Skip to main content

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 




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about my blog post by leaving a comment.Your comment won't appear immediately as comments are verified before publication in an effort to reduce the amount of spam appearing. Anonymous comments will not be published.

Popular posts from this blog

Too Precious to Waste

 Stitched tea bags/ old doily "tea lights" - Wilma Simmons  More than a year ago, a decision was made.  The annual exhibition of NCEATA ( Newcastle Creative Embroiderers and Textile Artists) 2015-2016 will have the theme "Mottainai". Mottainai in Japanese refers to more than just physical waste (resources). It is even used to refer to thought patterns that give rise to wasteful action. Grammatically, it can be used in Japanese as an exclamation ("mottainai!") or as an adjective phrase ("it feels mottainai"). There is no plural form. The collection of mottainai things could be called mottainai koto ( もったいない事 ? ). As an exclamation ("mottainai!") it means roughly "what a waste!" or "Don't waste." [2]  A simple English equivalent is the saying "waste not, want not." A more elaborate meaning conveys a sense of value and worthiness and may be translated as "do not destroy (or lay waste to) that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lilly Pilly

Today is Australia Day. I chose a photo of some Lilly Pilly berries as a celebratory image for this national day. Lilly Pilly is  a common name for a plant, Syzygium smithii which grows mostly in Eastern Australia, from the northern  rain forests of Queensland, throughout NSW to the southern Wilson's Promontory in Victoria. In New Zealand it is called "monkey apple, but other names used in Australia, besides lilly pilly, are Eungella Gum and Coast Satinash. The largest Lilly Pilly recorded was found in Dingo Creek Flora Reserve, near Tenterfield where I once lived.  The tree now growing in my garden was once a small seedling which I was gifted when I left Woolgoolga, a small coastal town in northern NSW. Its name  is said to come from the Aboriginal word 'weelgoolga' describing the lilly pilly which grows in profusion there. It is probably no surprise that the lilly pilly berries are edible as bush tucker, and make a beautiful jam or jelly. I have even seen re...
Post a Comment
Read more