Countdown!

Time is ticking away! I'm off to Europe on Tuesday morning...

















Nelson Ball Clock available from Haus Modern Living

First Bristol, UK, for the IMPACT printmaking conference, then a rail trip from London to Brussels via the Channel Tunnel rail link; Brussels to Paris for a weekend of high culture (and hopefully a rendezvous with my former tutor John Ashton), and finally on to the Veneto region of Italy on the sleeper train (I want to wake up on a moonlit night and see the Alps sliding past the window!), where we're picking up a hire car to spend a glorious 10 days in a farm house we visited two years ago, plus a few days in Venice proper to take in the Biennale.

Gosh, how awful. I apologise in advance for any delays in Tweeting or blogging. I aim to get my tiny brain around the intricacies of mobile blogging and tweeting but who knows how well I will fare, or how frequently I will have internet access? I promise to try my best, but please forgive me if I'm not as good as I could be...

When I get back it will be full steam ahead! with my Etsy shop (I hope), in time for the Christmas shopping run-up plus lots of blogging on our house building site, since Warren reckons he'll have the house to 'lock up' stage by the time I get back.

Baci baci, ci vediamo quando torni !

Temptation...

Wrapping paper from the Royal Sydney Botanic Garden's shop - very sophisticated photographic images on a black background. Yummy.

Is there a 12-steps program for paper addicts? My name is Sara and I am completely addicted to paper: old, new, clean, raggedy-edged, ruled, plain, graph, etching paper, wrapping paper...



















I LOVE the crimson passion fruit flowers against that greeny background! And on the facing page in my portfolio a selection of blue & white papers

I thought you might like to see my portfolio case with sheets of the stuff waiting to be turned into something beautiful. It will soon be closed up while I go on my grand European tour...




















The left-hand section is a group of hand-blocked papers from Venice, and on the right a lovely black/gold/red reindeer paper that I'm going to use for some Christmas notebooks...


















Elizabeth Blackadder's flower watercolours - I love tulips and can't grow them here because it's too warm and humid

But oh dear, I've found myself plenty of paper shops on the way, including Shepherds on Southampton Row in London. This is a picture of their famous "paper wall" (I'm salivating as I type and wondering how I'm going to pack ALL OF THAT into my suitcase!). They have a 'new products blog' and an on-line shop... now that's dangerous.












I haven't located any paper merchants in Paris or Brussels on the basis that my lust for paper won't overwhelm me while I'm seeing friends and indulging in chocolate, but I'm remembering all the places I've been to before in Venice and thinking that I'll have to drop in again just to check if they have anything I need!


















Hand-made Nepalese kadi paper. The white-on-white flower block print on the bottom with gold-leaf centres I've had for ages but I'm saving it for something special!