These table decorations are so easy to make, but look good. All you need is a clean jam or coffee jar, and  few scraps of fabric such as ribbon or hessian, and a small quantity of PVA glue. Pop in an electric candle, and you've now created a pretty decoration. I saw something similar for sale in Southport for £5 each, whereas these home-made ones cost only a few pennies each.

One of Tim Hulme's many scale models on display at Bebington Central Library. Yesterday I travelled by train to Bebington, as a friend and fellow-member of Riverside Writers is currently exhibiting his large collection of hand-made scale models of castles, chateaux and historic buildings. Tim Hulme began making models as a boy, when his father would bring home huge cardboard tubes onto which silk fabric would have been wound at the Macclesfield silk mill where his father worked.  Later, as a young adult, he was touring a grand European house when he saw a scale model of it and declared, "I want one of those!"  He's been making them ever since. This is Tim's first exhibition, and a lot of  planning has gone into the display.  Nearly all the models have a photo of the actual building beside it for comparison, and there are information sheets offering historical backgrounds.  The models are very fragile.  Just transpo...

Stapledon Woods, West Kirby, Wirral  Gilroy Nature Park, West Kirby, Wirral.      It's snowing.  It's winter, so that's not so unusual.  From the media fuss, however, a person might imagine that the wintry weather had come unexpectedly despite this being January, and despite January often being the coldest month of any year here in England.  It's not that cold really - the pond in Gilroy Nature Park isn't even frozen at the edges.   I've made a start on a new cross-stitch, using 24-count black Aida.  It's ages since I've done any cross-stitch!  I got thoroughly fed up with counted cross-stitch as it's tedious constantly having to count the coded squares on the chart then count the holes on the Aida to know where to stitch.  Fiddle to that!  Never again.  This time I wanted to create a cross-stitch peacock, so I bought some Aida off eBay, took a few photos of peacocks from Google Images, then used a l...

Woodland dolphins?     A section of Ashton Park in West Kirby, Wirral, has been developed as a pocket-sized woodland trail.  The height of the old trees readily lends itself to this theme, even though the smooth expanse of one of the bowling greens lies just beyond the bench in the photo above.  Taking pride of place along the trail are a number of fairly new carved sculptures made from stumps of felled trees.  While I'm not too sure of the dolphins, which in my opinion aren't sufficiently site specific to work well, the other sculptures are lovely.  You will have to click on the images to see them full-sized in order to enjoy their details.   Sculpted owl   A pair of nesting owls   Old Man of the Woods   Dangling from low branches around the trail were an assortment of wind-chimes and paper Xmas decorations - mostly snowmen and tree cut-outs - possibly created by one of the ranger-led activiti...

These little cross-stitch samplers will among my contributions to a fund-raising craft fair this coming Sunday.  I like the second one best.  Three watercolours of mine are in the raffle, too; two portraits and one landscape - sketches really, rather than finished paintings.

"...The (V&A's) new doll archive: rows of stark grey metal shelves, from which dozens of bisque, wax, wooden and vinyl faces stare out...   (One) has articulated legs and arms, so its owner could walk it about the room (move a leg and the arms move robotically in time); it has luxuriant and adult-looking blond curls that I am loath to touch.  Most curiously of all, inside its rosebud mouth is a row of tiny white teeth, pointy and sharp." by Rachel Cooke. Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/aug/29/doll-face-museum-childhood-review "What, another doll?" The Drawing Room, with a Whole Lotta Sewin' Goin' On. Now everyone recycles, Wombles had to get another job. My three-storey Georgian dolls house in its entirety. I've always liked dolls.  Walk around my house, and this would be self-evident.  I have three dolls' houses.  Well, two houses and one shop, to be precise, in various stages of completion.  Sev...

"There are knitters, and then there is the mighty Kate Jenkins. You won't find woolly mittens or granny blankets in her craft room. No, her needles whip up something much more interesting...." http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2010/jul/02/knitting-exhibition-come-dine-with-kate#/?picture=364479419&index=1

While in Chester we called into St Werburg's Cathedral, where there was an exhibition of tapestry made by Quakers. Each work showed an aspect of the Quakers' history and their role in social change. The work which had gone into the needlework was admirable. Having done a fair bit of embroidery myself, I can appreciate how much time and effort had been given over to this project. St Werburg's is a favourite of mine. The Gothic architecture is fabulous, and the atmosphere in this ancient and historic place is truly precious.