12 Days .... festive or not?

Days 5 & 7 - the Gold Rush Era Stamp Series

It seems so long ago now since we were celebrating Christmas and New Year.... hope you enjoyed a great festive season. I took some time out, not doing much at all but I did set myself a little challenge of doing some tidying up which meant spending a little time each day using scraps of fabric and paper to create something a little playful or as the mood took, useful!

Unlike the long projects I usually undertake, this was a 12 day project ( 12 days of Christmas ) - completely random, but finishing half done projects or recycling. For example the first photo shows some collages I did on days 5 and 7 to use a postage stamp release, the Gold Rush Era series, first issued in Australia 1981 ... yes I probably have had it in my stash since then!

Completing some other little projects was very satisfying .... On Day 1, I assembled a folded paper folk cube from a kit my daughter gifted to me last year for my birthday. The next day, I sorted and ironed many pieces of eco dyed fabric which has been languishing crumpled in a plastic bag since a dyeing session early last month. On Day 8, I was putting away things in my workroom and rediscovered a little kit, a friend gave me, so I made it up - not sure this little owl was designed to look as though it's wearing a skull cap, but I was happy to finish it.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 8

Recycling was definitely one of the aims of this projects .... I stencilled newspaper, brown paper and kitchen paper to create some great gift wrapping , and used strips of fabric scraps to make some very strong twine. You can see that I used this twine , Day 9 , as ties for fabric scrappy bags to be used in a gallery for purchases from the gallery shop, instead of commercial packaging. Day 10 was a big day - I made 4 cushions, one for each of my gran\d children. One was made from fabric from a jacket I wore when I acted as the Secretary General at Model United Nations Assemblies; the second , for a grandson who is planning a trip to Japan in May, features a strip of fabric showing a street map of Tokyo; the third uses an embroidery made by my late mother, and the last is a painted cloth from Thailand - a travel memento.

Day 3

Day 4

Day 9

Day 10

Other days' projects were merely on the agenda... like gathering and treating sticks for an upcoming workshop I am presenting next month, and on the twelfth day, I packed up all the Christmas decorations and started a little cross stitch project to do while streaming some 'summer' movies.

Day 11

Day 12

I also played with some photo manipulation which I hope to explore more later .... overall, it was a good start to the year .

Day 6

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks .... The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or my husband or from off cuts gifted to us from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks. Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

Countdown to Christmas 20 - Fruitcake song!

There are many songs about fruit cakes - not all of them referring to the Christmas cake we know and love.It is really surprising to learn via Google that there are 89 listed songs with references to Christmas cake or fruit cake - not all of them complimentary. Probably one of the most famous folk songs about Christmas cake is Miss Fogarty's Christmas Cake (a favourite sung by The Irish Rovers). This first recorded comical Christmas song was written by C Frank Horn in 1883 in Pennsylania, as a variation of an Irish folk song, 'Miss Mulligan's Christmas Cake' . The chorus might give you the hint that Miss Fogarty's cake was not for the faint hearted or those who suffered from a weak stomach. Chorus : There were plums and prunes and cherries, There were citrons and raisins and cinnamon, too There was nutmeg, cloves and berries And a crust that was nailed on with glue There were caraway seeds in abundance Such that...

Countdown to Christmas 3 : Ha Ha!

As we come close to the end of this Advent blog exploring all there is know about fruitcake, I felt there had to be at least one post sharing some of those terrible Christmas cracker jokes about fruitcake and some other forms of fruitcake humour. WARNING : Some of these jokes are pathetic! These ones are especially for one of my grandsons ... Q. What is the best thing to put into a Christmas cake? A. Your teeth! Q. What do crackers, nuts and fruitcake remind you of? A. You ! Q. Why is History like a fruitcake? A: It is full of dates! Q. Who beats his chest and swings from Christmas cake to Christmas cake? A: Tarzipan! And if it couldn;t get any worse .... Knock Knock Who's there? Nettie Nettie who? You're Nettie than a fruitcake! And here is And here is a recipe to be enjoyed .... so much better when listened to, so click the link at the bottom of the recipe. Christmas Rum Cake Ingredients : 1 tsp sugar 1 or 2 quar...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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