Another instalment …

from Margaret Peot’s book. This involved a dozen paint rollers and several other ingredients. [I know what they look like – but they are much too big.]

You may have come across the technique which involves printing with a brayer wrapped with elastic bands. I’ve never done it because I don’t have the right sort of brayer.

 

Peot substitutes foam paint rollers for the brayer – and elastic bands do not figure in her instructions – but I tried them out anyway. Of course you get a different effect because the foam roller is distorted by the elastic bands – see bottom left, above. I think.

Or it might be bottom centre, on the right. Peot tells you to make test pieces and note which roller you used. Did I? No. Should I have done? Yes.

Other things I learned.

1. Read the instructions first.
2. The techniques work best with a light and even coat of paint on the roller.
3. You can’t rely on your husband to have every DIY material mentioned in every craft book you own.
4. PVA does not make a satisfactory substitute for tile adhesive. And it drips a lot.
5. The techniques work best with a light and even coat of paint on the roller.
6. Rubber gloves do help to keep your hands clean.
7. Not all the techniques are as easy as you think but they work best with a light and even coat of paint on the roller.
8. Using stencils over a previously applied light rolling works well.
9. The stencils I thoughtht were made of plastic weren't - so …
10. it was not a good idea to soak them in a bucket of water.
11. Other colours apart from black can look good, especially with a leafy effect.
12. Oh – the techniques work best with a light and even coat of paint on the roller.

 

Some time ago I boasted that I thought that our display of cyclamen was better than that at the Hillier Gardens. Well – I’ve just been out to take some photos – and I think I was a bit vainglorious.

But its not bad.

 

I think I also once mentioned that we always knew when our figs were ripe because the blackbirds ate them. 

Here’s the evidence.

Looks like a shot from ‘Silent Witness’ doesn’t it?

Of course, it might have been a squirrel.