CRAFTY GOODIES FROM WALES

Good afternoon!
How are you doing this Friday? In Sweden it's still scorching.... It's going to be a historic summer - not in a good way. Been on my bike to the shops, and now relaxing with a cold drink. Orange, kiwi, ginger and lots of ice. Yummy!

Bought fruits, and I've just chopped up a nectarine on a paper plate for the hedgehogs (and birds perhaps). Already changed the water bowls in the garden three times, for "my little animals". All so cute, especially the sparrows, like tiny bouncing balls! 
They need all the help they can get in this burning hot weather.

So I got back from a week in Wales, Thursday a week ago. Husband & I flew to Gatwick, rented a car and drove around Wales. I've posted 3 blogs about Wales prior to this blog. Such a beautiful little country, with just over 3 million inhabitants.

By Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

Since I'm a subscriber to Loulou Purple, I knew before leaving Sweden where I could find a craft store in Wales! 
We got to the VERY charming little market town of Dolgellau after four days in Wales. It's in the north west. Could not believe what a lovely charming place this is, full of character.

Craft store Loulou Purple is in the centre, easy to find. Met the lovely Louise in there, I've heard her voice many times before on Youtube!! Great to see her IRL!

Loulou Purple in Eldon Sqare

Lots of interesting stuff in her cosy shop!

Seen these fabulous stamps on Youtube, but never had any stamps from PaperArtsy myself. Love-love-love 'em!   😋

I stood there for quite a while...!!

Seen the acrylic journal block on YT videos aswell - was high up on my wish list!
Also a preloved (använd tidigare, vilket inte stör mig), beautiful stamp from American brand Heartfelt Creations.

I might be the only crafter in the world (?!!) who doesn't buy stuff off the internet. 
Never had any Archival ink pads, but really want it since they're waterproof (= vattenfasta). 
Memento ink pads that I've got is 'alcohol friendly', and great when you use markers. Now I can stamp with Archival ink and paint with my watercolor pencils & waterbrush without any smearing.  👍

If you haven' seen Louise's YT videos yet check it out. She often uses fun techniques.


Did you know there're about 600 castles in Wales!!

This one is in Chepstow, where we first started out

A few days later we drove to the city of Cardiff. Visited a W.H Smith shop (bookstores that are all over the U.K), and found this gem:

Some art journals from wellknown crafty brands are ridiculously expensive in my opinion. Love this, and it was for a good price 
(ca 115 kr).

A pocket on the first side

The pages are thick, which I like

Have never been interested in stickers before, but since I'm about to start using a Traveler's Notebook, I'll be collecting them now!
Found the glittery tags at a store called Clintons, in a huuuuuuge shopping arcade in Cardiff.

The castle in Cardiff. Went inside, it was beautiful

The last but one day we went back to the quaint little town of Chepstow. They've got a pound shop on the main street...!! Of course I had to check it out. 😍

They'd loads of stickers! Will come in handy for my TN

For a relative

Also got these beautiful paper bags

Will fussy cut the images out and use in my art journal

Little town of Llangollen

Can't wait to start using my new Welsh goodies! Have not been crafting as much as I usually do though since we got back. The heat upstairs is almost unbearable, I'm sure it's over +40°C here by my computer.... My brain is starting to fry again!! I better come to an end before I start writing lots of grammatic oddities, etc.  😵

The latest art journal in my "decoupage book" with handmade paper, that I got in Malta.
Zebra is the symbol for the disease of the connective tissue that I've got; Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Got this lovely napkin from a friend in London.

All for now. Later this Friday one of my favourite series is on the telly, 'Poldark'. At the same time there'll be a lunar eclipse (blodmåne) at 9.15 pm! Must have a look at that, it's supposed to be prolonged - longest of the century!!

Wish you all a happy weekend!

WEEK OF WALES, last part!

+27°C, phew! Way too hot for me. When you open the front door, the intense heat hits you like a brick wall. Been out for a while earlier, needed to get some bits & pieces (like cat food for the hedgehogs), and also nipped into the craft store Panduro. 

Now I'll stay put in the cool house. With my tub of instant coffee!

On to the third and last part of the trip to Wales last week. So had finished Monday 16th in Swansea in my last blog.

The next day I woke up with a headache & pain in my neck, no energy (oh, the joys of living with EDS.....).  😩
We had breakfast at the Dragon hotel and my head got better after some caffeine. 
Checked out and then left Swansea. Must say I didn't like this city at all!

We drove on to the biggest city in Wales, Cardiff. Wanted to see the medieval Cardiff Castle.

The original castle was built in the 11th century!!

Cardiff Castle is partly set in a beautiful park

Before entering the castle naturally we had to have some coffee!

A delicious cappuccino. I like the foam best!

We ended up at a table next to a mother with her two pretty daughters in their 20's. One of the beautiful daughters had a lovely black &  blue robe, and next to her on the chair was the typical academic exam hat, they're called mortarboards (= akademiker hatt).

We chatted for a bit, she had been studying medicine. Later we saw the whole city of Cardiff was filled with young people wearing the robes and mortarboards. Festive!

Outside the keep  (= förstärkt huvudtorn)

The castle was given to Cardiff City in 1947

There was actually a wedding this Tuesday 17th of July in the castle area!

Interior of the keep

Purple butterfly-bushes were everywhere (we've got white ones in the garden)!

Going inside.....

Stunning artwork, very impressive indeed

Appalling quality of my photo, but check out the snug! Could see myself sitting here reading a good book (in a wing chair), or use it as a crafting space, haha!


After the castle experience we went shopping. Found some crafty things, that I'll write about in a separate blog. My husband finally got his 'fish & chips' (yuk!), then we walked back to the rental car, and left Cardiff.

Decided to drive to Chepstow - the little town where we first started our tour around Wales. Chepstow is such a charming quaint place. Was lovely to return to this very small town, after being in two cities.
Got a room at oldfashioned 'The George'.

View from our room Unfortunately I missed the very confident looking gull (trut fågel), walking on the pavement and in the middle of the road like he owned the town, haha ha! 

Had a lovely dinner in the evening at a Greek restaurant!! 

Mythos

I really like this oldfashioned style

The room at the George was soooo hot. Took me ages to fall asleep (and the guy next door watching tv with the volume on high sure didn't help!). 

Went out in the picturesque town after breakfast, since we the evening before spotted a pound shop! I bought lots of stickers for my art journaling and traveler's notebook in there (two big packs for £ 1).


Left Chepstow before 12 am, and drove on the motorway in very heavy traffic to Horley in England. It's close to Gatwick airport.
Checked into Gatwick Belmont hotel. 

Horley is probably a lovely little town too, but I just didn't have the energy to go out. Had a rest this last afternoon, and ate dinner at the hotel in the cosy lounge (while Donald Trump was on tv once again.........).

Up early the next morning, Thursday 19th. Had breakfast, then checked out and drove back to the car rental place. Shuttle to Gatwick, and later on to the Norwegian aircraft to take us back home.


Had a lovely week in beautiful Wales. We've seen stunning spots in this little country
(but I must say I prefer Swedish plumbing (= VVS)!!!

Have a great week ya' all! Crafty stuff from Wales coming up in the next blog!

A WEEK OF WALES, part 2

Shwmae!  (= Hello in Welsh language)!
Hope you are all having a nice/fun/relaxing Sunday.

I will continue writing about our trip in Wales earlier this week. As I told in the blog yesterday we left Llangollen Sunday morning, and drove to the famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct across the river Dee.

(If you are reading this on an iPad or a mobile phone, click on the photos and they will enlarge

Om du läser bloggen på en surfplatta eller mobiltelefon kan du klicka på bilderna så förstoras de).

Akvedukten är 307 meter lång

You can travel on the aqueduct on one of the canal boat, takes about an hour. We chose not to, since we wanted to carry on driving.

The lovely view from standing by the aqueduct

North east Wales

Stunning views from up there!

Wales is very hilly (kuperat)!

The aqueduct was completed in 1805, and it took ten years to design & build. Very impressive indeed. Beats me how they could build something this spectacular so long ago. It is the highest aqueduct in the world!

If you're going to Wales and want to see the majestic aqueduct, make sure to book the canal boat ride days before you actually get to Wrexham county - PONTCYSYLLTE is a very popular spot amongst tourists!

So you've just learned what 'tourist information' is in the Welsh language!!  😜

We said goodbye to Wrexham county and drove on with the rental car to......

.......!?! Have no idea how they pronounce this village name (apparently you can listen to it on Youtube!). This village is also known as Llanfair, think I prefer that version, ha ha!

As you can se underneath on the sign the village name it means:

"St Mary's church in the hollow (= betyder vanligen ihålig) of the white hazel near to the fierce (häftiga) whirlpool (strömvirvel) of St Tysilio of the red cave". Phew!!

The village has 3.100 inhabitants, and is on the island of Anglesey on the north west coast. 
I found the place quite boring, was nothing there apart from the long village name. The nice little café across the road from this shopping mall was closed this Sunday. Disappointed!! Things sure didn't get better when I was hit by a migraine attack again. Bummer!

We left and drove on south, ended up in the small town of Barmouth (2.522 invånare) northwest.  
It seemed like a tourist spot, since it was right on the coast, and we were wondering if it would be possible to find somewhere to stay for the night. Found a very nice room right away at B&B Seascape, owned by a very friendly couple.

Little town of Barmouth

Watched the second part of the football final in our room, where my #1 favourite country, Croatia, won the silver.

Then we went out to find a restaurant. Very surprising this was like Mission Impossible!?! How on earth could this be in a tourist spot?! 
In the end we found Min Y Mor hotel (not in the town centre), where we had our dinner outside, overlooking the sea.

Seaside resort Barmouth

The Min Y Mor restaurant is the building to the left

I was brutally tired (migraine does that to you), and slept very well in our cozy room at Seascape.


At the time there was no breakfast at Seascape, so I had a lovely cup of Nescafé (that is what I drink at home aswell - couldn't live without it!) in our room, to make me wake up properly 
(when you suffer from Ehlers-Danlos you're always tired anyway, so I really need the caffeine). 

A very good thing in all B&B's, guesthouses, etc, is there's always instant coffee and tea in the rooms. Great!   😋

This Monday I had a very special goal! I'm a subscriber to Louise on Loulou Purple on Youtube, so I knew very well that there was a craft store in Dollgelau. I had also seen adverts in the English craft magazines that I sometimes read (tack tack, Ulrika!). 
So market town Dolgellau was a planned stop long before we left Sweden. I will write a separate blog about the goodies I bought in Loulou Purple!

A bit of heaven!!

How we WISH that we'd known beforehand what a wonderful little old town  Dolgellau is, then of course we would have stayed there.  Absolutely lovely and charming in all ways. 
Apparently only 2.434 inhabitants in this town that oozes charm. 

Since we had not had any breakfast we went to a gorgeous café after leaving Loulou Purple.  Name of this special café is Y Sospan.

This place dates back to 1606(!), and used to be a prison!!!

Y Sospan is full of character! Very friendly staff aswell.

Check out the ceiling. I just love beams!

With a bit of a sad heart, we had to leave Dolgellau. We drove for several hours, but couldn't seem to find a cozy place to stay. 
Finally we ended up in the city of Swansea, in the souh of Wales. I did not like it, but we were getting really tired after the long ride.

Quite a big city, has got 179.485 inhabitants. I really prefer B&B's in small charming towns, but what do you do when you cannot find any in the area you happen to be in, and you're getting fed up sitting in the car. Also tiresome for my dear husband doing all the driving, in left-hand traffic.

Swansea seemed 'messy' so we didn't bother long to look for a B&B, but checked into the Dragon hotel. The room was really nice, and for the first time we got aircondition - yay! Many nights were so hot I'd trouble falling asleep.

Inside the Dragon hotel in Swansea!

A nice spot, Swansea castle

Love the color burst of the flowers. They seem to have lots of these beautiful arrangements in United Kingdom.

Had a delicious dinner at 'Las Iguanas', a south american restaurang!! 
Went back to the Dragon hotel, watched an episode of the Swedish criminal story 'Morden' (the Murders!), then I was out like a light. End of Monday the 16th of July!


Thought I would finish the blog about Wales today, but the intense heat upstairs in our house is getting unbearable. Hope there're not too many spelling or grammatical errors, but my brain is frying...!!


Next stop after Swansea was Cardiff, that's what's coming up next time.
Bye for now!


Look after yourselves out there, friends!

P.S. The hedgehogs had eaten all cat food that I put out on a plate last night! The poor things has a tough time in the awful heat.

Bit of greenery in Cardiff!