Monday Moodboard

This morning I have been making up bunches of lavender that I picked from the local field where I had my exhibition described in yesterday's post. The scent is wonderful. I picked purple, mauve, pink and white lavenders. The above photo was taken at Castle Farm Lavender a few weeks ago

So the theme of my Monday Moodboard for the European Street Team on etsy is lavender. I have found these lovely things from some of the team members. They would have fitted in so well at our event.

White Fabric Photoframe with lilac Lace - Shabby Chic by MamiMadeIt from Vienna

Art Necklace Lavender and Tree silvertone round glass locket with silvercoloured chain and 2 miniature original oilpaintings by NancyvdBoom from Holland

Silk Jewelry Pouch...Heirloom Hand Embroidery by Lamercerie from France

Pink Amethyst earrings wire wrapped in oxidized sterling silver - Alina by Arctida from Sweden

My best selling card here in my etsy shop

Carshalton Lavender Open Weekend

I arrived at 8pm to set up the gazebo. Here is my pitch next to the lavender garden at Carshalton Lavender

South London was once the lavender growing capital of the world. Both Yardley and Potter and Moore made their products with lavender from the region. When the land was needed for housing in the 1930s lavender growing moved to Norfolk. This little patch of land tucked away within suburbia now has lavender growing on it once again and opens to the public for pick your own during the last weekend in July. The bees and butterflies love it.

Here it is all set up. I had paintings, prints, cards, silk scarves and jewellery for sale.The weather was beautiful, I met lots of new people as well as friends and old friends I hadn't seen for some time. Sales were good and I sold the painting shown in the previous post.I bought a few things too including a necklace, lavender cookies and shortbread.

On the second day I managed to do some painting as well.

People arrived to pick bunches of lavender, browse the stands and pick up plenty to eat. There were home made cakes and cookies and breads and a barbeque. Local honey and lavender were some of the ingredients. Local beekeepers had a double stand. The photo below shows the edge of the lavender field.

Today's Creative Space

I have been getting ready for the Lavender Exhibition at Carshalton Lavender this week end.

Framing work in progress today.

I finished and framed this painting.

Lavender Paintings for Leisure Painter Magazine

Yesterday I received a big envelope through the post, it contained the long awaited Leisure Painter magazine for August. I was excited to open it as many months ago I wrote an article with a step by step demonstration about painting lavender fields and now was the first chance to see it in print! Articles have to be ready at least 4 months ahead of publication and it's great to see how they have presented the article from the documents I produced. They like to have some 'tips' each one highlighted in a little box.

Back copies are available to buy here

My painting above was featured in the article.
'Pick Your Own Lavender' watercolour 11x14in 28z35.5cm
This was at the annual open days at Carshalton Lavender The next ones are on 24-25th July I will have a stand there selling paintings cards etc. I will blog about this soon so watch this space.
Carol posed for me and both her and her grandaughter Lauren borrowed the lavender hats that myself and the friend helping on the stand were wearing We had trouble getting them back off them because on that day the BBC were filming there for Gardeners World and Lauren was chosen for filming!

The painting below is of Mayfield Lavender, another local lavender field, this is the painting that I used for the step by step demonstration .



below 'Lauren Picking Lavender' I didn't include this one in the article.


Both the original paintings of the lavender fields have sold. Prints and cards of them are available to buy as well as the original of Lauren.
There is another painting shown below of the open days available as cards or a print in my etsy shop.

Onion and Cheese Bread

I made a basic white bread dough using 1 lb white flour with water, yeast, sugar and salt.

This was kneaded and left for about one hour to double in size. I chopped one small onion, fried it in olive oil then left it to cool. I added this to the dough with 2 sprigs of freshly chopped sage and 1oz grated cheese. I shaped the dough into 1 loaf and 3 rolls on baking trays and left them in a warm place for half an hour to rise further. I sprinkled some grated cheese on the tops and baked on gas 6 . I ate the rolls while still hot and crusty and they were delicious.