A Prize! and other stuff...

Dear Folks, I'm back from a couple of "silent" days... not much doing here recently.  The car was still poorly at the garage, it didn't rain but it was dull, nothing on tv, couldn't get motivated or organised to get on with projects - have 2 started but no real progress.... just that sort of week so far.

But today has been a good day.  First of all, check out this

Isn't this so sweet?

Melanie, the lovely artist whose bird prints I showed in my Art Treasures post the other day,  had a giveaway on her blog, of one of her little felted "Lovebird Tweet" birds, made for Valentine's Day.  Anyway, I won the giveaway (just in case you hadn't already worked it out...). I chose this little red bird, which will be flying its way to me soon.  See it in her Shop here! along with lots of other adorable little felted birds.  I was pretty excited when I signed into Etsy this afternoon, to find a message asking me to choose my prize and send her my address..

So that's my main bit of exciting news.  The rest is just ordinary stuff.  A nice gas man serviced the heating today. He bled all the radiators and lots of air came out - no wonder the system has been so noisy! Now it's much quieter and the house is warmer too. 

No sooner had the gas man gone away, than the phone rang. The car was ready for collection. In honour of the occasion (and because I didn't want to spend another hour and a half on buses!), I treated myself to a taxi - and paid an amazing amount of money for the privilege - just add a fiver to the price of an all-day bus ticket!  Still, the car was repaired under warranty, so that was the only money I had to cough up.  The car is all nice again, running much more smoothly and will actually accelerate if I press the gas pedal! It was a fault with the fuel system and they replaced some parts. The garage manager assures me it's not a recurring fault and should not happen again... I certainly hope he's right - it wasn't funny!  Anyway, you don't expect an almost-new car to develop a drastic problem that requires hospitalisation, do you? I've only had it a year, it was in the garage for 6 months before I bought it, doing nothing except looking pretty. It had 11 miles on the clock when I took it for a test drive! It now has just over 5000 on the clock - not exactly mega-mileage for 13 months' use.

So, now I have the car, I need to get organised for my trip to Knuston Hall, for my two courses this weekend. I'm excited!! I have to go through the lists of suggested materials and find what I would like to use. They do supply materials, but suggest you might like to bring special paper for the book binding and/or extra bits for the print-making - I think we're making collographs, so it'll be stuff with texture and interest.  Tomorrow I will be busy getting ready. I was good today and did an hour of housework, plus some laundry, so I should be able to sneak off for a weekend... I'm sure D. can put his own trousers in the dryer on Friday morning, he knows where the food is, he's promised to do some jobs while I'm away (hmmm..) and the boys have a Warhammer battle planned for Saturday. I don't think they'll miss me at all!

I'm going now, to print some pics of books I have made, to create a little portfolio.

I ordered some from a well-known and popular online photo site. They arrived today and they are awful! They've cropped away all the edges, chopping off people's heads, or parts of my books etc. The photos all have a horrible grey cast on them - even ones taken in sunshine, or by my niece that I have snaffled from Facebook. The "thin" white borders have turned out to be 1/2 cm all round - taking off almost half an inch from a 6x4 photo - hardly a thin border. All in all, they are a big disappointment and the book photos are totallly unusable. I have sent them a complaint e-mail, asking for a return label and a refund! 

Anyway, I will print some of the book photos at home and make a portfolio.  I'm also working on an 8"x8" photo album, to give to my niece, C. when her baby arrives in a few weeks time.  And there's the "Project" mini album to get on with... I've started the pages for Days 7 & 8 now. Will put them up on my blog when they're ready!

I'm off then... early night for me too. Sleep well Peeps!