Selected!

Artfocus Gallery and Studio
1 Powells Road, Brookvale NSW
Friday July 17 to Sunday July 26, 10am to 4pm daily

I am pretty happy that I was selected again for this year's exhibition. It makes me want to paint everyday when I get selected. I am looking forward to seeing the other artworks, there is always a huge variety by all ages at this exhibition. My sister is coming with me to the Opening Night as I am only allowed 1 guest, so my lovely hubby has to stay home with the kids (mine AND my sisters). Poor pet! I will hopefully get some good pics of the exhibition to post here after the Opening. Happy painting to me.....

F i n i s h e d A t L a s t!

Painting for a Show is always very stressful, even if it is a group show and I only have to get one painting finished. This particular painting has been going on for ages now. You know when you just can't get it right, you change something ever so slightly and it throws the whole thing off. Well I have been having a dilemma with this painting for the past 6 months, yep... 6 M O N T H S! ! ! I have gone away and done other paintings in between, but every time I come back to this one, I mess something up - to put it nicely.

Back in December a friend asked me to do a commissioned work, which I was happy to take on board. The subject matter was a particular Surf Boat Crew rowing in the ocean at a surf carnival. They have been ever so patient with me as they are giving it to a close family friend as a (now belated) birthday gift.

Well, good news is.... I have finally F I N I S H E D!

I have decided to enter it in the Warringah Art Exhibition which is held around this time every year. Two years ago I got 2nd Prize in the WAE, and last year I didn't have anything finished to enter as I had just had a baby a month before the Show.

So that is where I have been, painting my butt off. It is a good feeling to be done - just in time too, submissions are tomorrow. Yikes! Wish me luck...

Right now!

A fun Meme:

Yourself: Creative
Your partner: Computer Obsessed
Your hair: Needs Highlights
Your Mother: Loving
Your Father: Cuddly
Your Favorite Item: Paint
Your dream last night: Distant Friends
Your Favorite Drink: Water
Your Dream Car: New
Your Dream Home: Uncluttered
The Room You Are In: Kitchen
Your fear: Dying
Where you Want to be in Ten Years? Proud
Who you hung out with last night: Hubby
What You're Not: Thin
Muffins: Choc Chip
One of Your Wish List Items: Handbag
The Last Thing You Did: Breastfed Baby
What You Are Wearing: Trackies
Your favorite weather: Cool
Your Favorite Book: Art books
Last thing you ate: Thai Chicken Burger
Your Life: Chaotic
Your mood: Happy
Your Best Friend: Fun
What are you thinking about right now: Vacation
Your car: Green
What are you doing at the moment: Blogging
Your summer: Full
Relationship status: Married
What is on your tv: homeMADE
What is the weather like: Cold
When is the last time you laughed: Today

What's on your walls?

I have an ever changing array of artworks always waiting patiently for their turn to be hung. I change them around every now and then, I like to bring some up from my studio so they can see the light of day. If I want a big change, I like to paint something new, there is always some inspiration in a corner of my mind somewhere.

I love white walls, like a gallery, so that is what we have. When Winter comes there is quite a cold feeling in here and I have to stop myself from painting the walls some warm, rich, strong colour, because when summer comes back, I love my white walls.

Above from left: : "Breakers" by me and family photos.

Above: Etchings by Tracy Mandelberg

Above: Lithograph by Salvador Dali

Above: Aboriginal Dot Paintings and Painting by me

Above from Left: Etching by Pete Hogan and Lithograph by Salvador Dali

Above: "Bondi Diptych" by me and further back, "Sydney Waters" by Lisa Perhat

Hanging at the moment I have mostly large scale paintings, a few Dali lithographs that I bought at auction in NY. Some etchings that I bought from a street market by a local artist in Sydney, a lithograph by Aussie artist Reg Mombasa (Chris O'Donaghue), 2 large aboriginal paintings and other eclectic pieces created by artistic friends and a couple of eBay wins. I love them all. There are also a few pieces of my own making that I can't bear to part with.

So what's on your walls, I would love to see.

Little Birdie Note Cards

Aren't these lovely, I picked them up at Target as Thank You cards for Remi's birthday presents last month. The photo looks like Spring to me. Actually, the weather here at the moment almost feels like Spring. I can't complain that's for sure.

Capital "C" is for Canberra

A spontaneous, or was it a planned trip to our Nation's Capital?

The kids were sick the day we were meant to leave last Sunday, so we waited until they were mostly better, and hit the road on Thursday for an extra long weekend. With all these Winter sicknesses around, we didn't want to get on a plane with the boys who were not 100% better. So the next choice was something a little closer to home - within a few hours drive.

We had been thinking of going down to Canberra to take Luca to Questacon. He is really into science and likes to see how things work, so Questacon was perfect. There is an area for 0-6 year olds, so little Remi had a blast as well.




We spent most of the day there on Friday with a couple of hours in the afternoon at the National Gallery of Art.

I am always inspired by a visit to any Art Gallery, but the National Gallery really has some spectacular works - 'Blue Poles' by Jackson Pollock being one of the stars of course. Seeing that painting in real life makes my heart skip a beat every time. Every way you turn there is something special to see. I also really liked the Soft Sulpture Exhibition currently running. Walking through the SS Exhibition with Remi attached to my side in my Bubba Sling, we enjoyed it together. He pointed, and ooh'd and aah'd the whole way through, I loved sharing it with him. Meanwhile, Nick and Luca had pretty much seen the whole Gallery by the time Remi and I had only seen the main floor. So they followed us while we saw the rest. The weather that day was pretty dismal, I thought it was going to snow for sure. It didn't get above 2.5C degrees all day.

Saturday we went to the National Museum of Australia for the first half of the day. The Aussie memorabilia was fantastic to see. Seeing all the Aussie Icons in one place was fantastic. I think I appreciated this museum more than the kids. They were a little young to see how cool it was.













The afternoon was spent at the Australian War Memorial where the kids played on life size helicopters, the command centre of a submarine and crawling through WW1 trenches in the Discovery Zone for 2 hours. They loved it, and we were exhausted by the end of the day.





Sunday morning, the weather had cleared up, so we spent the first hour or so at the Bus Depot Markets buying home made chocolate fudge and running around on the grass in the beautiful sunshine, before starting our journey back home.

We could have spent more time in Canberra, but the time was right to come home. Maybe when the Boys are a little older, when they can appreciate the history of the place again, we might go. Or, they can wait for the customary school excursion in about Year 6. Sounds good to me! That drive was long. It's good to be home, it's warmer here.

Tick Tock

Yikes! Where did those last few weeks go? I even celebrated my birthday in there somewhere. How old??? Who knows, I lost count after 30!

So the business is going really well. For the next 3 weeks we have our Carry All Play Mats, String Bags and Apron Kits for sale in a shop in Narrabeen. A friend of my business partner sets up a Discounted Book Shop about 5 times a year on a short lease. We have been given the opportunity to display and sell our things there along with their books. I plan on hanging some artworks for sale next week as well, both for kids and 'grown up' paintings.

I haven't had time to blog lately because I have been painting every spare second that the kids haven't needed me. Along with making signage for the shop and organising the products and displays, I have been looking after my little ones who have been terribly sick with the flu and feeling ever so poorly. Different winter illnesses keep going around in circles in this house, lucky for me, they keep missing me, unfortunately though, I have to look after the other three sickies. I need some sleep, the little one has a fever and it's going to be a long night.

Good Folks are here!

This is the last purchase or fabric for a while. I promise I won't buy any more, I promise I will use what I have. This was so yummy and I have been eyeing it off for a while now that I just had to get a little bit, just a sample of each, 24, 1/8 yard pieces is just enough for me. Its Good Folks by Anna Maria, as if you didn't know already. I plan on making a quilt using a lot of white or super dark navy around each piece of loveliness. I can't wait till it's finished (or even started).

Have a lovely weekend, it's meant to rain the whole time here, hopefully I can steal some time away from everyone to be creative.

Cupcake Thursday

A rainy stormy day with not much food in the house and look what came about. Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes. You just use a packet cake mix, any flavour and mix it up how you usually do. When it comes time to spoon it into cupcake papers, use flat bottomed cones instead. Sadly I have to say that you use the microwave to cook them so they don't burn. ( Not my preferred way to cook cupcakes, but it works for this.) I put mine in the microwave and watched them the whole time. When the cake batter rose above the cone, I opened the door to test them (about 1 and a 1/2 minutes) and they were done - fastest cupcakes EVER. When they were cool, we iced them with the icing mix from the packet mix and put sprinkles on top. They brightened up our grey day.

MOO cards

MOO Minicards above and below

I punched a hole in the MOO Minicards and looped some cotton through to use as swing tags for some of our products - above.

MOO Business Cards above

I have been trying to get things sorted out so that we can start selling our Playmats and Kids things at some upcoming markets. I came across MOO cards about a year ago and have been wanting to buy some since then. My first lot of business cards are pretty generic, I wanted some quick and just went in and used their templates - I love them even though they are so simple.

Their site is so easy to use and the cards that they send (all they way from the UK) are super fab! I love them so much. The idea of being able to have as many images as you want was the thing that hooked me. My next order will mostly consist of photos that I have taken myself mostly of beachy things that go with the Remi and Jack brand.

I also used their MOO minicards as swing tags with our choking hazard warning on them (the top 2 pics), they work wonderfully don't you think? You should go to MOO, they are excellent!

Narrabeen Market Day

A glorious Autumn day yesterday! I needed to go and check out some Markets in the local area to see which one we might go to and sell our Playmats and other Kids things. I haven't been to the Narrabeen Markets for about 4 years, I've driven past a million times though. It is on the 3rd Sunday of every month.

It is always a lovely walk along the lake. The bike path winds through the trees and the open air Markets line both sides of the path for about 500 metres. There were a few really nice things here and there, and I think it would be the perfect market for our first. There was nothing there that was anything like what we want to sell, so that's a plus. I think we would do well.

Sorry, no pics of the Markets themselves, but some pics of the lovely Autumn day and a gorgeous boy enjoying his market purchase below.

A Saturday Beach Walk

How lovely is this pic above!

We live in a pretty beautiful place - I love it. We didn't plan a walk along the beach today, it just happened. We had planned to go to a Home Expo in this area, but the traffic was a nightmare, and trying to find a parking spot was way too hard. So we drove in the opposite direction - back towards home - and stopped at one of our local parks for the kids to have a play. Conveniently for us, most of the parks around here are by the beach, so we went down to the water and had a play as well. It was such a nice, calm surf, it was a lovely feeling to be out with my family. I love days like this when what you thought was going to be a day of nothing, and it turns into something wonderful.

My little explorer loves to collect shells.

Daddy and his boys, such a lovely pic, I think I will frame it!

Remi's First Quilt

She loves to make quilts, she loves to sew, she loves to smile, she loves her family. That's my Sister! Anyone in our family who has a baby, receives a handmade quilt from my beautiful Sister for their new little one. She spends time choosing fabrics either from her magnificent fabric stash, a quick drive to Spotlight (the local fabric store), or a browse of her favourite online U.S fabric stores - Hancocks of Paducah, Fat Quarter Shop or Quilt Home. Then she creates an amazing quilt suited to each child. She made the one above, with love, for our little Remi using American Jane Wee Play fabrics. A lot has been going on in my sisters life, so he was lucky enough to receive it for his 1st Birthday. He will cherish it forever!

Mum

Happy Mother's Day Mum.

I hope you know you are very appreciated, we don't get to see you enough.

Thank you for a lovely day today.

Why more fabric?

This arrived in the post today, another purchase from Etsy, 2 different stores. I was searching Etsy one day and came across this Arcadia fabric. Actually, I saw the quilt below first and decided that I needed and wanted to make something like it myself. I think it is the awful weather and the feeling of Winter looming that makes me want to snuggle under a yummy quilt.

So that's another thing to do on my ever growing list of things to sew, bet you it doesn't get done until next Winter, like the other fabric waiting in my fabric drawer.

Quilt image by Pieces of Pine

Happy Birthday to You & A Brobee Cake too...

Remi the Birthday Boy and his big cousin Oscar.

Ethan and Oscar

A Brobee Cake

L to R: Ethan, Oscar, Archer, Luca, Campbell, Brody and Remi.

Lots of family and friends, what more could you need. It's always nice to see familiar faces, especially when they come to help our little Remi celebrate his 1st Birthday. Thank you everyone for coming, and for the lovely gifts you gave him. We appreciate you, we hope you had fun, we did.

One

A year has gone by in a flash. A gorgeous little baby boy has become a beautiful one year old.

Walking and running,
climbing and falling,
eating anything he can fit into his mouth.
Grunting words,
pointing chubby fingers,
curiously exploring everywhere.
Loving fruit and vegies,
the outdoors,
and most of all, us.

I wish time would slow down.
Happy Birthday my sweet boy, I love you forever.

One for you, Ten for me

I started baking for Remi's First Birthday party which is on this weekend. Today, Luca and I made our version of Chocolate Crackles, don't they look delicious? So easy to make and SO SO yummy!

Quick Chocolate Crackles
6 cups of Rice Bubbles (Rice Crispies).
1/2 to 1 cup of dessicated coconut ( I like a lot of coconut).
2 x 250g blocks of Milk Chocolate (you could use white or dark if you prefer).
Coloured Sprinkles for decoration.


Break up the chocolate into a microwave safe bowl. Melt the chocolate slowly in the microwave in 30 second intervals until melted. Stir between intervals.
In a large mixing bowl mix Rice Bubbles and Coconut. Poor chocolate over dry ingredients and gently mix. Spoon mixture into cupcake size paper cups and shake Sprinkles over the top. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to set. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Should make about 24 if you are lucky.

Yum!

My Etsy purchase from Ish & Chi

Above image by Viv

Look what arrived today, I bought it on Etsy, I loved it the minute I saw it. I have always loved this red and white printed fabric by Amy Butler, never bought any myself though, and now I have this lovely butterfly made by Viv of Ish and Chi. Now I have to find a frame and hang it, maybe in my kitchen... it needs some personality in there.

I just have to say that I LOVE anything wrapped in brown paper, and when this arrived, my heart skipped a beat, I know I'm a little kooky, but I am sure there are more out there like me.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my lovely Mummy, my A. Diana and my lovely friend Sandra (whom I miss so much). I hope you all had lovely birthdays. I was thinking of you all.
Big Kisses.

Some of my favourite Etsy finds

Etsy Buy Handmade minimonart

Too much fun!

It's amazing how much fun it is when Mummy is doing the laundry. The laundry basket makes for a fantastic boat, car, train, hat, turtle shell, and cubby. Hours of fun for the whole family. Lucky I have 4 to play with.

S is for Samuel

This was finished earlier in the week. A commission for a client, it's her 4th order. She has bought one for each of her 3 children + her niece. Thank You again Jessica K.

Autumn Garden

It's strange that winter is just around the corner. My garden is lovely at this time of the year. I am loving hibiscus flowers lately, probably due to my little business having that beach kind of feel to it. The agave succulents need a little bit of weeding, but there is something living in the bushes behind it and I am too afraid to go near them. The berries on the tree are some kind of fruit, they smell lovely, are awful to walk on and we are afraid to taste them in case we get poisoned.

So there are a few glimpses of my lovely Autumn garden.

My Day

My day is lovely, how's yours?

All I can think about is...

...lying on a hammock on a deserted beach somewhere...
...and walking along that same deserted beach picking up random pieces of driftwood...
...and leaving behind only my footprints.
I don't even mind if my hubby and kids come along.

I have been working furiously on my new small business venture, Remi and Jack, and have been neglecting painting commissions, and housework of course, but enjoying bringing new things together for everyone to see. The whole feel for the small business is meant to be Vintage Surf and Beach:Living, which is just dreamy to think about all day long.

I think I take for granted where we live sometimes, to be able to walk to the end of our street and jump in the ocean is a lovely place to be. Maybe I am already on holiday! I just need to take a few moments to appreciate life instead of going flat chat. Ok, here goes....

Working... working...

Well here it is, the new venture... Remi and Jack. It is in the VERY early stages as I am working with a 9 month old insomniac by my side (Remi). He is keeping me up at night, but I am getting things done while he has his sleeps during the day. I am only working Monday to Wednesday while my big boy is at Kindy, and a few hours here and there the rest of the time.

There are a few other things in the making but we are starting with the My Little Hands Aprons. We have the Roaring Rocket, Beautiful Butterfly, Bouncing Bunny and Flourishing Flower to start with. They are all sold as kits and include everything you need to make a lovely memory of your child. So enjoy the look and let me know what you think.

A New Business

I am in the midst of starting up a business with a friend of mine. This is some of what we have been working on (and a million other things). More will be revealed soon. Bet you can't wait! You will be surprised, I'm sure.

How Clever!

Look how much this one has grown... he thinks he is pretty clever now, and so do I.

A Perfect Day to Fly a Kite

A Christmas present that was aching to be flown was allowed to go free today. It was crazy windy and little Luca had SO much fun... until it got tangled, then he went on to something else. We fixed it ready for the next windy day. Thanks Leesy Loo and Fam.