Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

At Tag Tuesday this last fortnight , Michele    chose the theme "Baby Love" with the idea of Mother's Day on the calendar.  Thank you Michele, great idea!  I drew and collaged this tag on Mother's Day last Sunday. It is such a simple idea - I sketched and coloured the two faces, looking wistfully out of a window, or at least that is the impression I was aiming for. The pot plants are cutouts from a magazine, and I re-coloured them with pencils. Their dresses are also paper cutouts from the same magazine. I may have stretched the "baby" into "toddler" but hope this interpretation fills the brief. I made a tag quite a few years ago for Tag Tuesday and some of the TT regulars will recognise it, but thought it was worth pulling it our of the box again... yes it's me as a baby.

Rain forest babies - art dolls by Wilma Simmons 2017  " In the forest, the child. In the child, the forest. Dwelling well within themselves, children can right wrong turns, can find the clarity of a clearing in the woods. Breath deeply enough the scents of pine, mushroom, moss and beech mast and they will stay with you: listen to the forest attentively enough in childhood and the blackbird will still be singing seventy years on. (http://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2015/06/woods.html ) People often ask me what inspires you to make the things you do.... I draw my inspiration from many places. The little rainforest babies were made very late one night a couple of weeks ago. They are a response to a challenge 'inspired by May Gibbs" held by my doll making group, and while I wanted to pay tribute to May Gibbs' love of nature, I didn't merely want to copy her gumnut babies. However, I did want to capture her magical feel to her characters.... and I really loved the...

Last Saturday, my daughter celebrated her birthday, and on Sunday, our family gathered at her place not only to wish her a happy birthday, but also to wish both her and her husband a happy wedding anniversary. A few weeks ago I was very happy when I found this Michael Miller fabric panel online, and I thoroughly enjoyed making it for my daughter whose nickname is Nome (gnome). This particular fabric gnome carries a baby in a sling on his back. Our Nome had a baby daughter last December so the gift was received with great laughter. Even baby Amy and Aunty Kellie enjoyed the joke.   On Sunday too, our Rotary Ambassadorial scholar Mayuko organised a Japanese party for our Rotary club and friends. Mayuko and friends, including fellow Ambassadorial scholar Steffen, from Germany took over my kitchen and cooked for 30 guests. We enjoyed many traditional Japanese dishes – Is that cake really green … yes of course, green tea! Then, we were privileged to be the audience of a performan...

We had a rather eventful weekend last weekend. Our grand daughter, Amy Rose was born a couple of weeks earlier than expected and in a big hurry. Our daughter made it to the car park of the hospital. She and her husband left their home at 3.50pm and Amy was born at 4.10pm on Sunday afternoon, but all are well and happy, including big brother, almost 4 years old. It was quite a weeeknd for him. On Friday night and Saturday afternoon, he performed in his first ever dance concert. Friday night was a little traumatic, with tears on stage, but with encouragement from his "big" cousin on Saturday, he performed like a seasoned star. The concert was followed by his birthday party, held a week early to accommodate the predicted arrival of the new baby. Little sister of course had other plans and made it a weekend to remember for the whole family. Welcome to our fourth beautiful grandchild, Amy Rose.