Transformations!

Helllooooo! I seem to have palmed you lovely readers off with my manky dead flower photos and wotnot and not actually written anything for aaaaaages...... life's been full-on lately...

I've just read Patti Smith's Just Kids - as it came out last year it'll have been blogged to death elsewhere, but it was Totally Fantastic And Absorbing. I spent a happy week staying up til the small hours reading huge chunks, playing her tunes, and looking up dead French poets, and so forth, and wishing I could have at least two lives: one now, and one in late 60s and early 70s New York. Oddly enough, Patti discovered Rimbaud by reading about Modigliani. The week before reading Patti's book, guess which artist I'd been researching... To "come down" from the book, I played PJ Harvey and The Doors. Am now reading Kristin Hersh's Rat Girl.... loving that too.

And then The Brits happened. Luckily it was on pancake day, so I was able to spend much of the show in the kitchen, far, far from the likes of weedy li'l Ed Sheeran and Brit-pap. BUT BLUR WERE ON, so the 12 year old was giving me shouts when it was safe to be in the same room as the tv. And they were FABULOUS (albeit the timing meant the Adele-cut-short-and-middle-finger-episode, but she was FABULOUS TOO).... so most of their back catalogue was on the cd player for the next day or so.... Phwoar - Damon is looking Quite Fit these days. And afterwards I watched No Distance Left To Run, which is brilliant. Graham is extremely chameleon-like, isn't he...

I have also had the bathroom redone..... my version being upgrading the shower from a one-minute-freezing-next-minute-lobsterising dribble to va va voom that could easily jetwash a large horse, should I care to try to wedge one into the bath... plus new washbasin (aka potential horse trough) and new loo. And posh taps! The original woebegone shebang was inherited with the house 11 years ago - wish I had "before" photos from that long ago, but if I describe it as being decorated by Jayne Mansfield on acid you'll get the picture. Apricot decor and frills - those went Very Quickly Indeed, but the chipped and eventually-no-longer-working fittings lingered on...

teeny preview of the new non-Jayne taps

The only hitch is that the plasterboard lining the exterior wall* came away bigtime with the old washbasin -  obviously Sensible People would have known that could happen and would have stripped out the room, had the walls redone and then put the basin in. Oh no, not me. I'm looking at a lot of filler, and possibly a crazy mosaic affair to disguise it... There's also a Worrying Hole through to the outside, where the plumber ripped out a pipe - am going to rummage through what he chucked in the bin bag to find it and wedge it back in, otherwise I think there'll be wasps wanting to get themselves between the outside wall and the plasterboard. *Boring construction details now over with;)

Transformation part two is that I am machine-dying a naff pale mint green dress and a bright pink shirt this morning. Am using a Dylon Wash And Dye sachet in Denim Blue - sooooo easy and clean to use; a far cry from the last time I machine-dyed when it was shake the packet, which went everywhere, and add salt. This sachet is all ready-to-go - perfect for a lazybones like me. The colour looked ok when the dye cycle had been done; just waiting now for the wash-and-rinse stage to be done. Then it'll be off to the flea market in search of some more cracker rings. I need a purple one I think...

Happy Halloween!

I've started decorating already!

Necklace restrung from Poundland decoration

Lurex jumper - charity shop

Chandelier On A Shoestring

This is the chandelier I made for the dining room last year. It's a charity shop lampshade, Poundland necklaces and plastic shot glasses from Sainsburys...

Version 1...

It just needed a bit MORE - it didn't go with the height of the ceiling.
It needed to look more randomly embellished. It needed more colours.

And, bang on cue, today Poundland had restocked their racks
with some suitable strings of sparkle:
£4 well-spent, plus an old pair of blue plastic-sapphire earrings from the 80s,
and teal beads from an old Tesco's bracelet. Voila, Version 2:

... Just need a prettier lightbulb now. Do they make sparkly ones?

From New Earrings To Bobbie Gentry

Guilty of yet another detour in the supermarket, I've ended up with more earrings. Dangly and not ones to wear if you were trying to wedge a phone between your ear and a hunched shoulder, their silver wire fiddly configuration reminds me of these:





                 

      

Forgetting their name, googling "bendy wire beaded Indian toy" got "DIY budgie playground" and "why cats might like chewing wire". I may need to know those things one day....

These mandala patterns........ 

                                                        

            

.......remind me of a Sonia Delaunay painting that stopped me in my tracks at the Tate when I was 17:

And so far this evening we have been playing Deacon Blue. And, blow me down. There's that Bobbie Gentry cover...

A Random Supermarket Haul

Today I was all a little weary-of-life and abstractly bereft, and also with vague intentions of making a lasagne tonight. So, into the supermarket. For an idle browse/buy session, rather than full-on trolley dash. I love multi-purpose shops - you can go in, pretending you're going to get some cheese, and come out with a fistful of new jewellery and a couple of bags of cushions. Failing that, there's always the Aisle of Interesting Things to peruse, should you fancy a stripey picnic rug, some uber-bright garden candles, or even some snazzy packaging on the boxes of tissues. Visuals, dahling, visuals. Sometimes I rein myself in, and time-and-money-manage myself quite well, with a list. Other times, well, only a random splurge will do.

So, today, me and the empty trolley are loitering around the bargaintastic-plastic-jewellery display. Except there's some daft moo intent on restocking the display. Rather than appear rude, I go off for a bit to see if there's any point considering the black jeans. Only for wearing under dresses, in which case own-brand may be acceptable. Then the school ring, something about forms and the educational psychologist visit next week. Multi-task instinct kicking-in as soon as a phone hits my ear, I find 2 pairs, £8 each. Roaming back to the silly moo still cluttering up my view of the bargaintastic-plastic, I quickly extract a dinky little necklace, multi-coloured and totally tootie frootie in texture. Conscious of the deirdre barlow effect setting in between my chin and my collarbone, I am getting up minutes earlier these days in order to ensure that I wear some sort of necklace arrangement to the World of Work.

And, rolling the trolley s-l-o-w-l-y past the candles, and past the cushions, I hesitate fatally at the kitchen gadgetty bit. NO!!!!! to new things for the kitchen, wait until after the refit... but its 3-for-2, and the 11 year old must be encouraged in his newly-developing foodie interest.... some big fat tongs, brushed aluminium, excellent to have hanging up, even better for heaving slices of cake off plates, a zester just-because-I've-never-had-one and I saw some zest-requiring-recipe the other day, and a y-shaped peeler. Because I want to see if the peel is alphabetty-shaped.

Right then, lasagne. Cheese. Milk? No, enough at home, don't need it, fingers crossed. Extra penne, because I have decided to make my trolley haul look sophisticated, plus lasagne sheets. And oh dear. Then I find all these nice, shiny little rectangular silver tins of spices... and coriander in a jar.... surely having some of these will make me want to cook more? And think how lovely a few of these will look on the shelf...  I get 2, not wanting to be too rash.

And some UK-grown pink-and-white-striped tulips. And, as it turns out, the own-brand jeans don't make my bum look big in this. Although the 11 year-old turned his nose up at the idea of me serving up homemade lasagne...

Trashsparkle's Tuneful Times

Having a good vibeful few days....

• Bought necklaces in Dorothy Perkins to Gorillaz' On Melancholy Hill
• Saw Blur's 1999 gig on Sky Arts
• Caught a load of stuff about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - I had so underrated them! The drummer Stan Lynch was so cute I ended up watching most of the Bogdanovich documentary...
• And toast'n'tea'n'sunshine this morning to Lynsey de Paul; the boys do not approve of this cheesiness, so that could be weaponry for me for when they have been BAD :)
• Meanwhile we are now playing the Beatles, and the 11 year old is exploring the Paul McCartney-replaced-by-lookalike-conspiracy stories from the sixties...