Continuing with The Year of Creativity, I decided to try my hand at paper flowers - or roses to be more specific!

This project is one of those I had put on the backburner for a rainy day. With it being the long weekend over Easter, I found myself with some spare time and although it is decidedly the opposite of a rainy day today (20C and sunny, yes please!) I got cracking.

I had most of what I needed lying around already but these flowers do call for a hot glue gun and crepe paper. Crepe paper is regular tissue paper that's been coated with sizing (a kind of glue) so it holds its form if you crease it. It's also a bit more durable than regular tissue paper which I needed as the paper would be getting wet. It's not that rare but did require a trip to Hobbycraft (which unfortunately for me is two bus journeys away - boo).

When I had returned home victorious and got started, it turns out a little crepe paper goes a long way. I bought three packs of white paper and I only used half of one for this trial attempt. At least I'm stocked up now for future flowers!

To begin, I cut out petals from the paper. I tried to keep things vaguely realistic by making the folds of the paper go vertical up the petals. Then I mixed some acrylic paint together. You don't need to use any special colours for this - just a decent amount of white, and a small amount of of red and yellow. Although the petals dry lighter, colour (especially red) goes a long way when added to white.

Placing a petal over a jar/unimportant pot/scrap paper, I misted them until they were damp (here you'll learn how thick your paper is, go easy on the water until you've got an understanding of what you're dealing with!). Gently begin adding colour to your petals!

Let them dry and peel them off their surfaces. I've seen some people speed up the process by putting the dish in the microwave for for 15-30 second bursts but as it's a long weekend and sunny(!), I wasn't in a particular rush.

I nipped out into the garden and uh, relieved a hebe bush of a burdensome twig. In future I'll be on the lookout for larger, fallen branches as it will allow for larger flowers. I hot glued the petals together, beginning with a curled petal and working out. The buds were similar only scrunched up smaller.

And here is the finished flower! I'm really happy with this as my first attempt and it's lovely in my flat. Plants (both real and 'fake' like this) are slowly taking over the the flat and I am absolutely okay with it. Perhaps I'll try my hand at another species next time...

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwfFRDupflR/

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of wildlife photography. I love wildlife sanctuaries and zoos and basically any place I can take photos of animals. With no plans this Sunday, I didn't need much persuading to pick up my camera for a nice day out.

Well, it would have been a nice day only the Scottish weather was out in full force. It was sunny, but it was also raining and blustery and a little too cold to be outdoors for so long. But I still managed some very good shots!

We had a bit of respite by nipping indoors to see a flying show. Some of the owls are trained to be Owl Ambassadors for their species. In practice, what this means is that they fly from perch to perch for bits of chicken, and their only goal is that chicken. They are so focused on lunch and so practiced at flying that they swoop extremely low over your head. There was an awful lot of ducking/protecting my camera!

Alicanto the Magellan Horned Owl

Tehuthi the Pharaoh Eagle Owl

One surprise resident was this handsome kookaburra! Kookaburras are actually members of the Kingfisher family so decidedly not what you'd expect to find in an Owl Centre but since St Andrews Aquarium has meerkats, I've learned to never assume what I'll see at these kind of centres!

I will absolutely have to go back to the Scottish Owl Centre when it's a bit warmer!

Since 2015, the Audacious Women Collective has focused on empowering and encouraging women to overcome personal, political and institutional barriers, and to celebrate the achievements of inspirational Scottish women. The Audacious Women Festival happens once a year and a range of workshops and talks are held by and for people who identify as women.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket for a gilding workshop run by Sally-Ann Johns of Studio 58 at the City Art Centre. I had zero experience of gilding prior to this day so I'm very grateful to Sally-Ann for teaching me! Photos courtesy of my Instagram story that day!

We began by coating a wooden board with a gold acrylic paint. This would act as our base and would also help mask any issues we might encounter when we placed the gold down on the board as beginners. Hair dryers were used to speed drying along.

Next up was working out what word we wanted to gild/gild around. After a lot of humming and hawing, I decided to simply do The Travelling Quill initials in a pale blue and gild the background.

Once we were happy with our designs, we needed to coat what we wanted to gild with a substance called gold size. Size is an adhesive that can be used to stick gold leaf or any other kind of 'leaf' to a surface. It's quite runny and we used small paint brushes to apply it to our wood.

Another quick blast with the hair dryer and we were ready to apply our gold leaf! No going back after this as once the gold leaf touches the size, it is sticking! Placing the goldleaf was tricky because of this. It's very delicate and fragile so you have to place it gently and avoid tearing it.

With the entire board covered, the unattached gold leaf then needs to be brushed away. Using incredibly soft brushes, we revealed our designs below. It felt a bit like excavating ancient ruins or fossils!

A quick spray with sealant outside to protect everything...

And then that was that!

Not too bad for a total beginner! I missed a few spots with size but I'm very pleased with how it turned out and the board has pride of place in my office now!