We carved ours this weekend and then toasted the seeds in the oven, which I highly recommend doing, bit of butter and salt and its as good as popcorn (just be careful not to burn them)

I also made mixed spice pumpkin cake from the leftover pumpkin flesh which came out lovely and moist.

As everyone keeps asking me for the recipe I thought I would post it here.  (originally adapted from a muffin recipe I found and tampered with )

Highlights include…

The Secret Seed Societys story book and seed growing packs, beautifully illustrated, eco friendly, educational and fun, we couldn’t resist buying one to put away for our niece . 

North Cornwall based GreenGlass and thier clever and quirky range of wine glasses, goblets and tumbles made from recycled bottles and glass. Fuzzi has an impressive range of designs in stock (prices are very reasonable) Green glass also make glass bead jewellery which is for sale on their site  (Click here to visit thier website)

Also cute are Little Green Radicals fun and funky baby/kids clothing range, created from organic fairtrade cotton and  a great sense of humour.

And last but not least, my personal favourite is Creative Paper Wales’s hand crafted products made from  recycled sheep poo… yes you heard that right actual sheep poo paper!

Eco friendly and cleverly designed their card range and products are so much more than a novelty item, If you want to find out how its made you can click here for further information.

Fuzzi stock tons more great local, ethical, and eco products so if you ever get the chance to pop in and sample the delights I highly recommend it!

For more information or to arrange coffee morning yourself, please visit the website by clicking here!

The brief was to paint a woman hanging laundry on a washing line on which real t-shirts are displayed,  with a second smaller line to display items from the baby clothes range.

Visit the ‘no to age banding’ campain website or read the mission staement below to find out why they disagree with the publishers decision and the effect they fear it will have of children’s reading habits.

“We are writers, illustrators, librarians, teachers, booksellers, publishers, educationalists, psychologists, parents and grandparents. Some of the writers and illustrators have a measure of control over what appears on the covers of their books; others have less.

But we are all agreed that the proposal to put an age-guidance figure on books for children is ill-conceived, damaging to the interests of young readers, and highly unlikely, despite the claims made by those publishers promoting the scheme, to make the slightest difference to sales.

“We take this step to disavow publicly any connection with such age-guidance figures, and to state our passionately-held conviction that everything about a book should seek to welcome readers in and not keep them out.

Here are some of our reasons:

• Each child is unique, and so is each book. Accurate judgments about age suitability are impossible, and approximate ones are worse than useless.
• Children easily feel stigmatized, and many will put aside books they might love because of the fear of being called babyish. Other children will feel dismayed that books of their ‘correct’ age-group are too challenging, and will be put off reading even more firmly than before.
• Age-banding seeks to help adults choose books for children, and we’re all in favour of that; but it does so by giving them the wrong information. It’s also likely to encourage over-prescriptive or anxious adults to limit a child’s reading in ways that are unnecessary and even damaging.
• Everything about a book is already rich with clues about the sort of reader it hopes to find – jacket design, typography, cover copy, prose style, illustrations. These are genuine connections with potential readers, because they appeal to individual preference. An age-guidance figure is a false one, because it implies that all children of that age are the same.
• Children are now taught to look closely at book covers for all the information they convey. The hope that they will not notice the age-guidance figure, or think it unimportant, is unfounded.
• Writers take great care not to limit their readership unnecessarily. To tell a story as well and inclusively as possible, and then find someone at the door turning readers away, is contrary to everything we value about books, and reading, and literature itself.”

All of the above are fantastic authors and presenters, naturally witty and engaging with a real passion for science.  They lay on an entertaining array of facts thoughts and fun. If you have an enquiring mind and a sense of humour, I highly recommend catching them in actionEach leg of the tour also features special guests, when I went to see the show earlier this year we were treated to a fascinating talk by Professor Steve Jones (geneticist) and the delightful music by Helen Arney  (Comedian/singer)  

Click here to find out more!

There are several artists today who are exploring and making art using crayons in unexpected ways, ChristianFaur creates detailed portrait images using crayon tips as physical pixels and Jessica Kerbawy deconstructs crayons part melting them down into liquid colour to create interesting works of art.

I think as artists/creatives its essential to retain that sense of wonderment, imagination and creativity that the first touch of crayon to paper allowed us as children. Al Hirschfeld (American cartoonist) put it best when he said  ‘Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons’. 

There are so many ways you can use crayons beyond there intended use, old crayons can be melted down to be recycled and reused again, reformed in molds into any shape and colour combinations you desire. (these also make interesting gifts and decorations)  (online guide here)

If your interested in reading more about them there is also the history of crayons according to Wikipedia (click here)

I will leave you with a beautiful quote from  Robert Fulghum

“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon.  A happiness weapon.  A beauty bomb.  And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one.  It would explode high in the air – explode softly – and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air.  Floating down to earth – boxes of Crayolas.  And we wouldn’t go cheap, either – not little boxes of eight.  Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in.  With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest.  And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination. ”

  Art by Jessica Kerbawy

 Art by ChristianFaur

I love the random things you stumble across when surfing the web. Brooklyn Bunny is a delightfully designed website featuring life web camera footage of a day in the life of a house rabbit called Roebling.  (big brother bunny style)

Roebling is a Dwarf Hotot and is  named after the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, as you can see the logo cleverly uses the iconic imagery of the bridge arches to form the ears of the rabbit. The website is creation of  and Brooklyn based couple and designers Dresser Johnson and has been online ‘transmitting soft white soothing signals’ for 6 years now.

As an owner or two entirely nutty but very entertaining house rabbits myself I can’t help but love this!

An interesting e-mail I just received (original source unknown)

“Hampshire County Council’s Contemporary Art Collection is now available to view online for the very first time.

The collection of nearly 400 pieces, which has been accumulated over 20 years, includes the work of significant British artists, such as limited edition prints by Bridget Riley, Henry Moore, and John Piper, through to more recent additions from Hampshire-based artists or works depicting Hampshire scenes, including a set of works bequeathed to the council by artist Nick Schlee.

The collection of almost 400 works adds to the national collection of over 120,000 digitised images available online through the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) where Hampshire’s database is held. VADS is a research centre based at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and provides global online access to hundreds of unique art and design collections from universities, colleges, libraries, museums and archives across the UK, for free use in non-commercial education and research.

For more information about Hampshire’s Contemporary Art Collection and its development, see: http://vads.ac.uk/collections/HANTS”