Little Abbey Farm

In my roll as a Norfolk Community Artist I was

called by Ben to come and visit

Little Abbey Farm at Pentney.

Ben and Dianne run a small mixed farm with

Bed and Breakfast.

Like a lot of different businesses they are looking to

extol their assets and best features.

Little Abbey Farm is a working Farm with a great

extended garden room, the light is wonderful.

I had a visit around the farm and it's inspiration.

The farm has great animals who are used to human contact.

Spike above was so lovely he let me stroke and rub his head,

and take his picture. He is an artist dream as he wasn't bothered at

all. I could have set up my easel and he wouldn't have

batted an eye!

The pigs were adorable with a little piglet squeaking around,

not bothered by us at all.

There was so much to inspire an artist with old milk churns

and farm machinery, horse drawn ploughs to an old

but huge combine harvester.

I would recommend it definitely for

Bed and Breakfasts, they have the Breakfast Award

and a Silver Award too!

Also a venue for future events like

Retreats for small groups to enjoy the

rural location and the first rate food.

I am looking into helping run a Quilting Retreat and

an Arts Weekend.

Visit their website

www.littleabbeyfarm.co.uk

Heart Felt Crafts and Gifts

I next went on to Heart Felt Craft and Gifts in

Bennet House Dereham.

This is a wonderful shop and has a wonderful

website too!

I needed a gift that I hadn't made! and a funny card!

The shop is inspirational and always looks so beautiful.

Found the perfect card and had a chat with Heather,

to catch up on Norfolk craft events and news.

Visit her site

www.heartfeltcraft.com

Bead This Craft That

After being inspired I went to

Bead This Craft that in Dereham and had a good

look round for and brought a flower punch,

some cosmic shimmer paints, (these are just beautiful and also

work on fabric!) and some trinkets for projects that I am working on

for future workshops in the Autumn.

It is always a shop to be inspired by and in

and if they haven't got it, they will try and order it in

for you!

Visit Bead This and Craft That at

www.beadthiscraftthat.co.uk

Gilding

On Wednesday Kim showed carol and myself how to gild

cards with Gilding Flakes.

I watched and was thinking, well! embossing and

stamping bling normally works why spend the extra

on size and flakes.

How wrong I was,

When you follow the technique through and buff

the gilded area up, ooo, what a shine.

I can see me using this on many different medias.

Above is my practice piece ready to make cards later.

To see more of my card making click on the labels below

or visit the paper techniques on my website

www.art2inspire.co.uk

Mixed Media Autumn bark

This is my Mixed media Autumn Bark piece

which jeanette was following as inspiration.

It is made with a muslin base and the same method

I showed Jeanette.

Jeanette's pice will get more soft and 'Bark' like,

as she works on it. You will be able to see it as it progresses.

Thats if Jeanette lets me after me stretching her comfort zone!!!

See more of my mixed media work

on my website pages.

www.art2inspire.co.uk

Mixed Media Autumn Backgrounds

Jeanette is making a mixed media leaf wall hanging and

needed the background for her wonderful

embroidered leaves.

She really doesn't enjoy painting because like some

of us she was put off art by an art teacher who didn't like her

and told her she couldn't do it. That teacher was wrong!!!

Jeanette produces fantastic mixed media pieces,

one of which being 'Bolliwood Turrets'.

She was really out of her comfort zone when

I lay out a piece of plastic,

put a piece of calico on it and arranged, paints, PVA, cotton wool,

swabs, rubber gloves and an apron on the table.

After we all had a little laugh at her impression of a

mad surgeon she got to work through

'gritted teeth'!

It went outside the Gallery to dry with bricks and a flower pot

to hold it down, much to the interest of customers.

Forty minutes later Jeanette was at the machine

with wools and a machine that didn't want to play!

(they always know when you are trying something new!)

With perseverance the wools were zig zagged on to

form the bark layers.

As you can see above with the leaves on top with

the background showing through it is going to

look quite something.

To see Jeanette's 'Bolliwood' click the label below.

Scissor Case

Barbara has made a needlecase using up all her scraps of

'Confetti", as I call it. The ends of the material you cut off material

while you are making projects. It looks great.

Her scissor case above is nearly finished just the

wool trim and beading to go all round.

See more scissor cases and how they are made by

clicking on the labels below this post.