Monthly Challenge update-the sequel

More fabulous entries to the monthly challenge have appeared in the Flickr group photo pool, which is just great! I love all the different takes on the same topic. If you are still working on your entry or this is the first you have heard of this challenge you still have until the first Monday in April to join in with this months challenge "New Beginnings".

Catching Apples AKA Fleassy AKA Malay, is a lady I met on-line a couple of years ago and I have to say over that time she has wowed me many times with her beautiful work. The leather brooches above are fab. I think I like the tree best, but then again the sun if great too... but the leaf is also... hmm I can't decide. Fleassy's skills with silver, copper and jem stones have always impressed me.

Paper Street created this utterly divine collage for the challenge. It was inspired by the poem Shadows by D H Lawrence

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding,
folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth's lapse and renewal.

And if, in the changing phases of man's life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches
of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

Beautiful!


Lucy Jackson Designs has joined in with the challenge by creating a newly designed bag from re-purposed T-shirts. I love the choices of colour and the pretty little flower on the bag sets it all off perfectly. What a great way to give life back to unneeded t-shirts.

Isn't it great that we have so many talented people in the world. Join in with the challenge and see if you have any hidden talents you'd like to share with us!

Written by Lynne of PiratePixieCrew and Hyperloop Hoops