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Hobbies 2015 - 2019

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To any one interested in taking up painting/drawing I would advise them to join their local Art Society (addresses in public libraries) this way they will learn from more experienced fellow members, have the occasional workshop and demonstration and usually an annual exhibition to show (even sell) your works of Art.
 
I think this a great idea. Having come back to Birmingham after spending most of my life in South Africa, ( parents emigrated there when I was seven. 60 now ) I have found it difficult to make friends. The people of Brum are very friendly and cheerful, but have left it too late to make close friends. I am always on the lookout for groups that meet and share their interest in a hobby they are involved with. Boredom is a killer. You can only have so much of, being it tv, reading, computer etc. Human contact is vital. I am researching my family history, love knitting, reading, music and used to do a lot of walking until arthritis has finally put and end to that. Love this site. Ann.
 
hi bellabee..firstly welcome back to birmingham:)..secondly it is never too late to make good friends...if you look at the events and meet ups thread you will see that we hold forum meets ups during the year..we always have a great time chatting and we hold raffles as well...many firm friendships have been made by attending our meet ups so you are more than welcome to come to the next one which hopefully will be near to christmas so keep your eye on that thread...enjoy the forum..any problems just give us a shout..

all the best

lyn
 
bellabee, I echo lyn's remarks, I have lived by myself since my Wife died 18 years ago and this Forum as been a godsend. Have been a member since March 2009 and have gained enormous pleasure, attended most of the meets and thoroughly enjoyed every one, particularly the Christmas events. Never been a TV person, but dabble in watercolour painting which I enjoy, plus walking my Jack Russell terrier 5 times a day, not bad for an 86 year old. Eric
 
Hi, thanks for your encouragement. I will certainly look out for the meet ups. I hope I am as active as you Eric when I reach 86. Brilliant.
 
image.jpeg Referring to " bellabees " post # 22 and thinking about something that came to my attention recently. It was when one of the family lady members began looking around for a useful hobby and social combination. A visit to a local " Craft " shop caught her attention and started the ball rolling. The craft shop specialises in " Card Making " , " Scrap Bookings " and " Jewellery Making . In addition to offering a wide range of craft products the lady shop owner also offers a range of " craft demonstration get - togethers " . To me, that sounds pretty good for having a look at starting a hobby whilst perhaps getting involved with a bit of socialising at the same time.
Anyway, the family member, having purchased, a few items from the shop, gave me a few bits.
I had a little " try- out ".
It only involved bits of stiff paper, a pair of scissors, a bit of paper glue, a few colouring pencils and a look in on " You Tube " calling for demonstrations of " Pop up Cards ".
Had a load of fun for a few hours. So much so that I am determined to follow up and have further goes at it in the future.
The " family member "is intending to explore the " demonstration " offer at the craft shop with a view to judging the social possibilities as well.
On this small hobby alone I get the feeling that with a bit of patience and determination anyone could create some lovely individual home made greeting and celebration cards to send off and be proud of.
The photo is a shot of the first " try outs "at having ago at " Pop Up " card making. Not great but not too bad either I think. Will no doubt improve with practise and experimenting.
The main thing, it was interesting and good fun.
 
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Tried every but whichway to post a photo relating to the previous post but again the forum and my little IPad won't join up.
 
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I use an iPad Roy and this is how I post images. When you start a post the second button at the bottom of the post called 'Upload file' is used for posting images. Press this then you will be asked to 'Choose' a file from your own iPad files. 'Press Choose' then select the image you want from the Camera Roll or whatever type of file you want. Hope this helps. Viv.
 
Vivienne. Thank you for your response. I have had some further tries using your instructions, but to no avail unfortunately.
What I keep ending up with each time is a screen message that informs me :
The following error occurred.
The uploaded file is too large.
I truly would love to crack this one.
Roy.
 
Hello Roy, It must be a very large image file to have the forum reject it, I have seen photos over 1mb uploaded. I have never had an image from my iPad rejected by the forum. I don't use my iPad all of the time but I use it a lot.

One way of reducing an image 'file size' is to email it to yourself.
If the image is too large to send, the iPad email will automatically reduce it.
Get your image on screen in Photos and touch the email icon (a box with arrow in it) top right on screen.
Then touch the blue Mail icon and enter your own email address in the 'To' section.
If the image is too large, you will see on the right a default size of usually 143kb which is ok for the forum.
If you touch that you will get a choice of sizes from small, medium etc.

I just tried it choosing 'small' and emailing to myself and it reduced a large image to 42kb which will easily upload to the forum. You might need to practice this in your iPad on a few images before you try a forum upload.

If you search the Apple Store there are Reduce Image Size apps which would probably make the process much easier.
oldmohawk
 
A friend of mine has joined the Family History Group at his local U3A (University of the Third Age). He has received lots of tips and also made new friends. Maybe Bellabee would find this helpful if there is a local group to her. Or anyone else for that matter!
 
Bellabee,

There's some good and useful information in the above posts. For the last 11 years or so my other half, Jan, and I have lived on the island of Crete and for eight of those years I served on the Committee of the Foreign Residents'Association. One of our "duties" was to meet and greet people who were planning to move over here, and a very pleasant duty it was too. Many have made the move and have become firm friends, but one stuck in my mind and to preserve privacy I will just call him "X".

X and his wife had recently sold their business, sailed around the world for a year on the proceeds and decided to move here permanently and had got their eye on a nice house. X and his grown-up daughter came over for a holiday and we did the first meet-up and all was going well. A few weeks later, and a couple of weeks before they were going to move, I had a sad phone call from X. "My wife has died suddenly, the Crete house is all paid for and removal all booked, but will I be lonely and all on my own, or should I cancel the lot, take a financial loss, and stay in the UK?"

Not really the question you want to be asked! My answer was that he would not be on his own and that if he was prepared to "get involved", he would soon make friends and acquire interests. A few years further on, he's made lots of friends and takes part in many of our activities and many of his own. Yes, there was a short period a few years back when he shut himself away, hated everyone and everything about this beautiful island, but he got over that and now is very happy and moving back to the UK is the last thing on his mind. I love happy endings! :)

Maurice
 
Vivienne. Thank you for your response. I have had some further tries using your instructions, but to no avail unfortunately.
What I keep ending up with each time is a screen message that informs me :
The following error occurred.
The uploaded file is too large.
I truly would love to crack this one.
Roy.
Roy,
If you have on your pc Windows live photo gallery, then simply right click on the photo & select resize. I always resize to medium. Easy peasy :-}
 
Hello Roy...Some years ago my wife started painting birds on stones and I thought they were rather good so the next Christmas got her some proper paper, paint and brushes. She started to do botanical and small animal paintings and they really took my eye because I had seen lots of botanical paintings. Without her knowing I entered a picture of two rabbits in a large art competition. On the Saturday I said we will drive up and have a look at that art exhibition, we walked round and suddenly saw her picture and a lot of people looking at it. Some were very upset asking well who the hell is this women. I then saw she had won top prize. Many professional artists had entered the competition and really were angry that some unknown had beaten them. A few years later she had carpel tunnel problems in both wrists, they were operated on and although much better she still has some problems. She has sold paintings around the world.
She then took up card making and gets lots of people asking her to make cards. Its her big hobby and only asks for cost of materials. We now have many more friends
She has looked at your card and for someone new to card making she really rates it. So stand tall, be proud and carry on with your hobby.
Best of luck...Gerald
Garden Gerald.
 
View attachment 107780 Referring to " bellabees " post # 22 and thinking about something that came to my attention recently.
On this small hobby alone I get the feeling that with a bit of patience and determination anyone could create some lovely individual home made greeting and celebration cards to send off and be proud of.
The photo is a shot of the first " try outs "at having ago at " Pop Up " card making. Not great but not too bad either I think. Will no doubt improve with practise and experimenting.
The main thing, it was interesting and good fun.

Those are great cards Roy, I have been making cards for years but never made any like those. They are wonderful and you are to be congratulated on some fine work.
I don't have a local craft shop, have to travel across town to Erdington to buy supplies or buy online, so to find a local craft shop you are very lucky!
 
Bishopmate. With reference to your post#35 .
By more or less pure chance, whilst scanning through some of the " TV " channels, I realised that there are a few channels dedicated to CRAFTS, CRAFT PRODUCTS and occassional CRAFT DEMONSTRATIONS.
There's a channel titled " CREATE AND CRAFT ". This apparently can be viewed on " SKY " channel 674, " FREEVIEW " channel 23, " VIRGIN " channel 748 " or " FREESAT " channel 813.
There's another TV channel titled " CRAFT CHANNEL " this can apparently be viewed on
" SKY " channel 679 or " FREESAT " channel 818.
Then I see there's another channel titled " JEWELlERY MAKER " this can be viewed on " SKY "
channel 665, " FREEVIEW " channel 76, " VIRGIN " channel 756 or " FREESAT " channel 807.
All these channels demonstrate CRAFT PRODUCTS, PRICES and are interspersed with occasional " DEMONSTRATIONS ". From what I can gather there is amongst these channels such hobbies as Paper Crafting, Cake Decorating, Sewing, Lace Making, Scrap Booking and Jewellery Making.
These are all basically " SHOPPING " programmes.
I note that you already shop " on line " for some of your craft bits. Just wondered if you were aware of these " TV " programmes perchance they may be of some use to you.
Roy.
 
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One of my hobbies that does not take up much time or expense is to collect leather book-marks from places I visit. A selection, representing Birmingham and the Midlands, is shown in the photograph below. In case they cannot be read clearly they are: top horizontal, Sarehole Mill; bottom horizontal, Charlecote Park. Then middle, left to right, Lichfield Cathedral; Lichfield, Samuel Johnson house; National Memorial Arboretum; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Coventry Cathedral; Packwood House; and Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.
Hence, only two from Birmingham itself. I'm sure that there must be other places inside the city boundary, besides Sarehole Mill and the Art Gallery, that stocks them. Dave
 

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I note that you already shop " on line " for some of your craft bits. Just wondered if you were aware of these " TV " programmes perchance they may be of some use to you.
Roy.[/QUOTE]


Thanks Roy and my apologies for not replying earlier, I have been 'under the weather' but am out of bed now so just catching up.
I know about the TV channels, thanks, but I don't use them as I don't make a lot of cards, mainly ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).
 
Not sure if this could be called "a hobby" but I've recently begun studying the War Diaries of 10th Battalion of the Warwicks, (my Grandad's regiment), that I found on ancestry.
My plan is to write the diaries onto a computer, possibly as a Word document. 101 years ago the entries were written in pencil and it's a devil of a job to read them.
Wish me luck !
 
I wish you heaps of luck!
Back in the eighties, as part of my Microsoft Certification, I had to type up Prussian Regiments - lot of foreign names believe you me!! lol
I learnt to chip away at the listings, so much so that I managed to make an Excel Book at home for my Postage Stamps. One thing I learnt is that you have to keep chipping away .... I spent an hour every Saturday morning inputting my stamp information and was so pleased when it was completed.
Good luck and keep chipping!
 
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