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 🙂

And Then There Were Three :'( (by sarah)

Friday night about 11:30 pm I awoke in a panic, I was suddenly convinced that something was very wrong with the chickens, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep so I went down to check on them. Only three came out to great me... and there was a smell. I checked in the nest box and it was gross, one of them had obvs. been ill but there was no forth chicken in there. I eventually found her dead and huddled and stinking in a little hollow. Her tail was devoid of feathers, the meat/flesh look fresh but she stank and what the hell happened to her feathers?

So I proceed to set up the remaining three in a little hutch and run thing we had for rabbits because the hen house was in just too much of a state. There temperatures were still hovering around freezing. So what had happened? Had I miss counted that morning?

It had snowed so I went out and checked on them before the sun came up but maybe I miss counted, maybe we'd missed her when she died? I'm sure there were four apparently healthy chickens in the run when I went to check. I think I woke up because I forgot to check for the straggler (dead chook is the straggler), she was the under chicken but the bullying wasn't bad enough for me to take her out, she wasn't being pecked but sometimes they wouldn't let her near the food so I would make extra food piles for her and sometimes they wouldn't let her in the hen house so I would go and put her in at night. I can see from the kitchen when this needs to be done.

In hind sight I hadn't seen her when we went out there with kitchen scraps mid afternoon but that is often when they are laying or sitting and we try not to disturb them so I wouldn't have thought it odd that their were only three chickens 🙁

So... I assume she was ill and then curled up and died, I don't know if the other chickens then plucked her bum trying to get her to move or just because she was there or what. I think she was there when I checked in the morning, I am sure all four came out to great me. Now they are in the medium run because there was a bird flu out break and it is covered where the big run isn't so it keeps them safer from wild bird contamination so was it bird flu?

The others seem fine. Did they bully her to death? Did I miss judge? Did she stink because I'd missed she'd died or did she have egg perinonitis which I had missed and the rotten egg inside had finally ruptured? Al reminds me that they are rescues and they are around the age of being to die anyway and that the other three look fine.

She looked fine though - this is them on Monday.

I get lonely so I go and get them and they walk straight into the kitchen and keep me company and yes I have poos to clear up but it is a moppable surface.

Feeling guilty about it, a stuck egg is the most likely, all the chooks we've lost from this batch have died from that - one of them laid an shelless egg the first evening after rescue and never woke up. They have all the suppliments and things and I know this is normal for old hens but I feel it's my duty to analyse it so I can look after future and the remaining hens better.

Here are the remainers again jostling to get in.

Arguments About Coats (by sarah)

Yesterday it was supposed to snow... it mainly tipped it down with horrid ice slushes stinging you every now and then. Jean resists taking her coat to school and has already worn out a pair of school shoes with her daily too and from walks. Her friends parents gave her a lift home.

This morning there was snow.

I considered getting dressed and going with Alaric and taking photos of the common whilst he took Mary into school and going onto Cheltenham for the business networking morning.

But... I gave Jean my hiking boots to walk to school in (her school shoes in her bag). We then proceeded to have an argument about her coat - she doesn't need it - sadly I know of too many snow stories that start off that way and though we are in a town so it is probably going to be fine it might not be... so she left wearing her coat, gloves, hat and scarf. Not sure how much she'll be wearing when she reaches school but she will at least have it with her and that is the important thing! (I think the garden fairy could do with a coat as well and I might have already checked the chooks were ok).

Yes I realise this is not bad snow but that is actually more dangerous because people are blarzae about it and are under prepared when it then snaps bad.

Mary on the other hand was very excited to be wearing coat, hat, gloves and insisted on a scarf. I will now be a fretisical until Al txts me to say they've all arrived safely.

Making and Creating (by sarah)

So today has been a making things only day - when I got up I knew writing was going to be a no go as I am still recovering from the cognative tests at the hospital yesterday. This is what I made:

An upcycled book-wallet from graze boxes and colouring in books.

A little flip notelet holder also made from graze boxes and colouring in book (ie off cuts from the one upbove). Including a half pencil I have customised.

Origami boxes made from special card Al bought me yesterday, for the large illustrated scrolls both story and poetry. Decorated with patterned tissue paper and stickers of my art work.

These are all still in the concepts phase as I need to see how they hold together etc... Also I have seen the colouring I did after the head injury and it is not pretty but mostly salvagable by help of black marker round the edges.

Here is more of the same from different angles:

I ended up using a cheese knife to remove a section of the vanished wood so that I could ink onto the pencil. Very pleased with how they came out though.

The book-wallets are for blank poetry scrolls which can be used as note-lets. I am so so pleased with how this came out!

It is lit. some card cut out from a graze box with colouring in sheets stuck to it.

Using origami skills I then folded a double pouch which I stuck on the inside. I folded it out of an off cut from the uncoloured colouring in sheet I used from the inside.

I put the blank poetry scrolls which are little pieces of paper with my art work on that I have printed and cut to size. I hope they will help people get writing 🙂

These boxes came out lovely but the reason one has stickers on it is that it is actually very easy to buckle the cardboard, I ended up using a cheese knife to score lines where I wanted to fold and I added in a fold to make popping the boxes together nicer and avoid the ripping that occured with the first box. p.s. if anyone has seen my craft knives and metal ruler I would be most pleased to have them back but to be honest I don't think I've seen them since we moved from Essex!!!

An Origami Birthday (by sarah)

This is backblogged because I was kind of too frazzeled on the day to write as I had tests at the hospital but I still wanted the pictures and stuff on my birthday date on the blog 🙂

In the morning Mary gave me the screen play of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them - the latest Harry Potter-verse installement. Alaric gave me a book on Allotments broken down month by month 🙂 And an origami book.

So we went to get a brunch at Ed's Diner but it was closed down - really closed down as in all the kitchen stuff was out in the main restaurant and the website says it's perminately closed 🙁 But we went off and got a coffee instead or rather I did - still soya, decaf but this time with SYRUP!!! Alaric read his book whilst I sorted out a list of to-do's from my new allotment book 🙂 These things make me happy.

Then I folded some bits from my new origami book for Alaric including a jumping grasshopper that actually does flick into the air much to my surprise!

I improvised him a mouse and thought about how I could combine my drawing art with folding paper 🙂 True it is not a brilliant mouse but I still like it 🙂

We then went shopping and to Hobbycraft and TheWorks and bought me craft supplies including some lovely pastel cotton textured card from which to fold things from!

Then it was Pizza time!!! This had not been the original plan as I had frozen pizzas at home for my evening meal as Wednesdays are Scout days and quick dins were needed. But it was a bit tricky having found the diner closed as it is one of the few restaurants I know can cater for the gluten free and not accidently make me ill! I would have loved to have gone to the cinema but as I was having neurological tests done to see what whacks my brain out I didn't think I should go and do something I know will whack my brain out!

Pizza Express now have gluten free dough balls!!! I can not tell you how happy that makes me!

The meal was lovely and I did more folding, including this box which I am most proud of!

It is a nice box, easy to fold, easy to make a lid too and thanks to stickers larger versions will be perfect for some of my little publishing and craft projects!

Jean made me a card at school on lined paper and presented it too me with the words "see I didn't forget" her friend had made me one too though with a higher age than I am on it 😀 Jean's card had butterflies and shooting stars on in 🙂

Alaric insists he's organising something else for me too - no idea what.