woodwose carving

I'm lucky to have a beautiful woodwose carved from drift wood gracing my garden at home. This is attached to the clematis arch referred to previously in the wire flower post.





I really like the way in which the blooms grow round the woodwose and give it a completely natural setting.



You can click here to find out the background to this wonderful carving created by Woodwose Carving.

wire flower

Isn't it amazing that when you have objects in the house or garden and you see them every day, that somehow you don't actually notice them?

This beautiful wire flower was made some time ago by my husband and adorns a clematis covered archway in our garden. It was only because I was photographing the lovely blooms that I looked up and was reminded of this unique, hand-crafted flower perfectly at home amongst its more natural counterparts.

canned art

Ever thought what could be done with all those drinks cans that get thrown away each year? (of course I expect most of you, like us, put them in for recyling). However there is so much more you can do with them before putting them in for recycling. There are many websites where you can download instructions for making useful and interesting objects from cans.

We've recently taken on a share in an allotment and needed to find a practical, effective way of discouraging birds from eating the seeds and young plants so we found instructions for making birds scarers from drinks cans. As you can see from the photos, these birds scarers are not only very practical (and they work!) they add an unusual element of interest to the plant beds.

bird scarer on a stick is not only free to spin in the wind but is a great way of attaching a label to identify what has been planted!


our youngest son thinks that these work by the birds flying into the blades and being chopped up! Not true, I hasten to add...

sculpture trail walk

As today was a UK Bank Holiday, I decided that it would be good to have a proper family day out. So we packed a few provisions and headed off down to the Forest of Dean. We had a super day; the weather was ideal for walking and we saw some fantastic sculptures. Click here to go to the Sculpture Trail website to find out more about the sculptures and artists who created them.


an iconic symbol of the Sculpture Trail - 'Place' by Magdalena Jetelova


'Fire and Water Boats' by David Nash



probably my favourite - 'Iron Road' by Keir Smith. This runs along a disused railway embankment. Each of the 20 sleepers is carved with a unique and individual design



'Cathedral' by Kevin Atherton


If you're ever in Gloucestershire and you fancy an interesting walk, then I highly recommend you pay a visit to the Sculpture Trail near Speech House, Forest of Dean.

tweet, tweet

Ooops!! There appears to have been somewhat of a hiatus since my last post. Now, I could cop out here and blame the snow (last seen over a week ago) but that would be unfair of me.

The cause of my temporary disappearance? Well, I've kind of become sucked into the world of Twitter (www.twitter.com). To be more specific I've been trying out TweetDeck - a Twitter-friendly application - (www.tweetdeck.com) The authors of TweetDeck say that "it [TweetDeck] aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces." So there you go. It takes a little while to get to grips with TweetDeck but it is a versatile bit of kit and is quite customisable so you feel that you can really make it your own. One of the features I like best is that you can set it to remember your Twitter login details so you directly access your Twitter account on application startup.

In the last week or so I've found a number of (UK) celebs regularly tweeting - Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross, Phillip Schofield, Rob Brydon to name but a few. Its also an amazing resource to make contact with others sharing the same interests through the simple but powerful search engine.

It is also possible to post links to photos uploaded to sites such as TwitPic (www.twitpic.com) whereby you login using your Twitter account, upload your photo and your Twitter status is automatically updated with a link to the photo. All very clever stuff.

So, if you feel tempted to see what all the fuss is about, come along to my Twitter page www.twitter.com/chellebab and say 'Hi'.

tag...I'm it !

Oh-er! I've just had my first tag. Wow, wasn't really sure what to do so checked out what others have done. Once I got my head round it all (yes, I know it is really quite simple) I had a rumage through my album and came up with Clontarf Castle, Clontarf, Dublin.

It really is classed as a castle and is situated in the centre of the suburb of Clontarf about 5 miles NE of Dublin. It used to be a private, family home but is now a rather lovely 4* hotel. Had the pleasure of staying here when we visited Dublin last year and definitely recommend it.

A little known fact (well, we didn't know this) is that Bram Stoker resided in Clontarf while penning "Dracula". So our visit was very educational as well as pleasurable !!!!


Clontarf Castle at night (c) emjaydesigns 2008

OK, time for me to pass on the tag. Firstly the rules:

1.pick the 6th picture from your 6th photo folder
2.tell the story around it
3.pass it onto 6 other people

I will be tagging:

• http://craftyloo.blogspot.com/ - an incredibly talented and inspirational card designer
• http://michelebeck.blogspot.com/ - for some truly fabulous scrapbook layouts
• http://4carol.blogspot.com/ - scrapbook and ATC artist. Great blog providing detailed info on how to achieve various effects and techniques
• http://scraproom.blogspot.com/ - another very talented scrapbooker and card designer
• http://lollowe.blogspot.com/ - Mail Order Addict: sound advice on what to (and what not to) do in terms of promoting your website
• oops, I appear not to have a 6th one. Ah, well not to worry

Apologies in advance to those bloggers I have tagged - please don't feel obliged to play if you are too busy or just don't want to. Its just a fun way to get know a little more about you.

Well, that's it from me for now. Tag complete !

creative block

Hmm, today sees me somewhat lacking in design ideas. It hasn't help trawling through other blogs and seeing the fantastic work that others are producing. There are just so many talented people out there that it makes me feel somewhat inadequate! I guess I need to do something a little different for a few days - I have a scarf sitting in my craft bag which I started before Christmas and have not picked up for about 3 weeks now. Maybe I'll get on with that for a while.