Brushin' it up

I promised yesterday that I'd show you a wee trick to finish a bad paint job, didn't I?

Our wallpaper is ridiculously ugly. There's some sort of 80ies geometrical pattern going on, and if that's not bad enough, it has raised ridges as well. I'm sure there's a scientific name for this particular kind of visual atrocity, but I dare not google it for fear that my poor, strained eyes just might pop out. Argh.

When we recently painted over that haunting, depressing, utterly disgraceful magnolia every rented abode seems to sport we might have run out of steam a little bit, I must admit. Due to the... ridgy nature of the wallpaper, the first (and only) coat of paint left quite a few patches that looked like this:

Not all that bad from a distance, but once you go near a wall (darn shame the room is small- in a stately mansion you'd probably get away with it without ever coming close to a spotty wall!) it's like our poor house had a bad case of smallpox. Now, my Mum is nothing if not hands- on and she decided this state of affairs needed to change. (did I mention that my embarrassing fear of standing on a ladder prevented me from properly doing the edging under the ceiling as well? Enter motherly love and utter fearlessness)

Yup, that's her. And yeah, that's a plastic bag protecting her hair- do, isn't this what everybody does when painting? I thought so. (by the way, that tattoo on her forearm? One day over a decade ago we just went and got tattooed together, hers is a tribal and the one I got then is a wee Yin Yang... sounds tacky but it represented who we were back then.)

Anyway, I got distracted. Mum was pretty annoyed with the smallpox on the walls, but even attacking them with a proper brush did not really work. Dang ridges.
So she went and got this:

And what can I say, a brush a day keeps the pox away. It worked a treat! I am probably carrying owls to Athens here, but just on the off chance that there is somebody out there who, like me, does not possess this spark of genius, there you go. Motherly wisdom to fix your bad paint job.

Just do yourself a favour and bin the brush afterwards. No, really, do it. It is NOT fit to clean your dirty fixtures anymore. Don't ask how I know, just trust me on this.

Mamas' girl out, love y'all.

I'm branching out!

My Mum is over for her annual visit (finally!!) and we do loads and loads of walkies. Shame I have no dog, really, it'd be one tired pup :)
Yesterday, we went to check out he local park and found it rather lame. Don't get me wrong, lots of green,. but we both found the lack of trees disturbing.
So when we noticed that the little park borders a cemetery, we jumped at the opportunity to walk along rows of old headstones, look at knotty old trees and soak up some history. The only bugbear was that none of us had brought our half- decent cameras, but there's always a catch, eh?

Anyway, we snapped away and I got a few half- decent ones. Played about with picmonkey- these are my favourites.

Best find of the day, however, was a branch. 

Wot?

You heard, a branch. 

Picked it up, lugged it home and decided to stick it up a very bland, neglected, ugly wall in our staircase. Bit of hot glue and a bird later:

Me likey. And even the Mister didn't object, which is rare when it comes to trees and stuff that falls off them, grows on them, lives in them or remotely has to do with them. I'll cross- stitch a slogan for him: I HAVE GIVEN UP. Yeah, that's it! And maybe, as a reminder to always put the toilet seat back down (sigh...) the little note "May your butt never suffer the cold" and hang it above the loo. Whatcha think?

Tree hugger out, catch y'all later!

Happy Mothers Day (UK)!

Guys,

this is a post that's not about the crafty endeavours of yours truly. In fact, it has no crafts, success or fail, in it whatsoever.
It is about my Mom, and I would like you to get to know her through the awesome pictures she takes.
I know that most bloggers and blog readers appreciate beautiful pictures. I also know that many pictures we get to admire on our favourite blogs go through some kind of post- processing, often wonderfully done. Most of the pictures on my blog are at least cropped, and more often than not they go through some sort of enhancement, even though they are still amateurish in most cases.

My Mum, as far as I know, has no photo- enhancing software at her disposal, and I truthfully doubt she even knows how to crop a picture. But she seems to have "the magic eye". She sees things, and it is like the camera turns into an extension of her eyes. *blink*, and the magic is done.For me trying to photograph, it's more like *blink* and the magic is gone!

I would like to show you some of her pictures that make me want to laugh, cry, embrace the world and believe that there might be some good left in the world. They can all be found on her Flickr, if you want, I'll share the link.

Now... meet the incredible woman I am proud to call my Mum and see the world through her eyes.

Years and years and years ago I requested that she should please only send greeting cards from her holidays that feature some sort of critter. You know, not your boring old "sooo cute highstreet" shot, wish you were here and whatnot. She has not let me down ONCE after that. In fact, there was one occasion where she did not send a card at all because she could not find one with any kind of critter on it.
She sends me parcels with home made chocolate pralines and my favourite ketchup and crisps (I can't get that stuff in England, so she spends stupid amounts of money on postage to make sure her offspring has something to spice up her sandwich with) and (true darn story!) has kept a piece of puff pastry in the shape of a frog that adorned a meal The Man made her on one of her visits in Leeds.
When I was a kid and on holiday with my grandparents, she would send me letters with the pawprints of her pets stamped in lipstick (how she got the cat to do it I still do not know) and one year I received a full carriage horse- headcollar as a christmas gift. We passed her off as my sister to my first boyfriend and  laughed for years afterwards. She got bowel cancer, survived and still contemplates tattooing a zipper over the scar. Heck, she had herself tattooed at the same time as me more than ten years ago! She paints on silk and buys the students of the university she works at little gifts- because she can. She never wears the socks I get her because they are kept for special occasions...?! Her kitchen counter is packed with stuffed animals, all of them little gifts from me and Her Man, and she still lights candles for my Rainbow Cat Penny.

Her name is Marion, she's my Mum and when I grow up, I want to be just like her.