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