homeless charities , schools and other people and the remaining items turned into juice, jams and chutneys and sold for funding the project. A full newsletter is on the site so please do use the link above

Well after this the growing bug bit and I started to go my own things, from tomatoes, to salad, to sweetcorn, potatoes, broad beans, courgettes etc.... all in pots on my patio.  Pictures below: Now the crate with a broad bead, green bean and courgette shown below, is a recycled packing crate that was been thrown at

work, now I will happily admit now I am a hoarder

the reduce, reuse , recycle philosophy is stuck in my life forever. 

This year I intend to use crates similar to these but put straight into the ground and on a larger scale.  One of the main issues I do have is water supply, in the wisdom of my landlord there is no access to water at the back of my property which means any water has to be carried through the flat which can cause issues.

To rectify this I am going to get a few water buts and a very long hose pipe ..... Ha ha ha

Like all projects it is always good to start with a solid list of things to do.

• Acquire compost heap and water butt
• Digger over whole garden striping grass and put down weed membrane
• Write down list of vegetables and salad that I want to grow this year. 
• Calculate amount of compost, manure etc required
• Plan which method to be used -Square foot gardening or Organised Rows. 
• Create Garden plan 
• Collect and install raised beds.

 Well i think this is a good outline to be getting on with, and once I get my lists and plans together I will post this. 

Growing vegetables is something that I wish everyone would do,  it is good for your health and good for the environment. 

You know exactly what has gone into your food and where it has come from reducing food miles, who wants fruit and vegetables flown from Africa or Spain  

Well not me anymore, this home grown or local. 

Thanks again from reading, best finish up this post before it becomes a novel. 

Another Tutorial video will be posted soon this time on Origami Flowers. 

Until then take care of yourselves xxx

My First Video

Hello All

My second posting and some great news, I have used my web cam for the first time another first !!!

I am privileged to be welcomed to a group on facebook called creatives which supports people in their art and encourages us to expand, think outside the box and try new things.

That is what 2012 is for challenges, have to say that it was good fun, rather long winded oops up at 6am. Oh well so happy and excited that it is finally done.

Below is a picture of the finished doodle, along with the short (6 min) video and full (1 Hour) Video with ramblings and instructions, I hope you enjoy it

Gardening planning and seed lists to come next 

Thanks :0)

Finished product not a good pic will upload new tomorrow

 

The good , the bad and the reason I am blogging

Welcome readers,

My very first post and my very first blog and I have to say I am a little nervous. This whole thing is very new to me so here goes.

Back at the beginning of last year I had what can only be referred to as "The Melt Down", I became a bubbling mess of emotion, I would literally cry at the drop of a hat. I went to the doctors and was signed off from work and wallowed in self pity for a long while.

The Doctor had referred me to an NHS Therapist so I went along in the hope that they would be able to help me .......... Well I quickly found out that that was not going to happen.

I was all about numbers, and statistics and fitting into categories so they could tick you off a list, at the end of my first session I felt worse than I went in.

One thing my GP did mention was to take time out from everything, so with the help of some friends we went down to the beautiful place that is Cornwall. Just being in the middle of a stunning estate was helpful, being out in the fresh air, with no pressure, no phone signal and no real worries.

I took down a pencil case full of pens and pencils, and a little notebook, i started to write .... it all spilled out onto page after page of thoughts and feelings, oh and the start of my doodles.

I started with little toadstools, then with little doodles, then I went online and discovered Zentangles .... OMG I fell in love.

Once I start one of these doodles all of my thoughts just fade away nothing outside can get in, I can focus again.

So after several months, and a hypnotherapist session I am back to my normal cheerful self.

And as they say the rest is history... So this blog is going to be a little bit of everything, doodles, thoughts, quotes that I like, book reviews, recipes, gardening , growing veg, my insane dog... my life

So if this interests you stick around :0)