Furzedown Gallery

I've recently had a new order of the little cards I use as notelets and I thought you might like to see them.

They are from Furzedown Gallery and are printed from original watercolours by the artist Kitty Herridge. Her subjects range from animals and flowers to dragons and gnomes - all set amongst beautiful countryside. You can buy the cards in various sizes but I always go for the smallest.

Ten of this size card are £10 and postage is free within the UK. This time I bought two sets of ten, including a set of snowy ones which I thought would be appropriate to send during the winter. Here are the non snowy ones ...

If you click on the picture above you can see the cards in more detail. Aren't they beautiful? I love them all; they're nostalgic without being too cute, if you know what I mean. As you can see, there are two cards with donkeys on. These will be sent to my daughter's partner who is particularly fond of donkeys. There is one called Clover who lives at Hackney City Farm, near where they live in London and, when he is well enough, they visit her and the other donkeys there.

Clover is the donkey at the back of this photo.

I haven't bought any of the snowy cards before; they'd make lovely Christmas cards, wouldn't they?

Only one donkey in this batch but Hedwig makes an appearance. I especially like the one with the red tractor; the artist lives on her family farm and tractors often appear on the cards.

I was pleased to discover that Furzedown Gallery is based on a farm of the same name near  Kings Somborne in Hampshire. As a child I lived in Longstock which is in the same part of the world. I went to school in Stockbridge and my Dad's family come from (and still live in) Broughton. It's particularly nice to be able to support and recommend a local artist.

In other news, I have started painting what will be my new craft room, although I'm tempted to call it the Room of Requirement as it can whatever I need it to be. Also, the cats aren't entirely sure that it exists as the door has been kept closed for years. When I go up there, they think I've left the house (I know this because they tend to stay indoors when I'm out and only venture out to the garden once they know I'm back).

Anyway, before being ill, I would have done a coat of paint on a room easily each day. Now I have to pace myself and can just manage one coat on one wall. So far, I've finished the ceiling and done the first coat on two of the walls.

The ceiling only needed two coats, despite the fact that the colour I painted it before turned out to be much darker than I remembered.

I suspect that those red walls will need three coats though. I shall get there in the end.