Summer Inspiration....

Aaahhh, all is well and good in the Charles family household. We have returned from various camping excursions around the country, covered many a mile and put the tent and down about 8 times in 20 days.....The weather? Mixed. From blazing sun to hale stones in the Highlands of Scotland and torrential rain and just that good old British Grey day.

The one thing that saved us and the children for the 2 weeks in Bonny Scotland was joining the NTS (National Trust for Scotland). It ticked all the family boxes, Chris and I enjoyed fantastic gardens and castles, the birthplace of JM Barrie and the amazing Robert Smails printworks. The children, while moaning a little, had to spot the muddy footprints of Gnasher from Dennis the Menice Comics. After finding all the foot prints in 6 properties on our travels they will be rewarded with copious amounts of Dennis 'stuff' - they were obsessed and we now have to wait until October to reap the rewards of this challenge......3 times over!

Back to inspiration- this was my favourite castle, Crathes - stunning, beautiful and a lovely sunny day out.

Now, I have to admit...... I broke the law of the NTS (shhhhh). You are now allowed to take photos and the children were mortified that I even attempted to. Mortified. Butter wouldn't melt of course, as we had to remind them. But I could not risk not being able to be inspired if the shop did not sell the specific post cards I needed, could I? So just in case.....

This was a snippet of a painted ceiling:

And this was a beautiful appliqued bed cover, which I continued to dream about and plan some work around. I was disappointed that there was no postcard, so it's a good job I was a bit naughty.......no body saw anyway.

Around the gardens I was allowed to snap away at the lovely flowers, no body minded.

Noah was amazed by the size of these daisies as you can see.

So here we are, standing in the gardens of Crathes, just lovely.....Happy Campers all round. The Gnasher trail was our saving grace and fantastic value for money spread over the year. Oh, and another thing....we can use our membership to visit UK National Trust Properties too!!

Yippee- do-dar, more lovely inspiration just waiting for a visit.

Quick trip to Olney

For me, a trip to Olney is a treat. A lovely market town about 20 mins drive from us, with a plethora of craft and gift shops, a traditional toy shop hidden away down a snicket. Shamefully, though I have never been to the local museum there! It is the world famous (?) Cowper and Newton Museum famous for lots of good things, too many to mention but you can check it out for yourself. There is also a great collection of local traditional bobbin lace there and as my daughter has been making lace at school for the last 3 years, I thought she might me interested but just never managed to steel her away - until this day!

The museum had asked me to take some of my work to potentially sell in their shop, I went on thursday and they duely loved my work and we negotiated a price for quite alot of stock - how exciting!!

I then decided to drag my lot over to see how things were going and have a look around the museum. The lovely ladies in the office were also interested in what my boys (6 and 8) would enjoy during the visit - so was I.

So here we are, famous for lace making and an annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake race!

Inside the museum garden, some boxing hares - the famous owner of the house kept three hares as pets, so there are alot of references around the museum. Lots of inspiration me thinks!

I didn't find out what or where this next piece had been, I saw a spinning wheel and some lace bobbins carved, but had no idea of the 'thing' in the middle, we hoped all would be revealed when we went inside. It was.

I was a bit blow away by the samples of lace, there were dozens and amazing to imagine that they were all made by hand. Evie did say that she thought that the swan she is making at school was tricky, but this!!
Hurray, there was some lovely applique. Cowper's bedspread - worked by Mrs King in 1781.

So there we have it, a quick guide to Cowper and Newton, the museum gardens were lovely and just about to burst into their spring blossoms. I will need another trip over to see for myself I think.

The boys? - well they were interested in fossils and rocks, the display of Slavery items (Newton was famous for working for the abolishment of Slavery in the late 1700's)

Surprisingly Noah, who is an adamant boy, enjoyed dressing up as a young lady complete with big pink dress and wig, I will find this photo and put it up soon!

So we had a great afternoon, the sun shone down and the children didn't scrap or sulk too much. I now have lots of inspiration for work and new projects.......