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Release your  imagination......
Explore new worlds.    
Make your own stories.

Explore a map-real or fantasy....where do you want to go? Make your own and see where your imagination takes you.

Save childhood

The sun DID come out-HURRAH!

8/25/2013

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Such a wonderful, wonderful day today at FOLKEAST. I feel compelled to tell everyone even though I'm really supposed to be packing for Portugal and a very kind family helped me pack up Daisy so I could move off and holiday pack at home-THANK YOU. 


One visitor today said it was her idea of heaven listening to great music and getting absorbed in making a beautiful book....yes it's mine too and I get to do it lots more now.  So many great people passing through and making amazing books-all shapes and sizes today: one, for example, is going to house great song writing (think you can guess which one), one for notes, one for collecting ....so many ideas. 
The ladies in the picture above were FAB supporters: here they are working on their holiday journal and that tricky folding you all know about if you've made one. After lots of effort and concentration journals were complete ready to hold more festival adventures. Big thank you to you two lovely ladies AND all the families who came STORYSHACK's way over the 3 days. It's your encouragement and enthusiasm that has helped give STORYSHACK such a great start. I'm hoping to see more of you in September in the barn OR down the road at the ALDEBURGH food festival on the SUNDAY 29th September. 
HAPPY READING and book making in the meantime.

PS hope the crafty ladies enjoy making more holiday journals at their craft evening. What a great idea :-)

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The sun'll come out TO MORROW and there will be book making TOMORROW. Come what may....... (join in if you know the tune!)

8/24/2013

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It's all here for you to be creative....the printing ink, stamps, ribbon, paper and MORE GLUE-HURRAH
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Well I hope we don't have to do this   
tomorrow at Storyshack.FolkEast!

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I'm sure we won't as we keep saying 'it'll brighten up' enough to make it SO! It was a bit soggy for book making today but lovely to have little people and their families snuggling up with a book in the tent. Thank goodness I had it in Daisy the camper-she stores all sorts of useful things apart from tent pegs today!! But the VW fork came in handy.
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Sunshine, great music, good company and book making all at STORYSHACK at FOLK EAST

8/23/2013

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Such an exciting day parked up and book making at our first festival-FOLK EAST just down the road from STORYSHACK itself. What a pleasure to meet all the imagineers today. Storyshack stamps and stickers abound and we even had a MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT society new adventure ....'their most deadly mission yet. The story shack.' 
Wow - can't wait for that one to be published! 
Hoping to meet more merry book makers and readers tomorrow and Sunday-come along and find us in Daisy the white VW vintage van. Tell us your favourite books and read and make some too.
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Do my wings look big in this?

8/22/2013

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What a lovely last day of SUMMER STORYSHACK today. New friends made, old friends catching up and beautiful books bound to house holiday memories.  I don't think the dressing up box has seen so much action this week yet. 
We're getting very excited 
about going to FOLK EAST and have been packing up DAISY the campervan who will be making her first STORYSHACK appearance tomorrow. If you'd like to dress up in the outfit in the picture it will be there along with the tiny village, book making kits and, of course BOOKS GALORE. Come and say hello :-)

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Would you like a nice cup of tea? Lots of tea parties and tea pouring at the STORYSHACK today....

8/20/2013

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So much imagining with princesses and wizards and Kings and fairies and Queens all having cups of tea today
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Lots of: fish catching (even by princesses)robot making, creating, story sharing and FUN!
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I don't think I saw any aliens...did you?
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SHALL I POUR?
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WINNIE THE WITCH WAS THE READ OF THE DAY
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Look at these lovely creations: a fairy box with a map, fairy dust+fairy book-all sorts of surprises AND a book called  'how to speak FAIRY' which was written and completed by its author, Ellie,  all this very afternoon. 
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We are off to the lantern festival at Aldeburgh beach but we'll come back ready for STORYSHACK tomorrow 10-2pm

8/19/2013

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Beautiful lanterns from yesterday....just some of many
We are taking lovely paper lanterns to the Aldeburgh lantern procession tonight. They always, always remind me of these parasols in one of the books I had when I was little 'The Butterfly ball'. Copy of which is in STORYSHACK so come and see if you agree with me tomorrow or Thursday. It's on the big shelf ready for your perusal.
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"Here's a little baby. 1,2,3. The youngest at Storyshack, goodness me."

8/18/2013

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Here's the youngest visitor to Storyshack at just 4 days old enjoying the must have classic 'PEEPO' with her grandma. 
Allan Ahlberg is appearing at the Southwold literary festival 'Ways with words' on Saturday 9th November talking about his 'life in stories' at St. Edmund's Hall in Southwold. I'm really looking forward to hearing him as his books have been a delight to our family for a looong time and I'm sure for yours too. 
https://issuu.com/wayswithwords/docs/southwold.programme.2013.v3/8?e=2898073/4373085


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Here's one of my favourite pictures from 'PEEPO'....what can you see? Below is a link to a really interesting piece about Janet and Allan Ahlberg's daughter who is now an illustrator too.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/11/illustrator-childrens-books-jessica-ahlberg?CMP=twt_gu

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        Amazing concentration at STORYSHACK today as:
 a whole story was written, illustrated and bound as a book and, as you can see wonderful journals constructed and beautiful fairy miniature books too.
       INSPIRED? Come along on Tuesday or Thursday when          we're open again from 10 am till 2 pm
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Poetry please....

8/16/2013

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Reading poetry to a child or children is great but sometimes people (teachers included) are perhaps a bit scared to do it, maybe worried only academics can understand it or it's too hard, not for us ordinary folk. I've often used Tennyson's 'The lady of Shalott' with KS2 children because it's a great STORY but not just that: ones that sound great like Spike Milligan's NING NANG NONG (slightly different from Tennyson!), Michael Rosen poems,'Heard it in the Playground' and 'Please Mrs. Butler' by Allan Ahlberg, 'The Coat of Umpteen Pockets by Adrian Mitchell and Kit Wright's 'The Magic Box' which has gone on to inspire many a child to consider what they'd put in their own Magic Box in their own poem. They're written to be READ, ENJOYED, spoken out loud.Poetry is great to dip into and easy to remember for years and years to come....'Ning nang hong, cows go bong, nong nang ning trees go ping....' need I say more?
Oooh but I do need to just say:
Here's the Magic Box poem for your perusal and one from a favourite film of mine 'INVICTUS' to inspire......

            Invictus


Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. 



William Ernest Henley
         The Magic Box 
            by Kit Wright

I will put in the box
the swish of a silk sari on a summer night,
fire from the nostrils of a Chinese dragon, 
the tip of a tongue touching a tooth.
I will put in the box
a snowman with a rumbling belly,
a sip of the bluest water from Lake Lucerne,
a leaping spark from an electric fish.
I will put into the box
three violet wishes spoken in Gujarati,
the last joke of an ancient uncle,
and the first smile of a baby.
I will put into the box
a fifth season and a black sun,
a cowboy on a broomstick
and a witch on a white horse.
My box is fashioned from ice and gold and steel,
with stars on the lid and secrets in the corners.
Its hinges are the toe joints of dinosaurs.
I shall surf in my box
on the great high-rolling breakers of the wild Atlantic,
then wash ashore on a yellow beach
the color of the sun.

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STORYSHACK open from 10am -2pm this coming Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday

8/16/2013

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Lovely meeting new people in the STORYSHACK with a coffee or tea.

8/15/2013

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A NEW VISITOR'S BOOK FOR STORYSHACK-handmade of course


Thank you very much ELLEN GOLDSMITH who created a much lovelier visitor's book than the one I've got in the STORYSHACK. Here it is for you all to admire.

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One of the great pleasures of the STORYSHACK  (amongst many, many) is meeting new folk and catching up with old friends too. Today we had some visitors from London, Manningtree and more local and it was a lovely mix. A very important black spell book was made, more beautifully bound travel journals and some magical mixing of course. If I see any of you and you have a red face I'll know you've been drinking a potion made by a budding Harry Potter at Storyshack because he said it would turn your face red if you drank it! 'Tyrannosaurus Drip' was a popular read in the cosy chair today....if you haven't read it yet the imagineers from today would certainly recommend it.

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    Sarah Gallagher

    Avid reader, sometimes a headteacher AND founder of Story shack. A place where  you can release your imagination and see where it takes you....
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