Jeez more jewellery and retreat

On July 18-20 I went on a craft retreat to Jarrahdale - don't have any pics as I'm waiting for the girls to send me some!!!! it's a VERY small town about half an hour from me but it's surrounded by bush aka Jarrah trees ie Jarrahdale LOL, as it used to be a sawmill town way back when. All the mill workers cottages are still lived in today, probably by offspring of millworkers families so it's a pretty tight place but so very pretty - need those pics! we stayed in what was the nurses accommodation, there was a small hospital which operated from 1914 to 1957. All that is left is the nurses house - weatherboard and the Dr's house now a private residence - needless to say the Dr's house is quite decorative ie stainglass etc but the nurses is plain but nice. 15 foot ceilings, at least! it boasts a large common room, bedrooms, kitchen/pantry, laundry, bathroom and toilet. It was a lovely space for a retreat as the light in the common room was great and we looked out onto the trees. It was very cold! down to 2C but we had a big gas fire in the cm room and we were decked out in the right gear for sleeping. And the water was hot in the showers! Two minutes away was the General Store which did the best coffee/food/service and we also had a meal down at the tavern - which is now an irish pub! We had a huge weekend of laughing/creating/eating/drinking - actually didn't get to much on the juice as we were busy! We had a lovely variety of quilters/scapbooking/cardmaking/jewellery/and Nikki who did a bit of everything! talk about productive. Whilst only a short distance from home (for me) it felt like we were a million miles from away. Can't wait for the next one! it was truly bliss to think of nothing but what I was creating and sharing laughs and solving world problems.
Whilst away I made four necklaces (one to finish off), pair of earrings and played with some polymer clay. The book I was hoping to take with me turned up a couple of days after camp! and I have made a couple of bits from that - wire brooch and wire bag of beads.

Mixed Media Monday

This is my first entry on MMM! The theme is Tea for Two and open to interpretation so here goes. This is an altered 'teaspoon' for a swap I was in recently. I got a fab collection of six wonderfully altered teaspoons which I intend to make into a mobile.


Thanks for looking. Cheers, Carmel x















This is the collection - pretty cool or what?

WS newspaper

It's ages since I did a Wednesday Stamper (oh I've been slack) only because I have immersed myself in wire for the past few months, see below. This is a piece I did some time ago but all the images came from our local newspaper. Thanks for looking and I will endeavour to participate in WD more often. Cheers, Carmel x

More bits and a couple of swaps

Well here we are end of the tax year and school hols start today! two weeks of 'what are we doing today Mum?' will I survive? yes as I just adore spending time with my little darlings LOL and knowing that the last weekend of the hols I get to go away to Jarrahdale to play with other ladies and recover from said two weeks!! I do love them!...been in a couple of swaps, Nat's Canvas Niche swap which I will hand over tonight and it's late as in handover as the lovely Dawn was a bit ick! I also had a one for one swap with the other lovely Julie, we did necklaces and I also have Dawn as my Mystery Muse partner for June which I will also hand over tonight and as she works she won't see this post until later.

So first Julie's beautiful necklace...wearing it tonight to show off. I love the atmostsphere of this piece and the construction is perfect. I am a huge fan of Julie's work and treasure each piece.









Next, Canvas Niche - this was fun, once I got started! we had to use the back of the canvas ie. the niche! this piece is called 'Time to Create' and hopefully Dawn will like it - can't wait to see her piece she made for me, it's going to be good (an understatement).









Mystery Muse - this necklace I have made for Dawn as my MM for June. The blue beads I made from polymer clay and attached bead covers, a couple of old buttons, some red coral and a piece of glass I found on the beach in Ireland many years ago - like well over 25! you know that glass that gets worn smooth by the sea? and a couple of wire hearts and swirl - hope she likes it.











These are a few recently finished pieces. I love the wire weaving and decided to try using it for a ring and another bracelet. The beaded ring I saw in a magazine and had to have a go thinking it was very silly but I wore it out and lots of people loved it. I thought it was 'over the top' as it moves but....it was a hit. I also made the celtic knot bracelet from a picture I saw in a book just to see if I could 'do it' as I really want to be good at wire techniques, so this was practice but it's very nice to wear and again a lot of people have admired it. So thanks for looking.

New Jewellery

I borrowed a book from a friend called "Woven Wire Jewelry" by Linda L. Chandler and Christine R Ritchey - excellent projects with step by step pics . They use sterling silver wire but artistic wire is fine for practicing and more than fine for 'wearing' as it won't tarnish. I am especially fond of the silver. Anyway I've had a go two pieces from the book and here they are! For the domed bracelet they soldered on a silver bead cut in half or beads made of PMC - not being able to solder onto the artistic wire and I don't have a kiln for the PMC I made do with a sterling silver bead cap which I filled with polymer clay which I then baked - did a test piece to see if the wire would take 130 degrees centigrade - it does! which gives me a few more ideas. The domed bracelet is 22 gauge wire and the freeform bracelet is 16 gauge. Lots of fun and I intend to try a few more pieces in the near future. Other exciting news is that my Mum now had a laptop and a webcam and we are now talking/seeing it other via skype - great for the kids as they can see their Grandma all the way in Ireland. Last time the kids actually "saw" Mum was in 2004! talk each week on the phone but actually seeing her was a big thrill for all of us. Poor Mum is trying her best to come to grips with the computer, but she is a gun with her mobile phone LOL - can text with the best of them. Two of my girlfriends go and have a cuppa with my Mum regularly so we all had a lovely catch up a few hours ago - the three of us hadn't 'seen' each other since 2002!! we have all been friends since we were 13yrs old and we are making plans for our 50th's in a few yrs time LOL - where does a lifetime go???

another post.....within a week

Here I am again...I recently got a small ear bashing for not posting regularly so I will endeavor to rectify the situation. A friends son who is in Yr. 12 is a golf ace and aims to be a professional golfer as a career - move over Tiger, Daniel approaches. Daniel is off to Indonesia this Friday to play in two tournaments, a junior world championship and the Indonesian Open. Two clubs will be hosting four boys from Perth and they wanted to give each club a memento from Australia. Usually it's a plaque with a brass plate but Daniels mum thought it would be nice to give them something different. So the theme was, well golf! and Australia LOL and I was asked to help. I had these 2 frames which are made of paper machie and unfortunately we couldn't use leaves/twigs etc as they are going overseas. But a few of us got together (Sharyanne/Paula/Jackie/myself) to choose what would go in and help ink up the frames and I finished them the other day. Well, Daniel and his dad liked them, which is good...and hopefully the clubs in Indonesia will like them too! Could have kept going with layers but I didn't want to loose the tag with the 'thank you' on it. The golf balls are foam and Sharyanne's new hot knife worked a treat - great tool, it's got all sorts of attachments including soldering/ image transfer/leather and wood burning etc - of course I need one! Thanks for looking, cheers, Carmel xxxx

I can't believe.....

Well, Oct 07 to May 08 without an entry....pretty slack indeed. Been reading other blogs just not putting anything on my own! Need to get back on the horse so here goes....A few weeks ago I got the most beautiful piece of art in the mail, now I did acknowledge the arrival by ringing the lovely Nat on the phone and brought it to Jan's to show but didn't do anything on le blog or elsewhere. The lovely Nat and I are trading a one for one item and yes Nat my piece is almost on the way to you!!! but lay your eyes on this beautiful piece. I love the colours and the way you used the paint to depict the flowers. I was totally blown away when this arrived and love looking at it every day. This pic doesn't do it justice, getting used to a new camera.

The last few months I have been playing with wire and learning some jewellery techniques, not much if anything done with ink/paint etc. Have participated in Julie's altered spoon swap which should be here any day now and also doing Nat's canvas niche swap so getting back into paint! Here are a few bits of jewellery. Some pics are terrible as I have done the wrong thing and photographed using a black background...but have not got round to doing it again. This is just a small sample of what I've been doing and some have gone and not recorded!

So here goes, will try to keep blogging! if anyone remembers I'm even here LOL.

Cheers,

Carmel xx

Wed Stamp Children

Finally getting back on deck after hurting my back - gotta love the drugs - anyway Wed Stamp this week is Children and I recently got this PaperArtsy plate which has the most adorable vintage kids. Now the pics aren't great (not sure why) but I inked up some stampboard squares and stamped the images using versamark black. Drilled with the trusty dremel and strung it altogether with black elastic with black buttons in between. It feels quite comfy as a bracelet and I've finally used up some of the stampboard pack I'd bought LOL. Off to school now to pick up the little darlings and feeling quite happy that I made something today! Hope you all have a lovely week. Hugs, Carmel xxx

Blow me down (and my trumpet)

I was visiting Nat's blog the other day and followed her advice and went and had a look at a blog called How Dare You, they had a challenge called From the Garden (dare no. 31) you had to incorporate something from nature in your work, ie leaves/shells/sticks etc. I liked what I saw so I sent an email and attached the pic of the card I made recently (at the craft fair) which I thought fit the bill. And guess what......I won a prize! woohoo, I'm a little stunned to say the least but thrilled they picked my piece and I'm looking forward to receiving a pack of goodies from CherryArte . So you could push me over with a feather but it's a very nice pick-me-up after the usual week of kids/school/work.
I'm working this weekend and therefore miss out on the ATC Continumn and only get an hour at the school fair so bummer but a little play money is OK and I just might have to treat myself to something nice LOL. Have a lovely weekend, hugs, Carmel xxxx

WS Fish etc

Wednesday Stamper seems to come around real quick LOL this weeks theme is Fish. I like fish both to watch and eat and I'm trying to remember to take my fish oil liquid supposedly flavoured with vanilla, no flavour will detract from the oily texture shudder! My little piece is on black velvet using the painted embossing technique. I did a workshop last year at the Perth Craft & Quilt Fair with Jacinta Leishman and the technique was recently published in Cloth Paper Scissors. I'm involved in a tech book, hosted by the lovely Kylie and about 29 other women! I need to make said amount of ATC's using this tech!! should be a wonderful piece to behold. So the paint is Twinking H20's, the stamps are polymer - red rubber will not work as well as the paint doesn't come off properly. And I added some micro beads and a little metal fish embellishment.
I tried to scan/photograph this piece and it's not a great result. This type of embossing 'imprints' the images into the velvet, so it's sunken as opposed to normal embossing where the image is pushed out on top (did I make sense LOL). Hope you are all having a great week. Cheers, Carmel xx

WS Tryptich

Well, I am very flattered indeed that Wednesday Stamper (AKA Belinda) choose my ATC tryptich for their challange this week. When I made it at camp I had a trio of frames and we were making framed ATC's with transpariency. I did them all at once and thought I just wouldn't bother cutting them and ended up with said tryptich, a whimsy! Here is another one but not ATC size. I have had this on the go since my brother/sister-in-law celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary back on the 7th Aug (yes, I'm late) and as 25yrs is silver I went for black/white/silver but felt it needed some bit of colour. It hasn't scanned all that well as the pics on the top layer are on thick foam tape. I might frame it to make a more stylish present. I used the cuttlebug for the lettering and it was fun trying to heat the silver embossing powder LOL. Anyway 'here tis', hope you like it. Cheers, Carmel xxx

Mulberry Paper Wed Stamper

opps, didn't get anything made with mulberry paper this week for Wednesday Stamper, even though I bought some but I ran out of time....but....I did take some pics of the silkworms eating mulberry leaves at my sons kindy! they are getting pretty big and some are spinning cocoons.














It was Father's Day recently (here in Oz) and this is the tie that Lorcan made for Daddy at kindy - you can see it is anatomically correct LOL - gave the teachers a good giggle. Tim had to wear it to work and provide a pic.