Friday Finds (on a Monday)......'She wore flowers in her hair'

This is my contribution for Kim Klassen's 'Friday Finds' challenge (sorry I'm a bit late.....wasn't too well on Friday).
I have two 'finds'...a book and a planter.
I've been wanting a head planter for some time and finally spotted one in our local garden centre. I'm intrigued by how the look of it will change as the trailing plant grows and the pansies are replaced with other flowers.
We have a walled garden, which isn't always an advantage, but it is good for attaching things like this on to!

I altered my photo using Kim's textures 'Golden' and 'Magicedges'. I love the magic series....it always amazes me how a black texture can affect an image in the way it does.

The quote is from 'The God of Small Things' by Arundhati Roy (winner of the Booker Prize 1997). 

I love the description of the character Ammu...

'On days like this there was something restless and untamed about her.... she wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no-one. She spent hours on the riverbank with her little plastic transistor.....she smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims. She had a delicate chiselled face, black eyebrows angled like seagull's wings, a small straight nose and luminous nutbrown skin. Her shoulders in her sleeveless sari blouse shone as though they had been polished with a high-wax polish.'

I have the book on my Kindle but am only 15% through it. I'll let you know how I get on.
Have any of you read it?

I adore this time of year when every day there are new finds in the garden. I had a quick trip round with my camera this morning whilst the sun was shining. Angel wondered what on earth I was doing crouching on the ground getting that low-angled shot.
I treated myself to a Nikon camera a few weeks ago; there's so much to learn!! I'm still trying to get to grips with the aperture setting...... love those soft, blurry backgrounds :-)

Thank goodness for the warmer days and the beauty of Springtime; they lift my spirits when I'm feeling down. When we do meditation (in my yoga class) we sometimes have to imagine a favourite, soothing place......I always think of my garden.
Still searching for a diagnosis for my health problem .....I'm paying for a series of ultrasound scans later this week. 

Back tomorrow with Texture Tuesday and a recipe..... 

Texture Tuesday......Quiet

I bought this lovely pot of white muscari at my local garden centre this week for only £1.40....bargain!
I have a garden full of the blue version which, although we moan about it, I do actually like very much.
But this white version is very special, it seems to have a special serene quality.....and it smells lovely too, which is a bonus.
So above is my offering for Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday....I have cheated slightly and used the word 'silence' instead of  'quiet'  ;-)
I used a few of Kim's textures, but the main one was 'Phoebe'.

Muscari Aucheri 'White Magic'

Still plodding on with my needle cases.

These two are almost finished....

 And my fabric weaving now feels like a single piece of cloth.......ready for embellishment.

Off now to look at my Bloglovin' list. 

Have you discovered it yet? Its a great way of keeping up to date with your favourite blogs......and for finding  new ones.

Back soon....

Texture Tuesday.....Colour

Kim Klassen's theme this week is colour....not a problem for me ;-)
I like to take colour schemes from nature whenever I can and one of my favourite examples is pistachio nuts; I'm always amazed by the funky colours inside those shells.

Gorgeous, aren't they?
(My own photo above altered in PSE using Kim Klassen's texture 'Phoebe'.)


I love working with shades of purple and green......

My latest needlecase collage (still under construction)

I've been struggling with the usual health problems again for the past fortnight and have decided to see a nutritionist. He's incredibly knowledgeable about the workings of the digestive system, so I am feeling hopeful!
I have lost almost two stone over the past 18 months and am now down to 7st 10lbs, which I really don't want to be, and I'm starting to look scrawny :-(
When you get to my age you need a bit of flesh on your face!
I am excluding carbs from my diet, eating organic food,  keeping a food diary, cooking with coconut oil, using Ecover cleaning products.......if anyone has any other suggestions I would love to hear them!

Back soon with an update.....

Texture Tuesday....Pure Beauty

Here's my contribution for Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday ....photo altered in PSE using Kim's textures: 'wonderful magic_stars', 'february magic edges' and 'yesteryear'.
I buy flowers for the house every week and usually go for blues, purples or pinks (never yellow...except for in March when I have jugs of daffodils everywhere). For a change this week I decided to go for white roses and gypsophila .....they look so peaceful; I love them. One of my most popular and re-pinned pins on Pinterest is this photo I took of a flower shop in Harrogate......where they only sell white flowers. The inside of the shop was even more beautiful.

Hah...I've just noticed our reflections in the glass :-D

I'm very fussy about flowers (my husband would groan and say 'I'll vouch for that' if he was reading this ;-) I don't like chrysanthemums or carnations. (And you can imagine what I think of yellow chrysanthemums and carnations....)

Before I go....just a quick peep at my latest project.
I'm making needle cases and books; mixed media collage on hand-made felt.
The felt is only rough cut here and I still have lots of stitching to do......my favourite part :-)

And that's my job for tomorrow! (After I've taken Mum shopping.....)