T Stands for........Taking A Longer Walk, Wanderlust and a recipe

 Hi everyone, our internet is playing games again writing this could take a while!

The sun is shining today and it is quite warm again

Last week we completed more Wanderlust pages, by we, I mean Hubby and me!

Kate Crane was the teacher and gave excellent instructions. One page was using a brayer and the other was a gelli print - I don't think I have ever made a print straight into my journal and I shall be doing it again.

Hubby wasn't happy that he had a lot of pink (that was supposed to be red) so we did a rescue job on it.

The plan was to make our own frames, but I was feeling tired so used die cuts, although I did draw my tree with a little bit of help from stencil!

Hubby drew and cut out his window frame and drew most of his tree  - he added some die cut leaves. Of course, an eagle had to stray into his page!

Last Thursday we booked to visit Lyme Park, slightly farther afield than 'local' but we intended keeping away from other people and not using the facilities!

We walked up the hill to visit the gardens

Looking over the wall beyond the car park and picnic area we could see the path we were going to take after our picnic.

I love this view and it's even better with daffodils by the lake

A different angle and still beautiful

This path was closed, so....

...up the steps it had to be!

It was good to see this from a different angle at the top

The tulips in these beds will look great in a few weeks

Lots of noisy geese on the lawn

We walked back down the hill - more folk about now

At this point I should show you our picnic but we were so hungry and it was such an unusual thing to do that I forgot to take any photos.

We set off along the path but I spotted a silhouette of a bench so we veered off the track and found this pond - fenced off and NOT the pond that Mr Darcy came out of in Pride and Prejudice that was filmed here.

Maybe we will go and find that next visit!

Lovely views...

If you would like to come and see my next post you will see how I combined these view for a journal page

Finally back to the car and we had only seen a couple (we chatted for a while) about our age round by the pond - everyone else was in the far distance!

So, in order to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T Stands for Tuesday I took a photo of our meal last night! 

As you can see we drink water with our meals.

It is Sausage, Blackberry and Parsnip Tray bake and is one of my favourites. I didn't have any Parsnips in but I did have some leftover Butternut Squash - just as tasty.I think it would work with other similar veg too! It has rather unusual ingredients - Fennel bulb (which I don't normally enjoy and Blackberries - I always have frozen berries in my freezer.

My favourite choice of sausage is pork and apple with this dish but we have used others.

I like to have greens with my meal so there is some steamed broccoli too.

Recipe below if you would like it

Sausage, Blackberry and Parsnip Tray Bake (for 4)  It is easy to reduce the quantities

Cut 500g Parsnip into sticks and add to a Roasting Tin with 8 Sausages, 2 large Red onions and 2 Fennell bulbs - both cut into wedges. Season, coat in olive oil and roast in a preheated oven (220 degrees C, Gas 7)for 30 minutes.

Dissolve half a stock cube in 200mls boiled water.

Turn over everything in the tin and pour in the stock.

Reduce the oven heat to 200* Gas 6 cook for a further 10 minutes.

Meanwhile mix 1 tablespoon clear honey and 1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard in a cup.  Brush over the sausage, scatter in 150g blackberries and put back in the oven for 5-7 minutes.

If the sauce hasn't thickened to my liking(it's hit and miss) I usually put it in a pan over a hight heat to reduce it.

I usually keep some fennell fronds for scattering over and occasionally add a sprinkle of red wine vinegar.

The recipe also says you can add a spoonful Mayonnaise on the side.

Add extra veg if you wish. 

Thanks for looking, Chris

Inspired By...

Hi everyone, things seem to have slowed down a little bit now. We enjoyed a day trip out the other day and took a picnic with us!

We have also completed another Wanderlust lesson and hope to start another tomorrow!

I've been making some journal pages too.

I have been looking through  my Dina Wakley books and was inspired to make this page using a couple of the little colleges I made the other week in a Wanderlust class with lots of Dina's products, including the tissue paper that I thought I had lost - it was somewhere safe!

While taking my Wanderlust classes I think of Eileen - she had started her classes, but sadly her life ended before she had taken part in many! 

Erika and I are co-hosting at Art Journal Journey this month and continuing with Eileen's choice of theme - 'Inspired By'

Thanks for looking, Chris

T Stands for......the Walk and Wanderlust

What a whizz of a week its been. We've had sunshine, snow and wind, had a dipping internet that meant our food order didn't arrive on Saturday as usual, I had news of new stamps to arrive from Crafty Individuals (from the sneaky peeks they looks amazing)and hubby and I have completed another Wanderlust spread(and almost completed another!)

Last week's class was by Nicole Warrington, a fabulous landscape artist.

We had to draw a tree (a spirit tree) that meant something to us. You may remember that after hubby's Covid jab we went for a short walk.

When I saw this tree stretching up in the blue sky it really did give me a feeling of lightness and of hope that things really were going to get better.

Hubby chose a tree that we saw when we went out with my son(his stepson)in Wythenshaw Park. A tree we often see that in Winter seems to stretch out it's arms for a hug - something we can't do with others just yet!

We looked for book words to go along with our drawing. 

We both enjoyed this lesson and were quite happy with our pages.

Last week we went to Fletcher Moss again. We kept up a fairly brisk pace around the wooded area although we did stop to listen to the birds and to watch a couple of treecreepers

Everything is looking a lot greener!

Just beside the gate into the garden were Primroses and Bluebells

This is the Acer that turned such beautiful colours last Autumn

The leaves right at the top of this tree are turning green

From here we decided to have a quick look in the Parsonage Gardens

I nipped outside the corner gate for this pic

I don't think I have ever seen Hyacinths this colour

The window art display has changed...even from last week, when it was covered in big flies!

Can you see them in these next two pics?

The frost has turned the Magnolia flowers brown

They were fine last week

For my T stands For Tuesday pic in order to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth this week I have a breakfast to show you

We don't often let our croissants go stale but this time was deliberate - soaked in beaten egg and fried in butter they are delicious, especially with some fruit and a raspberry smoothie.

Sorry is this seems rushed...it is! I've had a bit of a day today!!

Oh! we did get our food delivery...at 8.15 on Sunday evening!

Thanks for looking, Chris

Rainbows and hope!

Hi everyone, there couldn't be a more appropriate theme this week at Try It On Tuesday! We are inviting you to 'Make A Rainbow' which also means you can use rainbow colours on your entries this time.

The Design Team have made some great projects to inspire you - please do take a look here.

The rainbow is a symbol of hope and promise. There is a chance that soon Covid restrictions will be a thing of the past. It's not going to happen overnight, we know that, but with co-operation and vaccines it will gradually become easier to live less restricted lives that we have for the last year.

I used watercolour and then water through a stencil to lift off some of the colour.

The rainbow, hearts and cloud and sentiment are from a new Woodware stamp set by Francoise Read. I added some fussy cut flowers from one of her other sets. I added a girl from an Aall and Create set by Janet Klein set.

The girl looks happy to be making plans for shopping and meeting up with friends...me...I'm happy to wait a little while longer.

I was Inspired By news of lowering Covid numbers in the UK and I am joining in at Art Journal Journey and Eileen's theme

Thanks for looking, Chris

Bluebells, not many, but Bluebells!

 Hi everyone, after yesterdays's snow we've had a bright start to the day.

Not that I needed sunshine on Thursday when we went for walk at Fletcher Moss - I was thrilled to see Bluebells - only a few but I also have some new stamps, designed by my lovely friend Sarah Anderson for The Artistic Stamper which had arrived a few days earlier.

I was doubly inspired to make this page this morning. Sarah's stamps are fabulous, these are from the bluebell set with some grass from the Daffodil set. I added some paint spatters to represent the sun and the snow.

I don't know where this quote came from but,yes, they are!

Here are the Bluebells I spotted, by next week they will be flowering fully!

I am linking to Art Journal Journey's theme 'Inspired By' which was chosen by Eileen. Sadly Eileen didn't recover after her surgery and Erika and I are co-hosting this month. 

I like to think that Eileen would have approved of this one.

I'll be back with more photos from the walk on Tuesday.

Thanks for looking, Chris

Inspired by..

Hi everyone, we have been having a few problems with our internet connection, so much so that our payment didn't go through for our food delivery this week. Fortunately we have been told we can have a delivery tomorrow evening...between 5pm and 9pm - I hope it's sooner rather than later. Fortunately I have been doing a little bit of batch cooking and we aren't going to go hungry and we even had some fresh veggies left from last Tuesday.

I made a page for Eileen's 'Inspired By' theme at Art Journal Journey.

Okay, you can laugh, but this was inspired by seeing this Tim Holtz snarky word strip that I caught sight of while searching for something else.

I does rather sum me up on occasions.

I had just the stamp for it too - from a new Paper Artsy Lynne Perrella set, which went perfectly over a long neglected mop up page in my journal. I added white pen in parts of the image

The umbel is cut from packaging.

Thanks for looking, Chris 

Inspired by.....

 Hi everyone, I am actually inspired by two people today!

The first is my dear friend Elizabeth of The Altered Book Lover blog.

Every year Elizabeth celebrates her Birthday by sharing it with Earth Day - hence it is her bEARTHday on 22nd April.(It also happens to be the day before my hubby's)

To take her to Earth Day she features a different recycling project every day in April up to the 22nd. So far she has used teabags, old pattern paper, plastic cups,old cards and a multitude of other items that most folk would regard as rubbish!   

Today she is showing something I made.

I made this journal cover using a recycling technique that features a lot in my Instagram friend Kelly's (@kellyjwg) feed. 

She works magic using old packaging for die cutting - see her posts here.

I started with some corrugated card, a biscuit box, some instant coffee packaging and some geometric style dies by Aall and Create and some Tim Holtz Tattered flowers

I also cut some of the biscuit box and used a TH letter strip die too to cut out the 'Journal' word from a scrap of old book paper.

There was enough gold on the coffee packets to cut out some heart strips (also AAll and Create)

I am quite pleased with my transformation from this boring and rather dirty old cover.

I am joining in with Eileen's chosen theme 'Inspired By' at  Art Journal Journey where Erika and I are co - hosting this month.

I hope you will follow the links in my post to see the wonderful art that has been created.

Thanks for looking, Chris