school gala hankies

I love school gala time of year, I usually manage to grab some more clothes for my wardrobe and find some bits of material for my stash.

there was a bag of cool little hankies which are perfect for dolly clothes. 

this will look so cute as a little dress. 

I also managed to get a nice wool tank top for my husband (I like him in a tank top), and a cashmere jumper for me, it is so soft, and a nice wool blanket.  Oo and two directors chairs for the garden.  Hooray, good haul and all for under $40!

sleeping beauty and the roses

I post these pictures in reference to my story below the pictures of pruning some ivy.

This is how I am feeling today, beautiful painting by Burne

disney

Feeling a bit beaten by the task in hand, Anana Pandas

I on occasion felt a bit like this chap who I found on living in space

(New edit, 4th Dec just found this one), above.  Here comes Prince marvelous and the brambles fall away and turn into lovely roses.  It doesn't seem fair.

I am having a lazy day, having exhausted myself battling with the ivy hedge for three days last week. Really I am such wuss.  I pondered ( on day two) the plight of all the Princes who had tried to rescue Sleeping Beauty from a forest of roses. I wondered what demons they were avoiding to be putting such effort into hacking away at some flipping thorny great hedge, what was lurking back at home to make them run off and attempt such a task?  and I didn't think any the less of them any more for giving up.  After-all who knew what you would find if you ever got through the forest.  I mean how beautiful was she and was it all about her or all about the Prince and his ego?  And she was a hundred years old. 

the kids are at the movies, husband is doing man stuff in the garage, and I am sitting on my bed designing christmas cards.  It's a tough life, unfortunately I will have to start dinner in a minute and go and pick the kids up, when really I am quite happy where I am, doing nothing. 

recycled christmas lovelyness

I have been given some rather lovely and cool christmas decorations by my lovely friend Clare.  She makes all sorts of beautiful, vintage, recycled things, some of which she has in her etsy shop Stitch and Print.  She also has badges and brooches and paper garlands and is a highly talented printer.

Lovely vintagey, blankety stuff.  I'm quite pleased.

Tim Biskup

some good things by Tim Biskup

just noticed biscuit crumb top right, this is not part of the original picture.

more here

I wont comment too much 'cause I haven't the words or the nouse to be intelligent about it.  But I love all this imagery, reminds me of something (1950's kids book? can't put my finger on it).  And on a very simplistic level I love all the birds and shapes and colours.  There is another world out there to explore, yay!

camille rose garcia, alice

I got a book out of the library called "Weirdo-Deluxe, The Wild World of Pop Surrealism and Lowbrow Art"  by Matt Dukes Jordan.  I was a bit worried about the Lowbrow bit, until I'd had a look inside.  I liked quite a few of the artists.  And I liked the work of this lady Camille Rose Garcia.  I looked her up and came accross this Alice art work.  I loved the style of her painting, bit dark and all, but also liked the comparison with an old childrens book I had recently bought at the op-shop.

Photos on right from down-the-rabbit-hole-exhibition by Camille Rose Garcia.

These are some photos from the book mentioned above, and click the link to get to her web-site.

ideas on news print

 I spread a big piece of news print down on the table and had an hour or two of sketching/doodling with my sketch books and some pretty picture books I have stashed on the book shelf.  I am mulling over some ideas on my paper, and try and grab them as they whirl around my head.

I get a bit stuck on one style idea, I think I need to go to the library for some inspiration.  I love to get lots of picture books out and trawl through them.

tassle bags

I have been admiring tassley bags for a while, they have a hint of western/cowboy and I rather like it.

from bubblegum candies blog

the bag lady

 I made one out of some old pairs of jeans, there may be a fraying problem in the near future.  It has a red hearts lining and inside pocket.  

 ignore if you can the rather sad state of attire of the model (me).

 firemans trousers from the SPCA shop.

half a leg of those trousers made this little bag.  MY daughter said I had wasted my time as you can buy these at the $2 shop.  If only I had known before hand.  There was me thinking I had been rather cool and fashionable.

birthday cake

soft-marshmallow

The fantasy (above) and the reality (below).

I made a cake for nine year olds birthday.  It was chocolate with strawberry icing, and I made a magazine collage decoration for the top.

alas, when I lit the candles on the cake and walked from the kitchen into the sitting room, the candles set fire to the decorations head.  Hmm, should of thought of that one.  Hence the strange "bite mark".  But anyway this caused some hilarity and nine year old was still happy with the decoration so all good.  

skate board design. crazy rabbit

My little girl will be nine tomorow and she wanted a skateboard for her birthday.  She has never spent more than five minutes on a skateboard in her life so we didn't want to buy an expensive one.  Neither did we want to buy a cheap thing that would fall apart in a week.  So we got one off Trademe, it was a little grubby with some mould on it, but I quite liked the skateboardy decorations on it.

so I gave it a sand and a clean and the paper under the varnish sanded off and most of the varnish.  I designed some little cartoons of my daughter,  with inspiration from my big girl (angels and devils). I wanted to keep the original picture as a background.

I used vivid to outline the pictures, some cute rabbit girls, japanese clouds and crazy rabbit written at the ends, as she does a good crazy rabbit impression.

And then I painted it.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I have to go and varnish it now in the cold dark garage.

flowers

 Lovely cow-parsely found at casa pinka

 beautiful wild colour

 branches and balloon jars at southern living

 It's not flower arranging as such but I loved the Pre-Raphealite moment.

pretty things at my design chic

and a wild and beautiful teapot of flowers at tea for joy.  divine!

It's that time of year when flowers are popping up all over the garden and everywhere around town.  I do love it.  My garden flowers tend toward the more wild and weedy variety, forget-me-nots, pink jasmine, and some old plants that have been there for eons, wisteria, magnolia, blossom and the occasional rose.  and at a certain time of year the hydrangeas go mental.  I love having flowers in the house and so now there are little jars and op-shop vases sprinkled around.  My arranging is not good though.  I can spend quite some time trying very hard to make things look pretty, or I can give them to my husband who will plonk them in a vase and they look fabulous.  I have tried this method also, but it doesn't work for me. It's not fair!