Today was one of those very cold, clear days with blue skies and fresh snow. I snapped photos until I realized my finger tips were starting to ache and sting, not a good thing when the temperature is -20°C!

Houses made in previous years:

2008 House

2008 Church

2008 Village

2007 Lighthouse and Little House on the Prairie

Every Christmas I choose a different colour scheme for the Christmas tree and other decorating. This year A15 put in a bid for lime green so we went with it, hanging new balls and buying some sparkly green candles. The candles were pretty but they made a big mess over the candlesticks and the mantle.

We have a new IKEA in the city and I will head there this week to stock up on candles; it was too scary to go before Christmas only days after it opened.

If there is no wind the world can stay looking magical for hours. This snowfall was two weeks ago and stayed for a couple of days until the unusually “warm’ temperatures made it disappear.

The lino cut below shows the amount of carving required to create a design with little or no background. As you can see in the card the finished product looked great. L14 printed it in red ink and sponged extra colour  onto the paper after printing. I bought speedball printing ink for our second week and it worked well.

A15 printed her shoe in a few different colours and we are hoping to print it three times in colours which will work in her room then frame them.

My own linoprint is posted on my paintings page

Several blogs I read post links to a selection of interesting posts and sites each weekend. I am not promising anything as regular as that. Any readers visiting here know that there is nothing regular about my blogs at present but I have come across a few posts lately that really appealed to me so I thought I would share.

Take a look if you like:

• I love wearing scarves so this post was right up my alley:  25 Ways to wear a scarf in 4.5 minutes. I most often wear my scarves in the “The Modern One Loop” but within 48 hours of watching the video I had worn the “Infinity”, the “Bunny Ears” and the “Hidden Knot”! I’ve even taken to  rearranging  my friend’s scarves while they are wearing them.
• I was quite taken with a post by Layla from The Lettered Cottage. She posted some photos of a very whimsical campsite where she and her mother spent a few days, along with a very personal list of Things I’d tell my 17-Year-Old Self.
• I came across this dress which is quite lovely.  So…I am going to see if I can make one just like it.
• Having been introduced to slacklining when we bought one for B11 a few years back, all of us were astounded by the trailer for I Believe I Can Fly. We have now bought the documentary and I can’t wait to watch it.(HT: Cup of Jo)
• B11 and I were impressed by these paintings by Alexa Reade. They are not quite what they seem or perhaps they are.

(photo:A15)

The Juggle Bugs below were great but it was early on the first night and hard to drum up an audience.

Flame Oz came out after dark and they were pretty impressive.

B11 created some car logos, cars being his current passion. I carved a leaf and some abstract patterns. There was a paisley design, a few names and letters, an eye and a quite impressive albeit mirrored image world map.

The following week we began by designing our lino cuts. Everyone had to decide whether they wanted to create a negative or positive design. One way you carve your design out of the lino block leaving lino around the design. The other method is to carve away all that is not your design so that it remains at the end to be inked. Once the designs had been transferred or redrawn on the lino blocks everyone started carving. The carving tools are very sharp. A few of the students made me nervous. Band aids were needed!

The first prints were done using Stampin’Up Craft ink and the coverage wasn’t too bad; the smoother the paper the better the print. I am going to get some ink specifically designed for block printing and see what the difference is.

At least this year B11 can use a cool tool to do it.

It’s way more fun than a rake.

But as you can see he’s not even half way there yet.