Back to the jewellery

I've been very busy over the holiday break making jewellery. The necklace in the photo along with another I'll show in my next post, is off to Antipodes Gallery in Sorrento. I made all of the chain and the large rings from aged copper then soldered then. The larger red beads are my hand made fabric beads.

I'm also busy making jewellery and journals for the Creative Soul Retreat in March for vendor night.

The earrings below are one of quite a few pairs I'll have available.

I've been taking close up shots around my studio and thought I'd add them to my posts now and then instead of in one big post. This is a very old wooden box that has dividers in it, like shelves. I cut up a cardboard cylinder and it's now a great home for my pencils and pens as well as my paints that I use for journalling.

I've been published

Late last year I was approached by Get Creative magazine and asked if they could do a profile on my art and teaching, needless to say I was thrilled. They also asked if I could create a piece of jewellery with instructions to go into their magazine. The bracelet above is the result. There are  six pages in total with photos and commentary on my jewellery and journals and instructions for making the bracelet.

The magazine is Australian and is available in Borders, Spotlight and some newsagents.

Just when I thought thought I couldn't possibly fit any more drawers into my studio, guess what arrived on Christmas Day.

They are beautiful, very French, along with the clock in the first photo. The hunk in the fourth cubby hole is my husband taken many years ago, long before we met.

Washing on the line

Over New year we were in Daylesford and visited Purl's Palace, a fabulous place for Japanese fabrics for patchwork, beautiful yarns and lovely gifts with an oriental theme. I bought 2 bags of scrap fabrics from old saris, the embroidery and colours are beautiful. I use these in my hand made journals. I decided to wash them before using as they had just been torn or cut from the original clothing and I wanted to make sure they were clean. We had extremely high temperatures, 44 deg C on Monday, so they only took minutes to dry. They made such a lovely picture fluttering in the hot wind I had to take photos.

These are some close ups of the details in the fabrics.

I've also added another pack of decorated papers and laser prints of my artwork to my Etsy store

Collage sheet - abstract

Collage sheet - flower paintings

The Piano

What a fabulous time we had yesterday at Jo's home. Jo decided to dismantle her old piano and invited some fellow artists and bloggers, including Rosie who was visiting from the UK, to join in the task. Beautiful weather, great friends and wonderful food made the day so enjoyable. It was lovely to catch up with Janette, Trish, Carolyn, Cathy and Jason again as well as to meet some new artists friends.
We're all looking forward to creating some unusual art pieces from our collections.

The piano before the dismantling.

These are some of the shots of various stages and fascinating parts of the piano.

I hope to be able to show you down the track what I do with my treasures.

This is another journal that I have for sale in my Etsy store. This journal has a combination of blank watecolour papers, decorated papers, original and laser art pieces, laser prints of my papers some stitched decorations and a mix of different weights of lined and hand made papers.

This is the cover, it's made from my hand painted canvas and lined with Kaffe Fassett fabric.

These are a few of the pages in the journal.

Happy New Year

I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy, Healthy and art filled 2010.
Thank you all so much for your support in 2009 and thank you to everyone who leaves lovely comments on my blog, it's much appreciated. I try to get back to you all but find it difficult working full time and trying to start up my art business. I'm hoping that within the next couple of years I can work on my art full time.
I'm on holiday for two weeks but during this time I have jewellery orders to complete and a 'Princess wall' to paint for my three year old grand daughter. Now her brother has arrived fifteen days early, I have to get a cracking. He will be moving into her 'Nemo' room in a few weeks.












These are more pages and the cover of the journal that's in my Etsy store.

Below are more of my hand carved stamps that I added to my store today.








I'm going to endeavor to blog more this year, time permitting. I'm also going to try and update my header. I have a new photo below for my profile, the other one's a bit out of date now.