Handmade Gift Set.

Just posted a pretty gift set on my Flickr account if you would like to have a closer look at the details. The pretty paper is actually made from tobacco leaves and is ever so yummy. If you want measurements or destructions to make one for yourself  just ask. 

Cherish Friends - Weekend Class Results

Here is a sneak peak of a weekend class I did with Miss Mel Connell at Scraptivate - more to come, gotta get the housework done first LOL!

You can check out all the photo's on this project in the meantime on my Flickr Account here

Okay the worst of the housework is done so here is some more. I went to a class with my friend Nicole on Saturday to do this beautiful Shadow Box Canvas designed by Mel at Scraptivate. Nicole has just become a Grandma for the first time so it was perfect for her 'precious' baby boy Nate with a few twists on the colour theme of course.

I on the other hand had no idea as usual what photo I was going to use but this one just popped for me on the day with the colour theme of some very cherished friends of mine I made whilst last at a Medical Retreat oversea's for some much need holistic health care called Sanoviv (click on the word to check it out or on Dr Wentz Blog Here ). The above photo was taken before I placed the clear plastic over it with it's front frame for protection. Mel had us use a canvas reversed so we had a shadow box to work with, so we covered all the yuckky staples with a very clever frame made with with gesso and stencils. 

 We played most of the time with the golden paints and gesso getting the frame ready and making just a little mess :). I've never really played much with butterfly's before but must say I rather liked it. Mel has this 'pen and palm' of your hand roll that just makes them come to life that was so easy! I guess I will be playing some more with butterflys now....

A Place to Bark - Get Involved!

Earlier this year I had the great fortune to meet in person and actually work along side the one and only very very talented and adorable Bernie Berlin in a class of hers on ATC techniques. I was attending the Creative Soul Retreat in Melbourne whereby I met not only Bernie but also DJ Petitt and Stephanie Lee over a three day weekend. Needless to say that it all ended too soon but I did  have the fortune to meet and make many new friends along the way with a bevy of new creative skills.

Well it was whilst we all got to know Bernie on a personal level  over the three days that I learnt of her amazing tireless efforts to save dogs especially from the puppy pounds that breed puppys in horrible conditions to make a profit over their welfare. Bernie actually runs this shelter full time and it seems so very often over crowded and in much demand with a great degree of passion as well as her art.  Bernie's tireless efforts on this project or hers unfortunately  also has to incorporate a great deal of fund raising to make it all possible and at the moment has rallied up some 21 artists that we all know and love to support her by donating original works of art which are currently up for auction via the eBay auction Party Animals as advertised above.

In the hope that you might at least visit her site A Place to Bark and look into the great work she does and even place a bid on one of the many auctions to help raise some much needed funding that I post this message to you all. I myself just love Suzi Blu's painting and at the time of this posting was the lead bidder (fingers crossed), but of course I am keeping a very close eye on a few others too, so check them out now!

Bernie and myself on the last day.

Life long friends made at CSR 2009 - my roomies at the retreat Nic Hohn and Lady Di.

Yummy Fabric Wrap Belts

A gorgeous girlfriend of mine Debra invited a group of friends over to play on her sewing machines for an afternoon of girly stuff so that we could replicate her most desirable wrap belts that she wears often to our delight.

Well my little head just couldn't get around all the yummy colours, textures and beads that I just had to have it all of course. So with lots of crazy random machine embroidery my little ' belly dancer' days got into the creative 'JuJu' of this little number as you can tell! 

We ripped up old silk shirts, skirts and anything that was fair game if it had colour or glamour applied to it in any fashion. Hoards of yummy bling from any where and every where were spread before us like a feast. We pleated, scrunched, ripped and tore and occasionally swore when those needles broke! But otherwise we just went to town or at least I did.

 I am yet to complete it for photo's of it adorning my hips, but do have plans for matching shoes at least to complete the look! Just imagine?

Susie = Sanity!

I found a site to create my own signature at the end of my posts mid last week - dam didn't work, couldn't get it right, frustration set in and the whole process got the better of me might I say! Then I thought to contact the most divine Ms Susie of First Floor Flat  to ask if she could advise where I was maybe going wrong.

Well to my delight she wrote an entire very detailed and extended version of just how to do everything and more with regards to personalising your very own signature click here - like the white box issue, the boarder issue, backdating your signature process and HTML scripts the works! Hooray, now here I have  my very own signature but only thanks to Susie and some last minute help with some transparency issues from my super clever brother.

Royalty Free Images - Piddix

Brilliant Customer Service offered at this store by Corinna of Piddix, and  well worth a look at the moment while she has her specials too!  I now have 29 of her downloads (some yummy freebies in that number) all royalty free and ready to use in great quality for my resin projects so keep your eyes peeled they are on their way in my future posts!  

Corrina also offers a newsletter with freebies several times a month that is just delightful - itty bitty butterflies was this weeks download.

You can find Piddix here.

The Hand on My Moo Card

Some of the girls at my last ATC class were rather taken by one of my 'Moo' cards last week. The one in particular having a little metal hand on it that came from a bigger picture. So in my sorting of photo's in my new Free Picasa Program today I came across the photo I had used for that card design and figured I would expand on where the picture actually came from and how 'Moo' works for those of you who asked after my last posting.

Some time last year a dear friend of mine Raelene and I indulged ourselves as one does in a day of shopping at the local craft fair. Well whilst we were initially scrapbooking buddies we found ourselves totally immersed in all things fabric, beady and shiny. Enter our "Wild Women" concept and a theory that we could have play dates creating little women of all sorts of fancy on canvases to adorn our walls. Raelene of course being assured by me that no great sewing skills were critical to achieve a result! She believed me and what a successful day was had by all as it was the school holidays and both her daughter and son had a go too!

After lots of random stitches and rouching and no particular rules at all the end results of our first ever "Wild Women" evolved and above are the snippets of the close up details of mine. Enter "Moo" cards as these photo's are also in my Flickr account and from there I found the link to create "Moo" cards as some of my friends had given out to me to my delight in recent times.


I love the "Moo" card concept because not only are they delightfully collectable, swapable,  practical as a little blog address cards between friends, but I think also doable as a tag for items to sell.  Who could ask for more - o yes and matching stickers too!

So from the Moo website it allows you to utilise a collection of photo's from a source nominated by yourself which in my case was my Flick account. you then get to place a little 'snippet view window' (my terminology there) all over a photo till you find a piece you like and save as your very own card design - toooooo easy and they say in just 4 easy steps here. The marvellous thing about this concept is that you get to do this to as many photos as you like and in my case I printed 5 each of 20 different pictures and had 100 printed. But you can print 100 of the same or 100 completely different ones! All for the same price - no printer around town would consider that even remotely doable and make it fun at the same time!

This was raelene's first attempt at her "Wild Woman". I was totally thrilled given I was contending with " but I don't sew" go figure!

From that day I made up a gift box of Goodies for a friend Trudy's birthday whom managed to create this one all by herself. She didnt even wait for us to get together and learn or share just straight into it!  Trudy is mostly into glass and so adorned her mermaid's hands with glass pieces she had recently fired.

Then there was Joaquin, Raelene's son a total star who created these little delights as the male version of our creations on our play date. He has had so many comments on his work in my Flickr account he has out done me in my own account as a favourite!

You have to love his choice of colours and patterns - it was a lesson for me of what was in my junk box!

Hope you've enjoyed this share - leave me a comment or tick the boxes below to indicate your thoughts to make my day xxx.

The Divine Miss Lotta

Recently I have been very blessed to make the acquaintance with the Divine Miss Lotta or better known as Princess Lotta to her friends.

At the end of last year I attended a 'Lost Wax Casting' workshop at the Fremantle Arts Centre (FAC) tutored by the adorable Sarah Elson in my pursuit of silversmithing and jewellery making. It was here that the infectious personality of Lotta first attracted my attention and our friendship was born.

Since then we have been nicely bumbling along with an occasional catch up mostly of her gracious invites to events I have been totally unaware of like our first  joint venture at the David Walker Work Shop at the National Gallery in the pursuit of our desire for excellence in jewellery making (see Lotta's blog for that one, link below) and then just this weekend at the 'unwrapped' market at PICA as part of the whole fashion week extravaganza.

The irony is that July last year I attended the very first 'Made on the Left' market as a sneak peak into the world of what and where I thought I might like to go creativley again as an exhibitor. If you notice below there is a black rose in the upper left hand corner that is actually a ring - this was the only item I bought on the day and have worn with glee ever since.

Well you have most likely guessed that when I met Lotta at the FAC several months later and then looked up her blog which lead me to her Etsy site - I realised it was one in the same person! WOW ( her husband was manning the store at the time )

So of course for my son's recent 21st birthday she made me the ultimate matching two piece ensemble necklace to go with my favourite ring. You can see me wearing it in the photo to the left at his birthday under the family heading. Lotta has her full range also available at Behind the Monkey in Mt Lawley and if you a handmade jewellery addict like me this is a treasure trove you must see of so many talented people.

Funny how some things are just meant to be and how the universe just makes it so. I have had quite a few of these lately it seems.

http://princesslotta.blogspot.com/ http://www.behindthemonkey.com.au/ http://www.fac.org.au/  http://www.madeontheleft.com/ http://www.unwrapped.com.au/