The National Art Pass

Have you heard of the National Art Pass? I hadn't!

I was making plans for some nice days out and looking at the website for a local museum when I noticed a bit of small print saying people with a mysterious thing called a "National Art Pass" got free admission. "I wonder what that is?" I thought, and Googled it. It turns out the National Art Pass is a great scheme run by the Art Fund that gives you free entry to lots of museums, galleries and historic houses across the country plus money off lots of exhibitions. Cool huh?

You buy an annual membership, and then you can use your pass as much as you like during the year. Since I'm going on lots of day trips at the moment I decided to treat myself to a membership, and my Art Pass arrived last week.

The welcome pack includes this year's guide to venues across the UK with connections to the Art Fund.

All the venues that offer free or discounted entry to Art Pass holders, or discounted exhibition tickets are clearly marked. The Art Fund website also has a really useful guide to current exhibitions, many of which are 50% off with an Art Pass.

I am already making mental lists of exhibitions I want to see this autumn now they're going to be so much more affordable. I'm especially interested in seeing Elizabeth I & Her People at the National Portrait Gallery, Facing the Modern at the National Gallery and Pearls at the V&A.

And, of course, I'm looking forward to getting free or discounted entry at lots of interesting places throughout the year - many of which were already on my list of places I wanted to visit, including: The Courtauld Gallery, Red House, Kew Gardens, Bletchley Park, The River & Rowing Museum at Henley, and Kensington Palace.

I'm also hoping that making the most of my year's membership will prove an added incentive to stick with my plan of weekly nice days out!

July Bits & Bobs

Hello there! Things continue to be a bit quiet around here as I'm still suffering from creative block (ugh), but I've got a few snaps to share of things I've been up to lately...

My shops are all still open, so I've been keeping up my usual routine of parcel-packing and posting a few times a week. I like listening to Agatha Christie audiobooks while I'm packing up my orders and I'm currently 3/4s of the way through Dumb Witness. I'm so familiar with the plots of these books, and they're so light and gentle-paced that I can half-listen to them easily while I'm focused on writing customer addresess, etc. 

I have been doing a little bit of sewing here and there despite my creative block - I finished a batch of small poppy brooches earlier this week. The poppies have always been one of my favourite designs to sew.

Unfortunately I hurt my hand a couple of weeks ago and had to stop knitting for a bit, so I've fallen a bit behind with my sky blanket. I'm still taking careful note of the sky colours each day though... there continues to be an awful lot of grey!

I've been trying to switch off the laptop as much as possible when I'm not working, as part of a wider effort to develop more regular & less workaholic-y working habits. Being self-employed it is all too easy to get into the habit of just working all the time and not properly "switching off" from work, but I'm trying to make a determined effort to stop work at a set time in the evening & take proper days off (just a small bit of emailing in the morning and evening on my days off, which honestly can't really be helped when you're running an online business which is "open" 24/7).

So instead of reading blogs I've been reading stacks of library books, and instead of writing emails to friends I'm doing my best to send them cards & write them proper letters. I'm currently reading Philip Pullman's Northern Lights (a.k.a. The Golden Compass) which is just ace. I am a huge fan of novels like this and read soooo many of them as a teenager, that I am completely amazed / slightly baffled that it's taken me so long to get around to reading the His Dark Materials trilogy! Mmm... lovely books...

On my days off I've been enjoying the slightly unseasonal pleasure of curling up with lots of blankets, reading books or watching DVDs. The "day bed" in my studio is covered in comfy cushions and cosy blankets, including the giant granny square blanket which I crocheted last year. The double-bed sized blanket was my very first crochet project, and a huge amount of fun to make. I finished sewing in the ends just before I suddenly moved house last autumn & it's been packed up in a box ever since... it's very nice to finally be using it, and I think it looks rather snazzy with those vintage florals! I must remember to try to get a photo of the full finished blanket in all its stripey glory sometime :)

I've also been going on some day trips - yay! I'm currently living a mere hour and a half from central London so I'm trying to get up to town as often as possible for trips to galleries and museums and to meet up with friends and some of the lovely folks I've got to know through Etsy over the years. I've been buying a postcard or two from each place I've been to, as a little memento of my travels...

... with so many great galleries & museums (almost) on my doorstep I'm determined to visit as many of them as I can while I'm living here! The Natural History Museum is next on my list, and then after that I'll be giving London a miss for a few weeks while the Olympics are on and going to places like Oxford & Windsor instead. You can see Windsor Castle from my parents house on a clear day, and as local residents we get free entry (yay!) but I haven't been for at least 15 years. I am quite looking forward to it.

UPDATE: My poppy design is now available as a sewing pattern! Visit my shop to see all my printable PDF patterns