Roses....

.....must be the summer but I didn't plan for my book to be rose themed but it decided that's what it wanted to be.
I wanted something that felt good in the hand so I made the cover out of pelmet vilene covered in fabric.  It worked, nice soft feel.

The best thing was I have had all the elements for years, so very satisfying to use them.  Thanks have to go to the girls for suggesting I combined two ribbons when I was dithering over which to use.
These are some of my favourite pages. The paper used here from a find in a charity shop.

 He wonders if they will fall.

 Parchment needs a seal.

 Three three treatments of a scrap of material, part of original scrap,  a digital collage and tag .

 and just a few more

It is an idea that has been done many time, You Tube has hours of videos but I had a great time making it.  As has been said many times it is the doing where the satisfaction lies.

Main event of today is hoping to see Chris Froome carry the yellow jersey all the way to the Champs Elysses. I have loved my annual virtual visit to France, so many good memories.

The most exciting thing......

...that happened this week is that I managed to secure the very last place on a workshop with Seth Apter.  It is not until October but at the rate this year is going I won't have to wait long.  Seth and I found each other many years ago through a similarity of blog names and a shared love of rust.  I have, with pleasure, watched his career grow and blossom but have not been able to get to any of his previous workshops.  This one is at Birds in the Barn near Colchester in Essex.

In my play time this week I have been juggling Le Tour de France, Wimbledon and working on a junk journal. I haven't taken any pictures yet but it is nearly finished.

A couple of outing this week.  One to Hall Place in Bexley for a pleasant stroll round the gardens.  I though this was a very pretty bedding scheme

 One of the features of the gardens is the Queen's Beasts, topiary representations of the heraldic animals.

 The other outing was another visit to Faversham, the more I visit the better I like it.  We had gone to visit some of the Open Houses.  We started with a visit to the market  and bought locally grown strawberries and raspberries and then a nose round couple of antique shops.  No pictures inside the houses, of course, I even forgot to take the exteriors (we were battling an  annoying drizzle by that time) This is a photograph I borrowed from  Faversham.org/

The houses were full of surprises, from the outside you imagine them to be quite small inside but we saw large bedrooms, comfortable living rooms and in one house even a grand piano.   Most of the houses we saw were built in the 1500's and they must be a real labour of (expensive) love to maintain but it made us wonder if the housing that is being thrown up all around us today with stand the same test of time.
My only picture from the day

Days are full.....

........Le Tour de France and Wimbledon, well that takes half the day at least. I love watching the Tour for the scenery, sometimes places we have visited, more often stunning views of places from the helicopters which you would never see in a car ride.  My brother introduced me to watching the Tour and we used to discuss on the phone, I miss him.
 
Weather back to normal British summer, every day is different, Saturday was a can't-make- up it's mind day and we took a little trip down the Darent Valley forgetting it was the lavender season.

Can you smell it?

Another sight was a flash of red as we were driving and I had to go back to catch the most glorious field of poppies I have ever seen.

I really needed a ladder to do it justice.

 Apart from TV my other occupation has been to play with tea bags and paper. Just look, it was such fun.  I bought the cheapest fruit teas that I could find and made up three bowls.

This was liquorice which I thought would give me light brown but in fact it remained a very pale yellow. The other two I used were blackberry & blueberry and masala chai.

I arrange the papers and for once had patience and left them overnight. Whoo!

 

  One has an embellishment of a leaf I walked in from the garden.

It was interesting how the different types of paper absorbed the dye.

I actually have dozens more but won't bore you, I used the last of the dyes to make book pages. the Blackberry made a lovely grey. You can see them behind these little journaling cards I have been making.

Did I say that after initial reservations I am now deeply in love with Tim Holtz's Oxide Inks.

Sun shining, what to do first?  Oh, housework. OK then.