Felt Book Mark

I love reading, though over the past few years I've mostly been reading books related to my photography studies which has left very little energy or enthusiasm for fiction.  But one thing my studies have taught me is that you can never have too many bookmarks, particularly when working on essays and assignments.

Recently I've noticed some lovely bookmarks on Pinterest and decided I would have a go at creating my own version - its also a great way of using up some of the random ribbons and tapes in my sewing box and the felt scraps I'm starting to accumulate.  I used about 18 inches of tape for this one - which sounds like a lot for a bookmark but it means both felt decorated ends extend below the bottom of a paperback or hardback novel so if you keep one end tucked inside the back of your book, its handy for when you need to drag yourself away.  Its a great length for marking pages in bigger text books too.  I also used a couple of buttons for the flowers and a couple of seed beads for the eyes on the bird.  I die cut these shapes but it would be easy enough to hand cut small shapes too.

They are also quite quick and easy to make, so I think I'll be making more of these.

I chose to vary the colours on each side for extra interest.

The White Cliffs of Dover

The title I've used for this post always makes me think of that Vera Lynn song that was so popular during WWII - not that I was around back then, but I'm lucky enough to live very close to the cliffs and as a child, I lived even closer.

I grew up in a little village, off the beaten track between Dover and Deal.  We moved there when I was 8 years old and I consider myself very lucky to have grown up in such a beautiful place - in fact I've always wanted to be able to move back there one day, but I can't complain about the town where I currently live and I'm only 5 miles away from my childhood home and about half a mile from my local beach.

I haven't been feeling too well over the past few months, not helped by going down with one virus after another since December, but having not been out for nearly a week, a little bit of sunshine and feeling as though the walls were closing in, I rang one of my friends the other week and after having my friend help me select a button for my new bag which I'll show you in a future post, we took a little drive down to the beach of my childhood and spent a very pleasant couple of hours enjoying the peace and tranquility of the place from the comfort of my car - it was a bitterly cold day!  We did venture out of the car briefly to take a look at the latest cliff fall and take a few photos of it and here is one of mine...

This was just a quick snap with my little compact camera as I wasn't up to hauling my 'proper' camera gear about but I'm happy with the result (apart from the wonky horizon) as it shows some very white Dover cliffs.  I've often heard people say that the cliffs weren't as white as they'd expected, but after a cliff fall like this, the cliffs are amazingly white, and the water had a milky quality from the chalk that had fallen into the sea.

I've often wondered what I would be like to live in one of these houses (there are three) tucked under the cliffs... on one hand I think it would make me nervous, although that part of the cliffs is probably more stable as its not subjected to the waves, but living here must also be a wonderful experience - what a fantastic view!

These houses have had some very famous occupants over the years; Noel Coward lived here for some time, although it is said that he moved away because he found the view too distracting and struggled to get work done here.  Ian Flemming on the other hand seems to have been inspired by the view as he wrote and based the novel "Moonraker" here.  Its also said that the London to Dover coach - which still bears the service number 007 also provided inspiration for a certain character but there is much argument on that subject and sadly we'll never know the truth.  But having travelled on that service a number of times myself when I was younger, I like the idea.