Saturday, December 24, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Pretty Christmas gift tags, cards & ornaments - the internetz has it all!
Today we briefly interrupt the Harewood tour to marvel at the heaps of awesome Christmas freebies that can be found online. Let's start with Kirsty Neale's sweet Christmas cards. You can find the angel and many others on Papercraft Inspirations.
If you'd like some gift tags to go with the cards, you need to look no further than Kirsty Neale's blog (make sure to check out her Etsy store, too -- she's got some adorable stuff! Bunny garlands, anybody?).
The next gift tag comes from Amy Moss on Eat Drink Chic. Isn't it cute?
The next tags are really special -- or have you ever heard of feather gift tags? As you can see from the picture below they look simply amazing when paired with simple brown packing paper. Find them on Love vs. Design.
If you prefer classic design, have a look at these pretties, which you can find on The Sweetest Occasion. They were designed by Jen of Blush Printables.
Last but not least, what about some birdie ornaments? Lisa Rupp is offering these two sweet birds as a free download on her blog. You could use them as gift tags or even as Christmastree decorations.
If you'd like some gift tags to go with the cards, you need to look no further than Kirsty Neale's blog (make sure to check out her Etsy store, too -- she's got some adorable stuff! Bunny garlands, anybody?).
The next gift tag comes from Amy Moss on Eat Drink Chic. Isn't it cute?
The next tags are really special -- or have you ever heard of feather gift tags? As you can see from the picture below they look simply amazing when paired with simple brown packing paper. Find them on Love vs. Design.
If you prefer classic design, have a look at these pretties, which you can find on The Sweetest Occasion. They were designed by Jen of Blush Printables.
Last but not least, what about some birdie ornaments? Lisa Rupp is offering these two sweet birds as a free download on her blog. You could use them as gift tags or even as Christmastree decorations.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Harewood House Part 2: The Terrace
Madame Sphinx greets you at the entrance to the terrace. (Have you ever wondered how a spinx does her hair? Perhaps they've got servants for that kind of thing ...)
And here it is -- ta-daaah! -- the formal garden on the terrace.
This is the view from the house, across the formal garden, with the landscape garden in the background.
The view from the balustrade that you can see in the picture above:
They're kind of difficult to see, but all these black spots on the lake and on the lawn? Geese. Hundreds and hundreds of geese. I could already hear them while walking down the drive.
Back to the formal garden. There were pretty fountains, like this one:
And rather cold stone (marble?) benches to the left and the right. You can just about see one of those benches on the picture below. It nestles in the inner ring of the curved hedge in the back.
And then there is the very large, very neikkid man. Right smack in the middle of the terrace:
It's Hercules with a leopard, and it's a modern statue. The original statue was destroyed by severe frost in 1982.
So when you now look out of the window up at the house, you've got a very nice view of Hercules's very nice, muscular bum. Not the worst thing to look at early in the morning, I should guess. ;)
In the next installment I'll take you to see the ice house, the landscape garden and the walled garden.
And here it is -- ta-daaah! -- the formal garden on the terrace.
This is the view from the house, across the formal garden, with the landscape garden in the background.
The view from the balustrade that you can see in the picture above:
They're kind of difficult to see, but all these black spots on the lake and on the lawn? Geese. Hundreds and hundreds of geese. I could already hear them while walking down the drive.Back to the formal garden. There were pretty fountains, like this one:
And rather cold stone (marble?) benches to the left and the right. You can just about see one of those benches on the picture below. It nestles in the inner ring of the curved hedge in the back.
And then there is the very large, very neikkid man. Right smack in the middle of the terrace:
It's Hercules with a leopard, and it's a modern statue. The original statue was destroyed by severe frost in 1982.So when you now look out of the window up at the house, you've got a very nice view of Hercules's very nice, muscular bum. Not the worst thing to look at early in the morning, I should guess. ;)
In the next installment I'll take you to see the ice house, the landscape garden and the walled garden.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Harewood House Part 1
In early October I attended a conference in Leeds. The conference was called "Thackeray in Time", and I presented a paper on "Mocking Nostalgia: W.M. Thackeray, Richard Doyle, and The Newcomes" (yes, Dicky Doyle again!) (that's not going to be my last paper on Doyle: at least two more will follow next year). I basically discussed the relevance of remembered history in The Newcomes and how the text and the illustrations deal with, and comment on, nostalgia. Thanks to the research I've done for my novels, I was able to present new findings and insights into the novel (authors do make better scholars *g*).
I had reserved the day before the conference for a bit of sightseeing, and as the weather was simply FANTASTIC (it was hot! in autumn!! in Yorkshire!!!), I decided to leave the city and look at Harewood House, a grand estate near Leeds.
The bus dropped me off in front of the entrance to the estate:
And then I walked down the drive.
And I walked ...
... and walked ...
(pretty meadows to the left)
... and walked ...
... and walked ...
... and walked ...
(Oh look! Pretty neo-gothic church to the right!)
... and walked ...
... and walked ...
(more pretty meadows on the left)
... and walked ...
... and walked some more (which definitely drove home the sheer vastness of such large estates) (and if that's not great research I don't know what is!) before I finally reached the house itself:
It was built in the 1760s for Edwin Lascelles. John Carr designed most of the outside of the house, while Robert Adam (then a relatively young Scottish architect trying to establish himself in London) designed most of the inside. The famous Lancelot 'Capability' Brown worked on the landscape garden, and Thomas Chippendale on the furniture and furnishings throughout the house (whew, that reads like a Who's Who of 18th-century architects and designers, doesn't it?).
Edwin's cousin and heir became the 1st Earl of Harewood in 1812, and his grandson, the 3rd earl, married Louisa Thynne, who had great plans for Harewood. She ordered a reconstruction of the house, enlarging the building and adding a grand terrace to the south side. For this, she chose one of the star architects of the Victorian Age, Charles Barry, who had designed the new Houses of Parliament.
The next picture shows a smallish formal garden at the east side of the house:
And here we have another bit of formal garden at the south side:
Turn right, and this path then leads you to what Louisa must have considered the crowning glory of the house: the south terrace! (To be continued ...)
I had reserved the day before the conference for a bit of sightseeing, and as the weather was simply FANTASTIC (it was hot! in autumn!! in Yorkshire!!!), I decided to leave the city and look at Harewood House, a grand estate near Leeds.
The bus dropped me off in front of the entrance to the estate:
And then I walked down the drive.And I walked ...
... and walked ...
(pretty meadows to the left)
... and walked ...
... and walked ...
... and walked ...
(Oh look! Pretty neo-gothic church to the right!)
... and walked ...
... and walked ...
(more pretty meadows on the left)
... and walked ...
... and walked some more (which definitely drove home the sheer vastness of such large estates) (and if that's not great research I don't know what is!) before I finally reached the house itself:
It was built in the 1760s for Edwin Lascelles. John Carr designed most of the outside of the house, while Robert Adam (then a relatively young Scottish architect trying to establish himself in London) designed most of the inside. The famous Lancelot 'Capability' Brown worked on the landscape garden, and Thomas Chippendale on the furniture and furnishings throughout the house (whew, that reads like a Who's Who of 18th-century architects and designers, doesn't it?).Edwin's cousin and heir became the 1st Earl of Harewood in 1812, and his grandson, the 3rd earl, married Louisa Thynne, who had great plans for Harewood. She ordered a reconstruction of the house, enlarging the building and adding a grand terrace to the south side. For this, she chose one of the star architects of the Victorian Age, Charles Barry, who had designed the new Houses of Parliament.
The next picture shows a smallish formal garden at the east side of the house:
And here we have another bit of formal garden at the south side:
Turn right, and this path then leads you to what Louisa must have considered the crowning glory of the house: the south terrace! (To be continued ...)
Friday, December 16, 2011
From my Sketchbook
In the past months I tried several things to kickstart my creativity. Sewing is a great creative outlet, but ultimately, it didn't help me to get back into writing. So at the beginning of this year, I started a sketchbook. I blame this on Amazon and Amazon's book recommendations: among the books that appeared on my page were several about mixed media designs and creating sketchbooks of one's everyday experiences. I loved the idea, thought it might be helpful, and bought a shiny new Moleskine notebook as well as some fancy pens.
First thing I did was to create a title page:
You can see the starting date on the bottom left corner -- dating my notebooks is a habit from the time when I used to write poetry. (Oh wait, did I say notebook?)
Anyways, I dutifully dragged the sketchbook to university to start on drawings concerning my everyday life. As you can see, I decided that the dirty tea mug on my office desk would make a great still life AND could be combined with a still life of my tea mug at home. Cool, eh?
That was kind of fun. Alas, at that point I realised that the paper of the notebook was actually too thin for the fancy pens I had bought. (Duh.) So I started to use a pencil instead. (Oh wait, did I say notebook again?)
Next I tried my hand at a collage kind of thing. Well, not really a collage. More like, "let's take a glue stick and glue something into our shiny bright sketchbook". Tea mug, tea bag, gettit?
For my next everday object to sketch, my choice fell on Teh Kitteh. The strange drawing on the right side? The snow-capped mountains and the lush valley inbetween? That's Cara sleeping in her kitty bed, and the snow-capped mountains are in fact the corners of a pillow. To fill the page I also did a study of her kitty nose and her kitty paw and ... Uh, that's kind of boring. And the results aren't too good either. (I spare you the sight of the next page where I tried drawing with my left hand.)
And then something really wonderful happened: on the page after the unsightly left-hand drawings, I started to play around with words. And the words turned into chapter headings for the WIP.
And then suddenly, I was scribbling away at a scene ...
And after that, the sketchbook turned into a notebook, which I filled with scene after scene, interrupted by some odd comments like this one:
Or maps, like this one:
To my delight I found that my plain black Moleskine notebook is also useful for other things apart from drafting a novel: it is also extremely helpful for drafting the acknowledgments of the dratted diss:
In short, I LOVE my little black notebook!
First thing I did was to create a title page:
You can see the starting date on the bottom left corner -- dating my notebooks is a habit from the time when I used to write poetry. (Oh wait, did I say notebook?)Anyways, I dutifully dragged the sketchbook to university to start on drawings concerning my everyday life. As you can see, I decided that the dirty tea mug on my office desk would make a great still life AND could be combined with a still life of my tea mug at home. Cool, eh?
That was kind of fun. Alas, at that point I realised that the paper of the notebook was actually too thin for the fancy pens I had bought. (Duh.) So I started to use a pencil instead. (Oh wait, did I say notebook again?)
Next I tried my hand at a collage kind of thing. Well, not really a collage. More like, "let's take a glue stick and glue something into our shiny bright sketchbook". Tea mug, tea bag, gettit?
For my next everday object to sketch, my choice fell on Teh Kitteh. The strange drawing on the right side? The snow-capped mountains and the lush valley inbetween? That's Cara sleeping in her kitty bed, and the snow-capped mountains are in fact the corners of a pillow. To fill the page I also did a study of her kitty nose and her kitty paw and ... Uh, that's kind of boring. And the results aren't too good either. (I spare you the sight of the next page where I tried drawing with my left hand.)
And then something really wonderful happened: on the page after the unsightly left-hand drawings, I started to play around with words. And the words turned into chapter headings for the WIP.
And then suddenly, I was scribbling away at a scene ...
And after that, the sketchbook turned into a notebook, which I filled with scene after scene, interrupted by some odd comments like this one:
Or maps, like this one:
To my delight I found that my plain black Moleskine notebook is also useful for other things apart from drafting a novel: it is also extremely helpful for drafting the acknowledgments of the dratted diss:
In short, I LOVE my little black notebook!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Lovely, lovely books
Today I bought/received these two books:
The first one has been written by the wonderful Laura Vivanco, dragonslayer assisstant extraordinaire (i.e., she was one of the poor people who volunteered to proofread my PhD thesis). Laura has been reading and studying Harlequin Mills & Boon romances for a long time, and judging from her postings at Teach Me Tonight and our e-mail discussions, I am certain that her book will knock my socks off. I'm thrilled to pieces for her, and even though I wanted to wait until the POD edition would become available, I've just bought the Kindle edition because I simply couldn't wait.
The second book arrived in today's mail:
As you know, I've become a bit obsessed with sewing lately. So far, all I've ever sewn are bags and softies and some really simple quilts, but I do love the idea of sewing my own clothes. So for the past two or three years, I've been steadily building my library of sewing handbooks. All I need to do now is to brave the actual process of sewing clothes.
Which, to be honest, scares me witless.
Sewing softies is fairly easy and cotton is a very forgiving fabric, too. If you've made a mistake in the construction of the softy, you can always improvise and the result will still look good (well, except for that one doll pattern) (and the sock kitty with the strange head) (hey, but the embroidery on said kitty's belly is rather good!). But with clothes? That you want to wear???? Uh-oh.
So I'm still scared, still not sewing clothes, and still finding excuses. Ah well ... one day ... :)
The first one has been written by the wonderful Laura Vivanco, dragonslayer assisstant extraordinaire (i.e., she was one of the poor people who volunteered to proofread my PhD thesis). Laura has been reading and studying Harlequin Mills & Boon romances for a long time, and judging from her postings at Teach Me Tonight and our e-mail discussions, I am certain that her book will knock my socks off. I'm thrilled to pieces for her, and even though I wanted to wait until the POD edition would become available, I've just bought the Kindle edition because I simply couldn't wait.
The second book arrived in today's mail:
As you know, I've become a bit obsessed with sewing lately. So far, all I've ever sewn are bags and softies and some really simple quilts, but I do love the idea of sewing my own clothes. So for the past two or three years, I've been steadily building my library of sewing handbooks. All I need to do now is to brave the actual process of sewing clothes.
Which, to be honest, scares me witless.
Sewing softies is fairly easy and cotton is a very forgiving fabric, too. If you've made a mistake in the construction of the softy, you can always improvise and the result will still look good (well, except for that one doll pattern) (and the sock kitty with the strange head) (hey, but the embroidery on said kitty's belly is rather good!). But with clothes? That you want to wear???? Uh-oh.
So I'm still scared, still not sewing clothes, and still finding excuses. Ah well ... one day ... :)
Sunday, December 11, 2011
3rd-Advent-Sunday Goody
Are you all enjoying the crispy-cold wintertime (well, or summer, depending on where in the world you live) (and if it's the latter, I hope it isn't crispy-cold right now ...). Here in Frankfurt, we had the first dusting of snow last night -- apparently St. Peter thought this part of the globe could do with a sprinkle of his version of confectioner's sugar. :) By late morning, the winter-loveliness had already melted away, but it was nice while it lasted.
As a 3rd-Advent-Sunday Goody, I won't give you cookies because most of you insist on living so far away, which makes giving people cookies a tad difficult. No, I'll give you a sneak preview of my brandnew, soon-to-be-launched website. I hope you'll love it as much as I do!
On the pages about Castle of the Wolf, you will also find some new pictures of the Black Forest:
And some pictures of me when I was still little and we lived in the Black Forest:
(I'm standing in front of an old organ that used to be played at fairs. In the 19th century Waldkirch -- the town where we lived and on which I modelled Kirchwalden in Castle -- was famous for organ building.)
As a 3rd-Advent-Sunday Goody, I won't give you cookies because most of you insist on living so far away, which makes giving people cookies a tad difficult. No, I'll give you a sneak preview of my brandnew, soon-to-be-launched website. I hope you'll love it as much as I do!
On the pages about Castle of the Wolf, you will also find some new pictures of the Black Forest:
And some pictures of me when I was still little and we lived in the Black Forest:
(I'm standing in front of an old organ that used to be played at fairs. In the 19th century Waldkirch -- the town where we lived and on which I modelled Kirchwalden in Castle -- was famous for organ building.)
Monday, December 05, 2011
My love is like a red, red rose ...
... or rather a green, green fir tree that's newly sprung from a Bundt pan. A circle of fir trees, even! Clasping hands ... eh ... branches.
In other words, today I have once again succumbed to the lure of a Nordic Ware Bundt pan, in this case the holiday tree pan. But isn't it adorable? And please note the choo-choo train at the bottom rim. How could I possibly resist???
Okay, so I joined Weight Watchers two weeks ago, and cake definitely does not belong into the category of zero-point food, but I'm altruistic here: I'm thinking of others and the pleasure a cake baked in such a lovely pan will bring to them. Indeed, the purchase of the pan might turn out the perfect excuse for hosting a pre-Christmas tea party! :)
In other words, today I have once again succumbed to the lure of a Nordic Ware Bundt pan, in this case the holiday tree pan. But isn't it adorable? And please note the choo-choo train at the bottom rim. How could I possibly resist???
Okay, so I joined Weight Watchers two weeks ago, and cake definitely does not belong into the category of zero-point food, but I'm altruistic here: I'm thinking of others and the pleasure a cake baked in such a lovely pan will bring to them. Indeed, the purchase of the pan might turn out the perfect excuse for hosting a pre-Christmas tea party! :)
Sunday, December 04, 2011
John Denver & The Muppets
I know it's not Christmas yet, but hey, I've only just discovered this, so please bear with me: John Denver & the Muppets singing "12 Days of Christmas" -- how cute is that?
Thursday, December 01, 2011
New Academic Website
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