Total Art Soul - for artists

Well, I started off the year just being  Beadybird...you know....crafting here, crafting there, busy crafting everywhere, supplying the odd shop, doing craft fairs, selling online...and then I turned round one day and...em...I'd opened a shop! A real one with walls and doors and ceilings and a large rent - that kind of shop. It sort of just sneaked up on me! I think I'm still in a bit of a state of shock because I've not started freaking.......yet! We've been painting and papering and stocking and it's starting to look really nice!

We're going to be doing lots of crafty type classes in the shop as well as selling handmade, Scottish goods (where possible!). Unfortunately my current status as School Slave will have to continue for the moment until my empire gets a foothold - but I'm sure by next month we'll be rolling in cash - ha,ha! Check us out on www.covescotland.co.uk and on Facebook (where we're known to our friends as COVE)

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Happy New Year! Or should that be Happy New Year? It's always hard to tell in January whether it's going to be a happy new year or not. Personally mine hasn't got off to a particularly good start. Oh, business is fine, work is fine, we're all healthy and most of us are happy. However I appear to have been struck down with that dreaded condition suffered by generations of great artistic minds.......INSOMNIA!! For at least three weeks my internal body clock has decided that 3AM is a perfectly reasonable time to wake me. It's not even a gentle awakening, it's just ping! One minute I'm asleep, the next I'm awake. I try, desperately, to pretend I'm not awake to fool my brain back into slumber but inevitably little thoughts shuffle their way in there. Thoughts like.....if I get a big enough bit of material I could make TWO cushion covers....or....those brooches would look fantastic with purple crystals.....or even...PAPER PLATES! That's the answer! Before I know it I'm itching to get into my workshop, my creative juices are flowing, my brain is buzzing and I have to get up and write it all down - and my husband and the cat are still sound asleep, oblivious to the flurry of creativity happening under their comatose noses! I did discover though that it does have its uses. For example, on Friday morning I was to be found, still sporting my dressing gown, in the kitchen, painting all the woodwork at 4.45am. Well, it was better than taking my frustrations out on my ear which I'm sure is what happened to Vincent!

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I have a veg problem. Well, when I say 'veg' I'm using the term loosely. Problem being....we used to eat a lot of veg. We used to go to the supermarket or even the greengrocer (remember those?) and stock up on lovely carrots and nice firm onions and tons of potatoes, even the odd bit of broccoli, cauliflower etc - you get the gist. In fact, seeing as how we have two voracious veg eating tortoises our house was positively SWIMMING in veg - like veg soup. Then it happened. About two years ago. My husband got an allotment. Some people might think this is something to be celebrated and to be honest, for the first wee while it was fine. The person before him had left some potatoes and leeks and the odd raspberry cane and it really was okay. However, as time has gone on the produce has become less and less appetising. The carrots are scrawny little worm ridden things, the onions are usually hollow and the potatoes.......well......we won't go there. Suffice to say, he keeps them in the shed and they go soft. This would all be manageable if I didn't have to pretend it wasn't happening. Am I allowed to buy veg? No. Am I allowed to beg for veg from neighbours? No. Am I allowed to even hint very, very slightly that all is not well with the leeks? No. In the Summer I have to sneak veg into the garden or the tortoises would starve to death .  On top of that, I have to make ooing and aahing noises when bucket loads of mouldy sweetcorn make an appearance in my kitchen and look positively awestruck at the bolted cauliflower. It's all too much, the stress is taking it's toll. Tonight we are having pasta. Am I as green as I'm brassica looking?

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