My beloved little niece and playmate Josie who is 3 yrs gave me an idea for this brooch.
She stamped some white modeling clay into a wrought iron chair, and came up with some lovely impressions, and then we got into the leaves that are so thrilling at the moment. Chrissy my friend has been making impressions with antique lace too, piccies coming soon.
Seeing people translate things they have seen in daily life, and translate it into exceptional design is fantabulous. When surfing around at design*sponge I found this by Peter Loh. The description says
If you look carefully in a garden, you might notice clusters of tiny yellow pods clinging to the undersides of leaves. These objects are clutches of ladybug eggs and the inspiration for the table, Clutch.
Standing at walls taking photos of shadows - thats is how i would love to spend a whole day .... shadows are awesome in autumn.
self portrait - shadow
…a calico shopping bag I photo silk screened. I felt like doing a youyou you call (explanation for this state of madness below) on the last night, as I was struggling for inspiration the first two weeks, then on the last night, having fun with these bags, I yelled out ‘I’ve arrived… and then in more of an embarrassed whisper ‘at the print making studio’. Its weird being a combination of shy and completely outrageous.
You-you-you-you is a joyous song women chant to celebrate happy events from birth and marriage to simple ones such as finishing an embroidery piece, or organizing a party for an old aunt.
from The Harem Within - Tales of a Moroccan Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi
Some fabric printed with pears, and my fawn print made with a cardboard stamp coated with PVA glue. With all my cocooning tendencies lately, I have been having some more fun with lino printing using a material called Soft Cut, it is the same kind of material erasers are made from. It cuts like hard butter.
This term in our Art of Fun classes we have been felting images of boats thanks to this Kleas tutorial. Thank you so much for showing us Kristin!
Come on into the garden, its autumn here and you can meet the galahs who live in our trees and use the nesting box all year through.
Another little friend in a park nearby.... how toot! (Josie's toot word for cute!). Willy wagtails are very brave and will chase eagles away from their young.
Playing boggle and eating fragrant hand picked mandarins from my sister's tree...
Mary and her Family
by Gilbert Delahaye illustrations by Marcel Marlier
There are more Marliers at Meet Me at Mikes.
from Mary and her Friends by Gilbert Delahaye - illustrations by Marcel Marlier.
Come and have some of these toasts I made last night, they are yummy, and here is the recipe. The recipe was originally created by Sean Moran at Panaroma restaurant at Bondi Beach.
I couldn’t show you a picture of the ones I made because they were too yummy to wait for my camera to come out. (I added a little squished garlic to the mix instead of the rubbing the garlic on the toast, I used frozen broad beans, and I added sour crème to fill the mixture. The worms in our worm farm loved the skins). Here is what i remember doing.
Lovingly slice or gustily cut some baguettes or little long rolls on the diagonal and toast.
Rub them with some garlic or not. (I didn’t as too happy being lazy)
Gather your fresh or frozen broad beans. Fresh will need de-podding.
Cook them for a few minutes until tender
When the beans are cool skin each one and feed the skins to your garden
These bright green delights will emerge easily and joyfully from their skins just wait and see....
Put some of these beans aside for garnishing
Use a hand blender to blend with some olive oil, sea salt, a tiny bit of fresh garlic and some mint it you want, as suggested here under Souperior’s April post.
Pile the green-ness lustily onto each piece of cooled toast then garnish with the shiny green beans you have hopefully remembered to put aside, or if you ate them then I hope you enjoyed. Thanks to Madison magazine for the picky.
I've been tagged by MarianneAlice who got tagged by Julie to play this game. The rules are:
Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself
People who are tagged have to write their 7 things on their blog
Then choose another 7 people to get tagged and list their names. The seven people I am tagging are:
Rhiannon, Kristin, Cathy, Jerusha, Kate, Jenny and Trudi.
1) I like shadows.
2) When I was little I cut the whiskers off my cat (just on one side).
3) People say my eyes pick up all sorts of little things, a small weed in flower in the pavement cracks to the food stuck to the back of the plate on the draining rack.
4) My face seems to show everything which can be embarrassing.
5) Every Friday I play with my little nieces, and we have all sorts of adventures with art, the zoo, hide and seek in the park and thrift shops.
6) When the sky is heavy with rain clouds I feel like I am in a fog and a little bit down, when it rains I immediatelyfeel much better.
7) I like wild animals - I have swum with a manta ray and a whale shark, I have been sniffed by a cassowary (a huge flightless bird), I have crouched under a bush near a pride of lions, and rescued my cat from a big snake in my garden by throwing a pair of underpants at it.
hhhaaahhaaahheeeeheee-omgthatstoofunny-heeeehaaaaheeeehaaaaa .....Check out the macrami headdresses, crochetted canoe for Ken and Barbie, and cross-stitched coathangers here ......
A brooch from recycled materials, pages of very small text are useful for cutting up for small scale projects like these.
Optical illusion maybe, intended to be a deer but maybe you thought it was a whale or a potato.
I'm ready to send off this pocket notebook I made with applehead's 'old papers' kit
... And I tapped into the joy of using recycled materials to make the whole thing: the snap fastener is thrifted too.
I liked the tutorial Maitreya created at a ripping good site called craftlog which gave me the idea for the snap fastening.
This image does not do it justice, but this surprise swap from kate at red headed snip it is just beautiful. The tissue holder has been put to use right away. A cigar label, some hand stamped tags and an envelope made from a map brought the magic altogether – oh and an embroidered peanut! You are a such a sport Kate.
Thank you so much to Mel for this ATC package with a French couturier theme - lots of layers of hand coloured artistry with an incy-wincy pouch with tiny stamps and other goodies. I love reading before I go to sleep, so the book mark has already given me sweet dreams last night. Mel has a wealth of beautiful artist trading cards here just waiting for you to see.
