Anti Journal

What a wonderful time I am having with this magnificent journal and I hope it shows in what I share and what I say.

Here are two more pages I would like to share with you today.

The prompt for this one was, 'Pour colours here' I sprayed the paper with water, added acrylic paints, more water and tipped the page up to get it to run down. I wasn't very successful at it but was happy with it anyway. I stamped using 'Water Droplets' by Ryn, went back over the black lines that were printed there, dribbled some dylusions ink and then spattered some white paint on top of it all.

This one said to 'Show off your true colours' The bird image and black plumage was already printed. I added the leafy feathers with Derwent metallics just pencil crayons, the white dots are my white signo pen and the background is done with some Pebbles chalks. I fixed it with cheap hairspray.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Karen has done in her journal, but I'll be surprised if Carolyn will have managed anything after falling and badly cutting her right hand :( Big ouchy! Sending best wishes for quick healing to her from me and Wee Man. You can visit her here to send her some love if you wish. 

Meanwhile, Wee Man and I have been looking after our steadily growing caterpillars. If you would like to see the first mention of them, have a look here.

We started with five caterpillars but now have just three chrysalides.

 We will be transferring them to a net habitat in preparation for their magical transformation into Painted Lady Butterflies on Friday; they have to be left untouched for  a few days to ensure the cocoons have hardened sufficiently. 

Isn't it cute? Actually it reminds me of a collapsible laundry basket, lol.

Well thank you for coming by and for taking the time to leave me a few words.

Until next time, take care, {{Hugs}} :o) Mo x

T Stands for......

.......lunch in a posh place

I'm sorry I missed T on Tuesday last week, life just took over. However, I did go out to lunch on the Wednesday with the ladies I volunteer with on Fridays, (cooking a three course lunch for the over 60's), and we went to somewhere most of us had never been before.

It's called the ClubHouse

I assume it used to be a private house, but I can't find anything about it. 

The inner decor is beautiful 

And I really liked the flowers decorating the table tops 

My preferred drink that day was Apple & Mango J2O. Some of my friends had wine, and others had other soft drinks.

My first course was poached salmon with asparagus wrapped in parma ham and a warm hollandaise sauce. It was delicious!

My dessert was a Cranachan Trifle - a traditional Scottish dessert usually made from a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey and fresh raspberries with toasted oatmeal soaked overnight in a little bit of whisky.  This day it had a bottom layer of sponge soaked with raspberry jelly, and not so much of the whisky; it was served on a slate tray with a raspberry coulis and homemade shortbread. 

Also, delicious.

I would have both of these courses again, anyday. 

In other news, you may or may not have seen that Wee Man and I are working on a nature project together - first post here - looking after Painted Lady caterpillars. Here are some updated photo's of them

Yesterday

and today.

We feel confident there will be three butterflies out of the five caterpillars we started with. The one hanging by a thread is not cocooned properly, so will likely not make it and the fifth is laying at the bottom of the cup. We will leave these alone for a couple of days and then move them into a net habitat where they will, hopefully, complete their amazing transformation.

I hope you found them as fascinating as we do. And I hope you can join us for T on Tuesday again next time. Now I wonder what Elizabeth & Bleubeard with young Squiggles have been up to, and also, the rest of the T gang. Go here if you'd like to find out too.

Thanks so much for popping in and until next time, take care and be happy {{Hugs}} Mo :o)) x

Anti Journal and a new Project

Good morrow dear friends, I hope I find thee in good health.

Sorry about that, I'm listening to an audible book set in the late 1700s and there's a lot of thee and thou from the quakers and I'm one of those people that picks these things up and annoys everyone else with it, lol. Wee Man just thinks I'm very silly. 

*Sigh*, he's probably right ;) So I shall cease and desist.

Righto, onto the reason why I'm here today. It's Wednesday and I have got into the habit of sharing some pages from my Anti Journal around the same time as Karen and Carolyn share some of their work from their Wreck It journals.

The prompt for this first page says: 

Any object you place here automatically becomes a work of art 

I used the edge of an inkpad to make some grass, which I like, and tried the same for the sky - nicht so gut - so I covered it with some gesso and then added white crayon through a cloud stencil to hide more of the blue - better.

Then I got out my dried flowers and stuck some onto the page with a matt medium.

Then I had to give it a title, so I called it After the April showers

The prompt on the second page I'm sharing says: It's raining colour

I stamped some raindrops using a stamp from Designs by Ryn, coloured them with twinkly paints and then added a wee white highlight with a white signo pen.

The black umbrella was already on the page, so I just decorated it and added a few drops of water in various colours.

As always, I enjoyed creating these pages and look forward to sharing them here each week.

Now, Wee Man and I started a new project a week ago.

We are rearing five Painted Lady caterpillars that we bought from Insect Lore

This is the pack we got

This was the size of the caterpillars on Day 1

Tiny huh?!

This is the size of them today! 

It's incredible how quickly they grow.

Once they become chrysalides we are to open the pot and put them into their net butterfly hotel (habitat)

And then we wait patiently until they develop into butterflies and after a couple of days we can set them free outdoors.

The speed in which these beautiful insects develop is holding Wee Man's attention because they are different every day. 

I will continue taking photographs and keep you updated as things progress.

We would like to link this to Moo-Mania & More where the theme is Butterflies :-D

Thanks for coming over and until next time, 

take care won't you?

{{Hugs}} Mo & Wee Man :-D xx

Anti Journal

New Pages

Although I have been away on holiday, I still have new pages done in my Anti Journal book to share with you. Not because I was dedicated whilst away, but because I was obsessive before I went away! Haha! 

I am joining Carolyn & Karen this week if they have managed to get new pages done; I'm looking forward to what they have wrecked ;-)

These pages are done simply with different coloured gel pens and the green background is done with an Inktense pencil.

The prompts are: make each one different 

and

Stitch Lines 

I enjoyed doodling in the circles and deciding what patterns to add, but I really enjoyed finding lots of different stitches to draw. This was inspired by Carolyns love of stitching; after all who can fail to be inspired by work as fabulous as this and this. Thank you Carolyn.

And thank you all for popping in again so soon after my marathon holiday posts, I really do appreciate it and all your lovely comments.

Take care {{Hugs}} :o)) Mo xx

The Craft Barn

Calendar Challenge

The prompts for our April page in The Craft Barn's calendar challenge are Blue and Umbrellas.

I used a wee umbrella stencil through which I smooshed my Cotton Candy blue gelato with my finger.

I flicked on some raindrops using my white Wink of Stella and then stencilled April with a silver pen.

The quote is by Roger Miller, written with a silver pen.

Thank you so much for coming by; I hope you will leave a comment, they always make me smile. 

Take care, be well, and be happy,
{{Hugs}} :-D Mo x

By Wee Man ~ And Twinkle of Course

Our Holiday Adventure Part 3

another long, picture heavy post

Now where were we up to.......?

Wednesday.

Yes, Wednesday was another day of great excitement for me personally. Wee Man, Helen & I were going to spend time at Lynn's house with some of her local friends who are also very talented crafting friends. There was Susan Woosey, Julie Waters, Mel Hearn and her two beautiful children, Lola and George who are all relatively local to Lynn and there was also a visit expected from Anne Redfern, aka Redanne of bollyanne(dot)blogspot who travelled from Cheshire. I hope you will check out Anne's blog, because Anne makes some of the most amazing and beautiful items and she has talent in bucket loads, but more importantly, she is one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. It was a complete pleasure to meet her, Julie, Susan and Mel.

I have to say that there was far more eating and chatting than creating going on, haha. Wee Man and Lynn showed us up by carrying on regardless and decorated an awesome button egg just like the ones from Lynn's workshop

And then. bless her beautiful cotton socks, Lynn took Wee Man out into her garden for an Easter Egg Hunt. She had written 9 clues for him to find 9 eggs.

Thank you Lynn, he really enjoyed the hunt. He told me he thought the funniest clue was, Does Mr Gnome know where there's an egg?' haha :-D

Wee Man shared his booty with all us ladies at the tables and with Lola and George.

We left with some very thoughtful gifts

Here is Hooty the Owl with her nest, for Wee Man

Isn't she the cutest, looking after the creme eggs too?!

And he got a concertina book about famous London sites and a fabulous kaleidoscope with a faceted lens that shows how an insect sees

Side one

 
Side two
 
That evening we went for another walk on the moor to feed the fish. There weren't any ducks around this time, but there were two hungry Geese. 

Thursday 9th April was our last day. We met up with Lynn near lunch time and she took us over to Todmorden to look around a vintage market but there was also a surprise in store for Wee Man

Yup! A bus cafe! **GASP!** 

Grandma Pollards bus cafe to be exact. That's Lynn just getting on the bus and the small person you may just make out is Wee Man. he was on there like a Greyhound to see if there was an available table, hahaha! Luckily there was (phew!)

Our food was delicious and the staff very courteous. We got a few photos of the outside, but I wish I'd taken some inside too. 

After lunch we went to the market. I love a good market and this one was very big, (to me). Wee Man has an eye for a bargain and got himself a couple of vehicles and a game at a reasonable price.

We then went to a play park to allow Wee Man to run off some energy and have some kiddy fun. 

picture courtesy of Google

Lynn, Helen and I sat watching whilst eating delicious ice-cream, (hehe), and as it was so very busy I didn't feel comfortable taking photos, so I thought I would use Google to show you the main play area of Centre Vale Park.

Our flight home was at 20.25 from Manchester airport, so we had to leave the park in plenty of time to get back to the Hindle and complete the packing.

Wee Man & I were sad to be leaving our good friends but also excited to be going home. We gave hugs to Helen and got into Frida; Lynn & Philip had very kindly said they would take us to the airport, (to make sure we left? hahaha)

When we got to the airport it was very hard to say goodbye without leaking eyes, for both myself and Lynn.

Wee Man was very excited to see this purple Flybe, and asked many times whether it was ours. Finally we found out that it was, so of course he was a very happy flier :-D :-D

The take-off was to the West so we got to see a very spectacular horizon. 

I wish my phone camera could do images like this more justice.

The flight home wasn't as quick as the outward journey but we did land 10minutes early and managed to get our cases quickly and out to catch our bus home an hour earlier than would have been had we landed on time. Yay! 

Grandad met us at the bus stop. We got home and a few things unpacked, munched some cereal and Wee Man was in bed at about half past midnight, I was not much after!

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

It has been a Fantastic Easter holiday. Now we are looking forward to going to London in July for my birthday.

The End

Thank you to everyone who has come through the reading of our marathon adventure tale without insult or injury and to all who have left us so much love in the comments. Thank you.

Love from Wee Man :-D

and Twinkle of course :-)

{{Hugs}} xox

By Wee Man ~ And Twinkle of Course

Our Holiday Adventure Part 2

and T stands for Toys and Treats

long, picture heavy post

We left Crewe train station on another Pendolino and headed for Manchester Piccadilly where we were due to meet Lynn Holland for the very first time. We were both very excited.

When we got off the train, we saw that Lynn's husband, Phillip was there to greet us as well; such a lovely surprise. It was so nice to give Lynn a hu-uge hug at last, and Wee Man was a real gentleman and shook their hands. And in Wee Man's own words, "It was very nice to meet such a nice lady with a beautiful smile." Awww

Wee Man was very eager to show Lynn his toy car that is the 'exact' replica of her own beloved VW Beetle, affectionately called Frida.

When we got to Hindle Pastures Barn, where we were going to stay, we saw that Helen was there and so was her husband Richard, our friends from Cardiff that we met last October. It was so nice to see them again and give them hugs.

Helen showed us around the huge house and we chose which bedroom we wanted. 

Wee Man 'made it our home'

and declared the bathroom, with it's shower 

and a big jacuzzi bath, big enough to have a party in, haha

We all ate together and Wee Man enjoyed his first jacuzzi bath then went to bed a little later.

On Monday we went to Lynn's and then we went to Animal Quackers Petting Farm. 

Lynn said that the goats were very gentle when they took food from her hand

and the wee lambs were very cute too.

Later on we went to Falinge Play park where Wee Man had lots of fun on a metal digger in the sand pit

Back at 'The Hindle' Wee Man enjoyed talking to the people looking after some horses there. He learnt several of the horses names and found out that a couple of them are over 25 years old.

Bertie & Lily

On Tuesday we went to one of Lynn's favourite places, Park Farm Shop & Tea Room for lunch.

We all had different things and it was all perfectly cooked. 

Wee Man enjoyed a banana milkshake in a vintage style milk bottle.

I bet my T on Tuesday friends will  like this image.

Look girls, no cake!! 

Then he went out to play whilst Lynn, Helen and I had teas and coffees and chatted, (still no cake. weren't we good?!).

In the evening we all went for a walk across the moor.  

We fed the fish in the Hindle pond and laughed at the ducks chasing each other around.

Thanks for sticking around if you've reached this far, I honestly hadn't realised how much there was to tell you, I do hope you aren't bored with this long tale. We've only ever had adventures 2 and 3 days long before so 8 days has made a big difference, and we do thank you for staying around with us {{Hugs}} :-D 

Part 3 coming soon

Love from Wee Man :-D

and Twinkle of Course 

xoxo

By Wee Man ~ And Twinkle of Course

Our Holiday Adventure Part 1

Wee Man and I went away for eight days. Where did we go? We went to Market Drayton in Shropshire to see family and we went to Whitworth in Lancashire to meet new friends.

We had a fantastic time! 

We went from Inverness airport on a Flybe aeroplane and landed at Birmingham International Airport.

We had to get on a shuttle bus to get to the actual airport building and collect our suitcases,

then we went on a computer operated monorail to Birmingham New Street train station, 

(picture courtesy of Google as it was too dark to get a photo)

where we caught a Virgin Pendolino train to Crewe. The Pendolino is Wee Man's favourite train in England, 'because it goes very fast and usually has 11 carriages'. 

At Crewe we got a taxi to my daughter's flat that she shares with her partner and two year old Jack. It was well past midnight because the plane had been delayed for two hours, so my grandson Jack was in bed. Wee Man and I were quite tired and hungry but we just had some breakfast cereal and went to bed just after 1:00am. 

Over the next few days we went to a soft play centre, 

had a ride in a fancy lift, (elevator)

had lunch in a nice restaurant

and went to Chester Zoo;

we heard this male lion roar, it was so loud and completely awe-inspiring.

That was a firm favourite part of the visit but Wee Man's favourite was seeing the giraffes

The tallest was about 4.5meters tall and the baby, which was born on 23rd December 2014, was about two meters tall.

We bought a soft toy giraffe in the gift shop and called her Geraldine.

And of course, we went on different buses and trains.

 

Wee Man & Jack watching the buses

On Sunday morning Logan & Jack got to find and enjoy some little Easter eggs

whilst the packing was done.

We left at 1:15pm to go to Crewe train station for the next part of our adventure.

Love from Wee Man :-D

and Twinkle of course xoxo