Great Mail Day

I received the most gorgeous Doll from my friend Dot Christian. The link to her blog page, can be found on my front page. Check it out, as it's well worth the read.

I love these 3d gorgeous treasures and now that I am free from art committments for a little while, I am going to start work on the dolls for the art doll swap hosted by Dot.

What a treat this is and I love the happy face!

Thanks Dot you're a gem.

Wet and Wild Day

Well it was definitely and in doorsy type of day today. Totally wet and wild! Not much to post about today, only that I wanted to share this gorgeous card that I received from Julie Hetherington today. What a beauty. Love the stamp!!



And also this gorgeous ATC from Sulea Lee. You can see both of their blogs on the links part of my front page.

What a Weekend

Today we arrived back from a weekend away in Marg River. We got to see our friends who have just had bub No3 and he is absolutely beautiful. What a baby, sleep, feed, sleep. Wish I'd had one of those!! He is just the most gorgeous little boy. Got lots of cuddles too!!

We went to visit our old farm and boy did that stir up some emotions I thought had long gone. Lots of eye leaking going on (on my part and a little with Emma) and also to leave Margs and our friends.

I feel so tired and drained, but I think that's because I cried so much, and also a little to do with this darn flu I have and can't seem to shake!! But it was well worth the 3.5 hr drive there and another 3.5 hrs back.

So no creative work done over the weekend, but have added an older ATC made a while back.

How do you explain what you do?

How do you explain to an 'outsider' what you do? Would be interested to hear your comments about what to say to people who have absolutely no idea what a stamp is (unless it's the postage variety), let alone an altered book or an ATC. Do you say you're an artist and you work in mixed media for a simple answer? Or do you say something more involved. A doll maker would say they make dolls. A scrapbooker would say - well everyone knows what a SB does/is, a beader the same, teddy bear maker etc etc. The list goes on. But how do you clarify to somebody who has no idea, what you spend your money/time/effort on (other than family of course - *big grins*). I used to say that I made cards and leave it at that. But now I hardly ever make a card, so can't use that one any more!

I've also attached an ATC I made last night for a 'Collections' swap. The small square idea came from a very talented artist - Julie Hetherington her blog link is here check it out - http://isthereashadow.blogspot.com/. I haven't made an ATC for that long and I thoroughly enjoyed making this one. Quite involved and only 8 more to go!

My Babies are growing up!

I found this picture tonight, while looking for something else. It was taken just over 2 yrs ago, when Emma was 4 and Luc was 2. At the time we were living on the farm and so much has happend since.

I love this photo just because!

I really should take up scrapbooking! It's on the TO DO list of things I would like to find time to do ONE DAY!

Nat

Indigo Fat Book Page

Have completed my first page for the colour Indigo tonight. Quite a challenge that colour. It's a cross between a purple and a blue. It's my first time ever working with this colour, so I hope I've pulled it off successfully. Have attached it on left.

Background is a cross between a Misty Mawn and a Natalie Briney technique. Bird figure is loosely taken from a Karen Michel technique.

I like the way Karen uses real eyes from magazine pages and I thought I would give it a try.

I was very tempted to stick a crown on my birds head (I'm into crowns & wings like a lot of others at the moment), but did not cave into temptation and now upon reflection and looking at the scan I think it does look better without one.

If I wasn't sticking to a certain colour, I would have perhaps added a few other embellishments, but I like the simplicity of this piece. 9 more pages to go.

August's colour is Violet and as yet I have no idea what I will do.

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.

Nat

It's finally finished!

Now I can move on to other work. It does feel like I've spent a longggggggggg time on this book. I really really love all of the pages I've received so far and feel lucky to have been a part of it.

I wont include any scans of others work, but have loaded a pic of the cover and finished product (book bound and complete). The book was made up of 30 pages with the theme of Mostly Metal. Such talent/love/creativity has gone into all of these pages. I feel so lucky to have been a part of this book and to share this experience with so many fantastic ladies.

It's hard to see from this pic, but the torso is aged and there is fly screen behind the wings. Silver tape on sides and star eyelets. Background is icing sugar background.

On to some other projects now, which have been patiently waiting for my attention. Next 10 pages with the colour theme Indigo. I believe Indigo is a blend of purple and blue.

Then onto a Collections Themed ATC Swap.

Then last but not least, the doll swap being hosted by Dot Christian, which I'm very excited about. I have never done or made any attempt to work on an art doll before, so should be a real challenge.

Cheers
Nat

Nothing New

Nothing new as the sick fairy is still visiting our house at the moment. Also still progressing with the fat book.
Am thinking of working on some art dolls next and so am very keen to get stuck into those as have never tried them and am keen to give it a whirl.
Hoping everyone else is managing to stay healthy.

Juggling Life

Not sure if anyone else out there feels this way, but today I really felt that the art of juggling life, was definitely not going my way and that the balls were flying all over the place! Some days are fine, then others are just awful. This morning was one of those "yuck" kind of mornings. I work from home, have 2 small children, a husband that works away and in between all of that try and squeeze in some art......but saying all that, I wouldn't do anything differently!

I have a few friends who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and I asked one of these girls, what if anything she was doing differently since having her op to have the cancer removed (she is lucky and caught it quickly and doesn't have to have chemo).... She said that she is trying to spend more time nuturing herself. You know, when she said this, it really hit me. As I tend to think all too often, "oh you know when the kids are older I'll have more time to do this or that or the other". But what about now? How do we go about nuturing ourselves without feeling "guilty" about spending that time on ourselves??? If anyone out there has got some tips on how to go about this, I would love to know. Feel free to ping me an email. brineys@bigpond.com.

A friend also sent this link out the other day and thought I would share it here - http://www.fromoldbooks.org/ it has some fab pictures of scanned pages from old books..

Have a great day everyone
Nat