Happenings

Well oh well, it is all very exciting over here as we prepare for the Art Trail. We have visited exhibitions...

Photographed and celebrated a joyous wedding...

 We had a visit from a lovely friend, celebrated Rich's birthday and in a delightful turn of events I will now be working at both number four gallery in St Abbs and Coldstream Gallery. Splendid! I have been thoroughly enjoying the galleries and will be bringing you a selection of my favourite pieces at the moment, I warn you, it may be a long list!

Number 6 Photography

Rich and I have been doing some wedding, event and lifestyle photography over the last few years and have set up a facebook page to share our work.  We are Number 6 Photography!

Day 47 - 50 Frocks, Flowers and Birthday Feasts

Day 47 - As R was out in the morning I frolicked about in weddingy frocks and took lots of photographs.  This is all I am showing you though!  It isn't as mad or bride-y as it sounds.  Well maybe a bit, you see I made a few wedding related purchases on the bay of 'e' and some of the bits I wanted came in sets with things I didn't need so I will be listing them for sale soon.  The shoes aren't for sale; these were bought to go with a white flapper dress for a friend's 30th birthday a few years ago!  Said friend has just had a beautiful little girl - many congratulations to la boulangere family!

Day 48 - As I am typing this post the tail end of Hurricaine Katia is whipping around us and day 48 was a windy one too.  Our sweet pea pyramid and tomatoes were sadly flattened but we managed to rescue this lot.  The sweet peas gave us a deliciously scented living room and have only just wilted away.

Day 49 - Bangles and pendants in progress, ready to tumble and shine!  I love the sea foam bubbles on  the white glass pendant and have been making earrings and rings featuring this shape.

Day 50 - Lovely Mrs J's birthday!  R made a fine meal and I was in charge of the sweet course which was meringue, cream and lots of strawberries.  Yum!  It's starting to feel more like crumble and custard weather but while there are still strawberries it seemed right to enjoy!  I downloaded a trial of Lightroom 3 for a photo editing play and this photograph is a simple crop and use of a preset just to see how it works.  Huge potential with the software and I may invest but will have to have a bit more exploration.

Day 25 An Evening Stroll

Popular Crafts

pages from Popular Crafts Magazine

Thanks to a twitter chat with editor Kerry Wilkonson, of Penny Dog Jewellery, my RedBubble site has been included in Popular Crafts' Painting, Printing and Stamping edition. The article looks at various ways to sell prints and products featuring your art work.

It's an interesting area and something I might pursue more in the future. Red Bubble is centrally focused on prints and greetings cards of your work, however, if you are interested in printing a greater range of items you should check out The Useful Art Company who "are happy to talk to artists about publishing your work" and offer a huge range of printed products from cards to mugs and canvas bags.

Sunset

Some pictures from an early evening stroll a few weeks ago which have been sitting in my pictures folder taunting me, demanding to be edited, tweaked or even just put into a more specific folder. Instead of all those options my response is simply to share them here with you just as they were captured, I hope you can feel the increasingly crisp air and the joy of a quick dander up the road to get a bit of fresh air after a good day's work.

Happy Weekend to you all.

Autumn Leaf

Taken last year in Dawyck. Fiddled with today after a leaf crunching walk down by the river made me think of this folder of beautiful yet still unexplored photos I took when we were up here house hunting during half term.

More soon.

lauracameron.co.uk

Let me introduce you to lauracameron.co.uk my very own little slice of cyberspace! Now I have a little place to call my own and collect together my jewellery, painting and photography all in one place. Today is the day I decided to make the site public, however, as a fluid site to be regularly updated with new work you will see some sections are fuller than others!

I'm very excited about the site and have a further list of developments for it including a newsletter sign up section which I'm working on and, of course, new jewellery, paintings and photographs!

Hope you like it and, please, if you do spot any whopping errors, do let me know, I can take it!

For now I'm going to enjoy a bit of web free time and have a go with the new drill chuck R's Dad made for me to hold teeny tiny drill bits, clever man!

Northern Ireland 2010 Calendar

Now available on Redbubble, twelve of my ttv images of Northern Ireland all together in a wall calendar. Hooray! Click on the image to see the full calendar.

House Hunting

Last week we were both on holiday from our teaching jobs so pootled up the M6 to stay with R's parents and do a bit of house hunting. We saw some interesting properties and even though we aren't ready to make an offer through the Scottish system as we haven't sold up here yet it was a very worthwhile trip.

We got back to the Midlands on Monday, I sold two bracelets through Folksy, R had a tax rebate and a lady come to view our house today all of which made for a very positive welcome back! Yesterday and much of today though, I've been in a bit of an anxious tiz with not least because even though it was me who reported the whopping error by the county council overpaying me for my last teaching job I got a rather unpleasant letter hinting at "further action" if I didn't repay the money! It was the first response I'd had from them telling me where to send the cheque. Grr! And trying to sort out my tax self assessment and discovering that the same county council has attached me to three payroll numbers over the year for teaching and yet only provided a p60 for one, hmph. Trying to sort payslips I discovered that they had put THREE different addresses on various payslips making me wonder where on earth the personal details on the other p60s they owe me have ended up.

So this evening, after a day of dental wah (the fourth and final appointment for this treatment) and a busy jewellery teaching session I've had a pleasant evening making and eating nice food and flicking through photos from last week. One of the most fabulous days was spent at Dawyck Botanical Gardens - I cannot recommend a visit highly enough, I'm looking forward to going back again to see what the changing seasons bring, I read tales of blue poppies. . .

Autumn though was breath takingly beautiful at the gardens, plenty of photos to come but, you can tell by the dazed look on our faces (I know I look dim) that the fabulous red acers were quite something to behold!

Beautiful place, have already bookmarked for a possible visit for when the parentals get the wagon out on the road next season!

Florence Friday

Florence Friday

Detail from the intricate wood carving on one of the huge doors into the vast Franciscan Church, Santa Croce.

Rich Johnson

I've been showing Mr Richard Johnson's new website off over on Folksy, I think it is beautifully done. Rich's photographic interests are clear to see with gorgeous images of cathedral interiors, moody woodland and striking macro flowers and seeds with texture and light abounding in his still life and landscape paintings. Finally his drawing is being shown to a wider audience than English Department meetings at school and I hope you enjoy having a look round as much as we enjoyed watching the minutes becoming ever more elaborately embellished!

Gorgeous work Mr Johnson!

Vespa

Vespa Richard Johnson

I love this photograph! And no it's not Friday already as, whilst a very common sight in Florence, this little beauty was in amongst a whole host of stuff at the Chain Bridge Honey Farm! We're sitting at home twiddling our thumbs waiting for somebody to come value the house, not enough time to start anything new, everything is tidy and I can't think of what to do! Have finally packaged up the print for Amanda over at Kitschy Coo! Have handed over the resources for the Calligraphy session I've planned for Erasmus Darwin House, bought all the beads and tools for the first day of my jewellery making course and, once the valuation is done, I'll be completing the lesson plans and paperwork for the course. I'll let you know how day one goes tomorrow . . .

Florence Friday

A much happier Laura greets you this Friday: I've handed in my notice on my temporary teaching contract so I'll be finished by half term, the Folksy folk are sending me loads of donations for the new Cancer Research UK Shop, we're nearly finished tarting up the house for valuation on Monday and we've had an offer conditionally accepted on a house many miles away near the sea! We don't think we'll get the house as we still have to sell up here but it's very exciting and we still have 14 more we like!

So, hopefully we'll be away soon and I'll have to think about my next job, once again perhaps I should turn to Florence for inspiration. . .

Florence Friday

Some weeks just leave you feeling like this . . .


from the Boboli Gardens and as, yet, I still don't know what's going on! If you know please enlighten me!

Florence Friday - Ceilings

The Last Judgement
Vasari and Zucarro
il Duomo

The Last Judgement - detail
Vasari and Zucarro
il Duomo

Santa Croce

Holidays

I'm officially back to work after a lovely few weeks on holiday in . . .

Northumberland


Edinburgh


The Lake District

. . . and a visit back home to Northern Ireland. It's been splendid thank you everyone!

Florence Friday

One from the archive this morning as I'm still in Northern Ireland without my own laptop. This little diptych shows two images taken by jumping up with my camera held aloft through sheer nosiness as I really wanted to see what was causing this lovely glow to emanate from behind the rails. A chandelier shop of course!

Home

I've been back home in Northern Ireland for just over a week and am having a splendid time catching up with my lovely family and friends, including the two beasts pictured above who are probably faring better than me after a weekend ploughing through the waves up at Benone. My right shoulder is aching after throwing Shadow's beloved ball, just check out his focus! I do feel hugely fortunate to have a family I adore and I don't just mean the dogs!

As I'll be going back to school in September I am having quite a few holidays this summer and have a happy amount of photographs building up! Next week I'll be back to work making up new designs, re-stocking my Folksy shops and investigating my new photographs.