Drama!

Good evening my friends!! Goodness me, what a drama filled day I have had! I will start by something relaxing and pretty (although they were made in rather a hurry as I forgot about them)...

 

The theme, as you may have guessed, was Black and White!! I tried my hand at mini patchwork on my mini sewing machine, and then hand embroidered a mix of colonial and french knots.

I also cooked up some arty bugs this morning with shrinkles!! For those who don't know how to use this genius invention, you paint/ink/colour/draw your design onto the plastic sheet, cut them out, turn on the oven to about 175C, pop them into the oven on a foil lined baking tray, and watch as they begin to squirm and shrink. When the shrinkles have stopped moving and lie flat once more, take out of the oven and leave to cool. Fabulous!!

Before...

After...

See how much they shrink? To decorate mine, I painted one side with gouache paints and then traced my drawings on the other side with a sharpie (a permanent marker will do the same thing).

 

So yes, I have had a very busy day- woken very early by two eager handymen who came and fixed everything they could find. They had heard, you see, that we were having an exterminator in this morning as well to take care of a giant nest of wasps that had taken root in our attic somewhere. I do feel very sad about killing all those wasps, but they had started finding ways inside the house and one of the housemates is severely allergic to wasp stings so we couldn't risk it. I had sort of become the 'wasp rescuer' as well and kept being called into various rooms to rescue people from the wasps (who had no interest in the people at all!) at very odd times of the night and day.
By half past 10 (am), all the men had left the building and we could settle back into a normal routine...which was fine, until this evening, when a new member of the household casually mentioned on her way out that there was a 'small bubble in her ceiling'. We didn't really think anything of it as she wasn't at all concerned, but then curiosity got the better of us, so we wandered up to check and were greeted by...

 

I'm not sure if the photos give credit to the sense of panic that we suddenly all had (especially me, as my room is directly below this one and if the ceiling was going to fall down here...)

I came up with the idea of covering the floor in bin bags (in case the ceiling did go), and we called out the emergency handyman, who turned out to be one of the chaps at our house this morning!!

He came and, after the initial horror, decided that it was just the paper that was bulging down and nothing too serious, so he gave it a prod and poke and caught the water in a bucket.

It was a slight let down really! Huge anticlimax!
The water has been turned off and Mr Handy will return tomorrow morning to dig out the upstairs bathroom and find out where the leak is coming from.
So I've had a very exciting evening, hope you have enjoyed your own! x