Why I don't like cliff top walks!!!

We saw this sign on the coast path above Charlestown. It sums up one of my main worries about cliff top coast paths. (The other is falling off!!!)

Until next time
Gillian

What made me "me"

Have you ever wondered why you are like you are? Or why something has happened to you? Psychologists discuss nature versus nurture, but I would take it a bit further and say that I think that everything that has ever happened to me has made me what I am and who I am. I am a product of my environment and my history. Every experience I have ever had has contributed to making me "me", whether good, bad or even  non-memorable.


At times since we got married things have gone against us. (I don't want to detail them here as I don't want to dwell on negatives).  But every time something good has come out of it. Every decision, whether welcomed or not, has contributed to placing me here, where I am now. I sometimes think that it is all part of my destiny, but then that would take away my responsibility for my actions, so perhaps not.


I have to live the life in front of me, making the best of my opportunities, working through the difficult times. I have heard people sat that if you didn't experience bad times you wouldn't appreciate the good. Maybe, maybe not...

Len and Elsie's Wedding Day

The photos today are of my paternal grandparents Len and Elsie Dawson. They were very special people. The sort of people no-one had a bad word for.

My nanny and grandad  (Len and Elsie)

I hope people will think of me like that one day...


Until next time
Gillian

Baffling with craft!

My youngest son's friend came round after school today and looked on in astonishment as I got out my Cuttlebug and Spellbinders cutting dies. I explained to him what they were for and showed him how they cut out shapes that I couldn't possibly manage to cut with scissors. He was polite and vaguely interested but I could see he really didn't get the point of it. He quickly went back to playing Pokemon games on the DS handheld console. It's left me thinking though. Do non-crafters watch in bafflement at the effort we crafters put into our hobby? Do they wonder why we bother?


So why do I bother? What do I get from crafting? Well the answer is so many things. Firstly, I cannot sit still and do nothing. I feel life is too short to sit around and waste time. Secondly, if I do sit and do nothing in the evening I'm usually so tired I quickly fall asleep and then don't sleep at night. So I have to keep busy, doing anything and everything  I feel like, but basically I never sit still. I'm always fiddling with something. My husband calls it "faffing" (he's from Liverpool and this is one of those regional type words that I hadn't ever heard of until I met him). The other side of crafting is I like to actually make something I can keep or give away. It is something I can do, and it makes me fell good that people have always liked what I make.


I am not an artist, my school art teacher could think of nothing good to say about my school art except that I had a good sense of colour. Not the most encouraging comment! But perhaps  life has come full circle because colour is now a major part of all I make, particularly my current love of inking and colouring stamped images. The pictures below use a teal green, blue and purple colour scheme that I particularly like for fantasy work.

Star Fall

Twin Cities 

These are encaustic art pictures, made by using a hot craft iron with pigment waxes.  I have no idea what will happen when I start each picture; it's a matter of looking to see what is possible from the way the wax melted and formed patterns, and then scraping or drawing wax images to make a mini scene. It's a real case of serendipity, which is why I enjoy doing it so much!

Until next time

Gillian