Snowy Egrets

We saw lots and lots of egrets - great, little and cattle - when we visited the Camargue in southern France. But I'll save those photos till I get that far in my holiday photo editing and posting.

On another of our outings, we visited Rousillon in the Vaucluse, and walked along the trail through an old ochre quarry. I used some Christmas gift money to buy some beautiful pigments. Since it was impossible to choose between the great range of earth tones and the wonderful bright vivid colours, I ended up treating myself to one of the larger sets.

And these are what I used to colour my Art Neko offering for this week:

I stamped the Shoson Five Snowy Egrets with wee calligraphy on watercolour paper, added a little colour to the beaks with pencils and then watercoloured the background.
I recently came across this spatter mesh from way back, and thought it would pick up perfectly on the snowy scene - so I simply added it to a black base, edged the base with a silver pen and edged the mesh with Liquid Pearls. To finish I added a button and silver cording.

France - part 2

On our second day, we hired a boat for a few hours. It was hard to take photos, so mostly we took memories - the coypu, a little wild deer, the small overgrown channels and the larger more open canal where we managed to get a good rowing rhythm going. When we had our guided trip, the guide used the traditional pole, more like a punt. And the traditional boats are quite like a punt too - very shallow bottomed. Originally they were used a lot for transporting cattle from one field to another, so they have a flat front where the animals could step on and off easily, and a curved stern. We just had paddles - and since we're more used to rows with rowlocks, it was a learning curve. But as a totally relaxing way of starting the holidays, it's hard to imagine anything better.

Our tent, seen as we rowed past

We brought a picnic lunch and tied the boat to one of the trees along the canal

Embarkation point on the camp-site, where we hired the boat

On the second evening we thought we'd go for another walk, along the canal starting at the bridge (photo in previous post). On the map, it looked shorter than the walk we did the first night, so we were hoping to get back reasonably early. It rained a little bit, and then brightened up. But we felt that the sketch map we were using was most definitely not drawn to scale. At the end, we were walking pretty much as fast as we could in order to get back before the on-site restaurant closed. Checking the route out on Google Maps afterwards, what we were expecting to have been about a 3 1/2 to 4 mile walk turned out to be well over 5 miles. But - we enjoyed the scenery and we got back in time to get something to eat. Away from the canals and channels it is very heavily agricultural, with field after field of wheat and other crops, and plenty of birds of prey soaring overhead.

the church in St-Hilaire-La-Palud

France Part 1

As usual, the weather when we left Cork wasn't great, so I only took a few photos as we sailed past Cobh before we retired to our cabin, I think that last year it was too miserable to even stay on deck that long, because I certainly don't remember the Titanic Memorial, and it must have been there.

Our first stay was in the Marais Poitevin, near Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud. The Marais Poitevin is known as La Venise Verte - the Green Venice. A quick look at this map, and you will see why - there are more waterways than roads.

A few years ago we had taken a guided boat trip along some of the canals/channels, and had always wanted to come back and hire a boat ourselves; this seemed like a good opportunity as it was about halfway down from the ferry to our first longer stop in the sunny south. The weather had, apparently, been unseasonably wet and cold - but our little tent is quick to set up and for a two-night stay we weren't doing more than pitching the tent and setting up the cooker. We were camped right beside one of the smaller channels.  We had a lovely walk along one of the signposted trails on our first evening.

Travel in time...

I knew that I would have to renew my work ID shortly after getting home from holidays - we have a short grace period every six months, but once that is up, no access anywhere and a long walk round the site perimeter to the contractors' office.

So, first day back I went in good and early and got mine renewed, and also took the time for a few photos along the way. Using the tunnel used to require forward planning, because once the building of the new brewhouse started a few years back, the area immediately beyond the tunnel exit on our side became a hi-vis area. So if I thought I wanted to use it, I needed to remember to tuck a hi-vis jacket into my bag. Now that the entire site is mandatory hi-vis, that's no longer an issue - so it's easy to use the tunnel at any time. Some people think it's shorter to walk round by the road, but I quite enjoy the atmosphere underground.

I still remember the barges and ships from my childhood days. I blush to admit that I have three sewing machines - one from LIDL upstairs for sewing on my cards. A medium-good Toyota one which C bought for me about twenty years ago because the one I had before that didn't do buttonholes. I'm quite good at hand-stitched buttonholes and enjoy making them but certainly they are more bulky and not always what you want. And an old Singer which I inherited from one of my mother's good friends. Some years ago when I had someone out to the house to service the Toyota, I was amazed that he even knew the exact Singer model just from seeing the wooden case for it on the table. He said it was one of the best of the old Singer models, and told me never to give it away. It only sews straight, backwards and forwards, but it's unbeatable for heavy stuff like canvas and C's biker gear. S's husband was an electrician on the Guinness barges, and modified the machine to make what was originally hand-operated into a fully electric model complete with light.

Hoot Hoot

Another card with Art Neko stamps - this week I used the Wise Owl on a Branch with Calligraphy. He's stamped on a piece of wrinkle-free distress card, then I masked him off and reverse masked a moon. First I smudged the moon in with luster rub-ons and then I dusted it with one of the interference Perfect Pearls for some shimmer.
I could have sworn I had some perfect paper with Chinese characters on it but it must have all got used up; while looking for it, I found this beautiful blue marbled paper which said "night sky" to me - so I used it.
There's some embossed black stitching along the card base, picked up by the machine stitching at the top of the card. I added a die-cut feather  (Spellbinders)- and even had some owl washi tape to dress the inside up a tiny bit.

One of our trips in France was to the Camargue. We visited a bird reservation there. Almost all the birds were wild and free, but at the entrance there were a few enclosures with rescue birds which had been injured and which they weren't able to release back into the wild. One of the enclosures had some Eagle Owls.

Snails

You may have noticed an addition in the side-bar of my blog since I got home. I was honoured to be invited to join the Art Neko design team, so for the next few months you will be seeing a weekly card posting as well as my regular miscellany of stuff.

Well, today the postman delivered everything that had been on hold during our holidays, including my first Art Neko stamps. I'd been holding on to this piece of Tyvek because I thought the colours in it would make a good background for the Silly Snail.
I coloured and heated the Tyvek about a month ago, but I am pretty sure that this piece was just coloured with regular watercolours and left to dry.
Today I added some silver chain-stitching for the snail's trail, and some flowers punched from a reject scrap and stitched on with a sequin in the centre of each.
The snail was stamped with Memento Chocolate Brown, coloured with pencils and then I glazed his shell with Diamond Glaze.
A sentiment from the Whimsical and Kind Sayings set was stamped on kraft with the same brown ink, and highlighted with some sparkle - and a few simple score lines finished the base off.

I'll be along shortly with photos from France as I get time to go through them, cull the excess and edit some of the good ones. But for a start - here are some more snails.

June Favourites

Not so many, due to holidays!!
I also won't be able to switch up my blog header till after I get home...unless you are seeing mimosa flowers, in which case I will have amazed myself by being able to edit the template on the go.