A package of mini business cards arrived this morning from www.moo.com and the comments on the packaging exactly described my feelings ....I've been dying for them to arrive......

True to the description, they were small......but perfectly formed.....

very cute and in a tiny little box.........

.....the website user friendly......

everything sustainably sourced......

They arrived on the date I'd been promised..........and even had a pre-paid return slip in case you're not totally satisfied.......

I want to get some stickers next......

......and if anyone out there is interested moo do a special promotional offer of 15% off their first order. You just need to enter this code: 2RB2CK

I've been making some small (about 5x7"/13x18cm) sketch/notebooks to sell at the East Oxford Farmers and Community Market on Saturday. It's held in East Oxford Primary School from 10am until 1pm.




This one is covered with 'found' text and includes a beautiful piece of 18th century French handwriting.....part of a rent receipt

I'm really pleased that I remembered how to stitch the pages with Coptic binding........I haven't done it since Uni............

This one is made with copy of a house blueprint and a small window with a transparency of anothr blue print.

This one is covered with vintage map from an old school atlas and some more of the 18c handwriting.

This one is covered with vintage woven rambling and cycling map, complete with the handwriting of a previous owner.

The one below is covered with newsprint written in beautiful Farsi script (Iranian/Persian) .........

...........it's fastened with two small vintage fabric covered buttons.

And finally this last one is covered with screen printed paper..........

....the images are taken from vintage photographs and mono-prints of vintage photo's.

....and it even has a little pocket inside complete with another even smaller notebook......

.....and more vintage french handwriting on the cover.

My Week in Pictures.

This is how the kitchen table should be, nice and empty and ready for use........but this is how it's been since Monday!!

I decided that my little study is much too small to work in and so transferred downstairs to our nice spacious old school kitchen table..........I started bit by bit on Monday morning, first it was just the lap top......my cutting board and knife and a few papers......

...On Tuesday I brought down pens and ink bottles and a small old portable typewriter.......maps and bits of fabric and embroidery silks........

........the sewing machine...........poetry books by Auden and C. Day Lewis...............ad infinitum

It's been a great week.....stitching old maps and text, typing poems and remembering the sound of dads old Adler clicking away from behind his 'office' door at home....drinking filter coffee and listening to Alela Diane and Regina Spektor...and wondering how to post music videos on here ....I've tons saved up for when I work out how to do it........

Each day the plan has been to tidy up before 'A' arrived home from work and have fresh biscuits cooling on a baking rack on the table. I get so involved with the work the time flies and it just seems to be such a waste of time to carry everything upstairs to have to bring it all back down again the next day............

I get so involved that I could go all day without food as long as there's plenty of filter coffee. So it was a good thing that.......A lovely surprise broke the work thread on Tuesday lunchtime when the postman delivered me a graze box.......full of healthy energy giving fruit and nuts but with a tasty twist.........I picked up the box expecting it to be a book or CD from Amazon addressed to some other member of the family but no it was for me. A cool treat that 'H' had conjured up......how sweet.......I think it's a great gift idea......... you can check out the contents on my foodie blog http://www.cookingupastorminateacup.blogspot.com/

You may or may not be wondering what has inspired this hive of bee-like activity? Partly to replace all the gift cards that we sold on Saturday and partly because the weather although cold is amazingly sunny and the birds keep chirping and I want to make something new and springlike.......also cos I was asked again to put some stuff for sale on the blog......the plan is to sort out paypal and maybe etsy and all those other necessary things.....but this is just the seed.....better go and get watering it.......
watch this space.

It's been a great few days......it's gone so fast that it just seems to be a blurr of images now......Here's the good bits......Thursday I was offered an artist residency for next year in a local secondary school......Friday evening I met up with 'S' in London talked loads had salad and tons of coffee and bought six simple good white china bowls for a song....

''H' home for the weekend.....hurray....very late night and then early Saturday morning.....a last minute stall on the East Oxford Farmers and Community Market....it was fun cos 'H' and 'A' were sweet and came too. Sold lots and met tons of really nice people.........

Busy Sunday but lovely family Mother's Day Supper............watched I Capture the Castle (it's got to be one of my favourite films...i just love it) then found out that one of my sisters and her husband who live in Chester have got an appartment they wanted in Jericho a really cool part of Oxford.......

Persuaded 'H' to stay an extra day.....worked hard all morning but we spoiled ourselves with an afternoon in town ......she treated me to some makeup, we had the obligatory root around Toast......I could live in there.........

....Yummy coffee and hot chocolate, huge wedges of carrot and chocolate cake.............then home for supper.......

Then we drove 'H' back to London......another late night but great to see 'H' and look at the lovely sparkly lights reflecting in the Thames........

Powel Althamer Exhibition at Modern Art Oxford

A couple of weeks, or was it months ago, I was walking down Broad Street in Oxford when I spotted a number of golden clad people walking en mass on the opposite side of the road! My immediate thought was that we'd been invaded by gold lame loving aliens, but then I thought No.........It was quite surreal. I took a few photos with my digital camera, then didn't give it much more thought until seeing the poster for a recent Powel Althamer Exhibition at MOA..... aha that's what it was...

I'm unfamiliar with Althamer's work and although I'm not a great fan of performance art, there is something amusing about this piece. I also found myself drawn to the naive cave painting-like scribblings that make up part of the installation on the ground floor of Modern Art Oxford.

I couldn't help but compare the sight of the gold jump suits hanging on a wall to
Kader Attia's installation Ghost made up of lots of hollow silver foil female forms bent in prayer in the Saatchi Gallery Last year. I may have connected the two pieces because of the similar materials used or just the use of multiples in both of their works.

I always think that there's a kind of sadness associated with works that involve clothes without the human element, as do the piles of jumbled up clothes that Christian Boltanski sometimes uses. So besides the humour their is also a sadness to this work. Even though apparently these garments are intended to be worn by any one in the audience who wants to participate, I couldn't help but read that sadness.

Knowing little of Althamer's background I presume that this work is to do with acceptance. The big question of Is there anyone out there is asked but can't help but feel that it's actually directed to us here on earth and about the diversity of life down here and questions of identity.

I only just managed to get to see this exhibition last week before MOA closed for a major renovation that sounds very exciting with new performance spaces opening and an outdoor cafe. I can't wait to see the transformation when it reopens on the 17th of April.

Oxford Antique Market and Bear Love

My niece's boyfriend has a serious case of bear love......I'm not sure when it started, how it came about or why................ he lives in France and I haven't met him yet.....and I haven't seen my niece since before Christmas so still have a bag of Christmas goodies waiting for her, including a box of Bear Baked Fruit Nibbles that I thought might amuse them both.

I was really pleased on my root around my favourite stall on Oxford Antique Market last week, the one with the really pleasant friendly guy who sells old cameras and magic lantern slides...to find The Bears of Jasper to add to the goodie bag..........I think it's really cool especially as it was only £1!

"DARN IT AND STITCH"

I stumbled across 'DARN IT AND STITCH' on Oxford Antique and Craft Market yesterday and felt like a child in a sweet shop. I just couldn't stop taking photo's.

Joanna Hazell's amazing stall is a colourful eclectic mix of haberdashery. A real treasure trove that her website says is 'suitable for any stitching magpie' and I would have to agree.

It's not only the contents of the stall that attracted me but also the clever way that Joanna displays her wares. There's so much going on, with beads and sequins displayed in thread-bound jam jars and sewing silk in plant pots and tin boxes. It shouldn't work, but it does beautifully and everything is very reasonably priced.

The last time that I had a similar experience was on discovering Fleur de Lin, a tiny little shop on the Rue du Petit Fort in Dinan, France. It was packed with display cases and glass fronted wooden drawers full of similar vintage and retro goodies, too.

To carry on the confectionery analogy discovering Fleur de Lin was less like stepping into a sweetshop more like into a scene from Chocolate! Especially as the owner not only had a striking resemblance to Juliette Binoche, she was also wearing a fifties style white cotton dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt!

'DARN IT AND STITCH IT's facebook page tell us that 'One day it will become a shop.....no....an EMPORIUM.' I think that is another thing I would have to agree with.........

You can buy Jo's goodies from

http://www.folksy.com/ - online shop and get in touch on darnitandstitch@gmail.com I think it's really worth checking out.

Not only was yesterday a day for discovering where to buy awesome haberdashery, I also discovered an amazing illustrator. The logo for Jo's work was designed by her sister Kate Hazell. She does the most amazing work, I have seen it around but wasn't sure who was responsible.....I'd love to post some of her illustrations here but will probably be breaking copyright by doing so, but really encourage you to check out her website on http://www.katehazell.com/

I just love her bearded ladies..........