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.

New stamps

I will start once again by thanking everyone who visits my blog and for those who leave comments, a special Thank You. I try to reply to everyone but have been falling behind lately, so please forgive me if I haven't thanked you personally, I really do appreciate your kind words.

This is one of the reasons I've been busy. I'm teaching a necklace workshop at home in November and had such a great response I've had to organize another workshop for December, I'm not complaining, I greatly appreciate all of the interest.
I'm hoping that before too much longer I will be able to make teaching and my art a full time occupation, I can dream anyway.



Below is where I spend most of my lunch breaks, I walk this pathway for half an hour each day. It's a sea of colour from now until autumn. As soon as the sun appears these lovely dazzling daisies spring to life. When the sky's our usual intense blue and the sea is a beautiful aquamarine, these daisies help create a wonderful palette for an artist.





Hand carved stamps have also been on the agenda. The ones below are now in my Etsy shop.






I was also the lucky recipient of this beautiful photo, framed as well, from Chrissy who had a give away on her blog. I was the winner, thanks so much Chrissy, it will hang in my studio. It's even more beautiful in the flesh.

Home again

This is where we've been over the past week. We had a wonderful time at Merimbula, a beach town on the South coast of New South Wales. The weather was beautiful most of the time although we did have the odd shower.
The house was right on the beach, you walk through the back gate of the property and you are on the sand dunes. The views from the top floor were fabulous looking right across the ocean. The migrating whales put on a display for us each day.



The front of the house.




The back of the house with a deck overlooking the ocean.




You can just see my portable studio in the corner, I took away my sewing machine, jewellery gear and paints.
I finished off a necklace that I'll be teaching in a workshop next month and almost completed another journal, so it was worth the hassle and complaints from dear hubby when we loaded the car.
He took his computer so he couldn't say too much. We didn't have access to the internet in the house resulting in a very quiet cyber week.
We have a two door Toyota Rav 4 with removable back seats, so that helps. I think I stretched the friendship slightly though, when I bought a beautiful pot of crucifix orchids. I almost had to nurse it all the way home, a six and a half hour drive, fortunately I managed to squeeze it into the back.




An overall view of the top floor.



A whale jumping out of the water, they make such a huge splash as they hit the water with their tail.


After one of the showers my husband took this panorama photo of a double rainbow. They were both complete which you don't see too often.




Two very cheeky lorikeets visited constantly. My husband ended up being able to feed them by hand.
They even ate his toast with marmalade on it one morning.
They have such beautiful colours, showing what mother nature can really do.









The above photos are views over the lake and township. I love the reflection of the clouds in the water.



Finally a collection of photos I intend to use in my art, I love the simplicity and faded colours of things that usually get taken for granted.

I'll have some photos of my jewellery and journal pages in the next post.

No computer

I everyone, I won't be posting until after the 18th of October as I will be without my computer. Hope to have another journal to show and some jewellery after then. Thank you all for your wonderful comments on my last post, they are much appreciated. I try to get around to everyone but don't always quite make it.

Bigger than ever

I seem to be on a roll with my journals, they just keep getting bigger. This one has so many pages I had to create two signatures. The cover had to have a separate spine which I've added beads to for decoration.

Below are some of the pages, there are still lots more but I couldn't fit all the photos in one post. This will be for sale on my Etsy.














Over the weekend I attended a fabulous felting workshop run by Elizabeth Armstrong. Elizabeth is such a wonderful teacher and is so generous. Her work is stunning. Walking into her studio is like stepping into Aladdin's cave, there is fabulous colour everywhere and so much to see. Elizabeth teaches from home and is also teaching at Creative Soul Retreat in March. If you've ever wanted to learn how to make felt, Elizabeth's the lady to see.



Above is a piece of felt I made on Sunday after the workshop. I hope to make pieces like this that I can cut up and use in my jewellery.

Below is the silk and felted scarf I made in class.

The winner is

Last week I mentioned I was having a draw for my 100th sale on Etsy, well the winner is Carmel. It was quite a coincidence that Carmel happened to be my first Etsy customer too. A pack of decorated papers will be in the mail.



I'm busy working on another journal, I spent all of Sunday decorating papers, some for my Etsy and some for journals.




These are some of the pages waiting to be assembled.




This is the paper I decorated at the weekend, ready to have artwork applied before being bound into new journals.




This is a fabric page that will be in the new journal. I love working with the fabrics and especially adding sari silk ribbons, scraps of dyed lace doilies and clothing labels.