Continuing the seaside theme...

Southwold, Suffolk
Originally uploaded by handsomepandafan

Actually I am testing the "blog this" feature in Flickr, but thought this nice photo I took in Southwold on Valentines day 2009 would be a nice way to continue the nautical summer theme I'm working on at the moment!

Question is, does Flickr/Blogger have the sense to resize this image for me and make it fit the width of my blog without chopping off one edge?!

Project: bathroom cabinet

(please excuse the too-large pictures in this post, since switching to Mac I've not worked out how to resize images to fit my narrow layout!)

This past weekend my wonderful Mr found the time to put our revamped bathroom cabinet up on the wall, so I decided it's high-time for a post on the 'making of'. Here's the finished product in all its glory:

This cabinet started life as a medicine cupboard in the bathroom of my great-aunts house. The doors once held two mirrors, which by the time I got hold it the cupboard had long since broken and been removed. My mum had been keeping this in the loft for the last few years waiting for a time it might come in useful when my sister or I were setting up home. 

First up I removed the small brackets which were once used to hold the mirror glass onto the doors (and have saved these for use in the future, you never know!) then I primed the doors using white undercoat. 

Once the undercoat was dry I painted two top coats of "Morris Blue" emulsion (from the Heritage range 1869 by Craig & Rose). I glued four seaside scene postcards to the doors and sealed them with a layer of PVA glue, hopefully this will be enough to prevent the steam in the bathroom causing the postcards to curl and peel off. 

Once the glue was all dry and the postcards seemed pretty well stuck, I attached seashells and some small decorations (left over from a previous project which resulted in a very large smashed mirror after a cat jumped through a window!). I reattached the handles and there you have it!

Just a final picture of the inside - there are two sections each with a small shelf (note the cupboard is upside down in the pic). Jasmine the cat kindly posed with the cupboard to show a sense of scale in this picture...

The cupboard is now safely and securely on our bathroom wall and proving to be very useful indeed. Hurrah!

Stampin' and printin' goodness

Today was a near disaster work-wise, but just as I reached my lowest ebb I decided on the spur of the moment to check my local college for adult evening classes in printmaking - specifically silk-screen printing, but any kind of "introduction to printmaking" would have satisfied me. Imagine my utter delight when I saw this:

Screen Printing and other Print Techniques with Bill Balleny

Tuesdays 6:30 to 9:00 pm 

There are many different ways to make a print - screen prints, linocuts, woodblocks, collagraphs, etching, drypoints and monoprints. For beginners, a practical demonstration will be given of the various print techniques in the first session. Students will be encouraged to experiment with their own ideas and printmaking techniques and above all, to have fun! This course is open to all levels from beginners to experienced printmakers. You will need to bring drawing implements, sketchbooks and plenty of imagination and ideas. For those wishing to pursue photo screenprinting/etching a small charge will be made for photographic stencils. Additional cost of £8.00 per term for materials.

10 Weeks from 21/04/2009

YES!!! Exactly what I was looking for, and not only that, it starts on Tuesday! I called and signed up right away and I can't wait to see what opportunities arise from this. I'm especially excited about the photo-screen printing on offer, I'd love a print Gocco (wouldn't we all?) but can't find one in the UK with an adequate source of supplies since they recently discontinued the entire line. So all in all, a good day actually - I'm super-excited about the new printing class and can't wait to get my hands dirty! 

In the meantime why not check my Flickr for pics of my latest completed project - the Seaside bathroom cabinet! 

Cake Wrecks...

Oh dear me... I came across this site during the week and had a good giggle at all the silly mistakes and badly made cakes. Then this happened:

This is what happened when I tried to make my lovely boyfriend a birthday cake at the last minute... using the new 'ring tin' I brought in town this weekend. Boo Hoo! Guess I should've left it to cool before I turned it upside down huh?

So much for handmade imperfection, more like total cake-disaster! Ah well can't be good at everything...