She Said Women! (by sarah)

On Wednesday near Cheltenham in a lovely WI Hall we are putting on a show of womens voices, ranging from the new mother's fear to influential female writers to Ada Lovelace the puppet (yes her - the puppet I drag around with me to things! The first computer programmer - from before there were computers).

Half of the profits made go to a charity for women escaping violence and abuse in Gloucestershire.

The Facebook event is here.

The event is being put on by Foul is Fair Theatre.

Come and celebrate International Women's Day Gloucestershire-style this 8th March, at the WI Hall in Prestbury, where a host of local female performers, theatre-makers, puppeteers and performance poets will be delivering an artistic banquet of female-focussed creativity. There will be singing, Virginia Woolf, a lady selling cupcakes, a Greek Goddess, wine and much, much more!

Tickets are £10/£8 with at least 50% of profits going to GDASS (Gloucestershire Domestic Abuse Support Service) - available from Eventbrite or on the door. Doors open at 7.30, performances start at 8pm.

Come and Join the Party!

Hosted by Foulisfair Theatre

The Jan Recap… (by sarah)

It's the end of January so what has gone on in the household snell-pym in the first month of 2017?

For a start there was the end of Christmas, I am still making the last few Advent vids ready for Christmas next year. We delivered presents though sadly not all the presents so we still have a back log!

Also mine and Mary's birthdays - mine involved a coffee, meal and shopping with Al before hospital stuff but we have only just done the proper celebration with kids and friends this weekend just gone which was also Mary's birthday. There was also posh vegan/Gluten Free brunch. Mary has so far played in the Waterstones cafe with her friend Lilly as her party is going to be in two weeks time. We've planned the party and got stuff ready for it.

This includes me working out how to make upcycled unicorn head bands and tail belts and little roll and pop up horses for the kids to make.

My mother was hospitalised so there was a trip to Essex and the adventures of getting home on the train which were unexpected.

DIY wise we have fixed several toys, remounted a coat rack which had pulled off the wall, dealt with networking and upgrading Jean's computer.

We got a telescope - an amazing thing which was a pool of Christmas money instead of presents for Al and Jean and part of mine and Mary's birthdays. We've seen binary stars so far. It was an undertaking to assemble and we now need to build a storage/transport box but it is assembled and being looked through though we've only had like three clear nights!

I've had three lots of testing at the hospital which took it's toll and norovirus hit the household. I missed a theatre meeting about performing a monologue and a poetry recording evening but I am being given second chances at those so that's all good.

I also missed my Krav self defence one off class and a poetry book launch which made me sad but on the other hand I was live streamed reading poetry at Food For Thought.

Talking of poetry I have also been typing up and editing poems from the BOOKCASE (Not shelf) of notebooks I have. The shear number is insane obv. not all of it is usable but a lot is so I have been organising Turquoise Monster and have even started submitting work again (as in 2 poems so far). I've written three poems this month predictable all about Trump. Of course I am doing my poetry writing challenges so I've drafted a good few more mostly not about Trump.

Jan has also been me gearing up for the poetry writing challenge that I host over at Wopo.

I have also designed, refined and created mini poetry scrolls, story scrolls, made bookwallets etc... for blank scrolls for others to write poetry on, personalised pencils and made write your own poem kits, made and put together 100 mini zine surprise pouches, story boarded two more zines, drafted half a short story, edited a couple of flash fictions, tried to write daily on this blog and started on the mammoth task of trying to sort out the Salaric Craft blog.

Also Storystorm - what used to be Picture Book Idea Month has rebranded and moved to Jan. so I have been idea generating and expanding on those ideas for kids books.

Alaric has been making a cufflink holder for the cufflinks I made him for Advent, the girls have been making invites and decorations for Mary's party and we have all been working on the cosplay outfits for True Believers Comic Festival which is this weekend coming. This has involved sewing, sticking, painting, metal twisting, papier mache and buying new wellys.

I had to get a third print run of my colouring book Love: A Stranger Dream made and in general have been trying to sort out The WigglyPets Press.

I have been teaching myself origami and have folded lit. hundreds of things from geometric modules to make bigger things from to little stand up foxes to pretty little boxes.

We've organised things for getting back down the allotment, so just sorting out containers for soil etc...

I've knitted four hats, made an Ironman craft kit, taken the kids to two (not us) birthday parties. Three projects are still currently being designed and refined including mending a rocking horse that is older than me. I accidently made a pair of slippers from an old coat whilst trying to make a portal gun (please tell me this happens to other people!).

Alaric made my laptop usable again (for now) and we had a chicken fatality 🙁 and we had to fix the chicken run and stuff and general animal stuff to sort out. We've got our new electric car and there was pie making!

NB pie was not chicken Al is veggi!

Jean is still at Scouts, Jujitsu, and Drama and Mary is doing her Ballet, both girls are missing climbing but for one of the parties we did get to go "caving". Alaric is still doing Krav and Hackspace each week. Oh and of course we had to do my tax (sobs!).

There were also visits from and too various family.

So that was January - it snowed and it rained and there was scary fog.

Coming up Trumps. (by sarah)

An inauguration of an argument nation
Security guards are stationed
Protecting Towers of Guilt
How long before first blood is spilt?
Highlighting Golden hair
A lapdog caught in it's very own snare
Showered and showered and gleam
But never clean
Because underage sluts are keen
To be queen with key to the plantation
Or so they say
They girls say...
No one cares what they say
No one cares
Everyone ware the new wares
The fashion accessories, dress and bow You can never bow too low
Sow the seeds of trepidation skies
Bombs flying high
Impact zones
Tweeting inanities from unsecured phones
Furry moth with micro dick
Is sick at it's new name
Humans? Are they all insane?
This ones... an orange ball bouncing
Flouncing to some anthem
But which Super Power is singing?
Who's conducting?
Who's leading?
Blonde fluff, golden stuff...
The tribble aint the trouble
No no that is piggy eyes
'Cos money buys
Apocalypse rise
And divides with fear and hate
Such bait awaits
Social media waits
Workers in the grave
Again, again
Broken dreams, smashed, who bleeds?
The people of no consequence
Shuffled off their coils
For not being faux Royals
Sitting up high
In thrones of...
An inauguration to split a nation
Remember the klu klux klan Think - His the MAN

A Flambe Lunch (by sarah)

So yeah - looks like I still can't really cook on my own. I'm fine with popping something in the oven to heat and nuking stuff in the microwave and even things that cook quickly in the frying pan though I still tend to burn them. But yeah I was grilling some bacon, I knew it was an off day, I couldn't find half my craft supplies that turned out to be exactly where I left them and so on.

Issue - weekend was busy with poetry performances, kids parties and tax returns. I think it might have been the tax return I had to think about which years stuff happened in and that is often different to the year it was paid for in which might be a different calendar year to the tax year and might not. Al did the reciet checking but I still had to work out dates and where I'd filed (or hadn't filed) various invoices etc..

Basically I am on my own during the day, Al normally makes food for me to just nuke for lunch or I have dips and veg etc... but there wasn't time to organise that because the weekend was busy and I didn't even do everything we were supposed to do! ie I was supposed to have a self defence class - something kind of needed after the van being smeared in shit and yobs throwing sexual insaults at me and my daughter.

Getting back to it - I decided what I wanted was bacon because it was being a slow day and I couldn't get my head around anything so working was a no go. Everytime I tried to do my naps someone was at the door delivering stuff (yes Christmas stuff is still arriving at our house!!! And we still have presents to hand out - go us!). I put the bacon on, I don't like cooking it when Al is around because it stinks and he's a vegi and its not nice for him.

Not really sure what happened, I was in the kitchen, the bacon was under the grill, it smelt like bacon cooking and then suddenly it smelt like bacon burning and when I looked there were flames coming out of the grill and I was like "AARRRGGGGGGGG" I oiked the grill tray out singing my oven gloves (booo hissssss) and popped it in the garden where the flames where leaping and spitting as the rain hit the hot fat.

I looked for our fire putting out thing... cylinder. It wasn't there - this is because it is actually in the workshop where it is more likely to be needed but Al says we can get a fire blanket for the kitchen which will make me happier.

When I looked the flames had signif. calmed down in the rain and I thought it would be ok so I got my camera and took a pic - because you know that is just what I do! Here's a picture of my lunch or rather the lunch that would have been.

Of course I was then too worried about burning things to attempt making the kids dinner and was just setting them up with cheese and biscuits (remembering Mary can't eat cow milk and is refusing peanut butter I wasn't very sure what I was actually going to be feeding her - we were going to be having fish fingers but the grill tray was/is still in the garden and I am not sure it will be much good). To the girls delight and my relief Alaric came in brandishing shopping and started cooking pasta.

This meant Mary went to bed an hour past her bed time as he comes in just before her bedtime. So kind of failure - kind of funny - kind of scary - very frustrating but also I am starting to see the correlations with things. I did heavy brain load stuff (tax) whilst not having my naps - I will get there with this one but it is why Al worries about leaving me on my own.

Poetry Scrolls and Food For Thought (by sarah)

Saturday afternoon I went along for the third time to Food For Thought, this is a monthly spoken word event in Gloucesters Cafe Rene. It is a relatively diverse group who attend though it is down stairs one of the reasons I've only just discovered there is a basement venue!

It was live streamed - I read twice - I did Shy and Ice and managed once again to walk into the speaker making it a hat trick!

There was a good variety of works ranging from classical, comedic rhyme, rap type styly and stuff from behind bars.

Next month is there Two Year Anniversary!!! Sadly for me it classes with The True Believers Comic Book Festival but hey - COMIC BOOK FESTIVAL!!!!

I will be at the comic book fest as WigglyPets Press if anyone else is going. There is also a LARP craft fair thingy going on in Gloucester that weekend too!

Anyway... Food For Thought was great - it ended up being standing room only and there was a little dog!!! And babies.

I took along my mini poetry scrolls which I have been making since new year. These have my art work on side and a poem on the other. Alot of the art work I have used for the covers of my poetry zines etc... so the poems on those are ones from the relevant collections.

I took along a whole bag of them and scattered them around the room before the event started. Someone thought I was scattering money on the tables because of they way they are rolled up. I laughed and said, "Money!!!! Don't be daft I'm a poet where would I get money like that from!".

I was kind of shy about it once people started to open them and read them - it's kind of an arrogance to assume people will want my stuff. And some don't want it, some people ignored them and others looked and then discarded and that is fine.

Some however picked them up and tracked me down and asked me questions about things like career or just wanted to state they liked them or wanted to know if the art work was mine as well (it is).

There are currently eight different poems, I am hoping to get that up to ten in the near future - as in before the end of the week.

I am filling up a little barrel full of them to take to book fairs and things. They have come out much nicer than I was expecting!!!

I've been developing this concept since New Year and part of it stems from the idea I had for our resolution jar and part of it came from something I read in one of the origami books I got. I've always loved my paper craft and the origami has helped spark so many ideas.

I've even created some boxes and things from traditional origami to display the scrolls in. This part of the project is still under development but I think it's super cute so have decided to share it with you.

The scrolls are small as shown by the coin for scale in the above photograph. However I still plan to make some even smaller ones. The idea of making really little writings like this is not new to me. When I was a kid we'd spend a lot of time in Wales visiting family and one day me and my brother were given the tiny tiniest bible - it sat in the palm of our hands. I loved it so much that a little poetry book about the same size was found or made for me (I'm not sure if my great uncle was making them or not). These were beautiful and I have always sort to create something similar.

I want to display my works in lovely ways, this is my nature and something I feel has been some what repressed by me trying to make my creative stuff profitable/bill paying. The lid is a mock up in scrap paper where zine printing went wrong and does involve glue, I think once I've perfected it, it will look amazing!!!

I have several other box prototypes being tried out as well.

Now within the origami book it talked about making paper and different types of paper being used to convey part of the message or the feelings surrounding the gift. I felt this was almost an extension to visual or concrete poetry where the structure of the poem and the font of the works as well as where on the page etc... is part of the message or feel. And I also make textural artworks to add a sensory depth so this made me feel all goose bumpy, I could apply this to poetry!

Then I thought about what paper I could maybe write on and draw on and what textures it should be and then I thought... hang on rather than buying patterned paper I can use art works that I have already created to compliment/add depth to the poems. They are there already and I knew I wanted them to be scrolls, little one off treasures.

I considered making my own paper - I used to do this as a child with scrap office paper and food colouring, it tends to catch my pens so I only like using it for making boxes etc... I realise I probably just need to try different things but I am happy with my scrolls.

Yes they are held together with loom bands - silicon ones - I did ask the kids if I could have them and will be replacing what I use from their stocks and hey they've had all the ones people bought me!

And that leads us onto the butterflying effect of ideas: ideas beget ideas and you end up with what I term a thought cascade - sometimes it can get too much and stops you thinking all together!

So from this I now have story scrolls which are still in development and are big, micro scrolls which are titchy! And are actually a resurrection of an idea I had before the head injury of putting stories in jewellery. And then there are the poetry notelets!

The kids wanted to steal the poetry scrolls but they wanted to make their own but they want the pretty pictures and I run writing sessions and creativity drives etc... so I thought... blank poetry scrolls! Ones people can use to write their own poems on.

So I selected the art work and made them. I rolled a set up to see how they look and I think they are fab! The girls love them 🙂

I picked art works of mine that I thought would be inspiring in and of themselves. Below is my favourite photo of them.

I am planning on releasing a templates PDF with them in. I might have to charge money for it or something because... bills. But I will also be leaving little sets of them around for people to find 🙂

They work best stored flat so I have been making little books and boxes for them. And also there are a couple of workshops I have worked out in and around this idea from creating your own from scratch to just using as writing aids but more on that later 🙂