Changes....

Hi, I have been thinking about making some changes to this blog.

Paper is no longer the most important artistic medium in my life - though I do love it dearly. So Paper Treasures is not really the best title for my blog.

I will keep this blog up for a short while, but eventually it will be deleted. My new blog is here http:/www.underthehedgerow.blogspot.com

So hopefully I will see you there...

Rosie x

Presents from afar...

Greetings Bloggers, I have been the worst blogger in the world just lately and was feeling dreadfully guilty that I had not written anything since Easter. That really is shameful!

Anyway, it was my birthday on Saturday and I received two parcels that were a complete surprise to me. The first one was from my very good friend Kathy, she lives in Canada in Manitoba. Kath is very crafty in the nicest sense of the word, she paints some lovely things and you can see her work at http://www.katiescowsandudderthings.com/

What she sent me, was a vanilla scented magnetic bookmark and a fab little badge, which I have worn every day since it arrived. Both are made out of bottle tops!

The other parcel I got was from another friend Shabala, who lives in Dubai. Sorry the photo is bad, but she sent me a pashmina, a gorgeous address book, some 3d crafty bits, and a box of stuffed dates. You can see by the pic that the dates didn't last very long as the box is empty. I LOVE stuffed dates! So thank you very much Shabala and Kathy.

Well since I have been out of action in the blogging world, I have not been sitting here doing nothing. I have been designing a crocheted rabbit. This is all part of my rebirth and renaissance.

I have always loved paper, messing about with it, the smell of it, the feel of it and the million of things you can do with it. However, wool, and thread also have a huge hold on me. My mum taught me to knit when I was about 6, and my nan taught me to crochet at about the same time. There is just something magical about waving a crochet hook about and almost making lace in the air.

My nan also had one of those wicked looking Singer sewing machines the black one with tons of gold flowers and patterns on it, a proper treadle machine. I remember the very satisfying noise it used to make as she made clothes on it for my Tressy doll - her hair grows!

The sewing machine was in a little sewing room upstairs at the front of the house, it was so quiet and peaceful in there, and I think that is what I love, that incredible feeling of peace and using your own talents to create something useful and beautiful.

Before I got really involved with paper I used to make mohair teddys and dolls houses, then things changed and I remarried and stopped doing them. I also did my C&G Embroidery course and have hardly picked a needle up since! But it occured to me that I have everything I need to start a new artistic venture without using paper. So look out for the Garden Party Bunnies coming soon.

Rabbits and stuff

I really enjoyed making my Easter table. The actual table is an Art Deco glass trolley bought by my grandmother, we have two of them a circular one and the rectangle one in the picture. They have both been in this house since they were originally bought.

My mum was telling me about the two Sylvac rabbits on the tray, she remembered going to buy them in 1936 from Cole Brothers - which is now John Lewis, but will always be called Cole Brothers by most Sheffield people. She bought three rabbits, one of which broke a long time ago. Though when I was a little girl, I do remember there being 3 of them, sitting on the shelf above the stairs.

We had a lovely Easter, just the three of us - mum, my hubby John and myself - lots of nice food, saturday night dinner with friends, and guess what... NO CHOCOLATE! I actually didn't really miss it, since being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes I have weaned myself off the stuff, though now and again I do treat myself with a couple of chocolate digestives.

Over the weekend I have been crocheting, trying to work out some patterns of my own, not actually done any of my own before, and have found it quite satisfying. Anyway I seem to have come up with a rabbit, well more or less, just faffing about with his body and will let you see him/her as soon as its finished.

Hopefully if the weather is nice next weekend, we will go adventuring into Derbyshire to take some pics. I really need to get to grips with my Nikon D40.

Sorry no photos today, but who knows, maybe later...

Happy Easter!

Wishing you a very happy and

glorious Easter.

When I'm feeling blue...

I take a look at these photographs. This is Kuramathi Island in the Maldives, and hubster and I spent a wonderful week there a few years ago.

It was my very first beach holiday and we took a ton of books with us. It was so relaxing, we would get up, have a lovely breakfast, and then go and sit on our little bit of beach and read.


We found this little fellow, just minding his own business, he showed such wonderful colours.

The Indian ocean was incredible, warm, and full of life. This heron stayed with us all morning, wandering up and down the beach, we got very close to him and he really didn't care. For some reason he seemed much friendlier than the herons we got in our garden.
You can ignore the generously proprtioned woman in the photo, she's alot smaller these days. Yes thats me standing outside the wonderful chalet that we occupied on the island. so when I am blue, I think of all the wonderful flowers, the sunshine, the cooling drinks the cute barman made for us. The fabulous ocean, and the tippy toe crabs on the beach. One day I would love to go again, but right now its my dream place.
********************************
I have been crocheting again, making embellishments for pillowcases and towels and if i don't get too bored, bed sheets. Will show pics when finished. Here are a couple of bags and other bits I made recently.

These are the inside of the bags, lined with pretty lavender and pansy material.



Thanks for looking, see you all soon.

I have been tagged!

Toni from http://3amdesigns.blogspot.com has tagged me. Thank you Toni, this means that at least one person knows about my blog, so thats a relief.

Well 7 weird and wonderful things about me... hmmm, that might be difficult and requires some thought.

1, I read Tarot cards. Nothing sinister about them, even the death card - just means a change in your life. They are a good psychological tool, most people have the answers to their problems, but sometimes you just need a nudge to find the answer, and the Tarot cards are very good at doing this.

2, I lived in Germany and Hong Kong when my ex husband was in the army. I love Germany and was there for almost 10 years. Hong Kong was and probably still is an amazing place. We lived just outside a tiny village where the only water came from a standpipe in the road. The village woman used to do their famly washing there, stamping it across the stones. Goodness knows how, but the school children's white uniforms came out pristine. I still can't get my washing as white as that with a washing machine and superdooper soap powder!

3. Oh no am I only on number 3! I have been run over and knocked down by a car. Once run over when I was 4 years old and once knocked down by a car when I was 10. Both by women drivers, the first one didn't stop... poor woman must have been terrified. The second one took me home, she admitted it was her fault as I was on a pedestrian crossing at the time and all the other cars had stopped. I broke my leg, my collar bone and cracked my pelvis in the first accident and just banged my head on a phone box in the second.

4. I love doing patchwork, the old kind with a paper backing. this one i have been doing for about 10 years, for some reason I only do it in the summer. I find it very relaxing, gets me into an almost trance state, something very soporific about hand sewing. I didn't have a clue what I was doing when I first started this one, you can tell where I started, look at all the pink and blue bits in the middle, then I just went mad and put anything on it.

The quilt below is one I started a couple of years ago, and this time I sort of had an idea of what I wanted to do, blue and yellow stars with a neutral background. Not done too much too it, but its getting there.

5. I don't drive, can anyone guess a reason why?

6. I love medieval/historical novels, Elizabeth Chadwick is one of my favourites, D J Sansome is another, Suzanna Gregory, and Ellis Peters Cadfael novels are wonderful.

However my very favourite book is The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye. A wonderful epic of India.

7. We have just moved up country from Bedfordshire/ Cambridge borders to Sheffield, and one place I miss more than anything is Cambridge. I just want to cry when I realise that it won't be my local town anymore. All those wonderful medieval buildings, the students, the great shops and the atmosphere of laid back culture. The knowledge that the student you are sitting next to in Starbucks, might be a future Prime Minister, or Nobel prize winner. It's just a fabulous place.

Ok there you go folks, not very weird and wonderful I'm afraid but thats me...

Thank you again Toni for tagging me, and thank you to all who visit this blog. Now that we have finally finished moving I hope I will be able to post more frequently and soon I hope to open an Etsy shop or sell things on my blog.

Now I have to tag some more people, however, most of the blogs I read have been tagged several times already, so please if you read my blog, and you haven't been tagged then please consider yourself Tagged with a capital T.

It might be Spring...

Today was a lovely sunny day, a bit blustery, but I love that. Clouds were racing across the sky like fluffy bundles of sheep racing down a hill.

I took loads of photos however, I am not too familiar with my camera at the moment, its a Nikon D40 and all the pics I took of my patchwork hanging on the washing line were all blurred. Hubster informed me that it was on manual instead of P for program. So tomorrow, I do hope that it is another fine and sunny day so I can take the pictures that I took today on the right program.

As some of you may know, here in the UK last night we had an earthquake, it measured 5.2 on the Richter scale. It happened at about 1 am this morning. I had just drifted off to sleep and the whole house began shaking and the ring handles on a chest in the bedroom began chinking. It didn't last long, but it was quite noisy, like a truck heading for the bedroom window!

My mom, was awake immediately being 89 she sleeps lightly, her first thought was that one of the cats had crept in to the bedroom and hidden in the underbed drawers and was fighting to get out... then she remembered that she had a new bed without underbed drawers. Fortunately my mum is not the wimpy type, she realised what it was and went back to sleep.

This is not the first time we have experienced an earthquake, the last was in 1984, and fortunately both that time and last night only one person was injured, oh, and a parrot fell off his perch!

My little stone face (above) was a gift from my mum many years ago. It was bought in Bakewell market in Derbyshire. I would love to take you all to Derbyshire and hopefully I will with photographs and descriptions, its a marvellous and wild place.