Ridgeway Cottage anyhow

In two days time, I'll be doing my first ever craft fair. Nothing fancy as it is the Christmas Fair at my son's school, but nevertheless, a real opportunity to get out there and meet the real public and see if they want to buy any of my wares. Following my first linocut Christmas cards, I have made several more from the same lino block. It is quite easy to get carried away and I now have the following variations:  Blue ink on white paper White ink on red paper Also as a I never entirely happy with the result unless it has that smidgen of embellishment, I am now adding a stitched metallic border and debating on whether there should be a silver or gold pear in the tree. I had intended to cut another design and bought some more lino but have lost my lino cutting tool which is probably why I'm working on the attention to detail! I don't want to spend valuable crafting time looking for something I may never find.

I am one of those people who love Christmas. I'm not that keen on the commercial aspect and the hideous emphasis on consumerism resulting in mountains of packaging, paper and unnecessary waste. However I can't get enough of magic of Christmas traditions once December starts. Seriously when else would I even consider eating a mince pie or pickle onion. It's also the period of advent that I adore as opposed to the 12 Days of Christmas. The anticipation of Christmas is so much more exciting than the stress, mess and over eating of Christmas Day and I would sit through a million nativity plays instead of ever having to go back to work in the early days of the new year. A Christmas tradition that I have followed for as long as I can remember is making my own Christmas cards. I really could not imagine buying cards and my mind automatically starts gathering inspiration in November. One of my favorite artistic skills that I learned at university is lino printing. I like the simpl...

I did it, I finished a project. It is amazing what you can actually achieve if you put your mind to it but more importantly, how fantastic it is when you get that sense of achievement. And I can proudly say, as promised, here are the finished project photos.

It really is the time to start making in preparation for Christmas, especially as I intend to have my first craft stall with a friend at Charlie's school Christmas Fair. I have hundreds of ideas thanks to Pinterest and I have started quite a few of them, but as always I'm not doing so well at finishing them. However with a whole basket full of unfinished projects, yet another inspiring post on Pinterest has caught my attention, a completely adorable mitten Christmas tree decoration. The original creator is devoted to her craft and the inspiration for my project can be found at her Etsy store, Myheartsdesire . I started cutting the felt yesterday and today I've added the mummy and daddy bird. I dearly hope that finished project photos (and one of much better quality than above) will be posted shortly.

Last Autumn when I went on my first mushroom hunt with the expert Steve Kirk , I naively thought I'd gain enough knowledge to head out with my basket and return with enough foraged mushrooms to make a tasty lunch. I could not have been more wrong. Today after my second two hour adventure through the ancient woodlands of Wildwood, I have learned one truly valuable piece of information, if you get it wrong, you'll get ill at best and die at the worst. And it really is only to easy to get it wrong. Steve Kirk is a true bush craft hero, with his leather hat, mushroom knife and waistcoat with endless pockets, however it is quite eye opening to see him unsure of what quite a large proportion of the mushrooms are, unless he has carefully examined them. There were also the "little brown jobs", which translate as small mushrooms requiring further investigation under a microscope and reference to all his books. Mushrooms are so amazing. The visible fruits that appear above ...

Sometimes sadness isn't always such a bad thing. Victor Hugo once said, "Melancholy is the happiness of being sad" and I believe that without that sadness, there would be nothing to compliment the happiness. Life is not perfect, but there is the possibility for happiness everywhere. Moments are precious when spent with those you love, so it's only nature to sometimes reflect on times that are lost in memory.

I have finally reached the time in my life that my teacher warned me about all those years ago in a humanities lesson. As a teenage girl, I will readily admit that a larger percentage of my time in lesson was spent talking than listening, but there are somethings I remember so clearly. This teacher told us that our teenage years were not the time of our life, as we had too much to worry about, had too much work to do for our qualifications, no money or freedom from the restrictions imposed on us by our teachers and parents. The time of our lives, in his opinion, would be once we had jobs, left home and had disposable income before responsibilities, bills and worries tied us down and life became complicated. Those days of having nothing much more to consider than what new outfit to spend my hard earned cash on were gone in a flash and the older I get the more complex my life becomes. For years I loved fireworks, it was the start of the party season, bonfire night ran into friends'...