The Envelope Project

I love Art Projects.  I especially love Completely Random Art Projects.

Meet Me At Mike's is running an art project at the moment called The Envelope Project.  It goes a little like this:

You mail (by actual snail-mail) an envelope to Meet Me At Mike's with something little in it.  Anything.  Possibly not poo. Anything cute or pretty or lovely in some way. They put all the envelopes up in their store window for 6 weeks.  At the end of the 6 weeks, a name from all participants is drawn at random from the universe and that person receives every.single.envelope AND all.their.contents.

Having been a big fan of posting people random stuff for many years now, even almost-strangers that read my old blog (I posted some awesome stuff to those folks) I am Bang Up for posting a little somethin somethin to lordy knows who.

I aint sayin what I posted, but one was made by me some time ago and just sitting in my scrapbooking basket feeling unloved, one was made by Monkey Boy today, and one was made by an animal.  It is not poo.

If you want to find out how to participate, best look here. Check out the rest of Mike's too.  Miss Pip is the Mayor of Awesome-Town!

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My Creative Space

Crap, is it Thursday again?

A toddler with conjunctivitis means no childcare, no playgroup, no visiting friends, no LIFE.  Also not much time for creativity since she stands at my door and cries "Mumm-mmm-yyyyy cuu-uu-ggg-le" for as long as I can stand it.  Today that would be about 2 minutes.  Sometimes I'm a hard-ass mamma and just let her scream until she stops, but when the kid is sick some stupid maternal thing kicks in.  Probably so we dont inadvertantly kill them with our hard-assness.


I did manage to sneak enough time after my writing group yesterday to stop at my fave op-shop, where they lured me in via a shopping trolley full of handbags for $1. 

Cute little vinyl-lined toiletries bag, looking for a purpose.  How lovely is the fabric?

The Handbag Stash:  Two little bags, the toiletries clutch, a patchwork shoulderbag, and a briefcase thingy.  I've ALWAYS wanted a briefcase thingy.  $5 the lot = awesome

There was some divine oriental fabric, and a chrome 50s chair for $2 and step-stool.  The stool needs re-upholstering, but it was $3!  I clearly remember one just like this in my kitchen when I was a kid.  Of course we had the chrome-leg faux-marble table and chairs to go with it.  We were, like, groovy.

 3m oriental loveliness, 2m coffee velvet, 4 metres soft butter-yellow cotton = $7.

Finally I got around to doing some very simple stuff like changing buttons on a recent 

Boring Brown op-shop cardi.

 and then decided to go uber-nuts and put buttons all over it.

The buttonifying of Boring Brown Cardi will take a while methinks. I dont know what it will look like when its done, but that is where the fun in hand-sewing 3000 buttons lies.

What's happening in your Creative Space today?

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Serenity Sunday

Today's Serenity Sunday is brought to you by the good graces of my friend who lives round the corner.  Aware of my Near-Deathness, she offered to take Felix for the morning thereby halving my stress and doubling the potential serenity-factor.

When you dont have any family and you have a small circle of friends and you live in the Boonies, a break from the kids - even when near death -  is a rare thing indeed.

Monkey Boy and Felix left, and Ella dragged my sorry arse outside, even though it was so cold the rainwater in the toy trailer was still covered with ice and we could see our breath in the air.  Do kids not feel the cold???

I'm glad she did drag me outside, because this is the first thing I saw:

Illuminated Leaf

Discarded.  I think I'll turn this into a planter.

Apple Feast Continues (compare with last week's photo)

Buzzy

Chalk

Chilli

Sshhh!

Warrigal Greens: self-seeder, rampant ground cover, use as you would spinach.  Awesome.

Winter Morning

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12 Months of Crafting The World: Month 1

I've had a little somethingsomething in my list of things to do for a while, but with sewing for the shop and sewing for the kids and occasionally sewing for myself and running a business and being a mum and having an internet addiction, where's the time going to come from? Less Twittering? I.Dont.Think.So.

As mentioned in previous dispatches I need a kick up the butt to do things sometimes. So I pulled this project out of hiding and decided it was the Thing To Do for the Craft Challenge this month. Halfway through the month (practically anyways, especially if you dont count the Sundays) and it still wasnt done. Heaping all kinds of hate upon myself, yesterday I dragged my sick-and-getting-worse self off to the studio and made it happen.

There was some of this:

and some of these:

which became little fuzzy piles of this:

Then there was a bit of this:

and then Monkey Boy and Felix came home with leftover this:

so after I stuffed myself, I stuffed this:

And when I'd done, I was cold and shivvery and had body ache and felt like utter shite and I went to sleep for three hours.  But I'd made this:

In case you are wondering, this is the panda I based my SparklePanda logo on.  I thought I might make some more, maybe to use as keyrings or make him a bt smaller and he could be a magnet or a brooch.  What ya think?

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My Creative Space

Up until very recently, I had been doing all of my sewing in our dining room, in a room with no windows, one recently-added skylight, no storage space and a tiiiiny 1930s table that used to belong to my grandmother.  It was the major thoroughfare of our home and consequently there was much in the way of Lets Annoy Mummy and Getting Pins Stuck in Bare Feet.

Thanks to subtle hints badgering snarly comments from Monkey Boy, we swapped our spaces.  He moved all his Man Cave stuff out of our study and formed a nice little barricaded den for himself in our dining room, and I get the fully renovated, window onto the garden, huge space, walls lined with bookcases, more tables, more storage and with-a-door Good Room!

So while I deal with getting some chest infection thing thanks to taking Prednisolone for too long, and try to muster up the strength enthusiasm giving a rats arse about my contribution to the 12 Month Craft The World Challenge (which I TOTES will share with you soon), here are some piccies of my new Studio.

I've had this Singer since 1982, 1st Year High School.

Setting up for the photo shoot

Floodlights from Bunnings.  Yes, that is a giant inflatable Boxing Po you can see on the floor.

AWESOME therapy tool.

Master Patterns

Vintage button goodness

And my creative work for the day is this Photoshopped image of my craft supplies and tin, all of which I have had since childhood. 

What is your creative space like?  If you feel like sharing where you work and what you're working on you can play along with Kirsty every Thursday at Kootooyoo's My Creative Space.

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Serenity Sunday

Sundays have been stressful around here.  My Significant Other - know to the cyberverse as Monkey Boy - has taken up archery.  Bow Hunting, to be precise, except they hunt creatures made of Styrofoam and hay bales rather than woolly mammoth.  Sunday is Monkey Day, which means that I get left holding the babies.

This wouldn’t be a problem if I were actually capable of holding the babies, but with my spinal injury and now the Disease Most Likely (Ankylosing Spondylitis) affecting my ability to do much of anything physical it is, actually, a problem.

I have dreaded Sundays for a while now, because not only am I having to cope in a situation I am not built to cope with, the kids think the rules go out the kitchen door with Daddy and that means Mummy turns into a screaming banshee and wants to punch herself in the head.

Like I said: Sundays have been Stressful.

NO MORE!

I am going to introduce a new routine to my Sundays!  I read a quote on Twitter* the other day: something about if you don’t like what’s happening, change it, and if you can’t change it then change the way you look at it.  (I would add: “if you won’t do either of these then at least quit your bloody bitching about it.”)

My plan is to turn Stressful Sunday into Serenity Sunday. From today, every Sunday I will grab my camera (that I we paid a small fortune for) and take photos of things that make me happy.  I will futz around with them on Photoshop (which also makes me happy) and then share them with you.  (If anyone is actually out there.  StatCounter says there is, but you’re awfully quiet...)

Hooray for A Plan! 

Here’s what is making me happy today.  I hope some of these images might make you happy too.

A good start to The Plan:  Felix and Ella off to play.

Dew Feather

Decay

A Cat and His Boy

Apple Feast

  Moss 1: 
I particularly love the smooshed bit of blue chalk, not even noticed when I shot this

Moss 2

A Boy and His Stick

The Crab Apple Tree That Never Said "You Killed Me You Bastards"

Wet Bike

Repurposed Garden Boot:  I dont stop at clothing, people!

Tangled Food: eschallots resprouted from our crisper drawer

Totem

Winter Slide

Ella's Pinny Top:  my first draft on the top and first attempt at applique.  Not Too Shabby.

Rocket (Aragula) in potentia.  

After 5 years, we still have it re-seeding through the garden.  And I LOVE Rocket.

Ahhhh.  How's the serenity?

*Smacks self in head for taking advice from twittersphere.

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12 Months, 12 Themes, 12 Crafts, 1 Happy Panda

Over at the wonderful blog of jewelery designer Adelle, there's a whole world of challenging going on.

Starting today crafters can join in on The 12 Month Craft The World Challenge and create something awesome on a different theme each month.  I'm quite taken with this idea and subsequently shouted "I'm in! I'm in" before realising that she couldn't actually hear me and perhaps typing my excitement might be more appropriate.

I love crafting or being involved in any sort of creative endeavour. I've done it all from knitting, sewing, crochet (Fail) scrapbooking, photography, drawing (pass), painting (Fail), writing, garden design, jewelery, and even studying Law (which is extremely creative, let me tell you).  My problem is knowing exactly where to start and what to focus on.  There are too many choices, which is why I suppose I got sidetracked away from sewing in the first place all those years ago, and why I can NOT decide between 15 brands of Creamed Corn on shopping day.  Give me a list, a deadline and a theme and I will produce the goods.  Sadly, it takes someone else to provide these things, to give me the kick up the backside I need, to be able to surmount the incredible inertia I experience when faced with options.*

So, not only is this a 12 Month Craft Challenge, but for me I think I shall look upon it as a 12 Month Decision Challenge.  If you feel like a bit of a challenge yourself, either in the making something every month for a year realm, or the cannot-make-a-decision-to-save-my-life-realm, trundle on over and sign your next 12 months away.


*Partially due to gross character flaw and partially to spending wayyy too long in tertiary education.

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