Mother's day gifts......

Hi,

We're going to be featuring at an art, design and craft fair on Saturday 2nd April, just before Mother's Day. So we've been beavering away creating some lovely mother's day gifts, mainly silk scarves which I have to admit I have been getting addicted to painting. I get really free and experiment with colour and technique which I rarely do on canvas so it feels really refreshing. As soon as I have some pics i'll upload to see what you think.

Anyway here are the details so if you're in the area pop along, it sounds like a great little quirky venue with lots of great artists and designer makers.

All quiet on the blogging front......

We've been a bit quiet on the old blog lately as i've just spent a month in New Zealand and my mum still hasn't quite grasped modern day technology!!

So I thought i'd fill you in on a few pics, no not to brag but seeing as my friends and family consider them 'boring pictures' I thought i'd share them with some other arty people who might appreciate them.

To start with.... the reason we went to NZ was for Ben's, Paul's older brother, wedding.
Here is me with Paul, we've just been told to get closer and look like we love eachother for the picture......

The happy couple.....
It was a really beautiful wedding but in typical English weather style it rained all day!! Still didn't stop everyone having a good time.


The landscape is amazing and beautiful with typical scenes like this one.... on a good sunny day!


I got a bit trigger happy taking pics of trees and branches (I think I took over 200 but I won't bore anyone with those!)



The sand dunes at the top of the North Island


Rotorua and the hot springs - though the steam felt like it would take your skin off let alone jumping in for a dip!


Everywhere you go you see forests of timber, then at the dockyards you see hundreds of trunk, which make for great pictures



Some maori art - they use the paua shell to decorate them which bring them to life as the eyes seem to glare at you.



A sculpture piece in Auckland - I think its a famous australian sculpture artist but i'm not sure. It was great walking around the city and stumbling upon something like this.
The lack of people had it's upside, meaning we had our very own private beach, simply amazing and beautiful.


As we drove along we took in a vast amount of amazing scenery, not wanting to annoy Paul and stop every 5 minutes I tried taking shots from the car like this one, this is one of the more successful ones as they're all slightly wonky and I seemed to manage to get a post or tree in the way!!


One of New Zealands oldest building, which is funny as it looks fairly new compared to some of our buildings.


I also managed to hunt down some art deco buildings in the town of Napier. The whole town was wiped out by an earthquake in the 30's so most of it had to be re-built meaning there are amazing art deco buildings throughout the whole town. I love them so much I think i'm going to work on a new set of lino prints.



Lastly some pics of the hippy bus which pulled up every night on the road we were staying in and disappeared every morning, i'd love to know where it went for the day. I thought it looked so cool against the pure blue sky and I love the way it's been painted.

Well I have nearly finished the two pieces for the Embroidery Guilds exhibition.

Wendy bought white canvas for all the Guild members to take home and then sew whatever way they wanted, the only clause being that it had to be white. I started well and all was looking white until I thought why not add some iridescent white sequins and some iridescent machine embroidery, both seem to be white but then I discovered they change to pink when being used!! Oops so I’ve broken the rules already and I’ve only just started!

They should have been handed in on Saturday but I have been so busy that I haven’t managed to finish them but they are nearly there. Here are some pics…..




The grey one I am calling French beach. I bought an experimental pack by Stef Francis from Craft Arena and with my embellisher made a background with the pack. I love using the embellishing machine as its so quick and easy. I then took it to France to sew but I didn’t do much sewing, having too much fun on my bike! So it seems like I have been working on it for ages and at long last I now have to take it off to the framers for them to put in a box frame.


The Guild Exhibition is called Stitched Up and it runs from 08/02/11 till 18/02/11 It’s being held at the Visual Arts Centre, Romford. For more information please go to the Romford Embroiders Guild web site and look under exhibitions.

Sharon

Getting over Christmas......

I had some good news before Christmas from the William Morris gallery to say that they had sold my work. I was so pleased to have sold an expensive piece of work at such a great gallery plus the money came in handy for Christmas! So after such a great Christmas I’m now a bit sad that it is over. However I am still hanging on a bit as I bought the new Annie Lennox C.D ‘Christmas Cornucopia’ and keep playing it, I just love it.

This years Christmas food success were Gina’s mince pies. Just before Christmas I did a very enjoyable workshop with her when she came to the Embroiders Guild in Romford. She told me about the mince pies she makes and said her recipe is on her blog, Fan my flame. Every one who came round said they were delicious. If you ever get the opportunity to do a work shop with her I would say do it as not only did I come away with a delightful book I also got a recipe for very good mince pies.

This year five of us from the guild have decided to do an A.T.C swap every month. The theme this month was New Year and I decided to theme mine on my New Year resolution diet. I do this every year and only usually last until February, hopefully this year will be better and I might last until March!

This was my selection of Diet A.T.C's.....


And these are the lovely colourful ones I received.......

Sharon

New Year Resolutions......

I came across this and thought it would help all you lovely creative people out there to stick to your new years resolutions or even if you've fallen already it will make you feel better and hopefully give you a touch of inspiration....


It's from the women in business website but I don't see why it can't help to inspire men as well : )

Kirsten

Happy new year...

to everyone. Hope you are still making the most of your Christmas holidays, we're still working our way through a mountain of food we stocked up on!!

We're off to our traditional New Years Eve Indian meal, down the road, then all round to Nathan and Clare's new house (which they just moved into a week before christmas in the snow, but luckily it was just across the road, so Nathan and I now live on the same side of the road!) to see in the new year.

We have to show a picture of the tree - the 7ft tree! When we unwrapped it, it filled the whole of the front room! Here it is even after chopping half of it off! I don't think we'll be sending Chloe to pick out another one again, I feel sorry for Chloe's boyfriend who managed to bring it home on his back whilst dad was walking behind watching! Plus the unlucky one who gets that end of the sofa can't see anything : )



Here's Maisie with a few of her new presents - she got so many she even started to get bored unwrapping them all so we saved some for boxing day and here she is with her new favourite hobby, painting...... she's doing so many we're thinking of selling them......

Recycled Mini-beasts.......

Here some of you are making your lovely little creations......



with just a little sprinkle of help.....



and here are some of your colourful creations brightening up the tree.....



They looked fantastic!!
Not many ended up on the tree so I think they're hanging proudly at home in your bedrooms!