Some of the shops locally have been putting up some beautiful window displays:

have you noticed how shops are going back to proper window dressing - even the charity shops - I will post some more pics next time.  I like this restaurant sign - all you have to do is use up your spare time!

I'm not a meat eater and wondered if this butcher display might make a meat eater hesitate before coming through the door, the piglets are so cute!

I have had some unexpected gifts from my blogging penpal **Ann** who sent a surprise parcel full of goodies including this beautiful, pure mohair wool blanket which is huge, warm and very soft. a lovely book to read, lavender hand made soap which smells wonderful, a bath sachet I have yet to try, delicious fudge; all wrapped in lots of billowing tissue and purple ribbon - thank you ever so much Ann, everything is lovely and I feel thoroughly spoiled.

It's a dark day today so I can't get a good picture of my lovely mohair wrap, the colours are very bright and vibrant.

After the delight of discovering cinnabon at Ikea recently, I had a go at making some for the men

It's very satisfying to roll them and make the whole kitchen smell of cinnamon!  I like the smell so much I have bought cinnamon aromatherapy oil and also cedarwood and ginger, they go well together in an oil burner.......


I painted some more dandelions on silk, trying out different colours, wondered if this might work for a silk scarf..... a wintery blue?....

or a more muted version of the (psychedelic) one on my last post.

 I framed the first, large silk I did and it looks very satisfying filling the empty wall, I wouldlike to create something more wintery next time the paints come out, frost and berries perhaps.

Pumpkins are appearing all over the house - I love their bright colours and skins and am looking forward to the Halloween weekend - will you be decorating the house too?  we don't trick or treat now the boys are grown up but we usually get a few little ones visiting and so I have a cauldron ready full of goodies for them.  Back soon, the door is ajar - do come in for a chat and leave a comment if you have time, thanks for stopping by....  Betty 

Dandelions, reward, friends....

A painting type of day today....

silk painted dandelions by me!

I have a bare wall that needs some colour, an empty picture frame, some left over silk, lots of inks and some spare time - so my dandelion painting came about.  I might do some more as I am very keen on dandelions at the moment.  I found that dotting silver nail varnish gives some nice bling to the dandelion fluff! Sorry the picutres are a bit dark, it's dark everywhere here indoors and out today.

It's fun to blend the colours by wetting the silk then applying the inks so they run .. and not difficult to do as ink takes over, you never know how it will turn out, a surprise every time.

Salt makes a nice fuzzy effect...

I am giving up on the Ann Voskamp book - to be honest I am finding it very boring and can't be arsed to read it to the end, sorry to say that but just being truthful - the writer has good intentions but is on a mission and I didn't want it to be my mission.  I quite liked the idea of being thankful for 1000 gifts but did not like being saturated by her depressing catalogue of life tragedies that sort of took the book over.  So now you know.

 The best bit was the lovely picture on the front of the birds nest and blue eggs...

I think that's what got me - I do like a good birds nest .. here's  one I painted last year so will look at that instead.

 After getting all puffed out at the gym today I felt obliged to make use of the lovely steam room, it has blue mosaic walls with two corner shelves that house recessed lights that change colour,  I know it's childish but I like to climb up on things, the shelf recess for mood lighting is just right to sit on and it's extra steamy up there, so I perched for some time.  The ceiling in there is wonderful too - it's all little twinkling lights so if you climb down carefully and then lie, with eyes half shut it's like a twinkling sky at night - delightful!

A friend came by today from my old church days and we had tea then did a spot of praying together ... something that happens occasionally when the need arises, it was one of those days when it was the right thing to do.  I have some good friends, I hope I never take them for granted as they are undemanding.  Today's visiting friend is unusual and very special, our connection is regarding aspergers as one of my boys has this label.... my friend has the same label... she has never married, she adopted two downs syndrome boys by choice and brought them up alone, they are both now adult and  living independently, she wrote a book about it all that IS worth reading ('Not your normal Family', under the pen name of Fiona Barrington).   Here's a linky

Hope your day has been as happy as mine... bye for now.

The Wood Fairy

This is how I see wood fairies - mine is painted on silk, she is quite tall so tricky to show you her in all her glory.  Birds nest in her branches, she wears a woody crown and her dress is of leaves, foxgloves and berries.

the second picture is of her dress

Thankyou for following me over to my new blog. I am not posting on Yappy any more but will keep the old blog so followers can find me if they want to.

Butterflies - Thrifty Swap Gifts

In addition to the church auction I already posted about, I also painted two more similar silk scarves with butterflies for my Thrifty Swap partners, Heather and Annie.  I know both are received so here they are ... one was a long scarf, the other square.

I stayed with the same theme and colours for both as they have similar likes, but the nice thing about silk painting is that the inks spread and blend unexpectedly so no two are quite the same.

The materials were thrifty as I had bought the scarves at Christmas when the supplier had an offer, I had the inks already and the sequins I had saved from those little bags they attach to dresses in case you lose a bit.

I also made them each a scented lavender bag from the fabric given to me in my  swap with Lemonade Kitty.

I really enjoyed swapping with Annie and Heather - you can see the lovely things they sent me

 here (Heather's gifts) and here (Annies' gifts)  It's lovely to have someone in mind to make for and of course it's exciting to have a parcel to open and something that has been specially made for you too.