On my noticeboard: December

I realised last month that my noticeboard often reflects my thoughts as well as my projects for the current month, and none more so than last month. There's often things I've picked up along the way and am unsure of what to do with, but things I know that I don't want to lose sight of just yet, so I thought I'd take this post to walk you through it.

There's been some more colouring from Johanna Basford's Christmas book. I decided to try water with some of the Staedtler pencils and was rather pleased with how it's turning out so far. I particularly like the parcel with the red bow.  There's still quite a way to go to complete this one, and maybe it'll be finished by Christmas this year!

There's more hints of Christmas too.  The three die cut trees didn't make it onto my Christmas cards - I didn't get around to sharing a post on my cards this year, but these were some pretty test cuts that I either tore or need some extra cuts to complete. So instead of doing that I pinned them onto my board.

The name tag was was from my evening at the London Graphic Centre and reminded me of a calligraphy poster I did for a flower festival many years ago. I expect I've got that somewhere, so I'll try to remember to dig that out.  The robin to the right of the tag was another from the craft supplies provided for the Christmas stocking I made last month.

I've a couple of postcards too. I'm not sure where the Stick To It one came from but it seemed quite appropriate for me. The other one is one I'd found during a clear out. It's from my favourite Norfolk potter - Phillippa Lee Pottery - I'm amassing quite a collection of pie dishes, flan dishes and noodle bowls from there. And every time we go to Burnham Deepdale I have a look to see what's new. Most of the time though MOH is with me and so spending is slightly restricted, but one day... 

The papercut cards I bought at Makers & Friends, the night I started to make my own neon sign, which I still have some knotting to do on.  In fact more than before as the invisible thread has got itself knotted in the box too, hmmmn..

The grey card - Sew Ho - or Soho is one of the Place in Print cards which again is apt for my craft room.  All of the cards are on the noticeboard because they're in the "pretty and not for sharing" category in my head. The diamante dots are a new purchase, in case I needed them for my Christmas cards. I didn't, and I didn't want to lose them, so they went onto the noticeboard too.

The yellow pouch is a Freitag pouch and is made from recycled tarpaulin. This is on my board because it's bright and cheery and because I haven't worked out what to do with it yet. There will be a use for it I'm sure, I just don't know it yet. I've more to share with you soon about Freitag as on the basis of this little pouch I convinced MOH to buy me a larger bag, which I plan to use as an overnight and short trips bag, for Christmas.  More on that soon.

And finally in the top photo you might have noticed a longish strip of brown and cream striped and zig-zagged material. That's my current sewing project, and one I'm stuck on. I'm making a seat cushion for a garden bench, I think that's part of the problem, I know it won't be used anytime soon so I can't quite find the motivation. But I need to, as I want to get started with other projects and I know that if I move on without completing this the project is doomed. 

The feel good factor for this project though is that I'm recycling some of the material from our old bedroom curtains to make this seat cushion cover. I'm taking the same approach - yes freestyling - that I did for my gorgeous yellow chairs, but it feels so much slower for this larger oblong version. 

Both of those feel good, but I really wish it were done.  If you have any tips on how to get going again on a craft project, please let me know!

The adult colouring trend to reduce stress: Does it work?

Recently Staedtler, who incidentally are celebraring 50 years in the UK, invited me to a Creative Christmas Colouring evening with Johanna Basford OBE to celebrate the launch of her new book, Johanna's Christmas. It was also the perfect opportunity to find out for real, if colouring really can help reduce stress.

Image credit: Staedtler

And typically, but completely unplanned, I really did put that to the test. The event was at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, a really cool venue I'd been to before, so after work I jumped on the DLR and headed towards Bank. Where we sat for longer than I'd have liked. Then as usual, there were the queues to leave the platforms and move around the station. Eventually I made it onto a Central Line train and as time was getting on decided to change at Holborn and take the Piccadilly line straight to Covent Garden for a shorter walk.

Sensible plan on paper. But when I got to the Piccadilly line platform, I heard the announcement of doom "severe delays are operating on the Piccadilly line" - whoop! But I was there and hoped I'd be able to squeeze on the next train.

And luckily I could, but even so I arrived at the venue later than I'd wanted to be and more stressed than I needed to be too. This was going to be a good test for the colouring.  I soon found a place, was given a copy of Johanna's new book and decided which design I was going to colour - you'll not be surprised to see it was a tree.

A glass of red wine also found its way to me and as I started to colour, and talk to my fellow colour-ers either side of me, I started to relax. And enjoy myself.  But just look at the concentration on my face, and you'll see the focus isn't the wine...

Image credit: Staedtler

And despite it being an industrious evening, with each of us intent on our creations, it was a friendly and fun evening. There was plenty of chat, and I think the ladies either side of me had had a much more relaxing journey, as their colouring was much more refined than mine. I'd opted for pens with a fibre tip to flood colour into my design, and my colours were bold and somehow, without too much planning, I ended up with a rainbow effect.

Image credit: Staedtler

The swirls and curls and flowing design made this the perfect design for me, and following the curves completely distracted me from the journey there. I think I needed to see results quickly, and the pens and this design helped with that. And yes, you may have spotted that my wine glass is empty, but I was so into what I was doing that I didn't get up to fill it up, nor did I check out the food. I did manage to tear myself away though to try the gorgeous canapes that the waiting staff brought round.

Johanna shared a couple of tips, which were helpful, they were:

• To remove the design from the book when you start to colour, that way you can easily move the paper around so that it's comfortable to colour, and you'll be confident that your pens or watercolours won't affect the rest of the book.
• It doesn't matter if you go over the lines - yay! I think staying in the lines is completely overrated, so I was pleased to hear this. And it's true, only you know if you've gone over the lines, so who's to know? And if anyone notices, just call it artistic flair!

It was lovely to meet Johanna, who has sold a staggering twenty million plus colouring books worldwide, in over forty countries, and discover that she's still as passionate about creating new designs. In fact she said she had so many ideas for her books, that the problem is always which ones should be left out rather than which should go in. 

JOHANNA BASFORD DEMONSTRATING HER FRONT COVER LETTERING

Johanna talked us through how she creates the detailed lettering on the front of her books, and I tried a Christmas card using the same approach. That's to draw your design - in my case Joy - lightly in pencil, and then to add Christmassy motifs and designs, such as holly, Christmas trees, presents, candy canes and so over following the pencil line. Then when you're happy with that to go over the pencil shapes with a fine line pen. 

It was fascinating to watch her in action, and fun to try out, but I had a tree to finish colouring in and I was determined to complete as much as I could that evening. So in answer to my question at the top of this post - can colouring reduce stress, well it's a resounding yes from me.

It's something I'll be remembering to do more often too, so if you see me and I'm stressed, remind me. If you're still not convinced that it's a stress-buster, why not give it a go yourself? Staedtler have some tips for getting started with adult colouring with tips for the basic and advanced techniques, as well as a colouring sheet to download. And there's still time to add a colouring book and some pens or pencils to your Christmas list, trust me you won't regret it!

Thanks Staedtler and Johanna for a lovely and inspiring evening. Thanks too to my colouring companions for the conversation throughout the evening and their kind words about my less than delicate colour combinations!

* This is a collaborative post with Staedtler, but all views and opinions - and colour combinations in my design - are my own.  

Turnips on the allotment

Rain was forecast here on Saturday, but thankfully it didn't really arrive until after dark. It was a bit damp and drizzly before that but not so bad that it stopped us getting over to the allotment to check on the turnips. I've been looking forward to picking these and pairing them with some lovely pork chops. As we'd bought pork chops in the butchers, we headed off to see if we had turnips to pick.

And we did. I pulled up four to take home with us  - as well as our second cauliflower, which you can see in the top left below - and counted at least another ten to follow. Some won't be very far behind these, and then hopefully the row that I sowed direct on the plot will follow after those.  Ideally I should have pulled these sooner, but with busy weekends yet again this was our first visit since the start of November. 

And that cauliflower, well it's already a soup with cream cheese and cheddar, yum.  And very easy to do. Chop an onion and a clove of garlic and soften these in oil and butter. Add the cauliflower and almost cover in chicken stock and cook for twenty or so minutes until the cauliflower is tender. Blitz this and add half a tub of cream cheese, some milk if it needs it and then some grated cheddar (or blue cheese if you have it). It's a soupy cauliflower cheese, and lovely.

If we can pick something every time we visit, especially in winter, then we'll have been doing something right, I think. That might be restricted to turnips for a little while, but hopefully the brassicas won't be too much longer. The weeds, I showed you last month are still there - no weed fairy on our allotment! - and it isn't until I looked back at those pictures, that I've realised how much our cabbages have grown, so that's heartening.

The cavolo nero especially has grown and while it still has some more growing to do, it looks like cavolo nero should with its knobbly leaves. I'm very much looking forward to picking our own, and as well as the weeds still being there no one's planted out my extra brassicas or composted my sweetcorn and tomatoes. Shocking hey?

I'm hoping that the weather is good enough to get over there again next weekend and in the time between Christmas and New Year, although with everything I'm putting on the list for those few days, it's going to be busy! 

Elsewhere on the plot

The celeriac is still there, and alongside the brassicas full of weeds, I need to check when to dig these up. I think it's probably about now, but I have no indication of how big they could be. I guess that's part of the fun. As I thought of it I've just checked on the RHS website, and they say celeriac can be harvested between October and March, so I've some time yet. The picture on their page shows the celeriac almost out of the ground, like the turnip above. Mine aren't like that yet, so I'll leave them there for a while I think. The website also says to cover with straw or bracken incase the ground freezes, if the weather turns again I'll be off to find some straw from somewhere...

It was noticeable how bare the crab apple tree was. All the leaves - and any remaining crab apples - were down. The crab apples littering the floor around the tree, so that's another job to do next time I'm there. It's a fun one though as I use this opportunity as shot practice, throwing the crab apples to the compost from where they've dropped, with apologies in advance to the nearby plot owners when I get a bit enthusiastic.  It would obviously be much more effective to pick them up, put them into a trug and carry them over. But nowhere near as much fun!

With the crab apple tree bare, the climbing artichokes are once again visible - they're not climbing ones at all, but normal artichokes which grow under the tree, so I think they grow taller to get the light, we'll see next year won't I? They are pretty much dead now, but the flowers (fruits?) have now turned fluffy. The stems are rotten and I suspect it could be a good time to move the plant to where I want it. If the tomatoes had gone, that would be a relatively simple job...

So once again I've a list of jobs from this visit, but it amazes me that each time we visit we're enthused by what needs to happen, and one of these months we'll find time to actually start on that list.

To save me time for my next visit the list of jobs is currently:

• Target practice with crab apples

• Take a black sack to pick up the rubbish the foxes have brought onto the plot (including a couple of nappies... not so nice)

• Compost the tomatoes and sweetcorn remains

• Consider moving the leeks (the ones that have survived MOH trampling on them)

• Compost the beans, sweetcorn and any remaining squash plants

• Pot out my extra brassicas, currently in the back garden: Kale, PSB and some more cabbages I think

• Prepare the leaf mulch compost bin for the new additions from the garden

• Weed the cabbages

• Move the climbing artichoke

• And as usual, do some more digging!

Let's hope the weather stays good, and I find some more hours to put into the day...