good manners and intentional dumbing down

Two things to mention today, please bare with me, you may consider this a rant...

On Wednesday I went to a charity shop.  It was a charity shop I have never been to before in a not particularly nice part of town, it smelled bad and the people in there were weird but I did find a useful vase and a tea cup that I am going to decorate, anyway, as I was leaving, two men were approaching the door from the outside as I was approaching the door from the inside.  I opened the door and I suppose I expected the men to let me go out first before they came in (as in the style of people leaving the tube), but instead they came straight in which I held the door for them with not so much as a second glance from them let alone a thank you, I was most irked and felt like saying "no really, you go first" in a sarcastic tone (I refrained due to the aforementioned non-niceness of that part of town).  What has the world come to? I firmly believe that good manners are a sign of civilisation so I can only deduce from my distressing Wednesday experience that we are becoming less civilised.

And another thing.  Why is it that in a class of 30, children choose to reduce their intelligence level to that of the lowest common denominator?  In my world it make sense to look up to the intelligent kids and to wish you were like them, to envy them, but in the real world all the children in the class dumb themselves down to the level of the one or two idiots in the class.  Really, I ask you, what is the world coming to?

New Art Etsy Shop

I am so excited to share with my my new Etsy shop that I have set up exclusively for selling my art!  Eeeeeep!

Here it is:

Serendipitychildart

I only have one item in the shop at the moment, but I couldn't wait to get it open and started.  This is the beginning of something.... I hope! * laughs nervously*

Here is my first item:

Please, please let me know what you think, I value your thoughts so much.

Camomile tea

Mmmmmmm

What tea do you like?

Spring time wreath

Hello everyone, happy weekend!
I hope you are all cheery and chirpy, I have a bit of a headache but apart from that am glad to have two days to relax from the craziness of being a secondary school art teacher.  I have been working on this springtime wreath that I have just listed on my Etsy Shop, I am really pleased with it, I love the colours, I will be sad if I sell it!  Is that stupid?
I am going to do a tutorial for how to make one of these next week:

Searching for a new look

A new year and a new look.  I feel like that is what I need.  I have had the same hair style for about the last three years with it gradually getting longer and longer until I have had enough, cut it badly myself than run crying to the hairdressers to get them to sort it out.  I have extreme hairdressers phobia which means I rarely visit, something about the shininess of the place, all those tanned women with perfect hair and nails, not to mention the make up, and there I come looking like a complete tramp with no make up, stubby nails and bad hair...Not a a great way to make myself feel good.  But I am going to have to face my demons and get my bonce sorted once and for all. Here are a few ideas I have been thinking of, I want a fringe, but don't know if I am brave enough:

However, I don't have wavy hair, it is dead straight, so I am worried I will look more like this:

Or worse, like this:

Can you imagine?

First tries at knitting

Hey folks,

A few years ago a lovely lady I met through selfsufficientish taught me how to knit.  I learnt a basic stitch and then didn't knit again for about a year! This weekend I decided to pick up my knitting sticks and have another go.


Here is my first attempt at knitting:

I think you will agree it is an epic fail! For some reason it got wider and wider as I went along!

However I did teach myself to cast off which was something.

So I read through my Usborne knitting book (yes I do need a book designed for children to teach me how to knit!) and taught myself to cast on, and made this, my second attempt at knitting:

Its a little bag!!  And look what it holds...

...tea bags!!  I don't drink normal tea so though I would make myself something to hold my tasty tea bags in so I can have a cup of tea when I go to friend's houses. Yippee!

New items in Etsy shop

Yippeee for my first day working from home on a Wednesday!! I am so happy to be working from home today, and I have got quite a lot done so far including getting some paintings scanned and saved onto a memory stick ready to be make into prints, digging at the allotment, photographing new items for my shop and listing new items for my shop.  I have gone a bit mad I think and listed LOADS of things, here they are:

"Home" vintage style appliqué bunting:

Fabulous vintage Hornsea vase:

More of the ever popular vintage music sheet bunting:

New Scalloped vintage music sheet bunting:

Plaid and yarn wreath

My beloved solar viewer:

I am so sad to be selling my old slide viewer, but it needs to go to make room for new pretty things, I think someone else somewhere can give it a better home.

I am working on opening a new Etsy shop for my artwork and starting up a new website exclusively for my artwork.  One day off from work is not enough!!