Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Since the beginning of the year, I have been struggling to find new inspiration, so this week I referred to a new book. Here is a dragonfly cache I made this week, all stitched and beaded by hand. It is a small hold-all for cosmetics, jewellery or just little trinkets.  My inspiration was this lovely book I got for Christmas - so appropriately named "Handmade Treasures from the Heart". It only arrived last week, as my husband bought it for me online, and the seller sent the wrong book . This one is so much better than the anatomy book sent by mistake! I am also inspired by my friends. I spent an afternoon recently with my very creative and productive friend, Bobbi from LamboArt. She has been making sumptuous Santas. These beautiful  art doll creations are certainly enough to inspire anyone.   Spending time with my family is not only relaxing it is also inspiring and motivating. A couple of days ago, we took our older grandchildren fishing ... our four year old grandso

Today my sister-in-law had an operation on her pelvis. Before going to the hospital, we were talking about her friend who told her that she needed to think “yellow” as a special healing colour. I had coincidentally been reading about colour therapy, so we spent the morning researching and discussing theories about healing and colour. Here’s what we discovered about yellow from www.colourtherapyhealing.com : "YELLOW relates to the solar plexus chakra, situated below the ribs The organs to which this chakra relates are the liver, spleen, stomach and small intestine. The endocrine gland is the pancreas. Healing properties: Yellow helps strengthen the nerves and the mind. It helps awaken mental inspiration and stimulates higher mentality. Thus, it is an excellent colour for nervous or nerve-related conditions or ailments. It also energizes the muscles. Dark yellow soothes pains in the nerves (shooting pains)…. “ So while my sister-in-law was in the operating theatre this afternoon,

2010 crept up on me, but I did make some New Year's resolutions. I am going to try to make less waste, especially with creative resources and to clean up my workroom after each project. I've done well so far, but 361 more days yet...  Ruth's bag (pictured) finished just before Christmas is a good example of using up bits and pieces of yarn and wool and recycling a handbag to create an altered, unique, scrumbled creation.  The wooden button is also made by my husband from offcuts of timber. By the way, my friend, Ruth was happy with her bag, too.   Between Christmas and New Year, I attempt to rid our house of unwanted clutter, so when I was going through old cards, I thought they were all so beautiful I should do something with them. Easy - I used the cuttlebug and cut the fronts of  greeting cards from years past to make hundreds of colourful and useful gift tags. I now have a supply of gift cards for all occasions. Perhaps you recognise a card you may have given me in