Jumping in at the Deep End

It's been a little while since I've been out and about with my craftiness, so instead of taking it slowly and splashing in the shallows, I'm performing a dive bomb, and heading for the inaugural Buninyong Makers Market this Saturday..... Oh, and by the way, did I ever tell you that I can't swim?

Photo courtesy

Just in case you don't know where Buninyong is.... it's a pretty little town just 11 kilometres south of Ballarat.
The market will be held this Saturday from 10am - 2pm in the Town Hall.

I'll have my brooches, bags and pouches, as well as my brand new range of greeting cards featuring my original illustrations. I'm very excited to take them on their first outing to gain some customer feedback.

Tinniegirl is joining me for a country road trip. She has been working really hard on her brand new range of original fine art prints and cards, along with her beautiful handmade affirmation packs.

Hope to see you there!

It's customary my dear

I must admit that I do love a custom order!

It makes me stop procrastinating and start doing.

Two little padded flex-frame pouches.... one for a mobile phone, and one for a pocket sized camera. Both with little d-ring tabs and matching detachable wrist straps. I hope their new owners are very happy.

Promise

Tinniegirl made me a promise before she jetted off for her recent holiday.....

She promised that she'd send me back a little sunshine with a bit of magic thrown in for good measure.

I think she delivered perfectly!

Nice weather for ducks

I headed off to the country today with Mr X and Moo Moo in tow, to celebrate my mums birthday

Gypsy the mini shetland

It was cold and windy and wet....

...but inside, the wood burning stove was nice and warm, and there was a yummy roast lunch (and birthday cake) for everyone.

Before and After

Luckily, mum hadn't experienced the flooding rains that my sister and BIL had yesterday.

 Before and After

They live right across the road from the local park where the creek runs through the middle of town...

Before and After

...which is currently a swimming pool (and these photos were taken before the peak of the water)!

Here's the actual pool!

CurlyPops on The Circle

I really wanted to title this post - "Hey Look Mum, I'm on the Telly"!

I was super excited to find out that Shaynna Blaze (my favourite presenter and interior designer extraordinaire from the Lifestyle Channels Selling Houses program), wore one of my CurlyPops Flower Brooches during her segment on The Circle on Channel 10 yesterday.  

If you'd like a flower brooch of your very own, then pop on over to The CurlyPops Shop or to Georgie Love and snap one up pronto, just in time for Spring!

Animation Friday - The Flowerpot Finale

Mobile phone photos again - sorry

Following on from last weeks Flowerpot Animation, here's the finished drawing!
I had grand plans of creating a fun and different type of animation this week, but I just ran out of time unfortunately..... so you're stuck with my flowerpot.

Pop on over to My Poppet to play along.

My Creative Space...

Blossom Branch - WIP (can you notice the petal that I've missed colouring in?)

 What a week!

I seem to have been flitting about all over the place, making some long overdue visits, sorting out things that have been on the 'to do' list for far too long, organising in advance for things that'll be happening in the future, drinking far too much coffee, attending appointments.... and just generally trying to make altogether correct and wise decisions.

I haven't really had much time for sewing, except for a little bit of work on my pieces for the Fringe Festival Exhibition.... but I have been drawing at every chance I could get.

The home of my creative space

Getting Quilty - Part 2

While I was toiling away stitching Lucas's quilt....

Beccasauras was putting in double the toil making new quilts for my twin nephews....

They were both so excited when I arrived with the quilts on Saturday. Zane was the first to greet me in the hallway, so he had first choice between the two. They both ran to their bedroom and put their new quilt blankies on their beds - it was very cute to watch!

I love how they're both so different, but still match perfectly... co-incidentally, much like the twins personalities

I tried to get a decent photo, but trying to make three toddlers stop moving and smile at the camera is an impossibility!

Here they are saying "Thankyou Beccasauras"

I heart...

I seem to be getting even more addicted to drawing over the last few weeks - I've been drawing at the skate park, on the couch, at Bec's house, and even in bed!

I'm now onto my second drawing journal.


Serendipitously, my cousin in Scotland has started a new craft blog - i heart...
She's making a little zine and looking for submissions from anyone and everyone. I'm working on a few different ideas and trying to decide which drawing to go with.... decisions, decisions....

Getting Quilty

It's not very often that I take on a challenge of making a quilt..... but little bubba Lucas who turned one on the weekend, has a very lovely auntie who asked me to make one for him.

The request was for something bright and colourful so it can be used as a pram quilt or a playmat. Luckily, bright and colourful just so happens to be right up my alley.

I had a few prints from the Michael Miller Bot-Camp range in the stash which I absolutely adore. I added in the various polkadots to add some more pop!

Keeping with the space theme, I added some stars as a backing fabric.....

Happy Birthday little Lucas!

A Medicare Statement is the new black

I

I had to crop the end off the photo to hide my medicare number

Not wanting to waste that sheet of inkjet printable fabric, I decided to test out the new 115mm flex frames that I'd ordered earlier in the week.

I thought I'd stick with the medical theme and make myself a little pouch for my handbag. I'm constantly scrounging around inside the bottom to find lip balm, tissues, inhalers and the like.

Now I'm completely sorted.... and if I ever forget my name, or lose my medicare card, I can just pull out my pouch. Not just pretty - but functional too!

Animation Friday - Flower Pot

Animation Friday has come around way too quickly this week!

This is a little drawing that I started working on while sitting on the couch watching Tacky House lastnight. The photos are very poor quality as I took them with my phone (couldn't be bothered getting off the couch to find the camera).

My new pens are getting a workout - I've taken my sketchbook nearly everywhere this week. It's a bit difficult in waiting rooms as people like to stare.... a lot, so I might have to go back to taking my knitting with me as well, and decide the craft activity based on the anticipated audience response.

Pop on over to My Poppet to play along.

My creative space

It's been a long and busy week so far - trying to sort out my taxes and financial reports, and lots of testing and appointments happening (which always suck up waaaaaayyyyy toooooo much time).... so I didn't get a chance to finish the Medicare project.

The black and white statement was looking a little bland, so I put it back through the printer and added some tulips. I'm promising myself that I WILL get this done today!

I've also started working on a little side project just for fun.

Cate from Polka Dot Rabbit is curating an Exhibition as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. It's called Home Is Where The Craft Is.

From Cate's Blog:

The purpose of this exhibition to explore the role of women's crafting as part of and related to one’s home. The items crafted may have a functional purpose at home as opposed to being simply created for artistic or creative purposes.

Crafting is usually carried out in the home, often in a communal area or shared environment such as a kitchen table, living room couch or spare room. The creative process often intersects with other tasks of home life such as watching telly, waiting for the washing machine to finish etc.

The name of my collection for the exhibition is Containment. I'm aiming to make various pieces whose function will be to contain some sort of object or thing. The beauty of a project like this, is that I can be as creative and wild and wacky as I feel like.

That should keep me busy at home for the next couple of weeks!

Now I'm off to check out all of Kirsty's other amazing creative spaces...

Printed Card

So here's a little show and tell of my first creations using the printed fabrics from my original drawings.

I went in search of card stock in my local suburb on the weekend.

The only thing that I could find was the local scrapbooking shop.....

.....which had this not so nice quality card stock.

Have you ever walked into a scrapbooking shop before? Well golly gee, I hadn't! I suppose it's just like stepping foot into a place like Amitie... only for lovers of paper.

The thing that I don't really understand about scrapbooking (and I don't want to offend any scrapbookers), but there's quite a lot of things already pre-prepared. Fifty percent of the shop must have been dedicated to things that just peel and stick (and those things are expensive)!. Does that take away from the creativity?

Back onto the topic at hand - if anyone has some tips on where to find really nice high quality pre-prepared card stock, I would love to know.... in the meantime, I've been challenged to create something with that fabric Medicare Tax statement!

Playing with Print

I've been continuing on with my drawings in dribs and drabs since I've been home, and I finally scanned the ones that I'd completed.

I've added some borders and some watermarks, and printed them onto inkjet printable fabric. I love how the fabric gives the drawing even more texture.

Whilst finally organising my taxes yesterday, I also managed to print my Medicare Tax Statement onto inkjet printable paper..... hmmmm wonder what I can sew with that!

I have a little project in the works for these..... I'll show and tell once I'm finished.

A little ray of sunshine

That's all it took yesterday, for the sewjo to come calling....

What better way to celebrate a bit of sunshine, than with a lovely bright yellow cherry print!

I missed a first birthday party for a friends little girl a couple of weeks ago, and I still hadn't made her a pressie, so I searched through my pattern basket to find this one.

This is a vintage pattern that I picked up from the oppy - The brand is Style 2463 from 1969 and only has Size 1. It was originally sold for the grand price of $0.60.

I'm no expert, but I found that the all-in-one neck and armhole facing made the construction much more difficult than necessary for such a simple little dres, which in turn, made the shoulder construction complicated. If I make this one again, I'll re-draft the pattern piece for the neck facing and just bind the armholes.

I think little Lily will look super cute in cherries!

Carded

I'd almost forgotten about these quirky little cards....


I found them at the oppy a few weeks ago when I whisked away Nikki's wee girl, to go on a little treasure hunting mission.

Can anyone tell me what game the animal cards are used for? They're in multiples of four of each type of card, and each card has a letter and a number. They weren't in their original packaging.

I also found this Old Maid card set.... which is so totally politically incorrect. I'm guessing from the illustrations and the font, that it's early 1970's (must be after the moon landing as it includes Moonwalker Wally).

I'm off to enjoy the lovely sunshine.... have a happy Sunday!

Done Voting???

Then why not pop down to Olive Grove Studios in Brunswick for their grand one day only Garage Sale!

Eeeny Meeny Miney Mo....

My Creative Space

My creative space has still been very quiet this week.....

I couldn't resist testing out my new pens which were a welcome home pressie from Tinniegirl.

In other news, my sewing machine has arrived home safe and sound after a good service and clean - the service guy commented that it "really must get a lot of use". I think that means that maybe I should have it serviced more regularly???

The home of my creative space