a week of cute... day one

I'm joining in with a week of cute, hosted by Angela from three buttons on the meet me at mikes page. Day one is proudly brought to you by Frankie magazine, I really want that dish!

this is... the contents of my handbag

Well, what can I say... maybe I was a scout in a past life.
My contents include:

Douglas and Hope zip pouch containing money and small card wallet
Selvedge swatch from my bag fabric
Keys with a cat-bus keyring
Numerous used metcards
Pencilcase from Kimono House holding drawing utensils
Waiters friend for when I moonlight at MoVida.
A $2 coin, found right down the bottom.
A Lark mirror bought from Mikes, with vintage girl and boy back.
My little boxy pouch that holds my womanly effects.
Fokus sunglasses.
Staedtler markers for colourful doodling whilst on trams.
Mobile phone.
Moleskines, red is the diary, brown is for writings and black is for doodling.
Hand cream for my ultra dry, dermatitis hands.

I think that is quite enough, don't you?

inspiration

I've been inspired by kris's color stripes. She uses photos and pulls individual colours out to create a set. These sets or colour groupings can be used to influence fashion, interior decorating, painting, quilts and so on and so forth.
So I have gone through my photo archive and applied this practice to my own using photoshop. Here are some of my experiments...

this is... my demon

I can never truly enjoy the presence of a butterfly, and how is this you may ask?
Because their sodden offspring eat my bloody basil, don't they.
The little fat leaf munchers fill their little guts with the soft fragrant leaves of my mediteranean herb, and in the process they fail to recognise that they are trespassing.
Whenever I catch the little bastards in the act, I rip them off and show them what it feels like to fly. I get quite worked up over these green killers.
I have just recently nurtured the suffering plants back to good health. You should have seen them, all bare and worn down. They'd almost given up on life itself. I've seen them through a really rough time, now they are just looking forward to ahappy future of insalata caprese and sunday afternoon brushcetta.

i made it myself

Bianca of Hollabee posted this tutorial a while back, and I have finally gotten around to completing it. My bag is alot bigger, but it follows the same construction. I think I will use it as a craft bag, so I can lug my various projects around. Please make note that I did attempt to iron the linen base before sewing it and I just couldn't get the wrinkles out.
I think I need a hotter iron. I'm quite excited to have made something so useful!
I'm sure I'll be making many more in the future... and hopefully I'll get better as I go.

girl meets guy craft

This post is for these one, two, three lovely ladies to show my crossover skills.
My partner is a motorbike mechanic, and currently rebuilding one of his own bikes. When it came to applying the pinstripes and stickers, he turned to me for my sharp eye and designer skill. (that took it a bit far didn't it) So ladies, the bike you see below is a 1972 Suzuki t500 otherwise known as a Titan. I helped to line up the stickers and pinstripe and finished off the edges so they match up perfectly.
The bottom two photos are closeups of a friends bike. I love taking shots in the workshop, Samuel also uses my photos for his website and advertising.

the things you will find

(image courtesy of ebay seller)

Check out my latest purchase!!!!! An antique guillotine, in working order!!!
Imagine all the paper I will chop.
So exciting!!!
I got it for 50 of my finest dollars, bargain!

on my desk... on a wednesday

Kitty in stitches, hee hee hee... get it?
my brown owls uniform waiting for a suitable apron to come along

ikea drawers covered in christina re paper,
so deluxe

I've been a little neglectful of my dear little blog over the past week.
This is me just trying to keep up...

this is... my creation

Here are some of my creations...
sorry I'm sooooo late.

some experimental freehand stitching...

badges made with Gemma & the kaotic kraft kuties...

my first knitting project, all wrapped up for a gift to my mother in law...

& a mandala I made a few years back out of photos I had taken.

payin it forward, part 2

Three lovely ladies have won themselves a little somethin somethin from the kaboodle. They are Justine of 62Cherry, Michelle of leni & rose & Sophie of milky & rosie

on my desk... on a wednesday

It's wednesday again in sunny melbourne and on my desk today is Walter the Singer.He was born in 1951 in Clydebank, Scotland. He still has the get up and go of a young fella,but he can only go straight. He's not really up to date with technology you see.
Have a nice wednesday, wherever you are and whoever you're with.

payin it forward

I wish I was in Japan for the cherry blossom season. I love them very much.

The sweet Libby of Zoesquid is sending me a pay it forward gift. It will arrive as as suprise in my letterbox sometime in the next 365 days. So now my challenge is to pay it forward to three more lovely bloggers.

The rules are:

The first three people to comment on this post will receive a gift from me, sometime within the next 365 days. Who knows when it will turn up, or what it will be, but rest assured, it will arrive. All you have to do is promise to make the same declaration on your blog, and send out gifts to three of your lovely readers.

Easy Peasy.

I'll announce the 3 recipients next tuesday the 18th March.

out of boredom

I've been at home all day today with quite an upset tummy. I'm unsure as to what it was that upset the poor thing, but either way it's not happy. So between schoolwork and lying on the couch, I created this pattern. It reminds me of old style japanese plaid.

announcement

The wonderful Dana of acoustitch has given birth to a little bundle of boy. His name is Leon Ray and he is super cute. Pop over and say hi.

little boxy pouch

Today I finally got around to giving the little boxy pouch tutorial a go. It is really quite easy and I plan to use it for personal effects and pop it in my handbag. I got the fabric at ziguzagu, part of kazari warehouse in Richmond.

this is... looking out my front door

Well, to be precise... this is looking out the door to my balcony. Only because I live in an apartment block and if I were to take a picture out my front door, we'd just be looking at someone elses front door. Being on the first floor, we look over into our next door neighbours huge garden and tennis court.
Thanks to Brooke for this weeks theme, and to Angela... the brains behind the meme.

and what a good morning it is

Sundays are definately the best day of the week. I rise as I desire (not as the alarm desires), I hang about on the couch while the lovely husband to be cooks the best breakfast in town... as seen above, and all the while listening to pbs radio with a mix of soul, reggae and other odd tracks.
I hope everyone has a great sunday and for those in melbourne enjoy your day off tomorrow.

on my desk... on a wednesday

Thanks again to Kirsty for this meme.
On my desk today, I have booklet that I have just bound for Anthea van Kopplen who is a part of this exhibition at Craft Victoria. It starts tomorrow so do have a look. I'm quite excited because this is the second piece of binding of mine that is now in the hands of Craft Vic. Also, some Florence Broadhurst fabric that I'm attempting to turn into this bag; a special red envelope for Brooke and my knitting attempt... I can knit! So far I've only dropped 1 stitch, but otherwise I'm on a roll.
Have a happy wednesday & I'll see some of you tonight for mikes drinks.

schooling about

I've been working on an assignment at school where we're designing the fitout for a health and beauty resort. I'm at the conceptual stage, which is just pulling some ideas together and throwing them about, my theme is based on that of a cocoon. I'm working on a curved wall that runs throught he building, I'm going to cut into the wall and backlight sculpture fabric, to the affect as seen above. The first 2 pics are just playing with texture and the second 2 are a mockup to help convey my idea into 3D. I'm pretty happy with how they've turned out.

On the craft side of things... I've just bought myself some wool and needles and I'm going to learn to knit. First up, a scarf (of course). I'm quite excited, I'll post later on in the week to show how I'm progressing.

this is... my inspiration board

Being a visual person, a board just doesn't give me enough room... so I use the walls.
Here are shots from around my study.

Cool colours

Warm Colours

Black & White

orange in the morning

My baby cooked me breakfast this morning.
Toast, tomato, avocado, beans & boiled eggs... my favourite.
Look how orange they are! Lets hear it for organic free range eggs!

into the blue

The sky is lovely & blue today, which is a pleasantry. I took advantage of it's clarity & took a few shots on my way down to the workshop. I wanted to feature the sky and the objects that cut into it. So here we go...