I'm bored, Jerry, B-O-R-D bored...

And if you recognise THAT quote, then you and I have an awful lot in common!..
j
Yesterday afternoon it wasn't just the boys who were complaining of boredom, but me too. They'd invited some friends round, and all the plans we had for the afternoon were due to begin when the friends arrived, not before... and the friends were late... I couldn't undercoat my shelves, as I'd remembered Ben had offered to fix a handly little plate-holding strip of wood onto them before I painted them. I couldn't go to the shop to buy the wood treatment I'd promised to get him because we were waiting for friends...

So I got out the rusty, cobwebby patio lights we'd taken down from the outside of the house. Not terribly tasteful, but a bird in the hand...

Good old Leroy Merlin, French DIY chain extraordinaire, had sold us this 'aged metal' paint - a good compromise for Ben and me - he had wanted glossy black and I had quite fancied leaving them rusty!

So now I think they looked appropriately aged but not actually rusty/falling apart! Shame about the yellow glass in two of them, but a cliché in the hand etc...
j
I also took photos of this incredibly pristine gamelle (lunch box), and popped it into my blog shop. It was hard to put such a good one up for sale, but I am resolved to collect only the blue.

And the quotation? It's from Jimmy Gourd (of course!). If you don't know VeggieTales but are looking for a stylish way to give young children a basic Christian education along with lots of giggles, I cannot recommend them too highly.I would never have thought that the Bible and general moral education could be presented so funnily. They get it right every time...

Dragons?

Last night I was reading about St George, and the way the writer (Naomi Starkey) described him made me reflect on the way that some of you are facing difficult times at the moment. I’ve copied some of Naomi’s words below, along with some photos from round our home. I’m dedicating the post to family and friends who have their own ‘dragons’ to face right now, but even if there are no dragons in your life right now, I think you’ll find the story quite interesting – I didn’t know it properly before!“George – an extraordinarily popular saint, particularly in the Eastern Church, considering how little is known about him. He is patron saint of not only England but also Canada, Ethiopia, Greece, Georgia and many other places or groups.
“Even if historical facts about his life are thin on the ground, his story has inspired generations and his flag continues to be flown whenever the England football team has another go at winning an international trophy.
“The convention is that George was born in third-century Cappadocia (part of modern-day Turkey) to Christian parents but grew up in Palestine, where he joined the Roman army.
“When the emperor Diocletian began persecuting believers, George resigned from his military post in protest. He was eventually arrested, gruesomely tortured and executed.
“George is best known for his legendary dragon-slaying. The story was first widely circulated in a 15th-century book, The Golden Legend. It presents a familiar series of events: hero comes to city besieged by monster, princess is next victim, hero deals with monster and saves princess.
“Rather than the usual ‘hero marries princess’ ending, however, George arranges for the baptism of the king and his people and builds a church where a healing spring then appears.
“As in the legend of George, we may be called on to ‘slay a dragon’. There may be a battle we are called to fight, a difficult task that we are given to do, and we can do it in the confidence that, if God has called us, he will give us the strength we need.”

Reflection
“The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack.”
2 Timothy 4:18a

Four generations of button collectors (plus a little shopping)

My grandmother, my mother and I have all collected buttons.Most of my teenage finds are still in the beautiful boxes at my mother's house, which may also contain buttons from my great grandmother, who was a seamstress in Blaina, South Wales.
So it's likely that the boxes we sorted through today contain the combined collections of four women over more than a century: Edith, Mildred, Dawn and Floss.

Some of the buttons have come off clothes worn by the family, and others were picked up in charity shop button boxes.Many of the mid 20th century buttons are from clothes my mother remembers: 'Your grandmother had a raw silk with those buttons on. My father brought it back from Shanghai and her mother made it up for her'.
'I had a coat with those sailing boat buttons on,' she tells me. 'It was almost impossible to get them through the holes. You'd never give a child such impractical buttons today...'
We noticed for the first time that the three Victorian dress buttons are shaped like whirls of ribbon. The big beaded button is clearly for mourning.My mum was offering me the chance to take some examples home, but I wasn't keen on breaking up the collection. Instead, we've agreed that I'll take some complete sets of buttons - all the glass ones, for example, to complete the group I took over after Christmas.

These military (and other) buttons are quite fun, and my parents have a friend in the US who collects them. My father and grandfather were in the Navy, and a great, great grandfather was Deputy Chief Constable of Carnarvon, so uniform-type buttons probably have a family history with us. I'm going to check out Great, Great Grandpa's photo to see if I recognise any of the buttons! These two aren't metal - I think they may be Bakelite, perhaps.

Shiny!

Eclectic blue. Wooden. Milly Molly Mandy buttons here, Elizabethd!

And so many mother of pearl...I have taken the square collection - aren't they stylish? Stiletto girl vintage has some great ideas for displaying a collection like this here. She also has a great history of the American mother of pearl button industry here.

I was inspired to make a mother of pearl button necklace. I've never made a button necklace before but Dorcas (above) looked like she would help me. I presume the thread was named after good old Dorcas the early Christian, who sewed shirts for orphans and widows. Her Hebrew name Thabitha has always appealed more to me and Ben than the Greek version Dorcas. If Son 1 had been Daughter 1 she would have been called Tabitha!

So, with the help of Dorcas thread and the Edinburgh Bead Shop ribbon, cord and fastenings, here is my first attempt at a button necklance.
It fits!

The bead shop just happens to be opposite a super-duper little place in Stockbridge, called:Well, what else would it be called?

It's not just a gift shop; its main role is as an art and craft studio with workshops for all ages and abilities. If we lived here, we'd have had plenty of birthday parties here by now! Click here for their website.This is where I bought the Vietnamese rice sack planters which are much admired by Brooke from be in red. Today I bought rice sack bunting to go with the planters! Much excitement. Rhona, who owns the centre, told me that her source for the rice sack stuff is an Englishman who goes out to Vietnam every year and works with the producers, developing new products appropriate for the UK market. This is great, fair trade, fun!

I've admired this fair trade South African chappie for a while now. Do you think I could make one? Goodnight from me and Dorcas the gazelle! (That's what Dorcas/Tabitha means, honest! Coincidence or what?)

Guess where..?

As I looked at this cropped detail, which I really like, it struck me that it's impossible to work out the scale or even the material of which it's made. So here's the guessing game for today: guess the origin of this photo! Answer at the bottom of the post...So today is Palm Sunday, and my parents' church, having a traditional building, provided an illustration of the first Palm Sunday for my post! Jesus, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, instead of the war horse everyone expected. This doesn't look like my image of Jesus, mind you. Does it match your expectations?
The children were given real palm branches (someone, somewhere, has a well-trimmed tree) and waved them enthusiastically, just as you can see in the stained glass window above.

Here are two beautiful lily borders from another window in the church...

And this is the answer to the guessing game - it's the balcony in the church. Really beautiful, isn't it? The church was built in 1823, so I presume this decoration, and maybe the colour too, are original.

I sometimes find the high ceilings and imposing architecture quite daunting in traditional church buildings, so I enjoy finding the little details, and feeling the link back to the craftspeople who made them.

Tomorrow: SHOPPING!

Step by Step Easter Garden

We mangaged to make a quick Easter Garden today! The dog was fascinated - surely this was something for her? You can make these explicitly Christian, or you can just stick to bunnies, chicks and flowers, or of course you can make them a mixture. So, Stage 1 is to put a bit of gravel into the bottom of your container, to improve drainage.

Then put soil or planting compost over the gravel, but not up to the top of the container.Next, find a nice mossy bit of the garden! You can plant grass seed, but of course that takes much longer.Pick up the moss in large 'mats' and use it to cover the soil, fitting it together like a jigsaw. Keep a plant spray nearby to keep misting the moss while it's indoors. If you're using this to tell the Christian Easter Story, make some kind of cave out of stones... ... or a piece of pot...
... or even a plastic plant pot, although that will need covering with moss!
The cave represents the tomb of Jesus, so it can stay open for now, because nothing's happened yet!
Now come the changes you can make over the next week or so. If you feel a bit shaky on your 'Easter Story', you can get loads of nice children's books which tell the story well. This donkey is trotting round 'Jerusalem', and you can put a donkey in the garden this Sunday, which is Palm Sunday. If you go to a church, you often get palm crosses given out on Palm Sunday, and you can use those crosses in your Easter Garden.

If you don't get a palm cross (we don't in our churches here), you can make a cross out of sticks, of course. Older children can practice their hammering or their knotting techniques!One cross is fine, because it represents the cross where Jesus was crucified. But sometimes my boys like to go the whole way and make three, because two thieves were crucified on either side of Jesus, and the story of one of them is very moving - they like to remember him, as well as Jesus.You can decorate the crosses any way you like.Now, on Good Friday (one week tomorrow), things really get going, because this is the day Christians remember Jesus' death on the cross. You can go into that as little or as much as you like, depending on the age and inclination of your children - no need to go heavy on it! But I always think it's helpful for them to understand a little bit of the symbolism of Easter, even if they're not in a Christian family.
The big thing on Good Friday is to 'seal the tomb' - roll a big stone across it so that the 'cave' is locked up with poor Jesus inside. (OK, symbolically.)Several years ago Son 1 made some Roman soldiers to guard the tomb - very authentic.

If you have Playmobil, of course, it can get very realistic!

Nothing's gonna get past these two!

The symbolism of the tomb staying sealed from Friday to Sunday is quite powerful, because of what happens next!

HE'S ALIVE!

Easter Day is when Christians celebrate Jesus' triumphant return to life, so let's go wild! Son 1's Roman soldiers have fallen over with shock, presumably at the sight of the stone, which needs to be rolled away, and at the appearance of this charming yellow angel.

Traditionally, though, this is when the garden can be planted with flowers, and the empty tomb can have a particularly beautiful flower to symbolise the new life and wonder of the Easter season.