Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

This year, I decided to participate in The 100 Day Project - I signed up before my life suddenly got a bit busy, but I am determined to continue with it. It is an online art project which attracts thousands of people worldwide every year to create art of some sort every day for 100 days. This started on 2 April  so it's early days... Each participant can decide what he/she would like to create. I had a pile of used envelopes which I saved for an unknown project, so thought this was the perfect opportunity to use them and all the little bits of torn paper, fabric scraps and ephemera I have been keeping. My 100 day project is to create collages on used envelopes.  Did you send me a letter? You may find your envelope as one of the 100 collages. These stitched collages will be inspired by my daily walks in my neighbourhood, so it is also a 100 day challenge to walk each day, even if it only for 15-20 minutes.   Here are the first five days...  ...

 Childrens' craft: http://awesomediys.com/creative-tin-can-christmas-crafts/ Advent Blog : Day 7 - Canned!  I can feel that many of you are wondering if it's worth reading further after seeing the photo above  ... yes, today's Christmas trees are made from tin cans.  Another great recycling idea...  https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/702491241845263286/  Obviously  there's an art to stacking these Christmas trees... http://sodacanchristmastree.blogspot.com/ http://lyke2drink.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-will-santa-leave-under-your-beer.html https://christmas.365greetings.com/christmas-holidays/top-40-unusual-christmas-trees.html The larger the tree, the greater the skill required. as in the case  of a Christmas tree made of tin cans at the Church of Santo Laurensius at Tangerang, Banten province, Indonesia, Dec. 18, 2015. A total of 10,000 cans donated by church members form a Christmas tree  8 metres...

#29Faces Summer#3 : Wilma Simmons  A summer tribute to Australian volunteer  beach lifesavers for  the 29 Faces Art Challenge Day 3. This is an art tag - ink, paint and pencil sketch over a 'scrap" background created from a magazine page which had been used to take excess paint from a brayer.

 Here I am again taking up the 29 Faces Challenge in February . If you remember last year, I created 29 faces on used tea bags and celebrated the achievements of women too.  Here is a link to my 2 9 Faces of Worldy Women . 29 Gaces is an art  challenge set by  Martha, Ayala Art and for more information go to the  29 Faces blog.   There are many paint artists who take up this challenge, but I am not a portraitist and work mostly with textiles, so it is all fun for me to use paint, pencils and ink. This month, I m going to make small series of tags celebrating the seasons and the natural elements. I am going to use all my scraps of painted or dyed paper I have in storage... left over bits of art paper I have used to roll off excess paint from brayers, or test out colours - there is plenty to make 29 small tags! #29 Faces #1 /Summer : Wilma Simmons  #29 Faces #2/Summer :Wilma Simmons Keep following my progress with this challenge...

 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 ...

Recently I have been working on quite a few dolls for various swaps and blog challenges, but especially the samples for the Creative Retreat 2011   where I will be offering a workshop "It's A Wrap" - wrapped armatures made from discarded and found objects. Candy Flossie ( pictured above) is the result of wrapping a polystyrene ball and timber armature with a sample piece of wet felting , some fabric, recycled paper ribbon from a present, adding a polymer clay face, and swirly beads, toothpicks and some bright pink paint. This doll started from a bargain box reject snowman like this one below. I didn't like them at all and had no intention of "fixing" them , but somehow gave into the temptation and bought two.  Honestly, who could resist this for $1? I am unapologetic about the alterations to the first one -  off went the hat, scarf, buttons and shoes and voila- snowman to fairy floss girl!  Candy Flossie is now ready for the Blog Party at P...