Stained glass window card, cookies and apple crumble fail

Recently (well, if you call bank holiday weekend recent) I went on another restorative trip to sheepy ceredigion. I always manage to get something crafty done whilst I'm there. Here however, I have an entire craft ROOM which just gets filled with CRAP and I never touch it! This time I painted my Aunts thankyou card using stained glass window paints and acetate.

I also finally met the children that live down the road (my mum is always talking about them) and I did some cooking with them, we picked apples from the trees around the house to make an apple crumble - which wasn't really that great as we didn't put any liquid in with the apples, used buckwheat flour and accidentely cooked it using the grill for half an hour! but I still pulled my Betty Crocker pose in spite of that. It's a pity I didn't have my apron with me to wear!

The next day I had a more sucessful culinary venture with these cookies, can I just say wow to sophie who created the recipe. I made two giant ones and letter labelled them for the kids (I don't actually have any pictures of this but the effect was created by dusting icing sugar through large block letter shapes cut out of paper - kind of like the coffee bean that starbucks dust on top of a cappuccino!)

Once again though I almost cried when it was time to go home at the end of the weekend - I swear it gets harder to leave every time...We have rescue horses there now too; Blaze and Ellie and Blaze is my baby - he's nearly ready to let me ride him!

The Running Man, The Fish and the Paintpot

Sounds like a good name for a pub! 

Whilst I'm in Wales nestled cosily in the bosom of my family home. Ha!

I have spotted here and there, a few little things I've made over the years, I did hope to see some of my childhood salt dough creations adorning the christmas tree, but alas! they are no more. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my past M.A.D's and the story behind them.

The running man

A school art project to convey movement and speed based on the Unique Forms of Continuity in Space sculpture by Umberto Boccioni. I rather think instead of conveying speed, he looks more like he's trudging through a snowstorm in slow motion but there ya go! Underneath all that plaster of paris and black and gold paint is a power ranger bought in a charity shop! Somewhere there are photos of the whole process but their wherabouts eludes me entirely.

The fish

A slightly more traditional creation, made from clay, colour-glazed then fired, I still remember making each individual scale! He's lost a fin or two and been repaired over the years, If you look closely you can see that big crack in his little fishy tail. Here he is a fish out of water beside Mydr (the stream running through my parents garden).

The paintpot

 A little boredom project I remember doing; a glass jar decorated with stained glass window effect paints intended as a paintbrush holder, the idea was not to use the same colours next to each other which is why, despite my efforts to mix new shades, there are quite a lot of blank spaces! I think it adds to the overall effect though...

I'll let you know if I come across any more of my past M.A.D's dotted around my parents home!