GPPS Street Challenge No. 47 It's a Wrap!

Another great challenge from Michelle Ward over at the GPP Street Team, this time all about using some of the wrapping and ribbons we used at Christmas to make a journal page.  So here is mine.  I started out by gessoing the pages as the paper in this journal is quite thin.  Then I added some gold acrylic paint which I love.  I really wanted to do something with doors opening so cut my different sheets of paper up into door shapes and added ribbon for handles.  I tend to use tissue wrap for gifts at Christmas and then add showy ribbon in red or gold.  Inside the doors I wrote about each daughter who came home for Christmas - three from overseas so it is fun to record a little of what was going on for us this year.

The second page has a little wrapped parcel at the top (I did many parcels with white tissue paper and this red glittery ribbon) and a fun cellophane poinsettia bag (cut for the purposes of the journal) which I used to put homebaked oat and spice cookies for the postman, the milkman and the vegetable delivery guy plus anyone else who I thought might like them!!!!  

Inside the bag I put two tags similar to those I used for some parcels and then on the back I made some notes of the recipes I used this year for my turkey and vegetables etc., and I added some other shop bought parcels I used too.  It will be a fun memory - thank you Michelle as always for these prompts.  I especially need the deadline too!!!

Thoughtful Friday no. 121

"May the colors of your soul rise greatly within you 

and the light which weaves your soul to greatness 

will continue to shine and make a clearer way for others."

Mary Anne Radmacher

Thoughtful Friday no. 120

"What is necessary first for visionary power is an undaunted appetite for liveliness - to be among the active elements of the world and love what they do to you, to love 'to work and to be wrought upon'; to be 'alive to all that is enjoyed and all that is endured'; to have the loneliness and the courage to take in not only joy but dismay and fear and pain as modes of being without bolting for comfort or obscuring them with social chatter."

Alec King, "Wordsworth and the Artist's Vision"

Best Shot Monday - everything x four!

When you have four children, or in my case, four daughters, you soon learn the importance of fairness in the family so rather than buying one of anything you end up buying four, ideally four slightly different things so there is a measure of individuality.  So it is with making things for the girls and this Christmas I decided it was time to make the recipe files I had been talking about for the last few years and they had been asking for for the last few years!!  It wasn't just one recipe file though it had to be four and they had to be different (but in some ways the same!!).  And so the above were created just before Christmas using ordinary black binders with two binder rings inside and fabric and batting to make it tactile and cosy to the touch with a few little embellishments and the trademark different names they tend to call me.  All in all, I was pleased with them and the beauty of ring binders is they can be added to (the recipes are all in punched pockets) when new family recipes are created.  Of course if you are in Dubai or Paris then you probably don't want them much at the moment but they will always be here for when you do!!  I miss you all, you wonderful young women!

Thoughtful Friday no. 119

"Courage doesn't always roar"

Mary Anne Radmacher

Thoughtful Friday no. 118

”Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow;

 it empties today of its strength.”

Corrie Ten Boom

Best Shot Monday - Little things

Some little handmade gifts for some lovely ladies I meet with once a month.  They each left our gathering wearing their fun flower brooch!  The year before they had a crocheted snowflake each and one friend couldn't make it so this year she had both, hence the snowflake in the picture with the parcels.

Thoughtful Friday no. 117

"The only true gift is a portion of yourself"

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Would you believe it?!!

The lovely daughter no. 4 in Paris had a birthday last week and I had been planning for some time what to do!  Post didn't seem to be getting to her apartment so we decided I would send to the Lanvin office!  So far so good.  What do you send to the gorgeous who love beautiful things?  Beautiful flowers of course!  So having scanned the websites for delivery to Paris I found one and ordered a delightful bouquet of pink and white flowers to arrive on her birthday.  I also made a card and crocheted a necklace and sent that off too.  Did they arrive?  No No No!!  She got the card on Tuesday this week but there was a hole where the necklace had been taken out!!!! Boo Hoo I say and she did too when she found out.  So all alone in Paris and no presents!!! But she did get a beautiful cake from Lauderie from her colleagues at Lanvin so not all was lost.  And today I got a refund from the flower company who could not explain it at all.  And another crocheted necklace is in process so we will celebrate when she is back next week.  In the meantime, here are some other things I have been up to lately;

Same pattern and different colour combination yarn and I am very pleased with the results.  They are now packed up and in the UK postal system so I sincerely hope they do better than the stuff destined for Paris!!  

Best Shot Monday - checking in

Just to say that I am still here although not in blogland very much at the moment.  I have been finishing a big job and had to stay focused plus busy trying to get some creative projects finished for Christmas and I have a hubby who likes to use my computer each evening and at the weekends!!!  Guess what I am hoping Santa will bring him for Christmas?!!!!  As Arnie says "I'll be back!"

Thoughtful Friday no. 116

"The real voyage of discovery consists not

 in seeking new landscapes

 but in having new eyes." 

– Marcel Proust