A new Grandson and a new journal

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, maybe not quite as unusual as ours. We were spending Christmas day with my sister and her husband as well as around twenty other family members for lunch and dinner. When we arrived my sister was very unwell and ended up spending the day in bed, we all rallied around and managed to sort out lunch. My dear eighty five year old mother was allowed out of hospital, where she is receiving treatment for depression, what they failed to inform us was that she was also suffering from incontinence, bladder and bowl, whilst on her medication. That created a few dramas, but all in all everything went off reasonably well. I finally fell into bed around midnight when my daughter rang, 'Mum I'm going into labor' was the cry down the end of the phone. The best laid plans of mice and men go right out the window when a baby arrives fifteen days early. Needles to say I wasn't at the birth of this grandson as all of the babysitters who were lined up to look after my grand daughter were away. My dear little grandson arrived on Boxing day weighing in at seven and a half pound. Mother and baby doing well, RoRo recovering, I'd forgotten how much work is involved in looking after a gorgeous three and a half year old.



















The photos above are a few of the pages in my new journal that's available on my Etsy site. I've been working on this one for weeks now, they are so involved but I love every minute of their development.



Above, a very proud RoRo and Xavier James.




These are part of two packages that arrived over the Christmas break, I'm looking forward to working with both. The bezels are from Judy's Red velvet etsy, I'm looking forward to adding the Ice resin to these. I love the designs around the ones standing up.
The other package was from Christina, who kindly sent me these 'stencil papers' to try. I usually give them a coat of acrylic paint on both sides then use them as stencils with my decorated papers. There are some wonderful designs in this group.


I hope everyone has a lovely new year, we are celebrating with friends in Daylesford with temperatures expected around 35 degC so it will be a warm one. Catch up in 2010.

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has a very Happy and safe, holiday break. I'm on holiday for three weeks now which is wonderful.
Thank you all again for your kind comments and thoughts over the past twelve months, it has certainly been another fulfilling year in our household.
We've had our share of dramas but on the whole the positives win out by far. I have another beautiful grandson and am awaiting the arrival of another grand child in the next two weeks.
I have lots of jewellery and journals to make, stamps to carve, a princess wall to paint and a garden that needs finding, so I'm not sure if three weeks is really enough. But it will be bliss.

I've been watching the news and seeing all the snow and freezing cold weather in the UK, US and Europe. We are at the other extreme, today was 37deg C, it's still very balmy at 10.00 this evening. We have all of the windows open trying to catch a waft of a breeze.
They promise us low 20's for Christmas day so we're hoping they will be right. South Australia has been suffering badly today with extreme temperatures and fires.

I've taken a few photos of our living area this evening showing some of our decorations. It looks so cosy and wintery belying the real heat of the day.

Enjoy your Christmas or whatever it is you might celebrate and I'll post again shortly. I've almost finished another journal so will have photos soon.

Back in action again

Thank you all so much for your concerns re my recent health issues, I haven't been able to respond to everyone individually, but your comments and emails are very much appreciated. Thank you all.
I had to have a stress test today to make sure my arteries were OK. I received the results on the spot and everything is fine. All of my other tests came back this week too and apart from being deficient in vitamin D all is well. I'm amazed how much better I feel after only one week of very high doses of vitamin D, I didn't realize all the things it affects.

I've been trying to get some things on my etsy site and have added decorated papers below and a brooch that I made for my exhibition above.

I have a necklace almost completed and hope to have that available over the weekend.

Out of action

I have to apologize to the students who attended my necklace workshop last week. It's taken until now for me to show their wonderful work on my blog.
I had a bit of a health scare last Tuesday and ended up in hospital. All seems to be well now, just waiting for some test results. I can't believe in such a sunny country as ours that I could end up deficient in vitamin D. I suppose that's what I get from working in an office all day.

Here's the fabulous work.

I hope to have another post in the next few days, now I have some free time.

He's arrived

At long last my darling new grandson has arrived the whole 8 lb 10 oz of him, his name's Wil or William. I received the call from my daughter at 7.30 Saturday morning letting me know her contractions were four minutes apart, she was still at home, I suggested that maybe seeing as it was her third she might be wise to get to the hospital. In typical Aussie fashion she said 'she'll be right Mum'. I decided I'd better get a move on as I live an hour and a half from her. I arrived at 10.00am and she gave birth at 11.18am, by 11.45am she was up having a shower and unpacking baby clothes. Amazing resilience.



He's been in this world a whole hour.



The other day I dropped in to see my friend artist Patsy Worledge. Patsy never ceases to amaze me with her art. Here she was painting this huge canvas using the side of her house as an easel. Her work is fabulous, so colourful with so much character and charm. She has an exhibition coming up in February next year, so I'll post the details closer to the time.



Two more of her wonderful canvases, these are both the same size as the one above.






My dear husband put my new jewellery desk together for me while I was away. It's a wonderful space, somewhere for everything.



Some of my jewellery pieces waiting to be turned into necklaces.





I was so excited I spent yesterday soldering



I've also been experimenting with Ice Resin. I took the base of a silver teaspoon, lay a strip of orange sari ribbon in it, then a very tiny light globe all encased in a copper frame. I slowly poured in the resin and added balls of silver solder to the resin outside of the frame. I now have to drill a hole in the shortened handle and finish it of with a wire loop for adding to a necklace.

Still Waiting

My little grandson still hasn't made an appearance as yet. My daughter's not impressed, this is her third child so she thought it would be early like her other two, but he wants to be an individual. His seven year old brother has given up counting the sleeps until he arrives.

Last Saturday I had a wonderful group of students attend a necklace workshop at home. They were so industrious and all went home with fabulous necklaces all completed.


Here's a slide show of their finished pieces.

Check out their blogs as some have their own photos too. Sylvia, Joanne, Gail, Bevlea and Lucy.

Waiting game

I'm playing a waiting game at the moment. My new grandson is due on Friday, the date has been brought forward by a week, so this has thrown me into chaos as I'm teaching a necklace workshop at home on Saturday.
I've been at the birth of my three other grandchildren so I hope I don't have to miss this one. I've told him if he wants to keep on the right side of his Ro Ro he'd better arrive before Friday or after Saturday. I hope he's listening. It's been very hot here so my daughter's ready to have him now.

In the mean time I've been creating a cover for my next journal which I hope to have on etsy soon.



Below is the piece of paper that I decorated with the stamps that I have in my etsy store.



I scanned it into photoshop and then changed the hue, posterized the edges and added some more of my stamps that I've turned into brushes, below is the result.



On Saturday it was beautiful and warm so we went for a visit to Brunswick Street which is in Fitzroy, an inner suburb of Melbourne. The whole street has a very bohemian atmosphere. Lots of fabulous cafes, art shops and interesting characters.
Below are just a few of the wonderful places to visit.

Beautiful Zetta Florence, papers from Italy, cards, boxes etc. a real luxury.




This was a fabulous shop that sold everything relating to coffee and coffee and tea making, the aroma was so enticing when we walked in. We wondered where they served the coffee then discovered this delightful little area, it's a passage way between the two shops. They've turned it into this gorgeous 'cafe', very inspiring what you can do with a small space.



A blocked off door looking into the shop.



A paper and print maker addicts heaven, it's Neil Wallace's shop and has some wonderful papers, paints and all things for printing. Needless to say I bought some beautiful Japanese paper that they had on special.



A wonderful graffiti wall.



Fabulous bougainvillia, what a magnificent display.




I love the sign, there are many interesting ones along this street. Lots of mosaic seats too.



Finally one of my favourite places. The Artist's Garden nursery. It's an oasis in the city, beautifully set out with lovely plants and garden sculptures. It makes you want to rush home and start gardening.
We live about an hour out of the city so by the time we arrived home the urge to garden had subsided some what.