The poster for my exhibition on the shop door

I just need to print some more off now to advertise around the town and maybe some other areas.

Saturday Night in Lincoln

Tony and Monica's garden party with Edgar Broughton,

the most relaxing and special evening i've had for a long time with lovely special people, both Gav and I enjoyed it.  Tony and Monica are amazingly lovely and hospitable people, beautiful food, friends and lots of comfort.

Edgar Broughton (or Rob as people know him) provided us with wonderful entertainment, very different from the last time i saw him at Leamington Spa with his band, and whilst i must admit i preferred this performance without his band, i would definitely still go and see him with his band. He's a lovely, interesting man. 

Rob does this thing called "Fair days pay for a fair days work" This is what he says:

"You can book me for your private event any where in the world. You get me, my acoustic guitar and a solo performance of my songs.. What does it cost? One day of your pay, what ever that is, plus Travel costs, accommodation and my supper" - Brilliant eh? 

Enjoy the photo's

I'm on the last leg of preparing art work for the exhibition.  I've got nearly everything done now, these are a few of the small, what i call "affordable art" pieces (about 4" x 4") assemblage. 

How gorgeous is this little baby, Tony and Monica's grandson, with their son, three generations of Smiths!  Ha! 

Poor doggies locked in the house whilst the performance was going on, it was the food they missed though!

I've had a lovely day today, i've been over to Annie's with Jo and met up with the fabulous Sue, for Funday Monday, not much crafting going on today though, we were all feeling a little tired, but we had Jo's lovely home made cakes and a lovely chat, putting the world to rights, as you do.  Thank you both for inviting me, it was just what i needed.

My latest conversation with Nicci (about 5 minutes ago)

Nicci:  "I'm really jealous of you"

Me:     "Oh! why?"

Nicci:  "Cos i'll never have a kid as awesome as yours!!!!"

Gotta laugh

Harrogate, Llangollen and Lincoln

All in one week!!!

Last night Gav and I went to the Llangollen Fringe Festival (or part of it) to see the.......Da da....

 ...Legendary English punk band...

... here... at the Pavillion in Llangollen

Of course, this is what they look like now.  The festival organisers managed to botch up the sound and i think even the band got a bit annoyed with them, but eventually they managed to get it right so it was a reasonable gig!!!

 Harrogate

Sunday and Monday this week was spent at the Harrogate Home and Gift Show.  What made it much nicer this year was that we stayed with our lovely friends, Jas and Helen in Leeds on the Sunday evening, they took us out for a fab Italian Meal.  It's only about twenty minutes then into Harrogate from where they live, so it was much more relaxing for us.  We managed to find loads of new suppliers, which was great because we have lots of money to spend!  He! he!  Well.....what would you do faced with all this eye candy?

 The displays of some the companies were ideas in themselves, i loved all the cabinets and ideas for displaying their goods, came home with my head humming and a need to get started on some change in the shop.

 Hmmm.....which gorgeous scarfs to choose? !!

 And....tomorrow...we're off on our travels again to Lincoln to Tony and Monica's Garden Party where Edgar Broughton is playing in his garden!!!   We'll meet up with a few of our friends from the wedding, we can't wait, we're hoping we might have a bit of time to visit the cathedral and have some lunch in the old part of town.

Nicci's here helping for the summer, she looked after the shop and Lizzie whilst we went to Harrogate and she's here again this weekend whilst we're off to Lincoln, so she's having a day off today - which is just as well because she was late in last night having been out with friends - and we're off to Bishop's Castle this afternoon for a nice walk around a visit to the book shopand some special mother/daughter time.....bliss!!!

A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present,

and the hope and promise of the future.

~Author Unknown

23 days and lots of lovely Butterflies

Well it's twenty three days to go to my exhibition and i was thinking that i'd better get a move on and actually get some pieces finished, i've lost count of how many i've done now, but it's a few!  I started work late yesterday (my day off from the shop) to have coffee with lovely Jo, who, when i got there had a gorgeous array of her lovely work to show (as well as some of her daughters work) thanks Jo.

Here are some details of two new assemblages i've done and some collages.  I sold a few more of my smaller pieces of art in the shop yesterday and my stock is diminishing rapidly, but i'm reluctant to put out any of my new work until after the exhibition.

My Nicci's now safely back from the Sonisphere festival, so i feel better, she laughs that i worry so much.  I loved going to festivals myself when i was her age, so it's not as if i can say anything.  I remember i went to every Donnington Rock festival in the 80's and great fun it was too, i saw some fantastic bands there and elsewhere over the years.  Mind you not as many as Gav's seen over his years, he framed some of his tickets here's one of them.  Nicci and her friends love this.

Look, my lovely husband bought me a present earlier this week....this cassette tape player. 
I love listening to story tapes whilst i'm creating and cassette tapes are widely available at charity shops at little expense, so this was a good buy.

 .....and i've got this lot of new tapes bought at Ironbridge last week!

Lizzie is so funny at the moment, she's a nightmare to take out on the lead, she's very strong and has no idea of how to walk "nicely" on a lead, she pulls like mad.  We've taken her down to the fields a few times this week for a good run, she goes mad, the grass is really long and full of butterflies and she spends the time constantly running around trying to catch them, she never does and it's hilarious. I'll take the camera tomorrow.

Sorry this photo should be at the top with he other one!

Sold

It's such a lovely day today after all the rain we had yesterday, I think a walk to the castle would be nice later. 

Some really good news for me is that i've sold two of my larger, more expensive, paintings today (yaaaaaaay), i've sold a lot of smaller ones recently so this is a nice surprise.  Also, and this is the best news, i've been talking this morning to a guy who has his own gallery and has asked if i'm interested in doing an exhibition there!!  Obviously i have my own exhibition here in montgomery at the beginning of August so he's coming back to see my new work then and has left an application pack if i want to go ahead with it.  I won't say anymore yet except that it's in a big city and will be quite good for me.

Gorgeous Colour

Here are some more details of assemblage pieces i've done.  I love the background on this one, it's a piece of kitchen towel i used to clean my brushes with whilst working!  Once it dried out it became unusable as the dried acrylic paint soaked into it and stopped any further absorption, so i was using it to rest a piece of the assemblage on and when i saw it as a background i decided to use it.

This is another piece i've been working on over the weekend, with about four weeks to go and counting before the exhinition, i'm working overtime to put finishing touches to everything i've created so far.

I wish  could show the whole pieces on here, they're all over my work room at the moment and look fab.  Also, i've been creating some mixed media collages for the exhibition too, i've got about ten on the go so far, they look so colourful, i'll photograph some details of them in a day or two.

 Saturday was the Montgomery Street Fair and as they close the road off at the end of Kerry Street, Gav and I had to come up with some ideas to get people into the shop!  The traffic was diverted around the back of the Town Hall so we thought we'd get noticed a bit more if we put some stuff outside, it worked we had a very busy day.

 Dancing in the street

 My new window boxes

I thought i'd better change the dead pansies following a few disconcerting and disapproving looks from Bob the Farmer!!!  Last year he threatened to wee on them if i didn't water them more often!!!!!

I've also done some hanging baskets too, they look really nice for someone who's rubbish at gardening, i wish i wasn't, i love flowers in baskets and window boxes and they make the whole place feel brighter, but i have no ideas as to what should go where and no-one to help me either.  Now I mustn't forget to feed and water them.

Last night was lovely,  we went to our neighbours (Cyndy and Phil) supper party.  They were celebrating 25 years of living there.  We had such a nice time, loads of lovely people, a fantastic party atmosphere and lots of good food and drink.  Tables were set up in their garden and lights and candles were lit as the sun faded it was such a special evening with special people.

I can't believe we're in July already, Gav and I have quite a busy month ahead of us, a trade show at Harrogate, a BBQ at Ruth's, a trip over to Lincoln to meet up with loads of fabulous friends and watch Edgar Broughton at Tony's garden party, which we're so looking forward to! and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at Montgomery castle.  We're planning a quieter August, Nicci will be up with us next week for the rest of the Summer which will be a big help.

Poor old Lizzie's feeling a little sorry for herself at the moment, she's in season and has had some nasty encounters with some pretty vicious male dogs recently, so we're not walking her far, bless her, she's so full of energy and misses her run around the fields, but has had to make do with the garden for a while.  We've made an appointment to get her spayed in about four weeks time.