Lavenderhouse

Like a flower slowly opening

Last night I went to Made 09 in Brighton.  It was great to be in such a vibrant arty space with such talented artists and makers. 

 

I was given some lovely daffodils by a very special friend.  I have always found daffodils to be such a happy flower.  

 

When all this recent experience of mine kicked off I put many things away.  I now know I did not want to associate bad memories with my lovely, lovely things.  I am just beginning to bring things back out again.

Today I got out my flower book so the children can turn the pages every day like we used to.  A new flower and a new inspiration every day chosen by them.

I have always worn lots of silver bangles but I no longer wear my old ones.  Last night I bought two new bangles as a start to my new collection.  It felt good.

By the way this happened too:-

I have always felt very safe in my house and am trying to maintain that feeling as yesterday some bugger walked in to my front garden and pinched my locked bicycle.  I have never had anything taken from the front garden and it has always been full of kids toys, bikes, mosaics and general beach paraphernalia.

 

This is Spencer, the cat, climbing over my bike in the summer.  There is obviously some plonker cycling around looking really butch with a flowery bicycle basket.  If you see him/her do me a favour and clip them with your wing mirror!

Things I am delighting in at the moment ....

Things I am delighting in at the moment:-

# 1    Sunshine yellow roses 

   

# 2    Shopping with Beki and Nadia at the Eternal Maker (also available on-line)

 

# 3    Bluebirds

 

# 4    Individuality (old photo of Skyla, my daughter, who had dressed herself - age 5)

 

# 5    Finding an actual mode on my camera for taking firework photographs

What a day!

 Hi everyone!  Pasha decided on the title for this post.  It was in fact 'What a day!' every day for the last two weekends.  We had over 1,000 people through the house over four days - blimey! 

The amazing thing was that everyone was really nice, plenty of lovely comments and no nutters - well apart from me! 

These flowers, a gift from Ann, are so beautiful.  I love the contrast of the natural but so bright pinks against the felted blues, limes and mauves.

Opening the house has been really hard work but has been a real learning curve for my three children who have not had my undivided attention all that time.  There was definitely a settling in period but by the end Pasha, on the cash desk, was handing back change correctly as I was telling her how much it all came to i.e a step ahead of me. 

Philippa came to help on Saturday with her daughter, Anna.  They were splendid.  All my close friends have been amazinginly supportive and I cannot thank them enough for making me feel really loved. 

All the visitors were lovely too.  We were greatly complimented on the happy, vibrant atmosphere that the house had.  I had one spare moment on Sunday morning to have a really quick cup of tea in the garden with a friend and a mega quick march round a couple of houses.  The worst thing about doing open house is not being able to do the trail yourself!

So I would like to thank everyone who came to the house.  It was truly a marvellous experience.  I just have to put the house back together now BUT I have three small children running around who just want be outside playing with their friends - YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!

A very good weekend

Good morning everyone!  Boy, that was an interesting weekend.  I really wanted this weekend to go well  but then something happened that was really unexpected.  This is the first time we have opened our house and we were advised that a good weekend would be up to 80 people pottering  through the house.  Instead we had an amazing response to all the leaflets that had been distributed and we had over 550 people - yes more than half a thousand - staggering ....

We are well aware that we are in a recession and our prices ranged from 50p to £375 so hopefully we were able to appeal to many people's pockets.  Anyway, I promised you more pictures once everyone was set up properly.   This is the fabulous work of Ann Wood who is a glass maker.  Her work just suits our house so perfectly.  She makes stunning tiny hearts, cupcakes etc up to large mirrors

Cake eating it seems is not affected by the recession and we served loads of tea and cakes (the real variety) but here is a fantastic close up of one of Ann's glass cakes.

We had an eclectic mix that hopefully appealed to many girlies out there!

We had work from Nadia who is such a talented artist - whose skills range from tiny houses ....

to spectacular drawings ...

We have cheerful bird hoops.

Cards were very popular and Hilary's brooches were a hit.  She also makes stunning silver jewellery but when I checked my photos I stupidly haven't taken any of her things on display.  So you will have to wait until next weekend for a photo.  I only have photos of Lin's amazing textiles with other people in the picture and I don't like blogging people unless I have asked them so here is a photo of some of Lin's amazing lace in her studio at her home.

The little ones had moments of quiet and moments of noise - what a mixture!

 Mostly they spent their time in our bedroom making a cinema out of all the dining room chairs and munched popcorn and watched films - perfect for the end of term knackeredness!  They made camps out of blankets - with up to 9 children here at any one time they did actually cope with the upheaval very well.   So we have this week living in choas as our furniture is all over the place and then one more weekend of Open House.   Please come along it would be great to see you all!  Please check out Sophie's blog who did a brilliant write up for me!  Thanks Sophie - it was great to meet you!

Lastly, the weekend was amazing to me because two really wonderful friends, Lin's daughter, Sarah and Louise helped me so much.   They were so giving.  I could not have managed without them and it really showed me how wonderful they are - although I knew that anyway!!!! - SO SARAH AND LOUISE THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!  Words really cannot express how much I love you both.

Open House

OMG - tomorrow sees me opening the house to the public.  In one way it is a bit daunting but overall just fun as I am lucky to have some talented people showing their art in my house.  I will post photographs of their work when they are all in place (not yet - Friday lunchtime!!!!

So the furniture has all been rearranged.  This is my kitchen.  The table has been laid and is waiting for cakes and scones for tea in the front garden (eh hem - sun dance please).

We have cards for sale. 

I am launching my photographic business - I Capture the Castle Photography.

I have set out a storyboard table so everyone can hopefully understand my vision for documenting every day family life.  It is all the little things that interweave in our life that form our memories. 

Bizarrely I now have to apologise for this photography as the light was absolutely appalling this morning - you know dark grey skies and rain just right for lovely table cloths and tea and cake in the garden - NOT!  Some earrings to cheer you up ....

Life affirmation bracelets to make us feel strong and happy.

Nadia's beautiful beach paintings.  I will show more next time when hopefully the sun might have his hat on or at least the dark grey sky might be light mauvey silver so I can photograph everything properly and do it all justice!  I will edit this later and add more photographs.  Please come along and visit with your friends.  If you read this blog then please idenitify yourself as I would love to meet some of my readers! Hopefully, I will remember to put on my Lavenderhouse badge!

I capture the castle photography

My mind is a whirl wind at the moment .... I am trying to focus on the fact that soon, very soon, my house will be part of the Art Trail for Worthing.  I thought I had very little done but last night I wrote a list and I was surprised to find that I had actually done quite alot - I am sure when I rewrite that list next week that I will be shocked to find actually how little I have completed!!

A major part of my work for Open House is to launch a photography business called 'I capture the Castle Photography'.  My intention is to charge a fee to visit people's homes.  I would work closely with them to discover and record the things that they love about their families and homes.  I will photograph them and then design a fantastic memory photobook for them to keep and cherish.   

Canvases would also be available.  For example, these photographs are really personal to us and make us smile and happy.  Other people may not get it - but these are our memories.  The photograph on the left is of a set of mixing/serving bowls that we use every day and love.  The second canvas is a pair of Pasha's flip flops that are so cheerful.  The background is a piece of artwork by Pasha. 

I have been busy making felt to turn in to pictures and corsages.  Hopefully that final stage will happen!

I want to stay and chat but have so much more to do ........... so lastly, we are in love with this funny song.

A nice discovery

How exciting (for me anyway!) amongst all the Pinot Grigio sipping, late nights on the beach, burnt foot from standing on the hot pebbles where the BBQ had been (not a Pinot Grigio related incident I would just like to point out!) I discovered my power zoom/macro lens super dooper facitility on my camera - yeah!

So when some killjoy says to you that nature is sooooooo boring then just point out how brilliant and vibrant the colours are.  Summer flowers this year are truly stunning.

I just need to remember to keep watering them ....... Something I didn't think was going to be a problem when the sound of mediterranean thunder came rolling in the other night bringing a little refreshing rain and dark stormy clouds the next morning.  I sat on the beach contemplating that the REAL BRITISH SUMMER was here - boo hiss!!!!

Fortunately a few minutes later the sun came out. 

Saturday - today is grey and gloomy but we have five children here today and tonight.  I just think to myself we would have gone on the beach during a normal summer so just because it isn't that gorgeous fantastic sun we have been having that we musn't stay inside and hide.  Although the children did chill out this morning and watched a DVD first thing - strange choice though - Polar Express!

There is always something to celebrate!

I am still reading/flicking through this book = Life is a verb  It is essentially about in 37 days taking action to wake up, be mindful and live intentionally.  I am not following it properly though.  Day One should definitely be about being obedient! 

One idea from the book, that I really like, is that we always having something to celebrate - which we really do no matter how tricky life is. 

One instruction is to light a birthday candle every day for 37 days.  We often light a large candle at meals times but it was easy to raid our box of birthday candles and choose a teeny weeny one for a change. 

Well, actually we have quite a good box of little candles so it was quite tricky choosing just one candle!  Then we decided we should have a sparkler too!

Cakes are not required as part of the idea but definitely improve it. 

So it was easy to decide on something to celebrate.  It was, however, tricky limiting it down to the best ones.  Today we decided we could/should celebrate Skyla going up one reading group and having choosing time at school. 

Secondly, we thought we should celebrate having our two little kittens.  We got these lovely poppets in November and we are still very much in love with them.  Our tiny weeny little kittens are only 7 months old and they are enormous! 

Sunshine Sails & orange flowers

I need some orange in my life.  I really would like some Orla Kiely stem wallpaper somewhere.  I'll have to make do with this instead. 

Candy Pink Steps

This weekend was full of children's parties for everyone to go to but Pasha and I managed to sneak off for a few hours on Saturday afternoon to do some more of the Brighton Open Houses.  I have always loved this garden.   I bought a can of Dulux Rocky Candy (bright pink paint) for my roof terrace about a month ago and am really pleased I did.  I have done a tester patch up there but the use of pink in this garden is stunning and makes me hope I have made the right decision.  Don't be put off by the image on the link that the house chose to use - it does not do the house justice.  They always serve good cake and a little skip and jump up those stairs leads you to this.

It just started to patter with rain so we sat under the elegant glass roof and finished off our cake - not exactly a hardship!

Pasha and I decided that the pink was so striking because of the natural green surrounding.  It was such a pleasure to sit for a moment together and just stare.

The Open Houses are open every weekend in May and it really is worth a trip down here if you can manage it. 

Today we went for a walk in the bluebell woods.  They were really well and truly over but by the wayside there were trampled little spring flowers that the children rescued.  That little bunch of flowers is just as precious and impressive as a huge bunch of amazing flowers. 

The bluebells were still beautiful enough to attract butterflies that fluttered around.  I managed to snap this little one as it stopped to feed and the sun came out for a moment = two miracles!  Have a lovely week everyone!