New Gift Boxes and Other News

All Aileen Clarke Crafts original jewellery now comes gift wrapped in these pretty little boxes.

 This week got off to an unusual start with all that wild weather. We had a 30 hour power cut which left me half way through a batch of card making with no way of using my sewing machine or printing out my labels. Unlike the winter weather though, the storm did not stop the postie getting here and I was delighted that my new gift boxes arrived.

If you ever wonder where I get the inspiration for my work then look no further than the photo below. This was the view from the patio of a holiday cottage we stayed in back in April. There are even sheep in the further away field! I thoroughly enjoyed sitting out here first thing before the breeze got up, drinking my coffee and doing a little needle felting.
The cottage is in highland Perthshire and we enjoyed three nights there thanks to friends of my Mum.

 

 

Perthshire is my home county and I do miss it sometimes. North Fife has a charm of it's own but I really love the wild areas of highland Perthshire.

 

We drove away up to Loch Rannoch then on to Rannoch station. If you cross the railway line and walk down the track a bit you come to this beautiful loch on Rannoch Moor.

Loch Laidon

It's only 12km to Glencoe from here. We spent a glorious couple of hours enjoying the exceptional April sunshine and I soaked up lots of inspiration too.

 

The textures of these mossy stones and dried sticks really appealed to me.

A couple of weekends ago we had the privilege of having our cottage used as a venue for the filming of a traditional music DVD.

Redbarn Stuidos are making the DVD and were looking for a venue that had a traditional cottage/bothy look about it. We have exposed stone walls in the kitchen and sitting room so they used these as a backdrop for the singers.

It was a great session and an interesting experience having a film crew in the house.

 Here is my Mum, Doris Rougvie with Gillian Murray from Redbarn and Alsitair Ogilvy who is not only a fantastic singer but he makes good tortilla wraps too!

If you would like to hear Alistair singing just Google him as there are a few lovely tracks on You tube.

 My son had a brilliant time playing camera man. Gillian gave him a small camera to film extra footage on and he got to keep an eye on this big one to make sure it was capturing what it was supposed to.

Included in the DVD are bothy balladeers Jim Taylor, Geordie Muirison and Joe Aitken. Joe won Scots Singer of The Year at the 2010 Trad Awards. They are such fun people to be around and they know so many wonderful songs both beautiful and funny.

Speaking of singing and songs, I was coerced into entering a song I wrote into the Edinburgh Folk Club Songwriters competition last week and despite the very nervous performance I gave, I won second place! A cash prize of £50! I'm still gob smacked. I treated myself to these beauties with the winnings.

Is it a bit mad to share photos of new shoes on the internet? Well people love shoes and I know that some of my blog readers will love these :)

So what did I do during our 30 hour power cut with no sewing or embellisher machine or even an iron available?

I turned my hand to a bit of embroidery and worked on a wall hanging that I started the weekend of the Open Studios. 

If you visited me at the studio you will remember me telling you that the leaf shapes I was working on with the embellisher machine were going to be made into a wall hanging with leaves and birds. Well this is as far as I have got.

I have new stock heading off to Zigzags in Dunkeld today to if you are in that vicinity, pop in and say hi to Dave.