Who holds the key to your heart

The family has gone home and quiet reigns once more. It's so lovely to have our big family get togethers each year, my brother and sister don't have any children, so my two daughters and their children get spoilt rotten, which is lovely to see.
I've been cleaning up my studio over the past two days, now I have two weeks holiday to just sit back and create.
The photos are of a necklace I've completed and is now for sale on my Etsy site.
I treated myself to a Keith Lo Bue dvd and it arrived a few days ago. I'm so impressed with Keith's work. I'm enrolled to do a whole weeks class with him in September 2008, thanks to Jen Crossley who told me about the course, I'm looking forward to meeting Jen again, we should have a great time.
Back to my nice clean studio and more jewellery.

Thank You

I'd like to thank everyone who's visited my blog and Etsy store over the past twelve months, and to thank all the lovely people who have been so kind and left comments on my entries. It makes blogging all worth while knowing there are like minded people out there, all over the world with similar interests and with the main intention of creating a peaceful, art filled
world, where everyone is free to express their beliefs and opinions, whatever they may be.
Have a wonderful holiday season and thanks once again.
The photos above show the decorations in our living room. We're now awaiting the arrival of the grandchildren for the ohhhing and ahhhing.

Purple haze

This is a necklace I've just completed for Patsy, one of my students in the altered book workshops. I made the copper book with the pages being pieces of fabric from old Japanese kimonos. Patsy is a textile artist so this was very appropriate for her. Patsy provided all of the interesting jewellery components. The close up is of a beautiful piece that was originally a brooch from France.

We had to cancel our altered book workshop last night due to torrential rain. The storm was incredible it flooded the Hann Made Studio workshop with water pouring down the walls from the inside. We have had similar storms tonight. The weather is warm so it is very balmy inside and out, you can almost see the garden grow, so lush, it's sad to think that in two or three weeks, when we get the real heat, every thing will be tinder dry and a major fire hazard. Mother nature is very fickle or is this the result of global warming?

Mixed bag

This is a mixed bag of things happening at the moment. Firstly I made the earrings above and added them to my etsy store tonight.



The necklace is one I've made for my daughter for Christmas, I don't need to worry about showing you as she doesn't visit my blog, up until now that is so here's hoping. It's not hard to tell what her favourite colour is.




These are pictures I took today of some rusty old farm machinery, as you can see the area is so dry and we've only just started summer. I love the old chain and the wheels, would love to have them join other pieces in my garden.



This guy came to see what all the fuss was about.

More decorated papers for Etsy

These are more decorated paper packs that I'll be putting on my Etsy store tonight. They feature ten hand decorated papers and five laser prints of my artwork and papers. Each pack comes with a bonus pack of small off cuts of my papers.
This is pack one above.



This is pack two, it has different laser prints. It also shows the bonus papers at the top.





These are typical of the hand decorated papers in the packs, no two are alike. The papers are suitable for card and journal making, for ATC backgrounds or for altered books, or wherever else you might like to use them.
Hope you can visit my store.

Decorated papers and Altered book workshop

Above are some paper packs that I'm now selling on my Etsy store . The top image is the pack, the second photo shows the hand decorated papers, each pack is slightly different as the papers are hand decorated. The third image shows laser prints of my art and papers.

These are photos from my latest altered book workshop, last weekend.



This was Patsy's third workshop, she's so prolific with her art. This is the cover of her Asian themed book. The little figures are painted plaster. Patsy has an exhibition of her magnificent textile pictures, fabulous bags and altered books on December the 8th and 9th at the Waratah Room in St Michaels Church Hall, in Collins street Melbourne. It will be well worth a visit.



Sue's another one who's returned, this was her second workshop, her work's so vibrant. It's a real colour explosion.



This was the first time Sue had tried her hand at altered books and she did very well indeed. I hope to see her again at our Thursday night get togethers.



Lucy's a scrap booker so she was familiar with some of the materials, but I think the tea bags, serviettes and party umbrellas took her by surprise, I'm sure she thinks I'm quite mad using some of the things I collect.



Joy was also a new comer to the workshop, but she had met up with altered books before, not quite like the way I teach though. Recycling's the name of the game in my workshops, it's amazing what you can use to create such wonderful, original art, as their books reflect. Well done ladies.

One of my Favourites

This necklace is the latest addition to my Etsy store . This would have to be one of my favourites. I love using combinations of found things and wire. There's great satisfaction in transforming something from it's original purpose into a piece of jewellery. The silver shoe charms were a real find.
The second photo shows how it hangs when worn.

Found object earrings and rusty fabric

These earrings are the latest addition to my Etsy store .
They have jets and onyx beads, with some very old cut crystal beads. The main features are the beautiful old silver filigree pieces that came from a bracelet.




I've also been busy 'rust dyeing' fabric as seen in Lesley Riley's article in Cloth Paper Scissors. Lesley does some magical things with rust. This piece was created by putting white muslin into an old baking tray that was starting to go rusty. I added hot water, vinegar, rusty objects, including an old bike chain and then the muslin. I made sure the cloth was covered by the water. After two days this was the result. I'm going to use this in my altered books.




This piece was taken a step further. I painted the background with diluted fabric dye and then stamped the fabric with my home made stamps.

My Etsy Store is now open

Wow, after many trials and tribulations my Etsy store is now up and running. I have three pieces of jewellery for sale and will be adding more soon. I also hope to have some decorated paper packs and home made journals for sale, as well as the occasional painted canvas. Hope you can pay my store a visit, I welcome any comments. Thanks everyone.




This is typical of the journals I hope to have for sale. They will consist of decorated original papers of varying sizes, with the occasional piece of art, fabric etc. The rest is for you to decorate or use as you please.






These are pages from my journal, I tend to use this one as a dairy, although the dates are in no particular order. I also add quotes and notes, sketches, images I find, business cards, tickets, whatever. I keep going back and adding to the pages, they never seem finished.

Altered Book Workshop

I have another Altered Book Workshop coming up on Sunday the 25th November. If anyone's interested please email me or give Hann Made Studio Mentone a call, their phone number's on their web site.



Remember this page? It was on my blog a few days ago, well, after 'squinting', this is what I came up with.



I used oil pastel to fill in the shapes and then scratched in the design with a piece of metal, through the layers, to take me back to the gesso background.



These little things are my hand painted tea bags. I drink the tea and then carefully take out the staple at the top of the tea bag, or just pull the tag and staple off. I then gently open the bag out at the seam,usually down the middle in most bags. I wash them under running water and then paint or stamp them. You can do this while they are still wet for a water colur effect or wait until they are dry for a sharper image. I then use them as pages in some of my jewellery 'book necklaces' or add them to pages in my journal. Visit Judy and see what she has done with them.

I'd like to thank everyone who takes the time to visit my blog and also to the people who leave comments, it means so much to me. I try to get back to those who's details I have, but I'm not always able to find contact details for some of the people who comment. To all of you a very big THANK YOU.

My Etsy should also be opening this weekend, so I hope you can drop by.

Best scissors ever, plus this and that

I've just discovered a fabulous pair of scissors, Judy told me about them so I bought a pair from her Red velvet elements Etsy store . They are made by Tim Holtz and are incredible. I've cut all of the objects shown on my cutting board in the photo, the pieces are all metal and the really thick copper I usually have to cut with my dremel, not any more, not now have these babies, just amazing. Thanks Judy and Tim.



This is a pair of earrings to go to one of the galleries. I'm just fixing up my Pay Pal account and then I'll have some jewellery to sell in my Etsy store, hopefully by the end of the week.



This is a section of a mosaic column I have in progress at the moment, it's taken a back seat for awhile, but I hope to get back to it soon.






These are all photos of parts of my studio and some of my art materials Mary Harris nominated me some time ago to show my studio desktop. As I've already shown a fair portion of my studio recently I thought I'd just show some close up snippets. Hope you're watching Mary, sorry it took me so long.

I was also nominated sometime ago by the fabulous children's author and artist Jackie Morris or her cats actually, to state five collective nouns, I gather they relate to what I do.
Well Jackie provided the first one
a rainbow of colour, a necklace of beads, a library of altered books, a recycling of found objects and lastly a yarn of wool.
Too much thinking for this hour of the night. I would recommend a visit to Jackie's web site, she is the most fantastic illustrator and has great photos of her studio. Jackies cat's have their own blog too which is great fun for all the animal lovers.

Buys, swaps and journal pages

I've been receiving lots of lovely mail recently. Firstly some great things from Judy's Etsy store . What a fabulous selection Judy has, look at the 'piece de resistance' in the centre, how cool is that, Judy knows me well. There's something for everyone, and Judy's so generous, she gave me some extras and some beads that she'd had in her collection, which will come in very useful in my jewellery making. Go visit her. I'm sure there will be something for you.



Next I did a swap with Leighanna . I made her some of my stamps and a journal and look what I received in return, a terrific selection of things for my jewellery, look at the optical lenses and crystal drop, papers and butterfly wings and some great paper from Albie Smith, only I've used it already so can't show it here. The icing on the cake was a beautiful painted canvas of Leighannas that looks even better in real life. Thanks Leighanna.



I also did a swap with Gisele . They are three beautiful ATC's joined so I can frame them, again they are so much nicer in the flesh. Giselle also sent me some great pages out of an old stamp album and pages of symbols and music. Another great swap. Thanks Gisele.




Thought I'd show a couple of pages from my decorated pages journal. I have three journals in action at present, all three different styles. The above pages are a conbination of paper napkins, transfers, my stamps, my altered photos and some scribble to finish off.
Now, back to jewellery making.