Thursday 27 May 2010

How to Build a Fairy Garden


It's soon to be half-term in my little corner of England, so I though I'd share with you the secret of making a fairy garden so good that real fairies come and visit it. Oh yes.

First you get your box. A long flat one is ideal.

 


Then you fill it with mud. Magic Mud of course. The sprinkling of glitter whilst singing 'Come out, Come out, Wherever You Are' is especially necessary at this point.


Then a bit of landscaping. We created a slate pathway and stone table, a bit like Aslan's How in miniature. You can also create two levels, steps, walls and BMX humps for the street fairies.



Then go mad with bits from the Big People's garden. The neighbour's Pom Pom Bush contributed greatly to the flora. We also created a leaf fence at this point, and an oriental fish pond of sorts.





You can see we are getting in the swing of things now. We have a glass table top, up-turned pinecone seating area, daisy garden, curtain ring tunnel, lantern summer house (in case it rains), rope bridge over the pond, razor shell railings to keep baby fairies out of the Deep Water, sea shell hidey hole, skeletal leaf fishing nets and pom pom street light. This photograph was taken after I removed a few hundred white petals (someone had got a bit carried away).

And now some Fairy-Eye Views.








The seating area. Contemporary chic, with glass table top and sculpted wooden seating.



Later that night...

We set up our camera on a tripod, pointing it at the fairy garden. We attached the shutter to a movement detecting burglar alarm sensor. Any visit to the garden by any living thing would set the camera off. Maybe, just maybe, we could catch a fairy in our garden.

The next day we expected to find photographs of hedgehogs, a fox, maybe a badger but NO! 

This is what the camera recorded, no word of a lie...



Yes, real fairies had visited our garden. Ha!





If you make a garden, and take pictures, please send me a link through the Comments form below or via Twitter, I'm @Angpang. 

And if it's a rainy half-term, you could always try our indoor adventure, Making Gormley's The Field in a Shoe Box.

Friday 21 May 2010

My new blog: Vintage Copywriting - please take a look...

Vintage Copywriting is taking my day-job as a copywriter and grafting-on my two obsessions: beautiful old things and photography. 

I should first explain that most of my copywriting work is for mail order companies. I describe beautiful new things for catalogues and e-commerce sites. In Vintage Copywriting I'll be describing the same kind of beautiful things, but they'll be old. And I'll not be persuading you to buy. I'll just want you to share my enjoyment.   

What kind of old things? Follow this link to my Picasa album to be smacked between the eyes with what it's really all about. If you like the look of these, then you could be my Ideal Reader. If you want to take a look now, follow this link to go to Vintage Copywriting now.

It all started with Twitter

I started tweeting about a year ago with great reluctance, but soon found it intoxicating. I love sitting on my bottom in England and holding a conversation with someone in Canada about Alphonse Mucha.

I was commissioned to write an article on my Twitter-Love at The Copywriting Blogspot, and poured my heart into it. That debut post was very popular with the Twitterati, and there were requests for me to start a blog of my own. So I did: Incense and Peppermints.

And it was fun. Oh yes. Writing about whatever took my fancy. Scooping-up the flattering comments like so many red roses. Twiddling with my gadgets.

Then I noticed that my blog was getting more hits than my commercial website. Blogging was all fine and dandy, but it was time to blog in a way that said, subtly and with grace, that here was a copywriter available for work.

So a “copywriting blog” it had to be. But there are hundreds out there already. Most discuss copywriting. How to do it; how to do it better; who’s doing it badly. I did not want to add my voice to a bloody huge choir.

I wanted a blog that would reveal my approach to mail order copywriting and catch the fancy of people outside the industry. People that love fashion and design;  that have inquisitive minds; that might just be looking to hire a copywriter who knows her merino wool from her Murano glass.

So, here we are. And here’s the pledge.

As a commercial writer I use charm and details to sell my clients’ products. I want my readers to click ‘buy’.

In Vintage Copywriting I will use those same skills to record and share old things. To delight, entertain, inform and maybe even inspire. I want you to click ‘follow’. Or ‘comment’. Or ‘re-tweet’.

There will be a word count. Mail order patches – the words that describe an item in a catalogue or on a web page – generally have to do that job in 35 words. For this blog, I’m stretching out luxuriously to 200 words. No more, often fewer. Enough for a tea break.

There will be photographs.

Some things I will own, others I will covet.

But most of all there will be pleasure. For me and, I hope, for you.

Thank you so much for reading this far, I hope you’ll return to see the pretties I have gathered for your inspection.

And my first post is ready: The 1980s Black and Red Earrings

Angela

p.s. The photograph is me.

p.p.s. My other blog, Incense and Peppermints, will continue.

Please:

Tuesday 18 May 2010

Crochet Jewellery by my Mother

Another crafty post to feature some crochet jewellery by my mum.

These pictures show brooches and bracelets, with three rings in the final photograph.

Mum's very experienced at crochet, but has not attempted anything like this before. She's not following a pattern or copying a photograph, she's just making it up as she goes, so each piece is a one-off.  I hope you like them, and if you do, there's a list of summer shows (in and around Lincoln, UK) where her stuff will be for sale at the end... 









The full list of shows where my Mum's stuff will be for sale (on the Lincolnshire Tree Services) stand, is:

21st, 22nd, 23rd May - British Super Bikes, Cadwell Park
Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th June - Market Rasen, Gardeners' Fair
Sunday 13th June - Grainthorpe Show and Vintage Tractor Run
Wed 23rd & Thurs 24th June - Speed Carving Lincolnshire Show
Sunday 27th June - Brocklesby Country Fair (live demos main arena)
Sunday 27th June - Attica's Lincolnshire Living Fayre, Tealby
Sunday 1st August - Revesby Country Show
Sunday 5th September - Lincolnshire Firewood Fair and Auction, Scrivelsby
Sunday 12th September - North Thoresby 1940s Weekend

Finally, you can find out more about my mum (pictured) and her return to school after a 50 year gap in my other post In Which I Humiliate my Mother. It is a bit of a tear-jerker, if you're in the mood for a sniffle. 


 

Thursday 13 May 2010

Button Rings and Brooches for sale by me…

I just wanted to do a mini-blog to share some of my crafty creations with you, and invite you to the summer shows where they will be for sale.



Theses are rings and brooches I have made using vintage fabrics from charity shops and old buttons with a few beads thrown in for cuteness. Many of the buttons were taken from my great grandmother’s sewing box, so date right back to the 1940s.



I’m not a crafter. This is the first time I have done any craft since being at school. I’m pretty happy with the result, and itching to do some more.

These items, and many more by very talented crafty friends of mine, will be for sale at the traditional country shows in and around Lincolnshire (UK) this summer, on the Lincolnshire Tree Services’ stall, alongside their lovely rustic furniture and chainsaw carvings. Here's my daughter on one of their chairs.


 The full list of shows is:

21st, 22nd, 23rd May - British Super Bikes, Cadwell Park
Saturday 5th & Sunday 6th June - Market Rasen, Gardeners' Fair
Sunday 13th June - Grainthorpe Show and Vintage Tractor Run
Wed 23rd & Thurs 24th June - Speed Carving Lincolnshire Show
Sunday 27th June - Brocklesby Country Fair (live demos main arena)
Sunday 27th June - Attica's Lincolnshire Living Fayre, Tealby
Sunday 1st August - Revesby Country Show
Sunday 5th September - Lincolnshire Firewood Fair and Auction, Scrivelsby
Sunday 12th September - North Thoresby 1940s Weekend

So if you’re near by, or fancy a day out in lovely Lincolnshire, you know what to do!

Comments always welcome, as is sharing using this handy thingy: