A present story

My brother is so difficult to buy presents for. I know loads of men are, but he won't even tell me what he wants for his birthday or christmas, he says things like, whatever I need I can buy myself (but what can I buy you?!), I don't really need anything (ok, but what do you want?), something for the flat (uh, ok, but what does the flat want?), and finally after mucho pestering he fobs me off with either 'write me a story' or 'paint me a picture'. And I'm never sure if he actually wants either of those things, but he says it cause he can't think of anything else. And once you give him the things you watch him carefully to judge what he thinks and you cannot tell at all. Once I wrote him a story, and a few weeks later after not hearing anything about it, I emailed him to ask if he actually received it. The email I got back read 'yep. read it. liked it. thanks.' My brother is a man of few words. (nb. I thought it was a great story, all about mining socks - mine were miners, his were stinkers...)
Anyway, these days I tend to anticipate his request, and this year decided to combine the 2 - well, it was a decade birthday, after all. So for the big 30 my bro got the following little story book:


meet james

james is trying very hard to think of a way to make some money.




phew!! its hot with all this thinking.



Better give my brain some air...


better drain it so it doesn't make a mess.

there. That'll do for the moment.

all these acrobatics are thirsty work...



mmmm...

brainwave!

james' amazing brain juice: £1000

I write these little stories to entertain myself, more than anything else... but I did catch a glimpse of a smile I think...

The grand unveiling.

I have been very lax about my photos of all the building works, I can only say that things have been stopping and starting and stopping and starting and my camera only remembered to take pictures during the stopping moments.. which weren't so interesting really.
So here now, for the upstairs at least, is the grand unveiling. Seeing as there have already been about 6 classes in the paper salon (posh name for papercraft room) I think it's a bit overreaching to call it a 'grand' unveiling but here goes anyway: The Fabric Room (excuse the wire hanging from the ceiling, that's my fault for leaving it there)

And the paper room (sorry, salon)


(notice the lovely floors, ooh I had fights over those floors...)

D'you like the pink walls? I just had to, I did. Although I abstained from all the walls being pink, and instead went for a lovely selection of the following colours: soft khaki (pastel green), icelandic blue (light blue) stepping stone (aqua) cocoa (mmmm lovely mushroomy brown) and I think the pink is called hard candy. Oh yeah, and the lovely fail safe that is magnolia. There was a darker pink too, but I just did NOT like it, so it went on the chairs instead. Notice how all the chairs match the colours of the walls?
Now, I am actually a darker and bolder colour lover, so this was tricky for me, introducing colour to a space that needed to be light, airy, warm, cosy, conducive to creativity and friendly. And not put anyone off (even those who don't like pink) Whew! I'll be happy if I made it half way through that list of requirements, I'm not sure all is possible.
And our lovely shelves, painted in stepping stone, constructed from scaffold boards, waiting to be instroduced to lots of lovely things...
So, my precious classrooms... consider yourselves officially unveiled.