Autumn fete

 

 The first of March is the beginning of Autumn here although the official date is the 20th of March. Still the weather is looking very Autumn-ly especially after the hot days we have been having and I am looking forward to Autumn and Winter as they are my favourite times of year. The beginning of March usually sees me attending the annual Bookfest but I am trying to avoid buying more books; instead I went for a browse at a little Fete held close by.

 

I came home with morning tea and ... a book (LOL!) but for 20 cents how could I say no?

 

I also brought one of my favourite plants Heliotrope. I love the scent of these flowers. The flower also features in art by Cicley Mary Barker for the Heliotrope fairy. If you've seen this image and know the scent of the flowers it's easy to know why the fairy is shown smelling these beautiful scented blooms.

 

And I brought a ground cover - Cerastium Tomentosum, the common name is snow-in-summer. I think it will look very pretty in a pot. I was also looking for herbs for the container/dye garden I want to do for my goals but they already had what I have, but for a couple of dollars I came home afterwards with some nice items.

 

Have a great day!

paperless kitchen

 

I have in my stash the DVD of Homestead Blessings - The art of Crafting by the West Ladies. I've been going through the dvd trying out some of the projects and I gave the handmade napkins a go. I followed the instructions to make these cheerful cherry napkins using a carrot as a 'stencil' and stamping direct to fabric. They used a marker pen for their stems but I just used acrylic paint and a thin brush. ( With the acrylic paint I mixed in Jo Sonja's textile medium to make the color steadfast and washable.)

 

I think they turned out really pretty and are so easy to make. I will definetly be giving the leaf napkins a try as well. 

 

I hope every one has a happy day!

frugal inks

 

When I am inking I use Tsukenko memento dewdrop inks. Mostly because they, for the price, are a good value for me. I'd love to buy Tim Holtz inks but that is beyond my purse strings. Memento Inks don't work the same way as TH inks as they are a dye based and don't spread out using water. So in a way they are good if you are don't want your inks to run when you are using glimmer mists/water based sprays. To make your memento inks to behave like a water color and to blend there is a product by Tsukenko called Ink Potion no.9. It is a blending solution for their inks.  I buy a 2 oz bottle from overseas and I can tell you it goes fast and costs a lot to use. So I've been thinking about what I could do to make something similar.

 

A search on line gave some good blending solution tips for Alcohol inks (different product) so not really what I need. I thought I'd play around with turpentine used by artists for oil paints to see if that produced anything and that attempt was a failure. I then tried methylated spirits, and success! The colours do seem to be a little duller than what the ink potion gives and the paper does buckle a bit but nothing ironing out will do. The down side is the methylated spirits obviously have a smell about them, but I think artist brands might have a similar odourless variety. I'm used to turpentine smelly things as I painted in oils paints for years and the smell is something I'm used to. But in a pinch this is going to be my go to for trying out ideas and such for blending. It is much cheaper in the long run.

The tag I smooched ink on a TH craft matt and sprayed some Mehtylated Spirits (MS) onto it and mooshed the tag in the pool of inks. I then used a sponge to blend around the edges. I think the MS did okay for the look.

I'm off to make some cards. Have a nice day everyone.

Browns and Greens

 

The last couple of days I have been working on my granny square throw rug. The squares are building slowly but surely. I'm using yarn I brough from the thrift store so there's no real color scheme to the arrangement it is very random.

 

I've also been going through some stash stuff my aunty gave me. I love the mother dear plaque it's very retro.

 

This very odd flower belongs to the dragon fruit that is growing in our back yard. It's not fully open as it was a very over cast day and it only opens fully at night. The flowers on this plant are huge! And we are seeing the fruit form now after these bloom.

Beautiful day - video of my new homemade smashbook

I've been working away at my ever growing paper scrap pile. I keep most scraps and they end up in books I've been making. Currently I am on a smashbook/junk journal/ hybrid book making go and I use up what I have to put into the books. This book I've named Miss Edith and she is made from brown paper bags I brought from coles or woolworths, they are the lunch bags which are about a couple of dollars for a packet of 100. I cover the shinny side and split open the inside which isn't shiny to make 'signatures' then it is all joined together. Some of the pages I left to show the brown paper bag inside because I like that look.  I still have yet to do the cover on this one, not sure what else to do with the look of it. I used modelling paste over a stencil and it is all raised.

 

Creating books like this is very frugal and good way to use what you have.

 

I hope everyone is enjoying their day.

Life lived

 

With Summer coming to a close we are currently enjoying more cooler weather. This is the type of weather I like. The cool weather has me thinking of wintery type projects, currently I am working on a crochet granny square blanket using up my wool from thrift store finds. I hope to have enough wool to make a good size blanket.

The other day I looked through the recipe sheets that were handed out in the Simple Living cooking from scratch workshops. I made a favourite again, pizza using the pizza base recipe. We had this with a light salad. My favourite recipe from those workshops is still the curried sausages.

 

During rests from my crochet blanket I am also making little sketches and drawings in my small sketch book for possible paintings, but more for just practice. I'm also writing away in my scrapbook/smash book/diary book too. I recieved a notebook at Christmas and I am using that for my February diary.

 

Over summer I harvested cucumbers, beans, and radishes. These are the last of the radishes and we had the last of the cucumbers and beans a while ago. I'm learning a lot from my garden. Did you know if radish crack it means you're watering them unevenly.

Romantic things

We had some overipe bananas no one wanted to eat so I set about making some banana muffins from a cake recipe I found online. They turned out super moist and light but some of them did stick to the bottom of the baking tray. I soon found out lightly flouring the tray will stop them sticking as will adding some baking paper or placing them in patty cake paper cups. Still, they were nice to have with a cuppa even if the bottoms were missing.

 

 

There are Iris's growing around the base of an old tank stand we have in our yard. They bloomed and when they did they were all a peach-y color. So you can imagine our surprise when suddenly we had ones blooming that were purple. I think one side is peach-y color and this side is purple. Either way they are lovely. And remind me of Van Gogh.

 

 

I'm also doing little art works too. My first love, fairies and magical things, always seem to show up sometimes. I have enough ideas for some future paintings which I'm excited about. I'm more productive now that we have such fantastic cool weather back. I don't do well in heat.

 

Home style

 

My, it has been a while since my last post. The summer heat we have been experiencing wasn't something that wanted to keep me indoors at the computer. I have though been at home enjoying the quiet life of homely life.  

We've had a burst of these alpine strawberries of late and they are so sweet and juicy. I just pick them straight off the plant and eat them!

 

 

There was also a birthday or two and we made a pavlova for my sister's birthday which we all enjoyed very much.

 

While away I continued to use some journals to write down the days events. Some pages were just plain writing and others were decorated smash book style to use up the little odds and ends I usually have in my paper scrap draw.

 

 

While staying close to home, I sorted and cleaned out a lot of my stash. I started a new project to get ready for my favourite time of year Autumn and Winter. I don't know about anyone else but Summer, while lovely, can't be over soon enough. As I mentioned before I only just recently learnt how to crochet, now I want to do a granny square blanket of course I use all thrift brought items. I found a bag of wool last year, you may remember my first crochet shawl, this is the same wool!

 

And I am working on my large crazy quilt queen size bed cover. Slowly. Slowly. Years of work on and off. Maybe one day I will complete it.

 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day and enjoying whatever it is they are doing.