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Trimley Herbs and a Beautiful Old Suffolk Barn

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Trimley Herbs is certainly making an impact in Suffolk where brides-to-be are shunning flowers in favour of herbs.

Trimley Herbs is certainly making an impact in Suffolk where brides-to-be are shunning flowers in… Click To Tweet

Hawstead Place is the site of a breathtaking Suffolk barn dating back to 1423. The ancient barn underwent a spectacular transformation recently when a young couple dressed it out for their spring wedding reception.

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Historic Burial Ground Decays Behind A Car Wash

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Historic Jewish Burial Ground Neglected and Lost In a Sea of Cars


As people scurry around Ipswich in their cars, many will come very close to a site of huge historic significance. A site that even has a connection to Suffolk’s celebrated, world-renowned artist, Sir John Constable.

However, many will be unaware of the sacred, historic burial ground where the remains of the town’s once thriving Jewish community were laid to rest.

Why? Because despite the deep and interesting history attached to the site, it appears to be neglected and largely ignored as part of the town’s rich and diverse heritage.

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Junk Jewellery

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A bracelet made with tissue paper

Junk Jewellery is an obsession with me.

Why?

Because making junk jewellery is fun, inexpensive and helps recycle waste.

When people give me presents, I am just as grateful for whatever wrappings, boxes or tissue that come with them.

Only last month my lovely friends in Brighton sent me flowers that came with gorgeous red tissue.

After I had arranged the flowers, I set about turning the ‘junk’ they were wrapped in (the stuff people often screw up and throw away), into jewellery.

One of my favourite things to do is make something from the detritus of people's kindness and send it to them as a gift. Click To Tweet

My theory is, it will always remind them of their own kindness and let them know how much it meant.

So that is why I turned the tissue in the pic below into the junk jewellery you see bedside it.

To find out more about paper beading click here.


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Paper Pendants – Jewellery From Junk

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paper pendants

Paper Pendants made from food packaging are easy and fun to make.

You can also use your own abstract artwork to create the pendant front. The paper pendants you see above were made from card cut out of a cereal box.

They were shaped and moulded by a sophisticated technique which requires the most inexpensive tool in my craft room – an empty toilet roll tube.

And I created the channel through the back of the pendant, where the stringing material goes through, by using another amazing technique involving a skinny, flexible birthday cake candle.

Oh yes – I have all the latest crafting gadgets in my craft room!

Paper pendants made from junk are fun and easy to make. Click To Tweet

If you want to find out how I created these paper pendants, visit www.funcraftstodoathome.com where you will find a step-by-step video tutorial explaining how I use my very unsophisticated tools to create these bright, chunky and durable pieces of jewellery.

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maple leaves

Maple Leaves Forever

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Maple leaves

Always something there to remind me.


Maple leaves falling in Autumn always bring echoes from another life for me. A life that was cut short with no warning.

But I survived and came home to England with two beautiful little reminders of the life I’d had in their father’s country. There have been 31 Autumns since I returned and my sons have grown into fine, strong men with babies of their own. Canada is nothing more than a bitter sweet memory because I never went back.

But there is a third souvenir from my old life. When my parents came to see me in 1978, I lived on the leafy Rusholme Road in Toronto. One day my father picked up a ‘helicopter’ that had spun down from one of the beautiful Sugar Maples on my street.

He put it in his jacket pocket and forgot about it.

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