Category Archives: Life in General

A Festive Fair

It’s that time of year again, and I’m getting all geared up for our annual Festive Fair, the seventh! I’m a member of the Two Rivers Artists group here in Norfolk. We originally got together for The Norfolk and Norwich Open Studios and have continued our association ever since. We all do something different, which makes for a creatively inspiring group, and we share the same slightly potty sense of humour! We always have fantastic guests at the fair so it’s a brilliant place to start your Christmas shopping. You can find out more on the website.

I’ve been beavering away in the studio making needlefelted goodies for my stall at the Festive Fair but what I’m really going to concentrate on for the future will be teaching the skill to other people. We have a great eco built hall in the village with a meeting room which is the perfect size for a group of students and I have recently held a couple of workshops there which were great fun. So 2020 here I come! I’ll be promoting the workshops at the fair so if you are in Norfolk it would be lovely to see you.

I shall leave you with an image of Higgins, who does NOT approve of all my busyness and has retreated under his blanket to sulk!

I’ll be back soon…x

Malamander and the Lost and Founder Cap

Waterstones Childrens' Book of the Month for May - Malamander

If you’ve been in a branch of Waterstones this month and seen the book displays, you may well have seen the distinctive turquoise and yellow colours of May’s Book of the Month, ‘Malamander’.

Malamander - the book — Note the on brand nail art!

(If you are wondering why I’m writing about this, I must declare an interest, as Thomas is my son!)

The other reason I am writing about this is as a warning to crafty parents or grandparents. You know that thing when the kids come home from school and announce, ‘It’s world book day, I want to be dressed as a tiger, caterpillar, Pippi Longstocking’…(fill in as appropriate) or’ I’m in the school play, I’m Henry VIII, I said you could make the costume’? It doesn’t stop when they leave school.

My son is quite grown up now…

…but I still got the ‘Muu-uum, I wonder if you could make…please?’! Which is how I came to make a Lost and Founder Cap for Herbert Lemon.

Herbie is one of the main characters in Malamander, and is the Lost and Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel in Eerie-on-Sea, and obviously he needs a cap to show how important he is.

So, of course I could make one… (typical me, say yes first, work out how later)

Firstly, I had to find some Royal Porpoise Blue fabric. (You haven’t heard of Royal Porpoise Blue? Neither had I) After a spot of trial and error and messages back and forth I found a colour which met with Thomas’ approval, and ordered a metre. I thought that was overkill, but more of that later…

Amazing what you can do with a cornflake packet…

I rely heavily on serendipity when I’m working, Little did I know when I fitted a new cover on the ironing board two days before that the offcuts of wadding were exactly what I needed to line the inside before stitching in a pale gold lining.

Thomas sourced the gold braid…

…and then was just the problem of the badges of office. We found brass letters which were just the right size, and I bought an ammonite pin in pewter which I covered with gold leaf.

The only thing left to find was the right gold elastic to go under Herbie’s chin – this is a source of much irritation to him during his adventures. After much discussion we found the perfect solution on Ebay…BRA STRAPS! ( but don’t tell anyone!)

So the cap went off to the book launch in London…

where it was a big hit with the youngsters…

Small Herbert Lemon in Lost & Founder Cap

The only problem now is that Thomas is off doing lots of events with children at book shops and schools and ALL the children want to try on the cap. It’s already looking a slightly the worse for wear…so…

Just as well I bought all that fabric. I’m off to eat more cornflakes!

Map of Eerie on Sea — To find out more about Herbert Lemon, Violet Parma and the unctuous Malamander, click on the map to visit Eerie on Sea

An Annie Sloan Chalk Paint Workshop

Last Saturday saw me, apron and hairdryer in hand, heading off into Norwich to Stubenhocker for a spot of paint and colour therapy. I have a steadily growing list of pieces of furniture that I want to paint, from flower pots, working through to chairs and culminating with my biggest challenge, the dresser.

I’m a big fan of Annie Sloan, and have one of her books, as well a couple of her gorgeously inspiring Colourist magazines but there’s nothing like playing around paint and brushes in the company of an expert to get the feel of the medium and inspire ideas.

The bonus was the venue, a fabulous shop full of wonderful home accessories and furniture. Much of the furniture show cased examples of the sort of paint effects we were trying to achieve so I, and my other two fellow students were very inspired.

The last time I painted furniture and played around with paint effects I was using emulsion paint and candle wax so I was really impressed with the way the paint is SO quick to dry, and covers practically anything with one coat. Perfect for an impatient person like me who wants to have a piece painted, waxed, in the room with a vase of flowers on it that same day (and very possible a pot of tea and slice of cake too!)

I now have a selection of paints, and lots of ideas.

I’m on a mission now. Planet Penny has been in the doldrums for too long, for reasons which I won’t bore you with. I want to get back to my blogging roots, creating every day and writing about it. It could be painting or gardening, baking or textiles, or hunting out inspiration in workshops, books, websites or magazines that I can share with you, my online friends.

I’m looking forward to it, I do hope you’ll join me…x

A Word for 2018 – CHALLENGE!

Hello, my lovelies, I hope you have had a wonderful, fabulous Christmas. I have to say I think this one for me has been one of the best ever, so I want to take that forward into the next year. I have been mulling over my word for 2018 for several days, and it presented itself to me about twenty minutes ago whilst I was peeling potatoes!

CHALLENGE…

this is what I have to do to myself on a daily basis with lots of things. M.E. doesn’t make life easy. But there are other challenges I can rise to which might well make a difference. I love this quote…

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”

Henry Ford

So I’m going to challenge myself to change things. One of those challenges is going to be fighting the perfectionism which has stopped me writing my blog, posting on Instagram and quite a few other things which I’ll write about in days to come.

Do you have a word for the coming year?

I’ll be back soon, but in the meantime…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

All Change at Planet Penny

Hello again… I know, another long pause, but I do have an excuse. We’ve been doing a Grand Design. Well, it wasn’t meant to be, we started out deciding we needed an extension and somehow it grew. It’s been going on since the middle of June and now we are actually in the last stages I feel I have enough space in my head to tackle a blog post and catch up with you all.

Creativity has been non existent, I’m longing to get it back. Every room in the house (and my studio) has been affected, and the contents of the ground floor is in a container on the drive. But today, after being without a kitchen for six weeks, the worktop has been fitted, and it’s so beautiful. It was the one big extravagance, black quartz with tiny shards of reflective crystals which glitter when you move. I feel like the room has been sprinkled with stardust (sorry, just a teensy bit carried away there but if anything needs stardust it’s a planet!)

So today, for the first time for ages, I feel like I can start heading back to normality. Part of that is giving the PP website a bit of a makeover to match what has been happening at home. There is still some pretty yarn left in the Etsy shop and all the patterns but I need to decide on a new direction and I hope you will come with me.

There will definitely be knitting and crochet, some sewing and stitching, I can’t wait to get in the sparkly kitchen and share some recipes, I’m rather into interiors at the moment as you can imagine, and there is still Higgins of course!

And, if you can bear me to mention the ‘C’ word just now, there are preparations to make. The reason we decided to enlarge our house rather than downsize is to be able to have all our offspring plus their families to visit at the same time without bursting at the seams, and this Christmas will be it. I’m very excited!

If you are curious about what has been going on, here’s a little video which will give you some idea. I can’t wait to be able to give you an update…

Pennygj

Click To Open

17 claps

22 Pages

See you soon…x

A Loooong Pause…

Oh, I’m sorry! I dropped off the radar again. It’s all been a bit of a muddle here over the past weeks. I dived into Monty Don mode with the arrival of the wonderful greenhouse, and then the builders arrived.

We are having an extension built. A lot of my front garden has been scooped up and taken away, and in it’s place cement has been poured, and there are walls growing. We haven’t even got to the place where the existing walls come down…

eeeek! *repeat to self ‘it will be lovely when it done, it will be lovely when it’s done…*

It flung me into a bit of a mental block and I’ve been finding it REALLY hard to pick up my blogging reins again. However, I’ve given myself a virtual ‘boot up the bum’…….and here I am!

I have no excuse really because last month I had a wonderful day at Blogtacular listening to and learning from some really inspirational speakers. People like life coach Natalie Lue, the writer Greta Solomon, the blogger, broadcaster and author Emma Gannon, and Catherine Dean, Editor of Mollie Makes. And these are just the ones I got to see! Add in the chance to meet up with lots of like minded people and eat delicious food and it was a really inspiring day. I will certainly be looking to go again next year if I can, who knows, I might meet some of you there!

(If you look very closely you’ll see me, marked with an arrow and under a white balloon! Blogtacular-2017-©-Amber-Rose-Photography So I must get my act together now I’ve dived back in. In the meantime, there is one lucky winner of the Mollie Makes Comic Relief Magazine, P Collingwood. Congratulations!

I really will be back very soon, promise! See you then…x