Cider, folklore and a UIU

Wassail, wassail all over this town, 
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown,
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
With the wassailing bowl we'll drink to thee.


This weekend saw us taking part in an annual tradition down here in the West country,  the Wassail.  I have been to wassails in various parts but this was the first one in Wales (Chepstow) and each are different-this one was fabulous, so many people turned up with a kind family opening their house to us strangers with homemade cider and food.  

Its an ancient tradition of blessing the apple orchards and making as much noise as possible to scare away evil spirits and encourage a good years harvest.  Mummers dance and musicians play....a great day.

All the homemade costumes, such crafting effort and so well executed-fabulous.

All the horse skulls danced in the night as we all marched over the bridge back into Wales...and a few more ciders!!!

I did manage to get some crafting done...this is another Use it Up from my scrap box (seriously, its like the tardis....I haven't even come close to the bottom!).

The saying is stamped on cloth coloured with distress stains, the background is stamped with a dylusion stamp and then I went around the edges of the stamp with black and white inks, added raffia, a leaf and a bee that broke off a hair band I made a couple of years ago.

Such a cute bee, I must admit I do like insects, there is just something about them (so long as they are not HUGH spiders in the bath....that's just effort to remove them!).

Anyway, off to have a mooch around blogland.

Happy crafting

Li'l pidge