Smelling the Roses

The last handful of posts have been rather full-tilt and heavy, so I figured we could all do with a nice drive to admire the scenery. One of the things I've been doing lately is examining my creative path and what I want/don't want to do. I very much miss both photography and working with textiles, so I've been doing a bit of both. Finally I'm back on Flickr! Catching up required there is epic....

Soft and serene and elegant...

Rich and warm and romantic... these are some inspiration boards I'm working on for a very special person. She's engaging me to come up with the visual story of her online world, and it's an honour to do so. It's been one of the things that's made me realise how much I miss certain creative things, and how I can go about getting them back in my life again. On the light side it means a possible return of cuffs to my shop, certainly more DIY kits - on the deeper side it means a complete transcendence of my creative purpose. More as it develops.

Walking down the street a few weeks ago, enjoying that wonderful conflict of storm clouds and long sunshine that comes with that time of the year, a small window between winter and spring. It's an exciting time in a romantic sense, I feel the sap rising and the tingle of adventure on the cutting wind.
 This house is in one of my favourite streets of this town, living where I am now means I get to shortcut through it on the way to the post office.

 This one was one of those 'lucky moments' - a quick snap of nice light as I passed by the lane on the way to the post office. I didn't even notice the bike until I got home. (click this pic, it needs to be seen big). This lane is between the school and my childhood home, so not only is this view familiar to me from a nostalgic point of view, but the afternoon sun and the peace and that one kid's bike makes this whole image such a powerful  symbol of the freedom of childhood. That golden time when the only worry I had was that dinner would be something I didn't much like.

Here's one I took yesterday- Dad and I went for a country drive to look in on a junk shop we haven't been to in about 20 years (didn't know it was still there!) Turns out it was, and I think most of the stuff there had been there all that time too. A little over-priced and picked-over, but I still managed to find a couple of things, as I do. This building was down the road- one of the oldest original buildings in the area. heart-breakingly it was all locked up and empty. Annoyingly all the curtains were drawn tight and I couldn't see in.

A little further down there was another tiny junk shop, sort of a one-woman thrift store. A great little shop with lots of wonderful things and the kind of place you're allowed to open drawers and rummage in. I scored some lovely old trims in here and she had the most amazing vintage fabric stash and a dresser crammed full of mid century aprons, but my wallet was looking thin so I turned a blind eye and made pleasant chit-chat about the contrary weather. Next time I will be more heavy of purse.

Lastly, here's some ruined old buttons from Fagin's Daughter, simply because I liked the photo. This was actually one of the images that made me realise how much I miss photography, as I spent more time thinking about the composition and light than I did about showing the buttons as they were! I keep forgetting to show you when I update the antique shop. Which is odd really, because it is easily my favourite place to be online and one I try to put daily effort into. Sometimes that 'effort' is just to sit and look at it.