It’s been just over a month since I launched my own little shop, ‘Handmade by Nellie’, over on Facebook. As well as hand-painted greetings cards, canvases, and bookmarks, I have also been putting hand-crafted winter ornaments and gifts up for sale. These include the wreaths I wrote about in a previous blog, as well asContinue reading “Blog: Winter Ornaments for Sale”
Tag Archives: nature
Blog: Autumnal Crafts
It has surprised me that even during this topsy-turvy year, the turning of the seasons still brings the same kind of shift in energy. As the summer ends, I no longer feel like I have the attention span for research; when my poetry teaching begins again this month, I will also lack the time. ButContinue reading “Blog: Autumnal Crafts”
Folkdays: Silbury Hill
The Avebury World Heritage Site is a prehistoric landscape which boasts stone circles, henges, burial mounds and barrows. It has been considered a site of pilgrimage since the Neolithic and Bronze age period in which these monuments were built, and continues to draw in visitors today. It’s a place rich with mystery and fascination, andContinue reading “Folkdays: Silbury Hill”
Folkdays: Goldfinches
One of the things I feel I really miss out on when I live in the city are the birds. The skies above are mostly the domain of urban gulls and wood pigeons. Sometimes there will be the chattering of a magpie in the early hours, or the warbling song of a blackbird at dawnContinue reading “Folkdays: Goldfinches”
Blog: Leaf Printing
On the weekend I experimented with leaf printing, using leaves from my parents’ garden to imprint distinctive shapes and colours onto fabric. I was really impressed with some of the outcomes: read more about them, and how to have a go yourself, below!
Folkdays: Reviewing The Hedgewitch Botanical Oracle
My very first Folkdays post was a review, of Shakespeare and the Folktale by Charlotte Artese. This was a book I had read, aside from simply for my own enjoyment, as preparation for my MA dissertation. Well, that dissertation is now underway, and so I have not had much time to dedicate to writing aContinue reading “Folkdays: Reviewing The Hedgewitch Botanical Oracle”
Blog: Rose Petal Pigment
To brighten my small flat during lockdown, my parents brought me over some beautiful bouquets of flowers. I noticed, when the stamens of the lilies began to fall, how they stained any surface they touched a deep russet. I decided then to collect them, and try to use their powder as a natural pigment toContinue reading “Blog: Rose Petal Pigment”
Folkdays: Bluebells
FOR MORE FOLKDAYS CONTENT, SEE MY BLOG. I am blessed to have grown up in an area where bluebell woods abound. At this time of year, the Clent and Walton Hills, Uffmoor and Hagley Woods, and Wychbury Hillfort are carpeted with swathes of this beautiful flower. Though I cannot walk through these indigo seas thisContinue reading “Folkdays: Bluebells”
Nellie Cole 