Eden In The Summer

Knowing the wet weather was due to hit us this bank holiday weekend, we decided to visit Eden last Thursday. It was a perfect day for it - warm but not too sunny as the biomes get so very HOT! (Prepare yourself for a picure heavy post!)

It's a very beautiful place with some very important messages about caring for our planet.
Everything there is an adventure for the children and there is something around every
corner to explore.

This was a common site of my family throughout the day. Off my loved ones would trot leaving me lagging behind with my camera snapping shots of luscious plants! Little Mannie walked ran his socks off!

There were lots of things to exlore, paths to follow, objects to climb...

 tunnels to weave through, plants to touch and smell...

(sensitive fern - the leaves fold in when touched which delighted both the children)

And I drank in the colours, textures, contasts and hues - super inspiration.

I love the frilly skirts on these helenium...

... the delicateness of this pink gypsophila

...and the hairy petals on these flowers (are they a type of rudbeckia?).

Two colours I rarely put together are pink and orange, but look how well nature does it here in this echinacea flower.

 

 

There were many stunning flowers in the tropical biome.

 

It was packed with people. We had to park a mile from the visitor centre and the buses were so busy we walked in with a bit of piggy backing for Little Mannie! Somehow I managed to take a few shots of some empty areas!

 

 

 

 

Well, almost!

 

 

I literally took hundreds of pictures so I'm trying to be a bit selective! (Not to mention that I'm having to upload each picture to picasa first because blogger is being a nuisance!)

 

 

This driftwood sculpture is life size and just stunning.

 

Well, that's enough for today! Well done for keeping with me!

Next time I have an update for you on the Japanese Flower Cowl - oh so close to being finished!

Hope you have a great bank holiday weekend and that you see a little sunshine.

I will announce the winner of my giveaway on Tuesday 28th August. Still time to enter if you haven't already!

Becky x



Baby Shoes and A Felting Tutorial.

Hope you're having as nice a week as I am. There has been a lot of relaxing and catching up with my favourite magazines. Molly Makes arrived just at the right time. I sat down to read it Monday morning with some homemade scotch pancakes and look who was eyeing up my treats!

I didn't even realise Little Mannie was in the room until the hand shot out as I was taking the photo! I did let him eat it and made several more for the family before I got to sit and enjoy mine with the mag'!

My husband made a lovely fuss over me for Valentine's Day, he's a true romantic. We went to some stunning gardens and ate at a seafood restaurant at St.Ives in the evening. Bliss!

There hasn't been a lot of felting or crocheting going on, but that's OK. The weather has been too kind to sit indoors. However, I did promise to show you the baby shoes that are now finished.

Adding crochet to felt is in several projects in my new Japanese felting book. It inspired my crochet and felt jar jacket and now it has inspired these little shoes.

They are just so cute now they are finished. They make me want to add a pair of little feet to the family just to fill them!

You may have noticed that I have added a link to felting tutorials in my sidebar. Some of the lovely comments I have received have said that many of you would like to try felting and I thought I would share some of the things that I have learnt so far and tempt you all to give it a try! I have started with a simple piece of flat felting.

This is the piece I made for the tutorial. It's ever so easy to make. This technique could be used to make a picture, a book cover or could be cut up and sewn. If you make something and blog about it or post pictures on flickr, please let me know, I would love to see how you use my tutorial.

Nearly the weekend! Hope you have a good one!
Becky x

Trebah Gardens

We had a lovely Valentine walk on Sunday at the gardens. It was strangely quiet, the weather much more pleasant than forecast and I found many more signs of Spring. Just look...

drifts of cyclamen...

 daffodils just opening their nodding heads...

and even a few camellias ...

...so, you see, Spring really is on the way.

This was a beautiful sweet smelling plant, sarcocca confusa I think.

This one looks like a rhododendron to me but they said it was a camellia. What do you think?
Here are some more pics of the garden...

These are still quite wintry scenes but we'll pop back later in the year and take some photos of the garden in all it's glory! x