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.

More stamps and junk journal workshop

I've had a few requests for more poppy stamps so there's a variety of sizes and shapes below. These are now available on my Etsy site






I had another great workshop on Saturday with a fabulous group of students. Sylvia and Jacky were especially entertaining when it came to adding their signatures into their journals. We were reduced to tears of laughter at one stage. They blamed it on the weather. You can visit their blogs and see their wonderful covers.
The temperature was in the low 30'sC, which was a bit of a shock as we aren't even into summer yet. We've had 35 C everyday since breaking all existing records for this time of year. The bush fires have started and we're all in preparation mode for the coming season.





This is the group from left Anne, Anda, Sylvia hiding behind Jacky, Fran, Margaret and Norma. Their covers are beautiful, they've now painted the spines to match the fronts.

All over the place

This post has a bit of everything. I bought this fantastic book Friday night, ETC. by Sibella Court. She's Australian and tells of her collecting and creating beautiful interiors from her collections. I love the way she's set the book out, it looks like a hand made journal. Here's just a very small part of the book.








I love the names of the colours for each section and the way they are set out.
It's a gorgeous book.



This gorgeous ring arrived last week with some wonderful goodies including two hand made postcards from Denise, this was my lovely reward for knitting a piece for her National Gallery project. The knitted ring is divine. Thanks Denise.




I love the colours in these Sari silks hanging in my studio, they're so vibrant.




I was sick of trying to untangle my yarns when I kept them in a basket, then I discovered this toy hanger in a shop the other day, I wasn't sure if it would work but it was very cheap so I thought I'd try and wow it works very well indeed. The yarns are held in the three compartments and the ends are pushed through the holes in the mesh. I only have to pull the yarn when I need to cut off a length for whatever I'm doing and they don't all get tangled.




This is a length of gorgeous fabric I bought on my day out with Jo and fellow bloggers Mim and Jason. We had a fabulous lunch then visited Beautiful Silks, I was in heaven, that's where I bought the fabric, along with lots of other treasures. For all you locals it's in Fitzroy, fabulous place.
I loved the fabric so much I decided to scan a section of it into Photoshop so that I can print it out and use it in my journals.
Below is the scanned image.