Sweet dreams

The above picture is one of my favourites from Amy's story 'The Legend of the Dream Box'. It hung above her bed for a few years before being replaced by one of her abstract teenage paintings, shown below.

The Need Fairy

I first thought of the basic story of the Need Fairy in the late 1990s when I got married, moved into my house and was hoping for a baby. I was so busy being a working mum in the noughties and also running my SubVerse poetry group, that it was ten years before I sat down and wrote it out as a proper story. It now exists in the real world as an ALF Book and on my Wattpad channel as one of my serial short stories.

The Need Fairy by LJ Finnigan
Tony and Cleo are happy in their new home, but the more they settle in, the more Cleo senses another presence in the house, one that is neither happy nor settled.

Christmas Day
As Cleo and Tony enjoy their Christmas dinner in their new house, the house's spirit reminds them of its presence.

New Year's Day
As Tony works in his home office Cleo ventures into the attic and begins to unearth the house's hidden treasures.

Valentine's Day
Cleo introduces the elaborate idea of the house possessing a Need Fairy to a bemused Tony.

Ash Wednesday
Cleo discovers a little of the house's gruesome history and the house spirit begins to find its voice.

Mother's Day
Cleo finds the true value of the attic treasures when she visits the local antique shop.

Palm Sunday
Cleo and Tony both experience tangible encounters with the house spirit when they both venture into the attic.

Easter Day
The Need Fairy visits Cleo in the middle of the night with a promise of love for the future.

Christmas Eve
The spirit of the Need Fairy is alive and well and living in the nursery.

Amy's game of life

We have been playing Amy's game of life on holiday since she created it in 2014. It was a most memorable time playing it on holiday in our rented apartment in Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast.

The game begins with birth and ends in death. At the start players wait in limbo until they draw the birth card and then their game begins. On life's journey you earn money, buy property, have children, get into debt, get into trouble, get sick. The game ends when someone draws the death card. At that point the amount of love and money earnt in a lifetime are calculated and a winner is nnounced.

Amy's pictures on the cards are fantastic and playing the game is quite absorbing, however Amy does usually end up being the winner.

The Magic Gallery

These are my favourite ten pages of the A4 book of the ALF project's 'Pictures at an exhibition'. It features the eight part story of Grace and her mother's extraordinary visit to the Magic Gallery and the adventure they have there. It also contains pages of Amy's drawings which I used to fill the gallery's empty spaces and also shows some stills from various ALF animations. I lost a lot of data related to 'Pictures at an Exhibition' in 2012 and so this A4 book has become quite precious to me.

    

     

     

   

   

Amy's Games

Agatha Christie once said that the best thing you could give another human being was a happy childhood. I always tried to make Amy’s childhood as happy as I could. Part of my positive parenting endeavours was a struggle against the lure of the screen and one of the things that helped in this struggle was developing our own board and card games.

ALF Christmas cards

After designing my own grown-up Christmas Cards in 2015 I went through Amy's old drawings and found six that I thought could be developed into lovely child-like Christmas card designs. Together with mine they form the basis of a ten card collection.

The Abandoned Baby

Amy came up with this sweet, but sad picture story a few years ago now. I have since put it together into a nine picture cartoon strip.

Amy occasions

Amy started drawing when she was about four and when she was five she produced the story and drawings for 'The Legend of the Dream Box'. Some of my favourite of Amy's pictures have found their way onto ALF Creations greetings and note cards.

Small Wonder

I wrote this poem and drew this picture for my niece, when she was a very sweet little girl.

The Legend of the Dream Box

 ALF Creations really began in 2005 with Amy coming up with 'The Legend of the Dream Box'. The book has been given to our friends and family over the years and it has sold well at craft fairs. Here is the blurb from the back of the book and a couple of pages from the inside.

Shadow Magazine

Shadow magazine lasted for four proper issues and a holiday special. I produced the magazines when I was about eleven and had just started at secondary school. The magazine was inspired by the girls' magazines I used to love at the time, particularly Jinty, Spellbound and especially Misty.

In the spring edition there was a cartoon mouse called Bernie, stories about cats and brothers, a feature on the zodiac, adverts for James Bond and Narnia and recipes. The summer issue featured a cartoon dog called Andy, an advert for Watership Down, a feature on special occasions, an agony aunt letters page, jokes and character descriptions.

In the Autumn there was a cartoon dog called Sammy Sniff, an advert for pyjamas, a short story called 'Girl on the pier' and a feature on the meaning of the months of the year. The Winter issue featured more Sammy Sniff, stories called 'The Ideal Present' and 'The Snowman' and a feature on owls.

The holiday special had more on the zodiac, adverts for boutique tissues and Miss Bianca, riddles and pictures of wildlife and tattoos. There were stories called Friend, After the Rain and Last Bus Home. 'Last Bus Home' I particularly enjoyed re-reading after all these years.

Of Dragons and Fairies

My daughter is now a sophisticated teenager and her child-like drawings are a thing of her past. I was going through her old pictures a little while ago and came across a project that we had left uncompleted. We have now completed it, it is called 'Of Dragon and Fairies' and I think of it as the last of the ALF childhood creations that I have been working on with Amy since she came up with 'The Legend of the Dream Box' in 2005.

The accompanying song by me is called 'The Feeling's Always There' and was recorded by associates of the Armada Singing Group based in Feltham.

Scenes from a Childhood

These 'scenes' were collected when I went through all my old creative work and found a selection of pre-teen stuff that I quite liked. I wasn't sure what would stand up on its own, but thought I could turn my ideas into attractive digital collages using Paint Shop Pro. The first collage has a spring feel to it and the second collage is more Autumn orientated. Below is a more integrated, illustrated version of my childhood poem 'Out of the Door'.

Tudor Montage

My daughter and I have long been fascinated by Henry VIII and his six wives. In junior school Amy drew so many pictures of the Tudor kings and queens I decided to put them into a montage accompanied by one of my songs 'That Far Away Look'. I feel the song is quite apt in reflecting the lusty and flirtatious nature of King Henry.

In the cafe

Amy and I discovered the fun of animation after a visit to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green in 2007 and having a go on the magic lantern, creating a mermaid swimming and a girl eating soup. I translated these moving images onto the computer using GIF animator and then put the images together using movie maker, adding my songs in the soundtrack. The mermaid swimming formed the basis of 'Gone Swimming' featuring 'River Child' and Amy's 'girl eating soup' features in the above short film 'In the Cafe' which is set to my song 'Island of Happiness'.

Guide Recorder Tunes

I wrote these six Guide Recorder Tunes tutors when I was seven or eight. They each have their own theme. The first book is called 'Birds' and is mostly blue in colour. The birds featured are a hummingbird, a cuckoo, a seagull, an ostrich, an owl and the last song is called 'The sparrow and the hawk', it features these brief lyrics:

'The hawk he went on seeking, to seek among his prey,
The sparrow went on fighting, to live the long, long day.'

The second book is about the weather and has a yellow theme, the tunes here include Lady Snow, Sunny Days, Dancing Rain and the Wind. The third, orange flavoured book is about animals. I've chosen mostly gentle animals and the tunes here include 'The dance of the forest deer', 'Three little kittens' and 'The march of the dogs'. The fourth book has a purple theme and is about food. The tune titles are a bit more abstract and include 'March of the knives', 'Dance of the jelly wobbles' and 'Forky'. The fifth book is more sedate, it is about trees and is mostly green. the tunes here have more sensible titles like 'Over the treetops', 'The slender birch' and 'The hollow Scots pine'. The sixth and last book is the red book about toys. I think I must have written it around about Christmas as it includes the songs 'Presents' and 'In, through, down the chimney'. I had started learning the piano by the time I wrote book six, so included is a list of 'Musical Expression Marks' including Accents, Pauses, Crescendos and Decrescendos.