Calligraphy at Denman College

My Mum is an avid WI (Women's Institute) member and many years ago she treated me to a weekend away at Denman College, Oxford. This is an amazing retreat where you can learn or improve any skill you can think of....cookery,  computers, history etc etc. At that time we attended a card making course and we had such a good time that we decided that on another occasion we would love to learn Calligraphy. Well this weekend we did just that and returned to Denman and spent from Friday night until Sunday afternoon being taught this wonderful skill.

The main house is a listed building set in 17 acres of stunning gardens. At this time of the year the daffodils were in full flower.

There were drift upon drift of my favourite flower to greet us. 

The accommodation is set in the grounds in small units named after different trees. Our rooms were in Holly House and they were so modern and comfy. My room was the top left window and my Mum's the bottom right.

This is my room and you can see the crafts centre where the courses are taught out of my window.

On the very first evening after dinner we we started our course. The first letter we learnt to draw was the letter O. We were learning Foundation Script which is a lovely rounded script which dates from the 10 century.

We learnt to write the alphabet in lower case, first with a large nib.

   

and then started to use a smaller nib and introduced capital letters.

Over the weekend we enjoyed delicious food, cakes and lots of walking in the sunshine in the grounds. The weather could not have been more perfect and the sun shone from dawn to dusk.

Our finished piece was to be a piece of poetry and I am sure those of you who know me well will guess my choice...yes "Daffodowndilly" by A.A.Milne. I chose it at home and it could not have been more apt for seeing the displays of daffodils at Denman.

We had a few practises and then we cut out the lines to check how they would look on the final copy.

And then it was time to write the final copy which we finished with pastel chalks.

I am hoping to use this new skill with my card making and also any signs that need writing for the wedding. It was such a great weekend. For those of you in the UK, Denman in now open to anyone, WI member or not; including men. It was such a real treat to learn something new in such wonderful surroundings. I can very highly recommend it (and I am not a W.I member). 

After such a sunny weekend I feel the need to share a cheerful Spring card for my card challenge today. This one is the card I made for my very dear Mum. 

I used one of Penny Black's Betsy Bluebell stamps and coloured her using my trusty Promarkers and Prismacolor pencils.

I cut some lovely yellow butterflies using my new Martha Stewart punch and added lots of Spring touches.

I even spritzed the flowers with Glimmer Mist glitter to give then some sparkle.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Scrapbook Sisters Anything Goes

Flutter By Wednesdays Open #195

Paper Sundaes #113 Spring Blossoms

Joanna Sheen Spring is in the air

Papercrafting Journey  #5 Pretty Pastels

Cupcake craft challenges Music or inspired by a song My song is the old hymn I sang as a child, "All things bright and beautiful".
The Secret Crafter Shabby Chic/vintage #178
Simon says Stamp Bingo my line is the middle line; glitter, lace, punches

Papertake Weekly Bingo my line is the right line; flowers, punched shapes, lace

Our lovely weather is still continuing today and the sun is up and the sky is blue. Sending some of it to you all wherever you are. Happy Spring and if you have any near you enjoy the Daffodowndillys which are bursting from their buds everywhere here :0)

Bye for now,

Jane x

Postscript to my Boy's Birthday

Thank you everyone for leaving such kind messages for Matt's special day. We had a really fun family tea party and I thought I would just share a few more photos...however there is one small problem...my camera broke on Wednesday morning....eeeeekkk! I have never realised how much I rely on it. I took a few with my phone camera but the quality is not brilliant and I cannot find the download cable so you will have to imagine our family party on Thursday evening. Thank goodness I had already photographed the plaque for the birthday cake.
The good news is that my dear Hb has decided to give me my birthday present early.....my new camera arrived on Friday and I have been playing with it over the weekend.....it needs some getting used to but boy is it an improvement!! Here is a sneak peak of few quick practice shots....

 I took this of dear Billy having a snooze. I can really get great close ups now..
Here is another, of the flowers on the table...








Yes my beloved daffadowndillies!

and lastly one to show all that was left of the cake by the time my new camera arrived.....

I shall go back to good old fashioned  writing and describe the fun we had at Matt's birthday party. We had a real old  fashioned birthday tea with food including cheese and pineapple on sticks, cocktail sausages, pizza, dips, salad, crisps, cheeses and bread. I even made jelly and everyone had jelly and ice cream for pudding.We played pin the tale on the donkey and charades and everyone was in fits of laughter. It's so good to have times like this with the family. Both Milly and Tom joined us together with my Mum and Dad and Matt's darling girlfriend. Great times and they give us such fond memories.



The photos at the end of this post had been put on the computer before my old camera broke.
I also forgot to show you the card I made for Matt's birthday...
Once again I commissioned the talented Vita to paint me a special ACEO that can then be framed or used as a special bookmark. Matt has always love giraffes since he was tiny. He loves giraffes like I love pigs! A friend of mine bought him a yellow velour giraffe on the day he was born which became Matt's special soft toy...everyone has one! His was called Yellow Horsie and he is still around in Matt's room if you look closely ;0)

I used this delightful painting for the focal of the card

I chose some bold backing papers, one with numbers the other with balloons to create a really bold colourful card.
He was delighted with it.












I had also taken a few photos of some other cards I made recently and I thought now would be a good opportunity to share them.

I bought some very beautiful limited edition cat prints which I used as keepsakes for Matt's girlfriend's card last October....

And this one below was for a friend's birthday in December.

As you can guess they are real cat fans and loved these images.

So there we are, another birthday over for my Boy, it was great one. Cheers to Matt!

I will now start to have more of a play with my camera and I look forward to sharing some new photos with you all.

Bye for now,

Jane x