Busy, busy, busy

I am having another very busy week which started with a visit to Hobbycraft on Sunday. I know some people tried to warn me, but I spent my gift vouchers several times over. I bought quite a lot of embroidery thread and a nice set of alphabet rubber stamps and some storage boxes, but resisted the call of the PAPER. This may be because I had already had a big paper fix when the round-the-world Collage Box arrived. This has been organised by 'Lawendular' of Woven Letters. A box of paper snippets has been sent across Europe and is on the way to the USA from me in the UK and then on to the Antipodes. The idea is that when you get the box you take out 12 snippets that take your fancy and add 12 of your own. I was surprised to receive a lovely lavender wand and a birthday note too - the sender must have looked at my calendar page, how thoughtful people are! The Royal Mail must also be thanked as the top line of my address was missing, but the post-code and my surname got it to me.

Here is the box and the pieces I swapped.

I tried to pick some pieces that I thought signified their country of origin or had been created by one of the participants, as well as a few that I just liked. So there is a page in German and one in Polish (I think) and some music for a French song.

I added what I thought were English bits or paper I have decorated, so this includes a page from an Enid Blyton book, a concert ticket, a reproduction of a old postage stamp and a couple of print-outs of photographs I took at Luton Hoo - and a print of the original Luton Hoo house.  The idea is to make a collage which includes all of your chosen pieces, but that will have to wait until I can give it my full concentration.

Meanwhile my spare time is being taken up in preparing for a presentation I promised to give to my U3A Natural History group. Before Christmas the organisers were a bit desperate for speakers and as I had a lot of photographs of Sharpenhoe Clappers which I had taken as part of my photography course I thought I could turn it into a talk. I have had three months to get the Powerpoint presentation organised, and I am nearly there, but there is nothing like a deadline (it is next week) to get the adrenaline going. So far I have 40 slides, but as the meeting last a couple of hours - with a tea break - I hope I can keep going for an hour. I am now filled with self-doubt, but Janet who organises the group, is very supportive and says they are very grateful for a contribution. For those of you who don't know the U3A - the University of the Third Age is a world wide organisation for older people, no longer in full time employment to share learning experiences. Locally there are groups covering almost every subject you could think of and if you wished you could go to a meeting every day. The idea is, that as a member you pass on some of your own knowledge as well as learn something new. I am one of the young ones, and the Luton branch is large and very active. 

So until I get my presentation finished and complete a couple of birthday gifts my artwork and blog is taking second place.