Lolli b chie

Art for Kids and Mixed nuts

Was FANTASTIC....what a great opening night!!

I had heaps of paintings sell which is sooooo exciting and encouraging!!!

I do have some over which I will put on etsy this Saturday morning (have to work the next two days).

It was great to meet some Adelaide people who I had been talking to via email but it is always nice to meet for "real" in this computer world we live in!!!

Here's a few pics,

This (in the red and white) is the wonderful karen who did a FANTASTIC job of organising the art for kids.  We think we can do it again, I said to Karen "It's like having a baby, you just need time to get over it!!"  LOL     If you are interested on being on the mailing list for the next one you can email Karen at      eclectic1@live.com.au

Here are my sock monkey paintings...they all came with a monkey and I have a couple left which I will put on etsy this Saturday.

This little puppet, rabbit sold, he is so cute...I was really happy with how he turned out....although I should have photographed him before the glass went on!!!

This one sold too.... But this next pic will be on etsy come the weekend with a few others.

Better get off to work now...back soon.

I've got a sock creature thing goin' on.

Ralph's ten daughters kept him on his toes when ever Barbara had to go out. None of them look like him but they all have his nose and one of his eyes.

Available at the "Art for Kids" Exhibition.(read on for details)

Whats this "Mixed nuts" thing all about??

Well the time has come to talk more about the mysterious project I have going on.

Here's a BIG clue...............

Thats right I spent like a month of my life on the computer asking some great artists to participate and low and behold they all said YES!! So this project was off the ground!!

So that snobby "Private blog" in my sidebar is so that all the artists can take a look at each others work.

Here they are.......

Christina McQueen  http://www.thechocolatecrowtrader.com/rustic_tarts_primitive.htm

Marion Gill http://www.thechocolatecrowtrader.com/rustic_tarts_primitive.htm

Kirsty Campion http://lollibchie.typepad.com   www.kirstycampiondesigns.com

Kristen Doran http://cheekybeaks.blogspot.com/

Madelaine http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5098586

Sara Lechner http://thefabricofmeditation.blogspot.com/

Rebecca Cook (no website)

Elsita www.elsita.typepad.com

Scott Parker (no website)

Jude Hill http://www.spiritcloth.typepad.com/

Tiel Seivl-keevers http://tsktsk.typepad.com/tsk_tsk_design_and_illust/

Sandra Monat http://herzensart.blogspot.com/

Trish Millener  http://sweetnellie.blogspot.com/

Jules Knoblock http://julieknoblock.blogspot.com/

Aimee Ray http://dreamfollow.com/

Claudine Hellmuth http://claudinehellmuth.blogspot.com/

Marci Senders http://marcisenders.typepad.com/

Elisa Lataster http://elisalataster.com/

Jim Bradshaw http://jimbradshawillustration.blogspot.com/

Rosalie Quinlan and Melanie Hurlston  http://www.mellyandme.typepad.com

Carly Schwerdt http://www.neststudio.typepad.com/neststudio/

Violet Cooper  www.violetcooper.com

Ruth Rae  www.ruthrae.com

Lori Joy Smith  www.lorijoysmith.com

Natascha Rosenburg http://nataschasrosenberg.blogspot.com/

Lizette Greco  www.lizettegreco.com

Ali Durham  (no website)

Kelly Buntin Johnson  www.diddy-wa-diddy.com

Beate Knappe www.beates-fabric-art.blogspot.com

Sandra Paull www.sunvalleyprimitives.com

Christina Romeo http://flickr.com/people/fabricpanic

Syd McCutcheon  http://sheepfloozy.blogspot.com

Magda Trzaski  www.magdatrzaski.com

Teresa Crowe  (no website)

Teesha Moore www.teeshamoore.com

Shannon Lamden www.auntycookie.com

Valerie Weberpal  www.earthangelstoys.com

Mary Stanley  http://marystanley.blogspot.com

Tara ross  http://tararossstudios.blogspot.com

Kate Sutton  www.katesutton.co.uk

Sarah Rich  (no website)

Susan Buchanan http://www.flickr.com/gp/37008429@N00/1rF330

Tricia Tharp http://frizzillustration.blogspot.com/

Renee Lawter www.idlego.com

Kelly Milton  (no website)

Rebekah Cichero  www.onesmallroom.com

Amy Prior  www.patternhouse.com.au

Jess Hutch  www.jesshutch.com

I KNOW...........WOW!!!!!

As you can see on the invitation it is in conjunction with an art for kids show being organized by Karen Ramsey. This is the second one she has done and if the first was anything to go by it should be a fantastic successful night for both artists and art buyers.

SOOOO I have also been trying to get some more art done for that........

February????

I think I must have blinked and missed it!!!

I have been working.......

I have always wanted to paint a Charles Blackman Alice in wonderland painting. I have changed it a bit, and I am quite happy with it. I have called mine..."Goodbye Shoes"

A couple of softies off to their new home and a couple of paper machie dolls on their way to life!!

My latest craze making sock creatures with a painting to match. These will be for an "Art for kids" show I am involved with in a couple of months time.

I have been buying too......

I saw this in a friends studio in Melbourne and loved it. I started collecting tins so K could make me one. BUT then in a small seaside town on Eyre peninsula in a little shop  I FIND ONE!!! YEAH... now I have one in my studio.

Great for keeping all that stuff in.

I also bought this...

From Jules. I love all her work and had been lurking her blog for a while. Had to have this one and lucky for me it was available. Bit of a funny quick story here to go with it.......... We had taken just days before our eldest two daughters for their first sailing lesson. Beautiful morning all was going well. Confidence was growing......UNTILL the wind picked up a  little and the boat got a tiny little lean on it and miss 10 year old starts freaking out. Even though we were following in another boat and reassuring her that all would be okay.... NO....She leaps out of the boat, in front of the rubber duck so we nearly run her over!!!! Leaving brave Miss 8yr old in the boat all alone looking around yelling out...."What do I do now???" So then I see this illustration and I see that little person who has lept out saying "I'm so over it" leaving the other in the boat. So funny.....guess you had to be there...

Had this great Ikea frame which was perfect for an unusual shaped artwork, because I could just mount it on to some illo board and pop it in with no matt. Its one of their deep edge frames. Perfect.

Sketch book

I Love the patterns I have done, and really enjoyed the thrill of seeing them published in Magazines, and even though they have done me well, at the moment they just don't seem to be "doing it" for me creatively or personally. So I am giving them a rest. (the existing ones will still be available on my site).

But I have decided to concentrate on some art. After a successful show last year and lots of commissions coming in my confidence in this area has grown and I am going to go with it!!

I have been organizing my secret art show with artists from all over.....right here from my little office on our little farm.....amazing. I will talk about this more I promise, just don't want to jinx myself by going on too much too early.

So my commitment to more art has started with a commitment to going to my sketchbook.....often.

This next painting is a commission from a girl who loves her music, sailing and my emu paintings so she asked for something combining them all....... Yep!!! Had to think about that for a while. She hasn't seen it yet!!!

This one for a friends birthday...

The next one is a section of a beach painting for a friend who is having us come stay at her shack next week.

Hope they all like them!!

My first project when I get home from the beach holiday is going to be to paint one of my sketches onto a canvas in oils.....which one should I start with???

Happy New Year!

My cousin Andrea came to stay last night. Shes a photographer and we got some great shots of the kids..........

Ther are sooo many good ones ( she took about 500) so I am going to have to study them all and work out which ones to enlarge.....You can see who the fatty's are..look at the poor old bed! Hubby has actually got his eyes open in this shot....they just look closed at this size!

Count down is on!

 

I have just finished my Christmas cards. Although I had to take a shonky photo of it.  I scanned it in, worked on it in Illustrator, then opened it in photoshop and saved it as a jpeg. But then it wouldn't upload onto my blog. It was just a blank square???? Who can help me? What am I doing wrong there?

I hope everyone is getting organised for Christmas. I thought I would be really organised and do my shopping for the kids early. Which is fine at the time.....BUT I am one of those people who will feel guilty on the day I am shopping when I get to the point where I think I have spent too much.

THEN the next day is like a fresh start......I find it very hard to remember all the money I spent yesterday.     So this has proven to be a problem with getting my shopping done early, every time I go to the shops I just don't think about "HOW MUCH" I have already got them!!! Needless to say they are going to be quite spolit. I think next year I will leave it all till the last minute!!

I did actually draw a winner for the backpack, typically I didn't get back to post about......So the winner was Kris, She has 8 ...yes 8 kids so I am sure there will be someone to use it!

Well I have been VERY lucky since my last post..... the mail man brought me this....

From Tiel. I knew something was up when she asked for my address and did I have 3 girls and a little boy. But this was just amazing.....and I already had an Ikea frame ready to go. So Thankyou Tiel.

This.....

From the very talented Madelaine... her photography is amazing and she is only 16. Hard to photograph, see the reflection of stripes, yes well thats me in my PJ's at 1.45pm!!!

And I just had to have this from Sara. Ever since we had our swap I have been watching her waiting for the chance to snap her work up!!!

I have joined the vinyl toy craze and got hold of some from Toy2r. Yes the cat is still in the packaging because I have NO idea what I am going to paint on to it. Maybe in January.

Sorry the photos aren't great.

I am having a day of getting lots of little jobs done today, computer stuff, bills, cancelling my credit card facilities (which is proving to not be that easy) They put you through the ringer to give you the facilities ....then they don't want to give you up!!  But Ijust don't need it anymore with direct deposit and Paypal why would I want to give all my profits to a bank!

But I am getting a bit bored with all these jobs....I am determined though to not leave any for tomorrow.

BIG NEWS!!!

I have a very exciting project happening.......Don't want to talk about it too much just yet but heres a teaser.....

It involves these things(above)... a publisher...... and these people

Tiel, Sandra, Claudine, Rosie and Melly, Jules, Carly and Elsita

plus around 33 others......

So there that should get you in  LOL

More about that later.

More kids art

Well it's been about a month again, I don't know where the time goes. I swear my new years resolution is going to be post more often!!!

The kids have been busy too, had to show these......this time on calico,

The kids then had a quick swim while they dried and then a touch of stitching....

And look now I have eight Monsters....

So there we go more free, priceless art on my walls!!!

Now while we are on the monster topic I have my first giveaway!!

This monster backpack has one big strap that goes across your body, made of tough denim fabric in navy and is fully lined. The front of the monster has a pocket. It has a heavy duty zip across the top. So just leave me a comment and you will have a chance. I'll draw the winner on Wednesday night (the 21st) just before "the farmer wants a wife"!!!

GOOD LUCK!!

Now these little ladies are waiting to get some clothes or wings or something.

Look at that poor girl second from the end with short legs and sticking her hips forward!!

As soon as I decide what they are getting I will finish them.

Its offical I am addicted to putting Ikea furniture together..this is only my second piece but I feel an addiction coming on!

You feel like a carpenter it all goes together so easy.

This is the little make shift studio I was talking about last post, it's part of the girls bedroom so not ideal but better than nothing for the next 6 months while I wait for the real thing.

Okay don't forget to comment to win the backpack!

Back to school !!

YEAH!!! Don't get me wrong I love having all the kids home for 2 weeks but gee it makes me tired. They just get SOOOOO much stuff out and guess who puts it all away! I hear you all saying "get them to put it all away" I do sometimes but I have this little problem that I like things put in the right place. I should probably get over this and let them just do it. AND EAT they just do that all day too!!!!

So needless to say I didn't get much preparation done for the craft fair I have on this weekend. Thats right its time for the "Gathering of Friends fair" at the Latvian hall at Wayville this weekend.

4 Clarke st. Wayville open from 10 till 4 on the 20th and 21st of October. So if you are in Adelaide come down and say hi. We have some new stuff this year, worth a look. Lots of great pressies for Christmas.

Holiday painting.......

They just love to get their hands on a canvas, just like mum!

This is not a great photo. I wish I would take the time to photograph them proper like and make it all look so flash like Tiel does. Anyway here they are, just love them them hanging in the family room. I always love having other artists work in my house and their art is affordable for me!!

Also received my fantastic swap from Sara . It just makes me want to get my fabric and thread stash out and do some textile work.

This is the painting I sent to her, we decided on these two because they were on a similar theme.

This next photo is a little assemblage artwork I made for a friends new baby girl. It looks great in the frame but I had to take it out to get a good photo.

She loved this so much she is using a photo of it on the front of her thank you notes.

The next thing which has got me in, is making my own little journals. Started last night putting some eyelets into some water colour paper to make a small art journal.

Now its all put together ready some serious journaling!!

I have used wire and beads to bind it together and it opens flat.

On the renovation front, the bathroom is actually finished besides the shower screen. So I will clean it and photograph it for next time. I have always hated not having somewhere to set up like a studio, but now that this stage 1 is finished the small parents retreat area is the perfect spot to set up in the meantime.  The only problem is that it is part of the girls bedroom so not practical to work in at night, but then I'm always ready for bed by 9.30 anyway!!

Next year we will start stage 2 which includes a big studio and STORE room !! I am obsessed with thoughts about it, measuring and drawing up different layouts.

I Wish.......

..........I would get here more often and do smaller posts, rather than facing a major catch up!!!

Well my Japanese students were just beautiful, what a stark contrast to our little Australian darlings!!!!!!!!!  The manners the thoughtfulness and the apprieation or EVERY little thing you do for them.......unbelievable.

Here are some photos of when they were here.

Here they are working away on some Aboriginal style paintings.

They turned out so good, we painted them on CD envelopes then they posted them home.

We also joined in with some of the other classes while they were here. One of these was gymnastics, where they showed the Australian kids up as well!!!

So I have some great contacts in Japan now. I'll get them on the hunt for Japanese craft magazines soon!!!

While I haven't been on the computer I have been getting some other stuff done.

This is the lead light WIP. Here is the putty stage, where you pour putty all over both sides and it goes all in between the lead and the glass making the window nice and solid. The white stuff on top is just like a powder which helps dry up the moisture in the putty, otherwise it would take forever to set.

And here it is......

The new bit is finally fully weather proof now!!!!

and we have tiles........

(would link a photo of how it looked before, but can't be bothered. Its in "Reno update")

That spot where there are no tiles is for this......

And we have French doors.......

Next step on the outside is getting the man in who does the rendering.

Starting to get excited about the fact that by the end of this week we will have 3 YES 3 toilets.  I KNOW , I KNOW this means I have to clean 3 toilets but it will be worth it!

When I went to Melbourne, before the Japanese kids arrived I didn't get around to showing what I had made as gifts for all the crafty friends we were meeting up with over there.

This is the front of them. They were little cigar tins I found in a Bazaar type shop. I decorated the front of each with paper and the name of the recipient. Then inside they had a vintage photo which had been altered as a memento of being our Melbourne trip, on the other side a paper doll. They were fiddly but worth it, I was really pleased with how they turned out.

I also recieved some great gifts in return but no photos yet.... next time.

I have a few more tins so I hope to make some more of these little artworks and put them in my etsy store. Yes thats right I have one now!!!!

There is only three items listed at the moment and no fancy banner but I'm sure I'll get there soon!!!

On the 31st of August, I went to opening night for an art exhibition where I had some of my stuff. I was VERY naughty not to pop it up here before hand for any Adelaide people who may have been interested. Next time I promise.  It was held at NCN interiors on Rundle St. Kent town, a quaint little shop with lots of little spaces.

The opening started at 6, we got there about 7.15 and nearly all my gear had sold. I was gob smacked!!!  What a great feeling it was!! My plan was to list any left overs on my etsy shop but oh well thems the breaks......

I also have an apology for Samantha and for the girls at The primitive pear who both tagged me ages ago and I just didn't get there. I don't think I'll do it now that it "s long over with!!! So I am very sorry about that but I am hopeless at tags at the best of times let alone when things get busy!!

Also have met another blogger, Sara from Austria. She first asked me about those cute little bears we made at my mothers group craft night. (Would link a photo but can't be bothered again!. Scroll down, it wasn't long ago!)

So anyway she has made a group of these cuties , then asked about a swap. She had spotted a painting of mine she liked here and wondered if I would be interested in a swap for one of her artworks. Well I jumped at the chance Sara does the most beautiful textile work. Go over and check it out.

Well thats it for now.