LIFE

I made this gift for a young girl - a friend of the family:
L for Love, I for Integrity, F for faith, E for Ethics.
Each letter is decorated with papers, ribbons, pearls, charms, and hand painted wooden cut-outs.
On the back of each letter I wrote a message:
L - Love : May your life be filled with the love of family
I - Integrity: May your heart stay true to its purpose and may you live your life with integrity and honour
F - Faith: May our spirit be strong and your beliefs be a constant comfort throughout your life
E- Ethics: May you spread your wings and fly like the butterfly, and as you grow trough life's experiences, may you always stay true to your inner voice.

A special gift

I finished a gift book for my mum who just turned 70. It's an altered book which we passed around at her party and all her friends wrote beautiful messages in it. I also took photographs and printed them straight away on my amazing Canon Selphy printer. I assembled the photos into the book as the morning breakfast party progressed and at the end of the party I was able to give her the book from everyone who was there. She was thrilled.


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Invitation In a Bottle

I've been working on an invitation for a client....

It started out as an idea for the theme of his 40th birthday.....

He loves the beach, and his party is going to be at a very gorgeous beach front restaurant/guest house in Sydney....

He wanted the theme to be "washed up"... but I convinced him that that sounded a bit negative - so why not make it "washed up... and lovin' it!"

Which he did.

The concept is a 'washed up' bottle, with the invitation inside....

I started with some bottles from a dollar-store... which I took apart and gave an aged look:

I rusted all the metal parts on the bottle, as well as the extra bits and pieces I was going to use in the design. I sanded the glass with wet/dry sandpaper, then sprayed with a frosting spray.

I also created some nice rusty charms by collecting old bottle caps, hammering them, and drilling a hole to attach them to the rest of my things.

Then I tea stained some watercolour paper, which will be used as the rolled up invitation inside the bottle.... lots of work here! My kitchen looks like a tie-dye factory.

I collected sticks, bottle caps, and even found some rusty wire on my scavenger hunt.... I was so excited by the wire, that I went to the hardware shop and bought a roll, twisted small pieces of wire into some sculptural shapes to be used as hooks for my final creations...

And here they are.....

Not sure if you can see, but I've got fishing net, driftwood, fishing tackle(rusted), fishing line sinker, rusty bottle cap, sea sponge, rusty wire, twine, and starfish all on there....

There is sand and shells in the bottom of the bottle. The invitation is printed on the hand dyed paper, and wrapped up with twine and inserted in the bottle. On the outside of the bottle there is a tage saying "washed up" and When you pull out the scroll invitation from inside the bottle, there is a tag attached saying "and lovin' it..."

The piece-de-resistance..... we have organised a sexy mermaid to hand deliver the invitations to each of the guests! I'll try to get a photo to finish this story!

First Digital Layout

Feeling quite smug!

I have conquered the digital thing. This is my first layout. I could get quite addicted to this. These are my 2 year old nieces, and this was a day out with Aunty Debbi. We got to eat, sing, run, and play on the beach. I was very spoilt.

Wow... I can cross this off my list

Today is a big day for me.

I managed to cross one thing off my to-finish-list!!

I uploaded my blog AT LAST!!!

Now all I have to do is finish the rest of the things on my list, and then I may have something to blog about!

So... what projects to left to do? Finish 2 cushions for the lounge, finish 3 table cloths (I've had the fabric waiting for 2 years), make a pinboard for hubby's new office, finish a 9 panel collage "from the heart", finish a photo-charm necklace/mobile, finish my cookbook, finish my altered printer's tray, finish organising my studio, finish a project for a swap I'm in.... organise an event I have coming up (80 kids), fit in a commission (album) I have coming up, and work out some projects for holiday workshops....not much really! Stay posted.