We now have.....

....... new drains :) yippppeeeeeee

Exciting stuff eh! :) it's the simple things in life that make me happy. Keeping my fingers crossed this keeps all the water away from the crofts walls. The pipe on the left is perforated and should catch any water that soaks down through the ground.

The Estate workers have now covered the pipes with hard core and will be back (maybe Tuesday) to cover this with a layer of pea gravel, this makes me happy as it will tidy up the back of the croft.
I'm not so happy about finding out the Estate will not be building a new retaining wall to keep the higher ground level back, the ground is just getting left sloped! Not even a gentle slope but quite a steep one, I've placed my recycle bin (41cm high) in the photos above to give an idea of the difference in height of the ground levels.
I feel that the slope is too steep and when it rains..... and we get a lot of rain.... the earth will eventually just get washed down  onto where the gravel is going to be.
Oh well! we will just have to wait and see how this fairs with the weather and 2 dogs running around.

Now the new drains are in I feel more confident about getting on with my decorating inside. Hoping to have my computer/art/craft/dining room (multi-function room) finished over the weekend. Then I will be back to posting design, craft and upcycling related posts on my blog.

Before the mini digger arrived..

.... the back of the croft looked like this.

Yesterday morning the Estate sent a few workers with a mini digger to remove the old concrete path, broken retaining wall and some earth to see if they can figure out where the water is coming from that is causing my back wall to be damp. A few months ago the Estate had put in a field drain in the back garden, but this doesn't seem to be working.

By the end of the day the back of the croft looked like this!

Sam wanted to investigate what the workers had been doing all day.

There seems to be a lot of broken pipes, were these broken already? or did the mini digger break them? Is this the cause of the damp? The blue pipe is the water pipe repair that had to be done when the water pipe burst when the field drain was being put it :)

So the ditch at back of the croft is now filling up with water! By the end of the day there was 4 workmen and someone out from the Estate Office standing, talking and scratching their heads.
I'm hoping they will be back today (as they never tell you what's happening) and fingers crossed they have a plan of what they are going to do next to solve this problem.

Hopefully this will be sorted as soon as possible because the Estate has already repaired the wall inside the croft so I could start to decorate.

Looking forward to a drier future :)

It's been 2 weeks...

......since Sam the pup moved in with us and it's been a long 2 weeks. I can't believe how much of my time this wee fellow is taking up at the moment and what a big help wee Shug has been in helping Sam. He is really calming down and his fear aggression is on the decline and almost non existent now, he still gets fearful of new things but barks and backs off to assess the situation.
He is also just about house trained  too, yipppeeeeeeee :) which is great as I'm not constantly running around with a mop in my hand.
Puppy teeth are being lost so Sam is always looking for something to chew, so far my furniture has been safe as I have a very large supply of hide chews for him to munch on.
I'm really proud of how quickly Sam is learning the doggy house rules, but he still likes to push his luck sometimes. He is such a lovable wee boy and we are introducing him to as many different people and experiences as possible.

Now Sam is settled in and learning the house routine, I should be able to get back to decorating the house and designing more items for my online shop. 

Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday is a weekly drawing challenge and every Friday a new topic is posted and you have one week to come up with your own unique interpretation and share it on their home page.

I've been following Illustration Friday on Facebook and their website for a while now and enjoy seeing how creative everyone is. I love seeing all the different interpretations of a topic and the different mediums and styles that are used. I have never joined in, until now (feeling brave and throwing some of my creativity out there lol)

This weeks topic is Metropolis

This topic instantly made me remember an abstract I had created in Visual Communication class in college. (so hope this is allowed as I never created it this week)

A new arrival

Since Buzz sadly went to Rainbow Bridge I was adamant I would never get another dog, I couldn't go through the heart ache of losing another. I still have wee Shug and we have some great times, but I could see wee Shug was missing having a doggy companion and I felt that I was ready too for another dog. The decision was made to rehome a dog, but we wanted one as young as possible, with no real preference to breed but a border collie would be great. We looked at a couple of rehoming websites but there on the SSPCA website was a young border collie that had not had the best start in life.

To cut a long story short we we were given the the opportunity to rehome this pup if Shug got along with him and we could show him how to be a playful fun loving good behaving pup. So for the last week Shug and I have been going to see him, walk him, play with him and help to start teaching him right from wrong. He's still young and has a lot to learn, but with my guidance and wee Shug as a pal he will hopefully turn out to be as well behaved as Buzz was and how Shug is now.

Today he came home with us, so Shug would like to introduce you to his new pal Sam (whose name might change). I'm sure we are all going to have a lot of fun and good walks together :)

Shug and Sam playing in the garden

Beautiful proud wee Shug

My Amaryllis has flowered

I love how an amaryllis grows so quickly and I love it even more when the large buds burst open to reveal the beautiful flowers. this year my flowers are white and delicately edged in pink.

Did you grow an amaryllis this year?

Vintage wallpaper discovered

I live in a croft on a Scottish Estate in Aberdeenshire, not sure how old the building is, but I have done some research and so far found out it is at least 151 years old. The part of the house that is my kitchen, originally wasn't even attached to the main part of the house, I think it was an outbuilding. There was also a lot more out buildings than we have now, with one of them being a Smithy's which was situated in the corner of our garden. I'm curious to find out more so will be doing some more research.

We've been having some problems with damp on the back wall of the croft, even though there is a path and a small retaining wall as the ground is higher than the building. The Estate have put in a field drain along the garden but it is debatable as to if this is working how it should. The joiner has also been and taken down the back walls to the bare stone and replaced them with plasterboard and insulation.... yay insulation.

The downstairs bedroom had old lath and plaster, which really was in need of being replaced. I found it interesting to see the bare stone walls, I wonder if this is how the first tenants saw the inside of the croft or did it have lath and plaster walls?

The other room to be done was my art/computer/dining room (which was recently decorated!). In this room the joiner found that it was plasterboard on the wall and shouted me through to see the old wallpaper that was on the wall underneath. This stone wall had been plastered straight onto the stone and then wallpapered. 

Here's a couple of close up images of the wallpaper. I wonder how old it is?  Who put it up?  Who lived in the croft at the time? The colours are quite bright, but faded in some places. I love it. The joiner (whose name is Steve) managed to peel a couple of bits off for me and I think I might frame them and hang them back on the wall after it's been decorated.

FACT: plasterboard didn't start to be used until the1930's, but this doesn't mean that the paper is earlier than the 1930's because things don't happen fast around here and the plasterboard might not have been put up till 1960's or 70's.

When I took the close up photos I noticed that there was another layer of paper starting to peel away from the pieces I had. I'm not liking the wallpaper as much, but I would love to know the answers to all my previous questions about this paper too.

We now have two rooms with lovely insulated plasterboard walls which can now get decorated. I'm especially pleased the bedroom is at last going to get done because once it's finished we'll have somewhere for visitors to stay.

I'm happy about my new walls and the Estate are going to be looking into where the water is coming from that causes the damp and how they are going to deal with it, so hopefully it is dealt with fairly soon.

If anyone has any idea about the date of the wallpaper please leave a comment and I am going to do some more research as I'd like to find out as much as I can about the croft.

Art Abandonment

I belong to a group called Art Abandonment, where artists from all over the world abandon art or something they have created for a lucky unsuspecting person to find. I have not abandoned anything for a while but last night I had the chance to abandon  2 of my digital art images in a local primary school. I placed them near 2 classes that are doing Space as a project. Children and teachers are on holiday at the moment, but teachers go back 2 days before the children. I wonder if a teacher will find them or a child when school starts again.

They have a label saying "Pick me up, Take me I'm yours, Hurry before someone else does" and also a label explaining what Art Abondonment is all about. There is also an email address if the finder wishes to send a message. To find out more pop over to Facebook, Art Abandonment and Art Abandonment UK.

Could Spring be on its way?

The snowdrops seem to think so, as they are all making an appearance.

Tutorials

From time to time I will add tutorials to this page for various crafts. I will be creating a video soon to show how easy it is to create a string of bunting from one of my Instant Download Bunting sheets in my shop.
To get this page started here is a video I created quite a while ago showing how to create a Never Ending Card