Creative weekend

Just a taster. Plas Tan y Bwlch is a 19th century mansion and the interior inspires me each time I visit. It's leaded windows and carvings are full of interesting designs. So I decided to make some simple sketches of some of them with the intention of developing them into stamps.


The weekend was spent making these shown above. I hope to make more soon.


The rest of the time was spent experimenting with painting papers and stamping. None of them are finished yet. I hope to carry on with them during this week.

Plas Tan y Bwlch

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Here we all are where we all love to be on a short 'retreat' at Plas Tan y Bwlch . It was not a very pleasant journey I'm afraid as we had torrential rain for the last part of the journey. And very unusually for us as a group, we came up early for a cup of tea before going to bed. Well, I know everyone who reads this blog will understand why. It takes such a long time to try and pack the right things and not to bring the kitchen sink. DH did warn me my little car would not hold all the stuff I had, plus my friend and hers. He was right too. I had to take some of it out and leave it home. I had to leave my sewing machine and my box of stamps. But I knew my friends would let me use theirs if I needed to, So I didn't mind too much.


I had to take a photo of this small part of a wall as the colours after the rain looked so lovely.

There are more photos on SerenTex.

SerenTex

I finished my bookmarks for the Surface Design swap a few days late I'm afraid. This photo shows both sides.


A little taster from SerenTex.

North Wales Regional Day

Last night's Regional Evening was very successful with over 70 members attending. The finger buffet and the strawberries and cream were delicious with Ann Jones(SerenTex) in charge of the catering. The 3 winners were Rhiannon, Gaynor and Joan with Catherine of Silken Strands - (supplier of threads for hand and machine embroidery) having the difficult job of choosing the best. Unfortunately I was not able to take many photos as I was on the Ario stand, they had sent us a box of goodies to sell.


But I did get to see Carol McFee's samples from their D4daisy Book, 'Stitching the Textured Surface' which will be out soon and I can tell you now that no photo does them justice, they are fantastic.



The Madeira Lecture was given by Luned Rhys Parry a wonderful artist who creates her scenes and sculptures using recycled materials including old Newspapers and cardboard boxes. they have to be see to be believed. Luned has a wonderful sense of humour which comes out strongly in all her work. Unfortunately the quality of my photos are very poor.


Here is Luned demonstrating her method of working and below is a sample of work made by SerenTex member Rhiannon Jones who took a course with Luned and I've just booked to go an a Day Course with her soon. I can't wait!

Please click on him, he's worth a closer look!


And I was fortunate enough to be one of the raffle winners, winning a lovely box made by Ann Jones. Maybe that should have been the title of this post. 'Ann Jones' as her name has cropped up so many times. How does one person manage to do all this?

North Wales Embroiderers' Guild Regional Evening

I think you deserve a rest from my holiday photos!



These are the Postcards I made this morning for the EG competition. They had to be inspired by the Sea.
The top one has bits of fishing tackle picked up on the prom in Rhos on Sea and decided to call it 'No Fish?' (over-fishing).
Again another card inspired by the sea in Rhos on Sea that is now having dozens of these windmills which can be clearly seen from this beautiful little seaside resort. I wonder if the power of the waves could not be investigated seriously instead? But large-scale on-shore wave power generating stations could face similar problems to those encountered by windfarm projects, where opposition has focused on the aesthetic and noise impact of the machinery on the environment.
But I think this one an interesting idea Harnessing the power of the waves — Nordic Energy Solutions

Monaco

A visit to Monaco is always a must when we go to the South of France. Mainly because of the wonderful atmosphere there, the Grand Prix circuit and the Ice Cream at the Cafe de Paris. It's a very unusual place and very well designed with all those buildings that seem to be one on top of the other and yet they are all easily accessible.


I ordered the one on the left, but must admit to having eaten most of the two of them. Mmmmm!


I include these images and hope someone will find them inspiring. They were very inspiring in situe. Here is a website I found with even better photos for you eco art parade 2009 monaco

Cannes holiday

I came home to find these lovely swaps had come in the post for me. The Mailer Journal is beautifully made by Tracy Borders and the lovely bookmarks are from Francoise and Meg.


This is the painted front of the Bus Station in the square in the centre of Cannes. It can fool you when you first look at it, but it's all painted.


If I was going there on holiday tomorrow I expect this is where I would have spent most of my time, at the International Advertising Exhibition. This is where the Cannes Film Festival takes place, but they had already taken away the red carpet before we arrived!

Cannes

Thanks to everyone who commented on the last couple of posts and haven't had a reply, but we are just back from Cannes. We just missed the Cannes Film Festival by a short time, but it would have been difficult to find anywhere to stay during that time and would be far too expensive for us. The weather was fantastic and the window shopping was very inspiring. But all I bought was a few bottles of silk dyes!


This is the hotel we stayed at and as you can see there's a huge painting of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. We have stayed there twice before and when we arrived they sent us to another hotel for the first night. We were so annoyed as it happened the last time as well. We had a few cross words with them when we went back and they gave us a lovely executive room to make up for the inconvenience.


Here we are sitting in the other hotel which was also very good. I was taking photos of a beautiful vase in the window when the Receptionist asked if we wanted our photo taken.


This is the vase. It was huge and so beautiful.


Here is another photo of the interior of the Mondial Hotel.



A couple of colourful flowers I took and thought you might enjoy.


I took this photo in a cafe in Monaco. It was a very expensive Light Cola, but worth it for the atmosphere and just this one flower in the glass!

Now I need to get myself back into the frame of mind for creating. I feel inspired by the many things I saw, but first I need to make a postcard of the Sea for a competition at the North Wales Embroiderers' Guild Regional Day which is on Monday. as usual, I can't quite make up my mind what to do, so will probably end up doing more than one.

Dragonfly

This photo of the dragonfly was taken by my friend Trish (SerenTex) and I have her permision to share it with you. I love the way she's waving her arms and smiling as if to say, "Look at me in my new clothes". Trish took another photo just before this one, just as she entered the world in her new form, but that was not as good as this one.

Here is a closer look. Please click for a closer look.

I'm having a week's break from blogging, but I'll be back.
I leave you with some flower photos from the Botanical Gardens of Wales.

SerenTex

Here is tonight's sunset. (I think it's worth a click to enlarge)

This is what we did at SerenTex today amongst other things. I carried on with mine at home this evening. Would you believe I have never done any weaving before now as I just haven't had an excuse to try it until today even though I've wanted to have a go?


Kath sent me this Bookmark in the style of Margaret Beale, which is ideal for the purpose and is a really lovely and simple design.


This is my 'fast and furious' bag. I needed a navy bag, so I decided to make one using dark navy linen and curved pieces of felt made with the embellisher.

Meeting Carol

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Carol T a lovely young woman I have met on the Internet through our mutual interests. Carol is the 'Listmom' for the textile Challenges Yahoo Group I belong to. She also has a most interesting blog called Taylor's textile trials.
We had lunch together and then went to listen to Jae Maries at the Wales Regional Day meeting at Killay in Swansea, South Wales.


Three members from the North Wales Branch had travelled down together, Anne Cross who has been the Chairman of the Wales Embroiderers' Guild for the last 5 or 6 years and Sue Gallacher who is the new deputy Chairman. But here is a photo of them both enjoying a wonderful exhibiton of textiles at the Botanical Gardens.


I took a photo of this poster advertising the exhibition. anyone living near enough or passing through, it is well worth a visit. It's the work of two young Welsh artists, Sue Evans and Anita Bowyer. It will be there until August 16th. WalesOnline - News - Wales News - Paper corsets bloom at National Botanic Garden of Wales

I went as the North Wales Branch representative and we were made to feel very welcome. It rained all the time we were at the Botanical Gardens on Saturday and we travelled home on Saturday during the most heavy rainstorms I've ever seen.

As I mentioned previously Jae Maries was the guest speaker at the meeting and I found her talk very interesting, humerous and inspiring. Here is her website - Jae Maries

Meeting Julie

Here is a meeting between two bloggers! We chatted as if we'd always known each other, but this was our first meeting. Julie's DH took the photo, then he left us to talk about our shared interests.


A meeting between two Rubies! I don't know what the Rubies chatted about, but they got on well too, then Julie's Ruby came home with me and My Rubie left with Julie.


The postman brought a lovely packet from Aynsley which included two swaps, a lovely journal and a bookmark.

Ruby

Let me introduce you to Ruby who will be going home with Julie at the end of the week. I happened to mention to Julie of the MIXED MEDIA blog that I was sorry that I hadn't joined in the Ruby swap. So she suggested that we have our own one to one swap, which we will exchange when we meet on Thursday as she's on holiday in the area. Here is the free Pattern One Red Robin » Ruby Doll Patterns and Instructions which you can use to make gifts for family and friends. but not for sale.

Transfer Paint

Today I made this bag using transfer painted poly cotton and it's a surprise for someone!


Tonight's sunset.


Below flower centre taken at Ruthin yesterday.



An interesting tow bar cover again taken at the Ruthin Craft Centre car park.