Self-Confidence is contagious

My collaboration with Edith Abeyta has been receiving some press recently, here's what the District Weekly has to say about The Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe:

Start with the candy, because it’s so, so sweet: Edith Abeyta’s multimedia installation Mythical Beast Sweet Shoppe, where your unofficial host is a frilly pink unicorn—represented on pink tote bags and pink purses—and sometimes looks like one of those Tijuana zebra-burros without the stripes. (But happy, without the whole painted slave-creature thing nagging at you.)

Abeyta stocks her shop with unicorn note paper and wrapping paper and candies familiar and strange: three of the -head variety (Lemon, Grape or Cherry), plus Yum Yum Candy Cones, Jaw Busters, haw flakes, C. Howard’s Scented Gum and something called BB Bats. (Maybe it finds you in the dark.) It comes off only half like a commercial business—but with way more heart than your average downtrodden candy store.

I love how they referenced Tijuana zebra-burros because when my friends from California came to visit one time they said that Weston-super-Mare was like the Tijuana of the UK, which means Weston donkeys (which my 'Unicorn' is derived from) really are just like zebra-burros! Poor things...

The rest of the article is worth reading too as it sounds like there's some really interesting work in this show.

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This is...what makes me happy

Thanks to One Little Acorn for this weeks This is... topic, perfectly timed as i've been thinking about things that make me happy a lot this week. Here's a few from my list:

* sleeping all day
*fluffy cats

* books books books

* polaroid photos

* swimming in the sea
* nephews

* re-discovering hidden gems of friends

* the humbling and heartwarming experience of reading all 240 blogs on my bloglines and not a single one of them having anything to say about Banksy
* the continuing success of Miss Stacey's Summer School

Don't forget to head over to Angela's blog and see what makes other people happy

Rag Rug Making

While I was in Clovelly I met Deborah Hastings who was sitting in the old fishermans cottage demonstrating rag rug making. I've been wanting to make myself a rag rug for a long time, but have never been able to find myself the perfect bit of hessian to use as the base (a pretty bad excuse for not starting something I have to admit). Deborah was selling small starter kits for both 'hooky' and 'proddy' rag rug making, so I treated myself to a kit with her reassurance that all i'd need is a pair of scissors to get going. Of course she didn't take into consideration my complete and utter inability to start anything without at least 4 years of thinking about it before hand (the patchwork quilt is still in the planning stage and possibly will be for many years to come). Luckily help is at hand in the form of Deborah and her workshops- next month she will be hosting a rag rug workshop in Glastonbury Rural Life museum and I promised I'd see her there. It's only £4 per session (morning or afternoon) so i'm hoping to take her up on the offer to do both sessions and meet some of the 'similarly afflicted' as she called them.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-along-blog

You've only got until midnight Sunday (some US timezone version of midnight I imagine) to catch Joss Whedon's 'Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog' before it vanishes off the internet for ever...ever...ever...

I've been hooked on this all week, so I thought i'd share it with you.

Holiday snaps...

Lots more here

Wonderful treasures!

When I returned from my well timed mini-break I discovered this package of goodies had arrived for me. A tiny doll and a selection of fabrics and tags all wrapped up in tissue and Norwegian ribbons and flags. Thankyou so much Emily!

I swam in the sea for the first time this year

Tunnels Beaches at Ilfracombe