Earth elemental

The other day I was drooling over Sarah's beautiful mandala rings when I decided to take her "What's your ruling element?" quiz, it turns out that I most connect to the earth element. It was one of those moments where you're like, well duh, wasn't that obvious?! Always wanting to be outside, a growing obsession with bird-spotting and mushroom-spotting, a desire to learn herbal lore, insisting on weekend adventures with Tom and coming home with mud spattered trainers and pockets full of pinecones.

It was actually quite interesting reading up on earth element personality traits, some were really spot on for me, and even more interesting was reading how this type can be prone to digestive issues and fluid retention when unbalanced... very me. Earth elements are advised to meditate and nourish themselves physically, mentally and spiritually to maintain balance, things that I am not very good at doing. Looking after me is very much one of my main priorities this year so reading this stuff is a bit of a gentle reminder.

Anyway, I obviously had nature on the brain as one of #mycreative365 has turned in to a little Earth Elemental felt creature, I very much like her!

Waterperry Gardens part deux

We went to Waterperry Gardens a couple of weekends ago, mentioned here, and I wanted to share a few more photos from our visit. The top two were taken in the church there, still used by the local parish, it has been there for over a thousand years. I think the amount of details in the peacock embroidery is exquisite, to be able to make a piece like that! The stained glass window caught my eye as I thought it was a bit unusual, for a church at least.

The next two photos were taken in the grounds, I think Tom was pretending to be a carthorse! The bottom two photographs were sneakily taken in the tiny rural museum there, the volunteer working that day looked old enough to be a part of the exhibit himself and he was certainly enthusiastic. It was full of random bits and bobs including shoes for sheep, a cigarette vending machine, traps for poachers, dolls house furniture and Noddy and Big Ears.

I think another trip to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History might be on the cards again soon, that's a real favourite of mine.

My creative 365 continues

I am really glad that I decided to set myself the challenge of a daily creative practise, #mycreative365, although some days have been more challenging than others, making it part of my daily life is becoming a habit and I am finding it quite meditative.

On Monday last week I ended working an 11.5 hour day and when I finally got home Tom had been locked out of the flat (our front door lock had broken) so we ate dinner late and it was the one day so far that I didn't specifically make time to do anything creative. A couple of days last week I just did small bits of weaving on the piece pictured at the top, but it still counts, and slow crafting is a meditation in itself.

I'm really enjoying my little watercolour drawings, I am sticking them in to my diary/journal afterwards, so it is fun to flick back through as there is allsorts in there. I have fallen in love with Polly Fern Sargeant's illustrations, her work is absolutely beautiful and so painstakingly detailed, I adore how she captures the natural world around her and I am enjoying doing similar with my drawings.

This challenge has thrown up two stumbling blocks for me, one is actually taking photos of what I have done whilst the daylight hours are still so short, and the other is still making the time to be creative. Slowly but surely both will resolve themselves though I'm sure!

You can follow #mycreative365 on my instragram :)

Life lately...

This week has consisted of long days at work, a broken shower and iron at the guest house, long meetings, a broken front door at home, salad lunches, endless cups of tea and a whole lot of American Pickers (we are loving this show!) so yesterday we went to University Parks whilst the sun was out.

Within minutes of entering the park we came across a tree that had blue tits in, quite a few of the little fellas, flying around and seeming to play together. We also saw swans, ducks and gulls at the pond and a huge red kite circling overhead. Snowdrops and crocus buds were pushing up their tiny heads, and quite a few trees are blossoming. he park was pretty busy and there were a lot of sports teams there, including a group playing quidditch which Tom thought was pretty hilarious!

We made ourselves a delicious roast beef dinner last night, yep, we bucked tradition and had a roast on a Saturday, why not?!

What have you been up to?