Forest Gate Festival - Sat 10th July 2010

This is the 11th year that the Forest Gate Festival has been running and it's just as popular as ever - as the number of stall holders and turnout of visitors proved.

I've always loved this particular Festival and though I'm not a resident of Forest Gate (I'm only a couple of towns away) this is one festival I like to attend regularly as a stall holder.

My stall selling a range of handcrafted items

altered CD's, decorative tin cans, mosaics

The Festival is held on Osborne Road, a really lovely tree lined street with Victorian terrace houses, many with their original wrought iron and glass fronted porches and sash windows. The road is blocked to traffic for the whole day and we stall holders set up our tables on the pavement outside designated houses.

Forest Gate Festival

I've learnt from previous years to always come prepared for rain or shine, so many of us had gazebos or awnings over our tables in the event of rain, or as in today's case, the scorching heat of the sun. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the temperature was in the 30's. Perfect Festival weather with plenty of food and drinks available (by drinks I mean ice cold and totally alcohol free of course!)

handbound notebooks & journals

handbound albums and greeting cards

On my table I was selling a whole range of my handcrafted items such as mosaics, hand bound books, decorative tin cans, altered CD's, ceramic brooches, stampboard brooches and greeting cards. The only thing on my stall not handmade by myself were the Indian embroidered and beaded handbags.

As in the past couple of years this year's Festival was a plastic bag free zone and the organizers were handing out bundles of free hessian bags to all the stall holders to give out to their customers - such a good idea!

a variety of mosaics

Indian embroidered & beaded handbags

I love the atmosphere of this Festival - there's a real sense of community spirit and not only can you feel it but you can see it - in the smiles, helpfulness, generosity and friendliness of the stall holders and visitors alike :-)

Forest Gate Festival just starting

There were plenty of activities happening for everyone - face painting and tower climbing for children, henna painting, make and take tables, music, workshops and street entertainers. Though my only criticism was there wasn't such a variety of street entertainers this year as there has been in the past. That said, the entertainment that was there was brilliant.

The stilt walkers were so funny - especially the Tea Lady who'd come down the street pushing her musical tea trolley. She'd be chatting to you one minute and then would break out into a a little song and dance the next and would get you to join in - she was amazing :-)

"how about a nice cuppa tea?" asked the stilt walking Tea Lady

oooh aargh me hearties! stilt walking pirates in their boat

There were also a group of ladies performing some belly dancing and hoop dancing.

Belly dancing

One of the most entertaining acts was a group of African men who performed the most amazing and energetic acrobatic routine. They had such balance and skill in their act. One of them was a contortionist and could roll himself up into a ball and the others would pick him up and put him into an ordinary metal bowl.

Amazing African Acrobats

They would stand on each others head and then leap about doing somersaults and back flips and would juggle hats onto their heads and juggle bats. Their act would include audience participation, which would make it even funnier and they would combine it with a comedy routine - all this with no speaking! The audience were just spellbound and gasping at some of their breathtaking stunts - truly incredible!

and for my next trick.....

The Festival started at 11am and continued till 6pm, when everything was over for another year. Stall holders began to pack up, customers scoured round for last minute bargains, and Osborne Road slowly transformed itself back into a residential road again after all the excitement and fun of the Forest Gate Festival.

I'm so looking forward to next year! :-)

Scotsdales Garden Centre - Cambridgeshire

My family and I visited this massive garden centre recently on a gorgeously sunny day and I must say what a wonderful day out we had.

A warm welcome upon entering Scotsdales

candles, lanterns & barbeques

gorgeous coloured glassware

Scotsdales is located in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire and is a huge garden centre selling everything you could possibly want for your gardening needs and more.

vegetable & flower seed packets

They also have a Pet Corner and sell a small selection of live birds and animals such as rabbits, hamsters and gerbils.

This particular black one was not for sale but a resident

These parrots were not for sale - the grey one could talk but chose not to on this particular day - I guess we all have these days!

looks like a huge budgerigar to me:-)

Scotsdales also supply a huge variety of fish in their Aquatics Department. They are well stocked for all your fishy supplies. I saw some beautiful species of fish here - pond fish to tropical aquarium fish

beautiful colours!

Koi Carp

I was enchanted !

The indoor plant selection was vast and varied and my head was turning in all directions.

beautiful, vibrant glazed pots

bronze sculptures amongst the indoor plants

has anyone seen my gorilla? - Oh there you are Kong:-)

oranges and lemons.....la la la la la la la :-)

I just love begonias

aisle upon aisle and row upon row, of shrubs and flowers

I bought some sweetpeas, a Japanese pink wisteria and another shrub that had little pale pink bell shaped flowers on - am forgetting it's name now.

a magnificent magnolia tree reaching up to the sky - I 'd love one of these!

Mmmm... Camelias - who doesn't love these beautiful flowers?

bedding and border plants

Anyone for a gnome or a fat robin - even a hiding hedgehog?

I went absolutely potty outside when I saw the range of terracotta and glazed garden pots Scotsdales stock. Though I was dismayed at some of the prices - whew! too steep for my purse.

unglazed terracotta pots

glazed pots of all colours and hues

Mediterranean looking terracotta pots

blue glazed pots

green glazed pots

yet more pots

We stopped for lunch in their lovely Sunflower Cafe - unfortunately by the time we stopped there for lunch at around 2pm, they had run out of sandwiches - so settled for soup of the day and some pastries with teas and coffees.

Scotsdales has a very well stocked gift shop selling greetings cards, gift wrap, cards, a wide range of books, ceramics and other gifts. It really is a lovely place to shop.

Look what I bought! Oh and I bought that lonely little hedgehog too:-)

For more info go to Scotsdales

Recent Art

Just playing around with Flickr Toys to design this mosaic of Art I’ve created recently – Enjoy and please feel free to drop into my Flickr site to view more of my work:-)

POSTCARD BOX

This is a postcard box I recently constructed from…. postcards of course:-) This box can be constructed from any picture really so long as the sizes are all the same. You can use:

photographs

handmade cards

cut up greeting cards

magazine images

your own art

You can double up your postcards so that images are inside of the box also, or you can line your postcard or images with plain card as I have done. We are working with landscape images, so it’s best to find images in this orientation – apart from the sides of the box which can have portrait images.

So, basically what you’ll need to make this box are:

supply of postcards/pictures

plain card to back cards

embroidery threads in contrasting colours

pricking tool

soft mat for pricking on

ruler

double sided tape

scissors

embellishments (optional)

top view

Cut all your cards to one size – you’ll need 4 cards landscape size for the back, front, top and bottom of the box and two cards portrait size cut to the same width square. Whether you’re using postcards or plain card to double up, make sure you cut up all your cards to match – so you should end up with 8 landscape size and 4 portrait size cards.

side views

Now pair your main images with their backing images and secure with a little double sided tape to hold together. You should have 6 cards to make one box.

With your card on the pricking mat and using your ruler and pricking tool score a line, lightly - half centimetre away from the edges of the card, so you end up with a half centimetre border all the way around the card. Do this to all the cards.

Now along that light score line prick holes half centimetre apart all the way round the card. Do this to all the cards

front view

Choose a colour of embroidery thread that compliments the shades in your cards and using a simple blanket stitch bind your pairs of cards together – do this to all 6 cards.

back view

Now the constructive part – sewing all the parts to make the box. Starting with the base and making sure you have your main image on the outside, place the back card (your image that will be facing the back) on top of this (main image facing upwards) and with a contrasting thread on your needle, using a whipping stitch go through one blanket stitch on the base card and one blanket stitch on your back card and lash together to secure each card to the other (refer to my pics for reference) .

top & front view

Then taking one of the side cards whip stitch this to the base card and to the back card. Working your way systematically with all the cards, bind them all together and to each other using this whipping stitch. In my pics my blanket stitch is in deep pink and the whipping stitch is in blue.

inside view

After the box has been constructed you can pick out details to embellish – that’s just optional. I’m an embellishment kinda gal and will embellish anything in sight, so if you look at my images you’ll see I’ve used sequins, coins and bead trim to jazz up my box. Do what you want and make amazing boxes! :-)