Hydrangea and camellia

The last of the hydrangea leaves has now fallen and these were the most stunning colour, so I had to get a photo. This is Hydrangea Merveille Sanguine.

Down at the bottom of the garden, Camellia Yoimachi is quietly flowering away.

I do like these delicate white flowers, with just a hint of pale pink on the petals. They appear on my blog with regularity as I so enjoy seeing them at this time of year.

Really pretty and brightening up many a dull grey day.

Cards and cake

My nephew has just bought a house and was saying he needed some art for the walls, so my sister suggested some of  my slow drawings.  He looked through the many patterns that I have drawn (since joining the slow drawing group in 2023) and decided on nine.  I got them done for him and have since sent them to him.  Here they are above, in one formation, but it will be interesting to see how he chooses to put them together.

This was a card for my sister-in-law, using the Sizzix stencil, which I first mentioned here.

I sent this card to my nephew, with the nine drawings.

This was for a colleague's birthday.  She has several cats, so I often make her a cat based card!

This is the inside...

...and the back.

Here is a card for my husband's big birthday.  I put the numbers on balloons on the inside, just in case he didn't want to be reminded of his age! He loves 'Snarky Cats' stamps by Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous, so these usually make an appearance on his cards.

Here's the back.  Yes, I did mention cake, didn't I?

This is the 'Russian Roulette Revels Cake' which I make as a birthday cake, as it is a great recipe that is moist and keeps well (if you can stop yourself eating it!).  This is the very indulgent version with chocolate fudge icing, but the butter cream icing version is just as good.  

Revels are a chocolate covered sweet, with various fillings, such as toffee, Malteser, orange, chocolate, raisin and the dreaded coffee (I really don't like that one and often seem to get one on a slice!) There was an advert about Revels from 2001, when there was also a peanut one, but these were then removed due to allergies - the advert sums up my dislike of the coffee one!

I have made myself feel hungry now, so am off to have something to eat!

Colour swatching

I have said it before and no doubt will say it again, but colour swatching makes me happy!  I was watching Alison Bomber from Words and Pictures on Youtube this week, as you do, and she was doing some swatching with paints she had had for a while.  This reminded me that I have had the same brand (Kuretake Gansai Tambi) in a different colour palette that I hadn't swatched yet.  They are a creamy watercolour which does have some opacity, but will water down to give more transparency.  I have been guilty of keeping them 'for best' but actually, that is a silly idea as I bought them to use!

So I added more pages to my swatch book and had a very happy time testing the colours and adding water to them.  Above you can see the results.  

I have made a swatch book  and all the paints/pencils, watersoluble media etc. are gradually being added to it so that I can see what colours I have and how they look.  Hopefully then I will use them all a bit more!

Here they are again - a bit of colour on a very grey day!

Flowers and Fireworks

I have had a flower-filled few weeks recently and have been really enjoying the additional colour they bring.  Above was a 'Just Because' bunch of flowers from my lovely husband, "I thought they were your colours" - they were!

Then there was a bunch of dahlias to add to the display from a fellow allotmenteer.  

Then there was a bunch of chrysanthemums from a different fellow allotmenteer.

Finally, a colleague at work gave me these roses and lilies as a 'thank you'. I have been so lucky!  

Having discovered that my camera does have some settings for various things such as Fireworks, Portraits and Low light (see here for the post about it), I decided to have a go with the Firework setting.  After a slight problem of not remembering how to access the settings, I downloaded the manual and then found the setting.  The photos were better than previously, but as these were taken from a distance, they aren't all that great.

I obviously managed to move the camera when I was taking this one, but I rather like it. (I don't think professional photographers need to be worried though!)