New Year and new projects

Happy New Year to my followers and to the many people that pass through my blog. I hope you all had a good Christmas, ours here was a very quiet affair as always, the big day itself included a trip up into the mountains, a little tradition my daughter and myself have. This year the scenery was even more spectacular than usual with the heavy snow we'd had, so I make no apologises for all the photo's on this post. The first 4 photo's were taken just before Christmas in and around Anglesey after a night which dropped 10" of snow on us, which was very unusual for here.

After two weeks of having all my art and craft stuff tidied away, I always find it hard to get back into creative mode, so the time has been spent turning out cupboards and drawers and tidying them up, something that was well over due lol. One job I really enjoyed doing was the large cupboard in my front room which stores most of my arty crafty stuff. This was a job I'd been dying to do for ages, but I needed to have the sliding doors off it, so as my son was floating around I got him to get them off ....which trust me isn't an easy job !!! Now everything is all sorted labelled and tidied up and for someone that's natural untidy I'm getting a lot of pleasure of being able to see exactly whats what and where for a change lol.

My latest project is going to be a painting for my bathroom which is going to get decorated at long last. This is the only room that hasn't been decorated since we moved in just over 12 months ago. The delay was caused by us not being able to decide what colour to do it and not having the money to do it either. But the arrival of a bill I was dreading ( gas and electric )has come and gone, and I was really pleased that I had managed to save enough to pay it !! So the extra cash I'd put to one side incase this bill was even higher than I thought, can now be used to decorate the bathroom. The colour is going to be a bright lime green which will contrast nicely with the black tiles in there. I'm going to do an abstract painting in there, but I'll also be using copper wire, glass tiles and goodness knows what else on it, as I want it to have the wow factor.

Anyway enough waffle from me, here's the photo's I mentioned earlier.

Cable Bay



Hermon



Two photo's of a mass of icicles in Cable Bay





Snowdonia





These icicles were huge at least 6or7ft and very thick.



A stream that produced some very unusual ice formations.

Hmmm what to do next

I've finally managed to get back into work mode after our visit to the Peace Festival, and done the 2nd side on the heart mosaic. I'm just waiting for all the glue to dry out and then it's varnish and finish !!

While I've been waiting for the glue to dry ...almost as boring as watching paint dry lol. I've been debating what to do next, my african themed set of mosaics is still quite near the front of my mind, but I've also got some slices of slate we managed to "acquire" at a slate mine in Snowdonia the other week. Should I do a couple of quick mosaics on slate I wonder ? I've also got a couple of those glass blocks people use in bathrooms, which are screaming out for some simple mosaics to pretty them up. I do hate it when I've got so many idea's buzzing around, because I can never decide which to do first, and end up doing none !!

Added to all the idea's buzzing around, the weather has been amazing. I find it almost impossible to stay inside when the suns out, it seems such a shame when our weather can be so unpredictable. It was a scorcher yesterday, I'm so glad there was a stiff breeze taking most of the heat off. I love days when you sit there almost shivering but know you're getting a suntan too lol.

New Year New Blog

Between Christmas and the New Year, I set up another blog, this one will be just for the photo's my daughter and myself take when we're out on our wanderings. The link is at the top of the page, and I hope you enjoy our journey into the world of DLSR photography. We're at the very beginning of this journey, and are learning as we go, how to use this camera that has so many settings.

The New Year crept quietly in for me, unlike most people I wasn't seeing in the new year the traditional way, I spent it sat outside taking photo's of the moon lol. As it struck midnight I could hear cheers going up followed by loads of fireworks echoing off the mountains, for a split second I almost wished I was out there enjoying it with everyone. Then I remembered I'm not the party animal I used to be, that went out with mates to the pub 3 or 4 times a week, so I quickly decided I preferred doing exactly what I was doing, and not waking up with a hangover !!

We've had a few trips out since Christmas, exploring the countryside in and around Anglesey, on the hunt for snow, which seems to be very elusive in our little village this year. In fact as we were taking the dog for a walk one day, we spotted loads of cars coming towards us, with inches of snow on them !! How could that be as we were only half a mile from home and not a snow flake in sight. So us being us, we decided as the snow wouldn't come to us, we'd go to the snow lol. We decided to stop when we got as far as Newborough as we were low on petrol, and as it was New Years Day there probably wasn't going to be many garages open. As we parked up in Newborough forest, the snow started coming down thick and fast, it was brilliant. Once we'd had out fill of snow we headed off home, hoping that we might have some snow in our little village now .... no chance lol.

We also took a drive deep into the mountains another day, and on our way home we got caught in a really good snow storm. We parked up and my daughter jumped out of the car to enjoy it properly, as I had slippy soled shoes on, I decided it was safer to stay in the car, not wanting to end the day in A&E. The snow was coming down really heavily, and as we weren't sure what the weather was going to be like further on, we reluctantly decided we had to go, as the roads were very quickly getting smothered in snow. As we got further on the snow slowly stopped and the roads were clear, we were gutted, we could have stayed in the storm for longer ....never mind.

Yesterday when I got up it was -3 the coldest day yet here, and I fancied trying to capture frost on leaves etc. So off we went trying to find some frost even though it was 2 in the afternoon, surprisingly it was still pretty easy to find even though the sun had been out most of the day. Using the macro setting on my camera, I started snapping away, what I didn't account for was how badly my hands would shake with the weight of the camera, due to the arthritis in my hands at the moment. Added to that the arthritis in my back made standing longer than a minute or two very painful too. So I was on to a bit of a loser before I even started. I really will have to start carrying my tripod around with me. However my daughter came to the rescue and took some photo's of things I asked her too, including a really brilliant one of a little robin.

Great Christmas

I hope you've all had a great Christmas, I certainly did. Our Christmases tend to be slightly unconventional, as many years ago I decided I just didn't want to be one of those women that had to spend all day chained to the kitchen lol. I'm so lucky that my daughter isn't into those kind of Christmases either.

Our day started when my daughter got up and I gave her the presents I'd bought her, and within the hour we were off up into the mountains for 4 hrs. As always it was stunning up there, unfortunately it was pretty slippy in most of the places we went to, so I stayed in the car, while my daughter jumped out taking loads of photo's. It didn't take away from my pleasure of being there though. In a forest park we went to there was thick ice, which made some very loud creaking and cracking noises as we drove over it, I loved it but my daughter was glad when we managed to get away from there lol.

As we've only had one day of snow here on Anglesey, it was lovely to see snow covered mountains and frozen ponds and lakes. There is however another cold spell due to come in next week, so maybe we'll be luckier then.

Brrrrr it's turning colder

Brrrrr after all the rain, it's started to turn colder now and we've got a sprinkling of snow on the mountains now. It looks gorgeous and makes it seem more christmassy. My daughter took me for a drive up there yesterday, and I loved it. I just wish it wasn't so expensive to turn the heating on *sigh*

Sadly the firing of the kiln never happened on Monday, because Mike at the gallery had a couple of commissions to do. So it's been rescheduled for Saturday now, but I've just remembered my daughters got a friend visiting ..so I'm not sure how we'll fit it in.

I'm on a mission today to get some bits and bobs I need for my new style mosaics. That's the one good thing about tempered glass mosaics, they are much more versatile than the stained glass ones I usually make. Also not having to cut the glass gives my hands a rest, so no pain for a few days I hope.

Here's a few photo's I took yesterday in the mountains.

More mountains photo's

I thought I'd just add a few more photo's of the mountains as they're too beautiful just to be enjoyed by me. While a lot of the UK is covered with a blanket of snow, here on our little island there's not even a flake of the stuff :o( I do hope that the snow doesn't affect my trip to Scotland on Weds I will be very annoyed and that's being polite about it lol.A couple of these photo's were taken by my daughter by the way, just to give her credit where it's due lol. I've been tagged ...but I'll do that later on cheers Dave lol.

A trip round the mountains

We were off to early start this morning and went off up into the Snowdonia mountains, what a treat !! We were heading for Betws y Coed, but stopped off at the Ugly House first to take a few photo's what a dissapointment it was closed. So we went down to the river nearby and it was stunning. The river even at it's deepest was crystal clear and the lichen covered tree's were vibrant green.





On the river bank there was this gorgeous looking piece of wood with a stone wedged in it, smoothed off by the fast running river. I really wanted to take home for the back garden but it was too big and there was no room left in the van :o(




The mountains had very little snow on them, each year there seems to be less and less.But I still enjoyed looking at them.



Once we'd been to Betws y Coed had a cup of much needed tea as it was flipping freezing up the mountains, we headed back to Anglesey to met my youngest son and his girlfriend. After spending some time with them we made our weary but happy way home.