House Party Blog Hop

Hello All Blog Friends, old and new; Welcome to our House Party!

If you're following the House Party Blog Hop, you should have arrived here from Nancy's blog, via Rinda, Kimberlee, Jacky, Margi, Liz and Ruth. 

If you want to start from the beginning, go Here, for the full story of the House Party, told by the person who dreamed it up!

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So, welcome to my House Party Post and I hope you will enjoy seeing what I have created for Rinda's challenge.

A few weeks ago, my little "baggie" arrived from Rinda.  This is some of what it contained:

However, I was silly and forgot to photograph it before I started on my House. So this picture has pieces missing!

If you've been a reader of my blog for a while, you will know that I "make books".  I also make scrap pages, greetings cards, sock toys and various other crafty bits and pieces, which usually involve paper, yarn or fabric.

So, what to do with my bag of bits & pieces?

At first glance, I wasn't too sure what I would want to do with it all.  There seemed to be a lot of stuff, for a start... I felt a bit overwhelmed... it was too much, I didn't think I could do it...

Silly!

Of course I could. The challenge was quite simple to understand - I had a little card rectangle and a little card triangle, a pile of lovely papers (double-sided too!), a vintage-style photograph, some ribbons, buttons and other bits.  From these I was to create an "Altered House", to be posted in the House Party Blog Hop in May.

Simples!

So I left it for a couple of days and made some paper flowers for my shop....

This seems to be how I work really.  I often will find that, once I have gathered up a pile of bits & pieces for a project, I suddenly feel a bit overwhelmed and that I "Can't".  If I leave it for a while - an hour or two, a day or two, a week or two.... eventually I find I am quite up to the challenge and can create something pretty nice with that pile of stuff.  Of course, sometimes "leaving it" isn't really an option; that is a bit of a luxury and there are days when "now" has to be the time. So then I go and make some coffee, maybe eat a bit of chocolate or my lunch... and it all seems a little bit easier when I return.

I got to work and made my Plan.

I went through my own stash and added a few items of my own to the pile.  I chose a piece of patterned paper in a similar shade of soft bluey-green to a glass tile, brads and a button that were in the kit.  I found some paper flowers that toned in. I picked out some other papers... I came up with a Theme.

The Theme was "Satin Green Shutters".

If you happen to have listened to Chris De Burgh, you may know where my reference comes from.  His album, "Far Beyond these Castle Walls" contained this song, which was also included on one of his compilation albums (I think), which a friend put onto cassette for me (many years ago!). 

Being young and romantically minded, I was rather struck by this song and the images it conjured up. I still quite like it, although it is perhaps a bit sentimental for my current taste...

Still, the idea of a house with "satin green shutters" has always appealed to me somehow and this idea just happened to pop up while I was thinking about my project.

So, my House has Satin Green Shutters:

The white and apricot paper reminded me of tiles or brickwork, so this became my walls. 

The Satin Green paper for the shutters was a piece of pearly-finished paper that I had in my stash. I cut the shutters into the card and covered them on both sides. Then I scored them, to look a bit like louvres and added a few smudges of chalks to give them a little dimension. 

The climbing "vines" on the house were rub-ons from Basic Grey and I had a pack of these lovely butterfly brads, which seemed just right as an accent on the house wall. 

 

I cut a door in the house and covered it with some woodgrain patterned paper (BG again). The kit had included this little greeny heart-shaped button. I stuck it to a piece of plain paper, in soft apricot, so the dark door wouldn't show through, then  added some stitching detail with orange cotton.

Behind the Window and Door, I stuck the vintage photograph that Rinda had sent me.

The Door opens onto a shadowy stairway...

but inside the Window are two of the "lovely children" from the song.

They are rather sweet actually, with their happy smiles.

I think I have really ended up with a Happy House!

Ah, But! It doesn't end there...

What did I say I do?  I Make Books. 

I couldn't just make a House.

It is a Book too. The house front is a cover for a Notebook. 

I covered the back of the notebook with a soft apricot art paper, then used this as a lining for the back of the House and the roof. 

As you may have noticed, the House notebook cover is a lot bigger than the notebook.  This was because I only had a little notebook handy and didn't have time to make a bigger one. I didn't want to cut down the House, so it is like this!  However, it doesn't matter, as the cover opens like a Policeman's notebook, so the roof will fold behind the book and sit flat when I use it.  No problem!

I will use the notebook in my studio, as I'm always scratching about for a scrap of paper to make notes on!

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Well, this is my contribution to the House Party. I hope you liked it!  Now, if you want to continue with the Blog Hop, you need to go to Sian's Blog, where I'm sure something wonderful awaits you!

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Just in case you get lost, here is a complete "Blog Hop" list:  You are at the 8th point in the list now (Me, LizzieMade)! 

Rinda of Gallo Organico;  http://www.gallorganico.blogspot.com/

Kimberlee of Scrap and Sass; http://scrapsandsass.blogspot.com/ 

Jacky of scrappyjacky;  http://www.scrappyjackylive.blogspot.com/

Margi of The Maverick Crafter;  http://maverickcrafter.blogspot.com/

Liz Lee of “Life at the Gables”; http://lizlee-liz.blogspot.com/

Ruth Street of Everyday Life of a Suburban SAHM; http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com/

Nancy Young of Squirrelyart; http://squirrelyart.blogspot.com/

Lizzie of Lizzie made; http://lizziemade.blogspot.com/ (that's Me!)

Sian of From High in the Sky; http://fromhighinthesky.blogspot.com/

Mel of I Speak Melsh; http://ispeakmelsh.blogspot.com/

Deb of Deb's World; http://www.debs14.blogspot.com/

Deb of Paper Turtle; http://paperturtle.blogspot.com/

Karen of Random Reflections; http://www.kbwalker.blogs.com/

Cherry of Nights Dream; http://blodwyn3snightsdream.blogspot.com/

Sharyn of Living Artfully; http://sharyncarlson.typepad.com/livingartfully  

Julie of JuJu's Folly; http://jujusfolly.blogspot.com/

Elizabeth of Hootings of an Owl; http://emhowl.blogspot.com/

Amy of Over at Our Place; http://overatourplace.blogspot.com/

Denise of Den's Crafty Diary; http://deecie.blogspot.com/

and back to Rinda http://www.gallorganico.blogspot.com/ where it all began!

 

Tuesday Tag-Along - a bit of fun!

I found this through today's post at Kerry's blog It seems like fun, so I thought I'd join in.

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Here's how it works (copied and pasted from Twee Poppets blog):

Create a new Tuesday Tag-Along blog post. Include the Tuesday Tag-Along button by copying and pasting the code above.

Add your blog name and the URL of your TTA post to the MckLinky below.

Follow Twee Poppets, the hostess blog listed in the first slot. Leave a comment saying you've followed, and Twee Poppets will follow you back!

If you can, please follow the blogs in the three slots before you (e.g., if you're number 20, follow numbers 19, 18, and 17). This is not mandatory, but it will help ensure that everyone who signs up gets a few new followers!

Follow as many other blogs as you want. The more you follow, the more that will follow you back! Be sure to tell them that you're following from Tuesday Tag-Along! You may also want to leave a link to your blog so they can return your follow more easily.

When you get a new follower through Tuesday Tag-Along, be sure to follow them back! It's just common courtesy. :)

The weekly Tuesday Tag-Along post and MckLinky will be posted every Monday night at 8:59pm Pacific Standard Time (that's 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time), and the MckLinky will be open to add your blog until 11:59pm Tuesday night. You then have all week long to visit blogs and return follows!

There is a new list every week. The link you enter one week will not carry over to the next week's MckLinky. Please link up again each week to join in the fun!

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Just for a bit of fun then... why not join us and "meet" some new people?

Christmas Book Blog Train

Hello Friends! Welcome to the Christmas Book Blog Train.  If you came here from Abi's blog, that's great - she's the Train Driver and you are now in the First Carriage.  If you came from somewhere else, and want to work your way along the whole train, here's a list of participants, in order:

Train Driver - Abi


Carriages
1) Lizzie - that's me, you are here now!
2) Mel
3) Jo
4) Amy
5) Kate
6) Sian

So, that's the Train.  We are each talking about a favourite Christmas Book.  This is mine:

The Children of Green Knowe, by Lucy M. Boston

This is officially a childrens' book, but I know quite a few adults who also love it.  I first read it when I was around 10 years old, followed by as many others in the series that the local library could supply. 

It's a magical book, about a boy called Toseland (Tolly) Oldknow, who is sent to spend his Christmas holidays with his great-grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow, in her ancient manor house in the Cambridgeshire Fens.
It starts with his train journey, then a drive in a taxi, in the darkness.  To his surprise, he is then met by a man in a boat, to which he is carried by the taxi driver.  The river has overflowed and the old house is surrounded by water, so he is ferried there by Mr Boggis, the family's old man-of-all-work. 
Tolly meets his Granny, and various other people - such as Boggis - whose families have been connected with the old house for generations. He learns that this is a very special house, with some very unusual inhabitants, including some who have lived there for three hundred years.

It's a sort-of adventure story, a sort-of ghost story and also about finding out about yourself, your history and your place in the world.  I loved this book right from the start, as it has a magical, mysterious quality.  The story-telling is clear and simple, yet the details are wonderful and real.
I will never forget the stories told by Granny - Toby and his horse Feste, Linnet and her illness, Alexander singing for the King and being rewarded with the flute that he so wants to own. Then there are the things that Toby finds out from the children and the scary bits, like the peacock crying, the gypsies and the evil Green Noah in the garden, which made my hair stand on end (and still does, the images are made so clear!).  The description of St. Christopher and the saving of Tolly was electric.
I loved the descriptions of Christmas festivities, past and present and the atmosphere created by the carols and tales told in the story.  I loved Mrs. Oldknow and wished I had a Granny like her too. 

I read this story to my son a couple of years ago.  He also loved it and we managed to get hold of a copy of the BBC TV series from 1986, of which I had fond memories. It is every bit as special as when I first watched it; just as the book never loses its value for me either.

I think this book will be part of my Christmas for the rest of my life.  I have a niece who also loves it, a great-niece who will soon be big enough to start knowing this book; I can hope for grandchildren to read it to.

It is a wonderful book and I would recommend it to anyone from around eight years old, to eighty-eight!

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Amazon.co.uk Review


This is not an easy book, and therein lies its charm. L M Boston's classic is a sophisticated mood piece disguised as a children's ghost story. As young Toseland goes to live with his grandmother in the family's ancestral home, the reader is plunged immediately into the world of Green Knowe. Like Toseland, who actually rows up to his new home in the midst of a flood, we have a hard time finding our bearings. Toseland discovers a funny kind of grandmother awaiting him--one who speaks elliptically of the children and animals she keeps around the house: they might be memories, they might be ghosts. It's never quite clear where real life leaves off and magic begins. Toseland admires a deer: "A deer seems more magic than a horse." His grandmother is quick to respond: "Very beautiful fairy-tale magic, but a horse that thinks the same thoughts that you do is like strong magic wine, a love philtre for boys."

With this meshing of the magical and the real, Boston evokes a childlike world of wonder. She compounds the effect by combining gorgeous images and eerily evocative writing. Toseland goes out on a snowy morning: "In front of him, the world was an unbroken dazzling cloud of crystal stars, except for the moat, which looked like a strip of night that had somehow sinned and had no stars in it." The loosely plotted story is given more resonance still through liberal use of biblical imagery and Anglo-Saxon mythology. For those willing to suspend their disbelief and read carefully, the world of Green Knowe offers a wondrous escape. - -Claire Dederer
Product Description

"What if my great-grandmother is a witch?" thought Tolly. Tolly's great-grandmother wasn't a witch, but both she and her old house, Green Knowe, were full of a very special kind of magic. And Green Knowe turned out not to be the lonely place Tolly had imagined it to be. There were other children living in the house - children who had been happy there centuries before.

About the Author

Lucy Boston was born in 1892 at Southport, Lancashire, one of six children. She went to a Quaker school in Surrey, and was married at seventeen. She later moved to a beautiful manor house near Cambridge which provided the setting for her Green Knowestories. Boston started writing at the age of sixty and won the Carnegie Medal for A Stranger at Green Knowe in 1961.  
 
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Thank you for reading my Review of my favourite Christmas book. 
 
Now follow the Train to see what favourite book Mel has chosen...

A Little Blog Safari

I have been busy today, building wardrobes for our new bedroom.  We have put together two big cupboards, with drawer, hanging rails and shelves, but not the doors just yet. 

So I'm tired and couldn't think of anything to blog about (other than the not-too-thrilling wardrobes).  I signed on to see what my fellow "Blogging for Scrapbookers" have been doing with their weekend... and ended up taking a bit of a Blog Safari.  Seemed like a good plan to blog about some friends for a change!

I started with today's Blog Train and tried to choose some people whose blogs I haven't visited yet.

First I visited Mel, to see her new Blog header. I think it's lovely.  For the record, Mel, I like the "without sequins" version best!  Also interested to see how cleverly Mel handled a rather unhelpful anonymous comment on an earlier post.  Well done you!

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Comfy-Mom Stacey has blogged about her "Saturday Scan". There is a scanned photo of her parents, with such an interesting story.  I read on about her Five Interconnected Thoughts from Friday and her very interesting Thursday post, about her feelings around involvement with the school's Parents' Association.  Stacey, I really liked reading your blog and this post especially struck me, along with the comments left by other readers.

And you know what? I Like you Stacey! I am "different" too. I go to school things and just wish I hadn't... yet I feel I should join in. I do care about the kids, especially the group that I have seen grow up together from the age of four.  It's been great to watch them and I am sad that I see so much less of them all, now they are at Middle School.

But being different is ok. I have other interests and I know who my Real friends are. Some of them are people I have never really met yet, as they are far away over the sea or ocean. I find that location doesn't matter if you are alike in some way.  Since I started scrapping, I have "met" some lovely people far round the world.  And I regularly have a brief chat with a number of folks I follow on Twitter. Now I'm meeting even more people through starting a Blog. 

Sure, these people don't know much about me or my life - nor do I know about them - except what we choose to tell each other. But the connection is there and  it makes us happy. And maybe we all have much more in common than the people who live nearby, but whose lives, thoughts, feelings and values are so very different to our own.

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Deb, of  Debs World commented about the terrible weather.  Well, we did need some rain, but I agree that it's a bit much just now.  It was so windy last night that I was awake til about 1am, listening to bangs and rattles and howling. The rain was lashing down on the skylight and it sounded horrible out there. This morning was grey and dull, but it did seem to be clearing up... until the minute I went out to collect my son from his club - SPLASH! I had to get the little umbrella out of the glove box, just so I dared get out of the car to fetch the big umbrella from the boot!  That kept my head and shoulders dry, but the rain just blew under it and soaked the rest of me right through.  J got pretty wet too on the way back to the car.  I had to change when I got home!  Still, all this changeable weather does stop it being boring. I am just thankful that I'm not in one of the areas that has suffered flooding.  Suddenly, I feel lucky!

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I visited Paperturtle because I liked the name.  I found some great photos that Deb had posted today.  Then I saw the previous post, showing some cute little wooden blocks painted with chalkboard paint, on which she writes a different word each month - take a look, it's a lovely idea!

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There was a lovely smiling photo by someone's comment in the Blog Train. I thought I would drop by and visit, as she looked so friendly. I found Lois's blog, with a great post about a project she is working on (a "Book of Me" thing, and before that a list of her five favourite things (with a post about Chocolate!!!).

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Now I am very tired and think I had better stop.  Besides, J needs to be in bed, so I had better go and see what he's up to (no trouble, I shouldn't think - he's just lovely!).

Goodnight friends, I hope you enjoyed our little journey together. See you again soon.