Plant auction action

I've made the mistake before when building a show garden , you want to make sure you have enough plants , but if you get them too early , you risk them not looking their best or going over . So I've been to the Clifford cross plant auction today to buy some of my plants for the show garden, and will go again next Wednesday for more . I'm getting the wow plants and grasses bought to the show ground.. I got lots of filler plants today . It's a sunny garden so Hebe's , lavender, Myrtle, Cotinus , Nandina,saxifrage , juniper to be used as a mordant and eucalyptus as a dye plant and two beautiful Passion flowers . It's a good start.

Woad , weld and madder

Today Brian and I have been to Teresinha and Mike Roberts allotment at Walsall rd allotments Birmingham . The different allotments are beautiful with interesting vegetables and flowers growing together. Teresinha grows lots of dye plants , plants to make paper. as well as the usual fruit and vegetables. We dug up some weld which has a beautiful shape , woad , Japanese indigo , genista tinctoria and some Madder which was a bit of a pig to dig up ! Now we're on the way home with a car full of interesting plants for the show garden. Please check out Terasinha's website www.wildcolours.co.uk for more info about natural dyes and seeds

Fire pit pot holder

With the water tanks making progress we got sidetracked by the pot holder for the fire pit . I bought a beautiful antique mini cauldron . Hand made and unique . It will be perfect for cooking the dye plants in small batches . So off to dads scrap heap for a rummage we went, we found a nice chain and hook and a metal plate to fit under the simba disc fire bowl to hold the curved bar to hold the pot over the fire. Brian and I had to pop to work and when we got back an hour later this is what was waiting for us . Yay !! I love it . Thanks dad

Water feature part two

So once the rain spiral was welded we moved on to the two water tanks which used to be a diesel tank on the farm cut in half . One will be higher than the other and feed water into the other via a rill . We need to brace the tanks and I also want a ledge to put my pond plants on so we are going to combine two jobs into one , brace the tank and hold a mesh deck in place.

Water feature progress

So it's harvest time and the shed we've been using to build the show garden bits in is now rapidly filling up with grain . But today it's been raining so I took the op to ring my dad who kindly donates most of the rusty metal for my garden and ask him if he could help with the welding I need doing . Rusty junk must be in my blood because I've been using it in my art from age 14 , dad helped me then too ! He said yes he could help with some welding . So we started with the bracket for the rain spiral . It takes time to work out how to make it work but between my ideas and Brian's working out and dads skills it always comes good.

Window frames and pretty curtains

Next job is painting the vintage picture frame windows , indi was super helpful again , helping to paint the frames in Craig and Rosie's grate black paint . And then I dug out my vintage hoard of embroidery to make some pretty curtains .

Decorative details

I love the styling and painting you see on folk furniture and vintage gypsy wagons and wanted to have a go decorating the panel above the door under the roof this way . So taking inspiration from a carved wooden panel I drew the design onto the panel with chalk and then painted the design in oil paint .

Stable door is taking shape

We have made the stable door from the onion boxes too , with a small oval picture frame as a window , and on Sunday I bought two hinges and brackets for £4 , so with the ones recycled from the pig shed they go pretty well together.

Like a kid in a sweet shop !

I'm having so much fun today!
My friend Gill came round this morning with lots of beautiful stained glass so that I could make a stained glass picture for the window of the stable door for the show garden. Gill is a brilliant teacher, but she's also a dab hand at stained glass windows , were doing this one a bit differently to save on time , putting the lead on takes lots of time and as we have just three weeks left until show time we decided to make a picture instead . First gill showed me how to cut the glass in straight lines and curves . Then we played around with shapes and colours , I really liked the geometric patterns that were emerging , but not following a strict pattern or design was great fun too. After cutting the shapes , we cut out an oval piece of glass to fit the frame . Once happy with how it looked I glued the piece's to the oval with glass glue , let it dry and then grouted it with flexible black grout . It was so lovely working out side in the sunshine . And finishing a job in the same day. I'm really satisfied with the result.

More cutting sanding and waxing

So with the water feature coming along ,we laid out the scaffolding decking with the raised beds and I think it's looking good, so off we went to b&q for some lime wax for the studio floor, and paint for the studio , I've gone for a very pale blue wash so that the grain and lettering stamps show through . So after cleaning and washing the raised beds down (one down side to repurposing stuff is the cleaning but it's worth it for the character and savings cost wise . I put the wax on the boards with some very helpful help from my daughter . After some work she used the deck like a stage singing and dancing till it got dark and way past bedtime ! It's been fun though.

Cleaning , sanding and waxing

Today has been really productive which is just what we need considering time seems to be traveling at warp speed less than three weeks till Harrogate build begins! First I yes you read that right I cut the metal guttering with the angle grinder to the right shape to feed into the rain spiral , and then we needed to cut the same shape in the rain feeder to the spiral which was more tricky . But it worked well.

More metal cutting

After a lovely day off yesterday in London with the kids it's back to work. After a bit of quarreling about the window frames we focused on a job we've been putting off , the roof, we've got some curved corrugated galvanized sheets that were left over from the Nissan hut we built as my studio , but being too long they need cutting down , so I rescued the sheets from the undergrowth where they have been languishing for the past 5 years although come to think of it they've been hanging around since WW2 so it's about time they proved useful. We measured them and Brian Got to work with the grinder (not his favorite job) but actually they cut pretty easily ! Then I gave them a scrub so that jobs done. Then we moved on to the water feature 'the rain spiral ' we are using the spiral from an old grain auger . Attached to the guttering which will be fed from the solar pump.

Serendipity strikes again

Last week I bought the scaffold boards that will make the decking and studio floor in the show garden, I want to keep the decking fairly rustic but was hoping to make the floor for the studio nice and smooth, talking to our lovely neighbor David , who just happens to have a wood working workshop, he said bring them over and we will smooth them down a bit.. So with the barrow full of planks off we went . First David planed them and then put them through a sanding machine saving us a ton of work. And they look beautiful too! Yay I'm so happy

Time to make my lantern for the parade

We have been given a brief by metal to create our own lanterns for the parade based on furniture and traveling to Peterborough and it becoming our home, what you might bring with you to make it home.I started thinking about how when you move to somewhere new you have hopes and dreams for the future , creating a better life, with a sense of belonging .You take the memories of the past with you. So with this in mind I've decided to make my lantern a bed with someone asleep in it who is dreaming , I want to make some dream clouds float around the bed , with written thoughts and dreams in them . It is starting to take shape now . But there's still lots to do .

Lantern making in schools

We worked with two primary schools and two secondary schools in Peterborough here's a few pics from Hampton vale school, they made pots and pans and some awesome teapots and tea cups