Corrine's altered art

A quick update

2011-12-10T13:28:00.001-08:00

I’m just waiting to pull bread out of the oven before dashing into town. It is another beautiful day here in GY and my garden is exploding The roses in front of the motels are fantastic, and my new vege garden at the section is awesome I finally have most of it planted which is lovely. Corn, in one big block have all come up and potatoes in the next block are all poking through too. right at the back where all the fish frames have been buried are the pumpkins and zucchini. the area closest to the camera….where the wheel barrow is has been levelled as well and now has lettuce and cabbage all planted happily, and a brand new rose right next to the gate where I’ll be able to smell it as I go in and out.

I’ve also been happily making felt, and I have a new ambition

I found this site.

OMG

Go there now and take a quick look through the gallery

Here are a couple so you can see what I mean

So my new aim to to felt for myself a ball gown to wear at the GY mid winter ball! Imagine that!

Earth works

2011-10-20T01:09:00.001-07:00

We’ve been busy. The time has come to make a few “adjustments” to my garden.

Previously I had a green house, and one long outside garden bed. The other side of the fenced garden I edged with tyres and planted berry fruit, but it never really worked the way I wanted it to. Last year Thor bought some top soil, and then some power poles, to eventually make a proper garden bed on the north side of the garden.

This is what the garden looks like at the moment. The tyres removed, the berry fruit relocated (black and red currants, gooseberries, black, red and white raspberries.) and the power poles cut in half and being put in place as a retaining wall.

The retaining wall is three poles high in the middle and two poles high at each end, so the large bed will end up being terraced to some extent. There is a lot of dirt there already, although there is a bit of work involved to spread it out.

The berries have been put in the corner by the shed in the meantime, but I had thought that this would be my herb garden, so I don’t think they’ll be staying here long term.

I’m looking forward to being able to plant out the garden… some corn…and beans…and spuds…and pumpkin…Yep.

R.I. P. Pionjar

2011-09-20T21:54:00.001-07:00

18 years ago we moved into a little rented house in Glenorchy, known locally as the brown house. It came with a resident cat. We guessed her age to be about two years old, as she had already had a litter of kittens. She belonged to the previous people who had rented the house, but all efforts to move her to their new house failed until finally we said if they would get her spayed then we would look after her. Her name was Socks but it didn’t really suit her and we took to calling her Pionjar (Pun-Yah, or pun- yah- be) after the brand name of a rock drill the Doc workers were using at the time.

She quickly taught our dogs how to respect a cat. She lived on dog roll and various bits of wild meat such as venison and goat and possum. Whatever was available. She excelled at catching mice, and rats, and even rabbits. Also birds it must be admitted, but she preferred the field mice.

One year (plague year) she lined up a rat at the back door several nights in a row. At least they were dead I guess, unlike the baby rabbits which was how we came to have pet rabbits for several years.

When we moved on to another house, I really didn’t think she would move with us, however she made it clear she was quite happy to move with us, and again when we moved back into town. She didn’t like to be picked up but would happily sit on the laps of her people if she chose to do so. She insisted it was her right to have the best spot in front of the fire or heater.

Two years ago she went blind and we thought her time was up. but the vet was busy and by the time she could come to put her down, Pionjar had adjusted to being blind and it seemed a bit premature, so we left it. This last year she has been going down hill, drinking a lot and eating constantly although she stayed as small and slim as ever. Any day we expected to find she had died in her sleep, but at last she stopped eating and became terribly skinny and we knew the time had come to say goodbye.

It is never easy to say goodbye to a precious pet especially one who choose us to be her people and has been part of our lives for 18 years. But as is often pointed out to us 20 years old is a good age for a cat. She is at rest now in a sunny spot in the garden. I’ll find a rose to mark the place. Rest in peace Pionjar.

World of wearable art

2011-09-03T15:12:00.001-07:00

I’ve just got back from a lovely few days in Wellington. The main purpose of going up there being the “WOW” world of wearable arts show.

If you have never been to it, or never heard of it then it is quite difficult to describe.

The idea was to take art and combine it with fashion….and for artists to produce “wearable art” without any restrictions on being commercially viable or practical.

It has a become a two hour show, without words but full of music dance and of course gorgeous costumes. Above is the costume on display at the wellington airport, called dragon fish.

Here is a link to the web site for wearable arts.

This years winner was…

this gorgeous costume in the open section.

and the runner up was

This fantastic costume in the “under the microscope section

but our favourite was probably this one

but anyway go to the home page and take a look at the video clips of the show. and if you get a chance I really recommend you go.

Bessie the calf

2011-08-23T20:31:00.001-07:00

We have a new addition to the family.

Bessie the calf. She is a 3/4 jersey and 1/4 Friesian cross just 10 days old, about the size of a large dog and…..unbearably cute.

At the moment she is tucked up in a trailer crate in the back yard keeping warm and being fed four times a day for a bit.

The kids adore her. She will, one day in the future, become a family milking cow, but in the meantime she is just a pet. She enjoys being let out of the pen and exploring the back yard with lots of running and jumping. Baby animals are such time wasters!

Sour dough

2011-08-20T15:54:00.001-07:00

Winter is usually a catch up time for me. The Motels aren’t so busy and there isn’t much to do in the garden, but it doesn’t seem to have been that way this year. With the kids getting older and Zak at boarding school, I seem to have been busier than ever.

However, last week as the whole country shivered through a “polar blast” and unheard of snow fall throughout the county I was just happy that my oven has finally been fixed and I can bake once more.

This photo is taken from the Coronet ski field. The Remarkables are on the left and we are looking down the Lake towards Kingston. They got about 10 inches of snow in Queenstown. It is still on the ground and piled up on the road sides. Just up the Lake, Glenorchy had barely an inch, quickly melting. Our school didn’t even shut, while Queenstown kids missed out on three whole days. Do the kids feel ripped off? You bet!

And I’m baking sour dough.

Over at the down to earth forum there was a challenge to make your own sour dough starter…..

Not much point in me doing that I thought since my oven wasn’t working at the time…..but as so often happens when I’m thinking about something, lo and behold along comes someone else and offers me the exact thing I’m thinking about. In this case a sour dough starter.

Would you like a 100 year old Alaskan sour dough starter? asked a friend of mine and of course I said yes. (while taking the 100 year old Alaskan bit with a large grain of salt)

It lived in the fridge for a while, and I tried a loaf in the breadmaker without much success. I tried the pancakes and the kids said they preferred my usual recipe, but the bread is divine.

The sour dough is funny stuff. Once mixed and left overnight it becomes like a thick snotty gloop. ( Ew! Mum it looks like gorilla snot!)

I’m thinking that sour dough might be the answer to a nice gluten free bread, without relying on gums the keep the bread from crumbling apart. If I can work out how to make a gluten free starter that is.

If you look up sour dough on the internet there seems to be as many different ways to make and keep the stuff as there are cook with it.

My instructions say…mix up 2 cups of plain flour with 2 cups of warm water. Add the sour dough starter, mix and leave over night.

First thing in the morning take out one cup of the mix for your new starter and put it back in the fridge. – don’t forget this bit, or you won’t have any starter for next time.

With what is left add, 1 tsp salt, one tsp soda (dissolved in a little warm water) an egg if you have one, and 3 tbsp sugar.

Mix well. You can use this mix as a pancake mix.

Add some oil and about 3 cups of flour and knead to a soft dough. This makes enough for 2 small loaves or one large loaf. (depending on if you use any of the mix for pancakes first I guess)

Let rise and bake in a hot oven.

And here's another one

2011-06-25T02:13:00.003-07:00

The Glenorchy Races Slideshow: Mt’s trip from Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand to Glenorchy was created by TripAdvisor. See another Glenorchy slideshow. Take your travel photos and make a slideshow for free.

Testing this cool slide show

2011-06-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

OK so here is something I've been testing in the last couple of days. I'm not sure yet if it is too long, but is kind of fun.

Take a Trip to Glenorchy Slideshow: Corrine’s trip from Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand to Glenorchy was created by TripAdvisor. See another Glenorchy slideshow. Create your own stunning free slideshow from your travel photos.

Remarkables quilting symposium

2011-04-20T14:38:00.001-07:00

As I write the quilting symposium is in full swing down in Queenstown. I took my first class yesterday and had a great time.

I took the “Cut work” class with Yvonne Brown. Oh she does some lovely work, and I really enjoyed the whole day. I finished a couple of samples but came away with a ton of ideas.

I also went to a lecture at lunch time which was by a bead artist called Larkin Von Horn….oh my goodness. What amazing work she does. We went to see her class samples at the end of the day and I’m sorry I didn’t take some of her classes too. The things you find out afterwards….

I’ll be back tomorrow for a class doing fabric postcards and another lecture at lunch time. I also want to go back on Saturday just to go shopping and for a look around all the exhibitions.

This is one of the class samples that Yvonne showed us…so clever!

and the other one is the sample that I made.

It doesn’t look quite so good as a photo but then that is always the way.

I really recommend taking a class with Yvonne if you get the chance

Having a change around

2011-03-04T02:46:00.001-08:00

Well after talking about it for quite some time, I’m finally in the process of moving my studio up to the shed at our section. We have gained a fantastic new shelf system and I can now store all my art supplies where I can see them. I have yet to move the huge table up there as Thor has hurt his back again and isn’t supposed to be lifting stuff. – Let alone dragging it up and down stairs.

But anyway…Here is a glimpse of my cool new shelf.

There will be more stuff to sort into sections, but I’m feeling very lucky to have a space that I won’t have to share with the kids.

In the process of cleaning out the playroom to shift stuff up to my new studio, I have also found a number of unfinished…or not even started projects that I could be doing….

New Zealand butterfly trust

2011-01-31T18:36:00.001-08:00

We made the mistake this year of buying a swan plant. It was a mistake because the plant that we thought had two caterpillars on it actually had nine. and nine hungry caterpillars made short work of one small swan plant. Six swan plants later and we now have 4 chrysalis, one caterpillar about to make another chrysalis and two small caterpillars still eating hungrily…what happened to the other two? We don’t know either.

The best part about have caterpillars as pets is that you get to see them making the change…

Sian has all the caterpillars named.

One good thing about rearing butterflies is that I discovered the NZ butterfly trust. They have a project that involves tagging monarch butterflies, and the site also has a lot of info about butterflies of NZ in general, and about making a butterfly garden.

Which of course I intend to do ….er maybe next year.

It seems that the best plant for butterflies in general is the buddleia. A quick search on the internet revealed that buddleia comes in a range of really cool colours, and not all of them are the pest plant frowned on by Doc. I found a lovely lady on trade me and now have a yellow and a blue buddleia winging their way to me.

The host plant I need more of is the stinging nettle. There is a native stinging nettle that the yellow and red admiral butterflies lay their eggs on.

I also need swan plants, but they have to be treated as annuals here as the swan plant is quite frost tender. Worth it to have more butterflies around though.

Scuba lessons

2011-01-22T00:30:00.001-08:00

Well the summer holidays are coming to an end, and in just a weeks time the kids all go back to school. There are big changes ahead this year since Zak is away to boarding school.

We’ve had Thor’s brother Jason and his son Mathew over from Australia for a visit, as well as a friend of Mathew’s (also called Mathew) so we have been very busy. The boys loved having their older cousin here, and they all had a great time.

Now they have gone back to Australia, and we set off to Wanaka today to have our scuba diving lesson

This was a family Christmas present, and the first time trying out scuba for all of us.

It was just an intro to scuba lesson, so we got to play in the Wanaka swimming pool

Breathing underwater was very strange, and it took a while getting used to all the equipment.

The kids took to the whole experience like ducks to water. A pity really that the pool wasn’t a bit deeper

After a while the instructor brought out a scooter to play with…so cool.

They even had a mini tank and suit for Sian.

We all agreed it was a great experience and we’d like to go on and get our dive tickets…maybe not just yet though.

Finished!

2011-01-01T21:19:00.001-08:00

There is nothing like a rainy day to get some sewing finished, and I took the opportunity today to sit down and get my quilt finished. Isn’t it cool?

It’s on the spare bed in my daughters room at the moment.

although I suspect that it will end up on her own bed once the weather gets a bit cooler.

Zak has also requested one to take with him to boarding school. He wants one in red and blue which should be a bit of a challenge.

Remarkables Quilting Symposium

2010-12-28T19:36:00.001-08:00

If you are into quilting, then you should check out this site.

I’m attending two classes at the symposium next year, but you can see on the site that there is still plenty of room in lots of really cool classes. I take my hat off to the organisers of this…I’m finding a retreat with one tutor hard enough.

Talking of quilting, my friend Leanne has shown me how to finish off the quilt I started earlier in the year, and I had a good go at getting the blocks sewn together yesterday while it was raining.

Alas today the sun is shining and the kids decided swimming was more important than sewing.

Maybe I’ll get more done tonight so I can post some photos tomorrow.

Did I say summer?

2010-12-27T11:51:00.001-08:00

Yes that is new snow up there. But at least the rain has stopped. For a while.

Feels like summer

2010-12-14T23:01:00.001-08:00

And slowly the tourists are arriving……..

Although I have to say, I could do without the ones in the motels tonight. Sometimes I just have to grit my teeth and smile, then look up at the hills and remind myself why I live here.

This is on my mind…

2010-12-09T18:19:00.001-08:00

Strawberries from our garden. YUM

of course I should be thinking about Christmas, and the big list of jobs I have to do, but I get such pleasure out of picking our own strawberries. We enjoy them sliced thin and spread over ice cream with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. Home grown berries are so much sweeter than what you get at the supermarket.

Boat and car storage

2010-12-02T15:16:00.001-08:00

Glenorchy wearable arts

2010-11-20T16:33:00.001-08:00

wow, what a great night we had last night. The Glenorchy netball team is raising money for lights for the netball court so they don’t have to practice in the dark using car headlights.

I’ve made a very poor quality video of Sian doing her stint on the cat walk. She won second prize in the children’s section.

Cloud princess

The quality of the competition was very high, and I really hope they hold it again next year because it was great fun and I have a lot more ideas to bring to life in this art form….

This is another equally bad quality video of the Nature spirit costume I entered in the adult section. It got a special mention, so I was very chuffed.

Nature spirit

We have some very creative and artistic people in Glenorchy

this entry won first prize in the children’s section.

There was a robotic sheep and a robot dog, it was a great effort.

This entry eventually won third prize…once again sorry about the poor photo’s, it was a very difficult lighting situation, but the entry was made totally from wood, moss and birds nests.

Another amazing entry, I wish you could see the detail. This entry started as an entry destined for the Bazarre Bra section, but grew too big. The skirt is made from barbed wire! and the bra part with horse shoes.

Anyway, I really hope it gets held again. The whole production was very professional, and we all had a great time. – must get started on next years entry. I know exactly what I want to do.

Sneak peak

2010-11-18T00:24:00.001-08:00

This coming Saturday, the Glenorchy wearable arts competition is being held. It is a fund raiser for the netball club. Sian has agreed to be my model, and has also entered a dress she designed herself…..here it is

The title is

“The cloud Princess”

The entry has to be put to music, so we chose the “Albatross” music by fleetwood mac,

She will also have a crown and a wand, and although you can’t see it too well in this photo the dress has pearls sewn on, and has an ample supply of glitter.

The competition rules said she had to have a significant part in the making of the dress herself, so we have been learning how to free motion stitch and sew on pearls. She can’t wait to wear it! (I just hope it lasts the distance)

I hope I’ll be able to video the actual event.

My own entry was a little rushed, in fact I actually had to submit the music first and work backwards from there. However I’m pleased with the result. I’ll show you all photo’s after Saturday.

and the garden goes wild

2010-11-14T13:16:00.001-08:00

The garden by the front stairs is my favourite garden of all. Mainly because I don’t need to do too much to it….and it looks great most of the year.

It has lots and lots of plants and bulbs that pop up year after year with the only help from me is a mulch of sheep pellets in the winter.

This time of year the Granny bonnets go wild, and as soon as they start to set seed I have to pull most of them out so the smaller annuals can be seen.

Down here you can see the Lily of the valley flowers and some violets and wild pansies.

I keep putting plants into any bare spots, and scattering wild flower seeds

I poke in a couple of new bulbs every year as well.

There is a bird bath the kids gave me for Christmas last year…

hard to keep clean with all the blossom falling everywhere.

and these days there is a dragon hiding in the foliage, guarding her egg and surprising the guests who happen to see her.

Fantastic news

2010-10-28T20:58:00.001-07:00

As you all know by now, there is an art retreat in Glenorchy next year with American artist and tutor Nina Bagley. Today I received news that the retreat had received funding from Central Lakes art support scheme.

This means the cost of the retreat can be reduced from $650 nz dollars to less than $500.00 NZ dollars

I’m so pleased we can offer the retreat at a lower price. Nina is a fantastic tutor, and we will have such fun exploring all kinds of different techniques. If you were thinking about signing up for the retreat then pop over to the website and fill in the registration form.

Journal almost finished.

2010-10-24T14:14:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was one of those horrible windy days where although you want to get out into the garden, you are forced to decide that maybe it would be better to do something inside instead.

So I took the chance to finish off the Practical Magic inspired Book of Shadows.

I want the main cover to be in a thicker leather so I cut the leather to size in the same way I did for the back section. Leather is a lot harder to work with. I tried to pare down the edge of the leather to get a smooth transition from leather to cover, which wasn’t exactly successful.

This photo shows an attempt to get a nice wide gap between the back section and the front. And also to mark where the back section comes to so I don’t stitch the front pages in the wrong place.

I used the same fabric that I did for the back section, to stitch the pages to, and this photo shows the line I drew to mark where the back section comes to.

Then I stitched the pages to the fabric.

That was the easy part.

I found some thicker cords to attempt to make those ridges at the back…and the ends can be unravelled slightly to blend in better under the paper that will eventually cover them up.

After that I glued the fabric to the leather covers, and clamped everything in place to set.

Here is the result the next day.

Here you can see the two different sections of the book. The leather cover tends to curve a bit so the front section isn’t as big as it should be. I’m hoping that it will stretch out and expand as needed.

I have a lot more to do to this book. Decorate the covers, and fill those pages with all kinds of …

stuff.

But meanwhile I need to put this aside and get on with working on my wearable art entry.

Journal making part two

2010-10-19T16:02:00.001-07:00

Ta da!

That looks kind of cool. I’m quite pleased with that. It has a nice solid chunky feel to the whole thing. But I’m not finished yet.

Remember those cords?

Well they kind of worked.

I had to ink them a bit to make them show up. I need thicker cord, but I don’t want them making a ridge on the inside cover

See what I mean? These are OK, but thicker could be a problem.

Now obviously this inside cover looks pretty ugly. I won’t be leaving it like this, but will find a nice bit of paper to cover it with.

Often the first page of the first signature is used to stick to the inside cover, and this makes everything tidy. But naturally I want something different.

I’m going to leave this part for now and carry on with stage two. I’ve turned the book I have already made upside down and this now becomes the back cover and the some of the pages. I’ve stacked more pages and the front cover on top, and will now carry on from the measuring of the spine to see how much of a gap I need for the spine fabric. The new pages havn’t been added to yet, so I’m going to almost double the gap measurement so that I have plenty of room for additions…otherwise I’ll get a book that ends up looking like this

Making the Practical Magic inspired Book of shadows.

2010-10-16T23:09:00.001-07:00

The weather has been horrible today, and next week promises to be another busy one (two different meetings already tomorrow! yoicks!) so I took the chance to start putting together the Book of shadows I promised myself I would make.

To start with I needed some pages and three hardboard covers – If you are just making an ordinary book then two covers are fine.

I use cheap canvas covered cardboard as the covers for my journals. Since this one needed to quite big, I cut larger boards down to size.

Then I gathered paper together for the pages.

It is quite fun to have a range of paper for pages, I’ve also used fabric for this book as I want to experiment with plaster pages. The paper needs to be folded in half to be sewn into the book, but you can also make a hinge with another bit of paper or even fabric to join two bits of paper together.

here is an example of how I’ve joined two separate pages to make one bit that can be folded.

You don’t need to be too fussy about the size either.

Tuck your folded pieces together inside each other…like this.

Three or four or more pages together. These are called signatures.

Keep going until your book is as thick as you need it to be.

Remember the book of shadows in the movie has a secret section at the back?

Well I want one in this book too, AND I even have some pages already to go in it. These pages were made for an online swap several years ago, and have been tucked away and not seen the light of day since.

They are pages about BANEFUL herbs, each one poisonous, but used in both medicine and witchcraft for many different reasons.

There are really cool pages in this book, beautiful art, lots of pockets and flaps and tags, as well as interesting info.

But anyway….perfect for my secret /dark part of the BoS.

So…put your pages in their signatures together, stack them up and put them inside their covers, and measure the gap between the covers…add a bit extra so you have room to expand.

Cut a piece of fabric or in this case possum leather that is big enough to cover the gap, over lap the boards and also the top and bottom edges.

How much you want the overlap to be depends on you, but don’t make it too small.

It is easier to decorate the covers before you need to stick on the fabric…so do that next.

So far everything is pretty much as described at Tesha’s website, but the next part I’ve made up as I went, to see if I can get a look similar to the old leather bound books that have those ridges across the backs…So I cut some cord and will lay it across the leather back,

At this stage I stuck the leather backing to the cover boards.

I use plain old PVA glue. White glue. Give it a good coating. I left the middle part with out glue at this stage.

Put the covers in place and make sure you have the right distance between the covers and also that they are even across the top and bottom

Flip the covers over and smooth out the material, making sure there are no air bubbles. Put the covers under some books so there is good contact while the glue dries.

Next we have to measure where to put the holes in the signatures. It isn’t hard. I fold a bit of paper in half…to use as a pattern. It needs to be as long as the covers being used.

Mark on it, where the pages start, – in other words, your covers are bigger than your pages. The pattern is as big as the covers and you want to also mark the size of the pages. Then at the top and bottom mark where you want your first stitch to be. I usually make it one and a half inches in from the tops of the pages.

After that you need to measure the gap between your top and bottom mark. You want to have six marks altogether…you have located where to put two of them (top and bottom) so divide the gap between these marks into five and that will be your distance between each mark.

ie my pages are a half inch smaller than the cover…and I started one and half inches in from the top and bottom of the pages. the distance in,between was 9 inches, so each mark is 1.8 inches apart.

I should probably post more photos. poke a hole in the pattern at each of the six marks.

You also need a bit of fabric the exact length of the covers. mark on it the distance between the covers.

I’m sewing in three signatures so I need three lines of sewing marks. Use your pattern. Line up the top of the pattern with the top of the fabric and use a marker.

In Tesha’s journals she sticks the inside fabric to the covers and the out side fabric and stitches through the whole lot. The stitches can be seen on the outside, which is really cool. But this part of the book is for the secret part of the book, and visible from the front, so I wanted these stitches hidden. You can see how the outside fabric folds over and hides the edge of the inside one.

I now go to the inside of the signatures and mark the stitching holes. This time line your pattern up with the first mark you made with the page top.

Poke holes in the crease of the signature where you made your marks. This makes the sewing much easier. Make sure your pages are all at the same level.

Decide what order your signatures go in, and start sewing…

I use waxed cord to sew with..and you need a strong needle with a large eye as well. Sometime I use a small pair of pliers to help pull the needle through.

Start at the top, on the outside going in. Go through the fabric first and then into the middle of the signatures. Sometimes you may need to go through each page separately, don’t worry about pulling the cord tight at this stage.

Keep sewing until all your signatures are attached to the material

Then go through and make sure all the cords are snug. Tie the ends of the cords to the stitch closest to it.

Then it is time to attach the inner fabric to the covers and outer fabric.

Again use PVA glue and put the material under weights to keep the contact while the glue dries. I’ll show you the result if I get time tomorrow.

I'm now on facebook

2010-10-15T19:56:00.000-07:00

So I took the plunge and decided to open a facebook account. You can see my badge there on the side bar. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but it seems to be a good way to keep in touch. Anyone else on facebook?

Altered book exhibition

2010-10-15T17:47:00.001-07:00

A dear friend of mine, is holding an exhibition of Altered books at her shop Whirling Rainbow in Otaki. Since I was the one who introduced her to altered books, she has asked me for a loan of my books to be part of the display.

Here is a glimpse of the many altered books I have in my collection.

My very first book had a theme of “MAGIC” and is still my favourite book, of all of them. The date on the inside cover is 2003, and I’ve been marvelling at what we achieved with very little in the way of supplies.

This was the first altered book round robin I was in, and I remember the excitement as each book arrived in the post.

Not only that but with a deadline to work to, I churned out a lot more art in those early days

Everything was fresh and new, pop outs and tags, flaps and pockets. niches and charms

We explored stamps and all the different kinds of embellishments that go with them….

glitter, embossing enamel and so on.

I gave my next book and ocean theme, and attached swaps from Yahoo groups. I discovered the world of altered art online…wow! and supply shops! everywhere.

These are altered postcards from an Artchix swap, sadly the online group no longer exists, but the shop that sold such amazing collage sheets and other tempting bits and bobs is still going strong.

Various other books include the red book, and the circus book, a hard cover book with the theme of spring

and then I moved on to Fat books and online swaps through various online yahoo groups.

It’s been great looking back and seeing how far I have come.

Remarkables quilting symposium and Glenorchy Flower show

2010-10-12T16:57:00.001-07:00

On Saturday was the Glenorchy Spring Flower show, and since I somehow found myself helping out…I was able to listen in to the judges comments. I really would like to learn more about cut flowers and daffodils in particular.

I plant daffodil bulbs every year. Usually I grab a bag when I see them for sale in the warehouse. I thought I had a premier bloom this year, but a touch of green colour on the petals put it out of the running. - Oh well, there is always next year.

I love having all the daffodils in the house afterwards. They smell divine.

Happily I did much better in the hand craft section. I won a cup for the most outstanding exhibit (Dragon certainly looked impressive sitting there amongst the quilts and knitting) and a prize for most points.

The prize was a registration pack for the Remarkables quilting symposium being held in Queenstown next year.

I had a look at their book last night. They have a huge line up of classes and workshops to attend, not all of them to do with quilting, there are quite a few that are aimed at the fabric artist.

Obviously next year is to be the year of the art workshop.

I’m still waiting to hear if I was successful at getting some funding to help reduce the cost of the workshop. Maybe next week…

Journal making instructions

2010-09-26T23:13:00.001-07:00

For those of you who want to know how to make a journal like the one in the previous post, then the link for making the journal is this one.

Teesha Moore makes fantastic journals and has kindly shared with us how she does it. However after seeing this post over at Octoberfarm, I know how I want to make my journal, and I’ll take photos along the way.

I think I’ll try something a bit different with the spine…and of course I need to include the secret section at the back too

Hand made Memory book

2010-09-25T03:33:00.001-07:00

So the reason behind not getting my own BOS made for the Practical magic blog party…(see previous post) was that I was making this book for a friend of mine who is leaving for France tomorrow. The community took part in making a memory book for the family to take with them.

There are photo’s of our area, front and back on some sturdy cardboard

An old town map, and some art with a book blessing on the front page.

the rest of the book is filled with photos and memorabilia from the last 10 years, we put out the word wanting photos and images and messages and I bound them all into a book

Four signatures have been stitched to a cloth spine which is two inched thick.

I used waxed cord to bind with, and attached beads and stones to the ends of the cords. If I had had more time (and more beads) I would have put beads on the stitches as well. We had a pot luck dinner tonight to say farewell and it made a great gift. There were a lot of comments about wanting one the same.

The good part about making your own book like this is that you can choose the paper for your pages. They don’t all have to be the same size…or colour. This book even had fabric pages in it.

Practical magic blog party

2010-09-24T14:07:00.001-07:00

Check over here for the list of blogs joining the party.

I fully intended to be making a book of shadows like the one in the movie…and it is still on my list of things to make (one day) but I was side tracked by the images of that gorgeous house!

There are lots more house images including blue prints for the house at http://www.amasveritas.com/film/index.html

Of course the best part of the whole house is the kitchen!

While searching the net for more house photo’s I came across this site which appears to be the book able to be read on line. I haven’t read the book before, so I don’t know if any parts have been left out, but it is certainly the story, and I enjoyed reading it.

quilt nearly done….

2010-09-18T19:03:00.001-07:00

I’ve finished all the blocks for my quilt, now I just need to decide on the pattern to sew them together into.

I quite like this one…

This is what the back looks like.

Not only do I need to make the front look good…I have to keep in mind what the back will look like too.

I really like the way it has come together, and I’ll be making more like this. This one will be for Sian’s room, and I’d like to do one each for the boys as well, although they both already have wonderful quilts from their Nan-Nan.

This one belongs to Max.

It is actually two quilts in one. The detail is amazing.

Every dinosaur named, made from different fabrics, and just about all of them have little flaps sewn on as well.

The back of the quilt is just as amazing.

see?

and this one is Zak’s.

nice and colourful, and no doubt he’ll take it with him when he goes to boarding school next year.

Finished

2010-09-16T18:14:00.001-07:00

Here she is. All finished apart from a bit of tidying up to do. I paverpoled her fur mane in the end, and I’m pleased with how it looks. I used possum leather to make her scales, and then rubbed them with a bit of gold….um stuff, so they would show up better.

Her spikes along her neck stand out better as well, and I made fur spikes on her face too, although I don’t think she looks fierce so much as startled, or maybe she is just anxious to hide her egg from public view.

But anyway, she’ll make her first public appearance at the Glenorchy flower show on the weekend of the 25th. Then I’ll find a nice spot for her in the garden so she can nurse her egg in peace.

As I sit here, snow showers are blowing around outside, although nothing is settling on the ground, and I’ve just completed an application for funding for the Art retreat next year. I’m hoping to get funding to pay for the airfare. This will bring the cost of the retreat to below $500 NZ dollars which is much more on a par with what people expect to pay for a workshop with overseas tutors. Fingers crossed!

South Island Ice skating champs

2010-08-28T20:40:00.001-07:00

Sian and the boys have all been doing ice skating since the start of winter…the boys, ice hockey, and Sian has been learning figure skating. This weekend, the South Island figure skating champs were held in Queenstown, and Sian’s ice skating group did a synchronised ice skating demo. ( Pictured above) It was very cute.

Progress

2010-08-22T16:33:00.001-07:00

Another beautiful day. Monday now, and I still have four motel units to clean (different four) but all the tax stuff is done and I’m looking forward to some art time later today.

I took dragon out side to look at her in the sunlight.

here she is trying to hide her egg in the tussocks. I was wondering if I should leave her glorious mane of fur as it is…with spikes poking through… or treat them with the paverpol

The fur does look rather cool

Treated with paverpol I can make it spiky, and if I use the clear paverpol, then the fur will stay grey rather than be dyed black. like this bit which I used on her hind foot.

I have yet to work out how to make cool looking scales.

I’ve also been working some more on my quilt. I need to get it finished so I can enter it into the Flower show later on in September.

I’ve also heard a rumour about a local wearable art contest, which has me pondering what to enter. The details haven’t been released yet, so I hope there is still some time to go for that.

Frustration

2010-08-13T14:59:00.001-07:00

It’s a sunny Saturday. The ski fields are calling us, but we won’t be going skiing. I won’t be working happily in my studio either.

Dragon is now looking like this

The wings have really brought the sculpture to life, she looks exactly like a mother dragon leaning over her egg. She has claws, and the start of some scales, and I want to carry on working at bringing her to life. But real life has a habit of getting in the way at the worst possible time. I have four motel units to clean, and gst to get done (like yesterday!), and then a new accounting system to learn. So Dragon will have to wait. Sigh.

Egypt book

2010-08-11T20:38:00.001-07:00

So places are getting taken in the art retreat next year. There is plenty of room for more, but if you are at all interested in attending next year then please let me know.

These are photo’s of the “wee book” I made with Nina when she was teaching in Melbourne

It is a really sweet wee book, and often the first thing people pick up when they come to visit

I made this book to remember a trip to Egypt I made a long time ago. (Amazing country)

I had picked up a lot of little nick nacks, and I needed a place to keep them.

Nina was so helpful in offering solutions to design problems, suggestions, tips and techniques. All around me others in the class were creating wonderful little books.

I liked that we were all encouraged to create something special for ourselves, and that everyone’s book turned out different to everyone else.

Texture painting

2010-08-09T15:02:00.001-07:00

Take a look at this

I’ve been having huge fun with using paverpol in painting…Kind of like sculpture and painting combined.

The bottom of the picture has been created with possum fur off cuts and paverpol to make it hard. I’ve also used lace…some sari silk yarn, embroidery thread, and mutton cloth to create the texture to start with, then I painted over the whole lot. I’m really pleased with the result.

Rainy day equals Art

2010-08-08T19:11:00.001-07:00

Art is for everyone. Here is Sian being coached in painting by her Grandad. She (they) did a great job, and Sian proudly took her painting to school with her today. - which is why I don’t have a photo of the finished thing.

I had a chance to put some skin onto Dragon. I’ve added some claws, and the frame for some wings, but I’ll have to rethink how I was going to do the scales. At the moment poor dragon is looking a bit like a plucked chicken. but we are still in the early stages.

Birth of a dragon

2010-07-29T15:03:00.001-07:00

So, I decided it was probably about time I started on the dragon I want to make…before all the tips and techniques I learnt in class have been forgotten.

The first step is to make a wire frame to hold the whole thing in place. Think of it at the skeleton we were told in class.

So yup. Skeleton…check.

Then cover the wire with tin foil. Think of this part as adding the muscles.

This became a little bit tricky. Now that I see the shape, I want to change it. My dragon looks like a startled horse with a duck bill, about to kick her egg rather than protect it. And I’m not sure how the wings will work. Do I need to add foil to them or not? I think the dragon is standing to tall, and should be more crouched. And I need to get this right before I go on to the next step and add the skin.

I’ll be looking and poking at this poor dragon all day I can see .

Video of dolphins

2010-07-24T14:15:00.001-07:00

Dolphins at Milford Sound

I’m experimenting with uploading videos, so I hope this works…

these are short video’s of some dolphins at Milford sound. The first was taken in January, and the second just the other week during the school holidays.

So What happened at Senz?

2010-07-22T14:42:00.001-07:00

Well…

I arrived on the Friday with Senz already in full swing. I was staying the the Racecourse hotel and motor park just over the road. I hadn’t planned to visit on Friday, but it was just there…..so off I went.

I was there for about 5 minutes before I realised that as far as promoting the Nina Bagley retreat I was in the wrong place. Although Senz is about bringing together a whole lot different craft shops for an orgy of shopping and lots of tempting classes to do as well, it tends to be very focused on Scrap booking and card making.

I didn’t find a lot of new stuff to buy, although I picked up some more eyelets and some glimmer mist. I realised I would be at a loose end on Sunday so I booked into a paverpol class at the last minute.

Saturday I went along to the Christmas Advent calendar class. I’ve been looking for something like this for a while. There were no new techniques, it was just a “paint by numbers” kind of project, but I love the result…I brought it home to finish off, and altered the little boxes to my liking. I’ll show you a picture later…

Sunday. Paverpol. I had never heard of it before. It is a kind of PVA (white glue) substance that hardens fabric. You can create all kinds of different things…and they can even be left outside as garden sculptures….Cool!

Anyway. We made a lady… and this is mine…

Hard to see, sorry.

I really enjoyed this class. mainly because I have a new product and new techniques to use on other stuff.

I think this one will probably end up out side in the garden.

and I have an idea for a magnificent dragon.

There were a couple of dragons on display that were lovely.

there is a link here somewhere..

Oh try this and look in the gallery.

There was a class making a wall hanging that looked interesting.

but now I’ve done a class I can see that you could use this a lot in mixed media techniques. A pity it is quite expensive.

Serious Lamb cuteness

2010-07-20T16:10:00.001-07:00

We have a new baby.

She is just one week old. She is wearing a wee possum jacket here because I leant all my felted ones to the lady who gave us this baby. She is an Arapawa Island sheep, and she needs a name.

The sheep industry in NZ goes back a long way. Sheep were left on various islands as a food supply for whalers and shipwrecked sailors, a 100 or more years ago. These sheep went wild, and for a while the department of conservation tried to get rid of them. Then it was realised that these remote flocks contained valuable genetic material, and not only that, but had developed useful traits over the years they had been left to fend for themselves.

They are resistant to parasites, don’t tend to suffer from foot rot or fly strike, don’t need to be docked and don’t tend to get a daggy bum. A lot of them self shear (loose their wool) and they are as tough as old boots. Have few lambing problems, and on top of all that, a fine dense wool from their merino ancestors.

They are mostly black, with some white markings. Have no wool on their legs or face (so they don’t get wool blind) and generally make an easy care flock. (apparently their meat has a fine grain and gamey flavour)

This little girl is one of twins from a very old mother, who had difficulty feeding them both. So now we have her….

She’ll be kept as a pet and eventually have lambs of her own.

I don’t think we need another sheep called lamb-lamb. What should we call her?

Making soap

2010-07-10T15:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I made soap.

I’m feeling very pleased with myself. I’ve made it before, but had lost the recipe. Now days there are so many recipes on the internet, and so many tutorials, there is really no excuse Not to make soap.

Thor likes soap without fragrance. Plain soap. How hard can that be to find right? Well wrong apparently. Most soap at the supermarket pongs.

Anyway, we had a tried and true soap that we would buy, and then obviously the company wasn’t selling enough, so either they stopped making it, or the supermarket stopped buying it. Whatever the reason, we can’t get it, hence the mission to make our own.

and here we are. In total 22 good sized bars of soap made from olive oil, rice bran oil, and coconut oil. Now it needs to cure for six weeks before we use it. It took maybe 1/2 and hour to make, and is so easy that I can see we won’t be going back to the store bought stuff.

SENZ revisited

2010-07-09T01:11:00.001-07:00

Its NZ's largest festival for anyone interested in creating with paper and beyond - that includes Cardmakers, Scrapbookers, Decoupagers, Punchers, Stampers, Jewellery Makers, Journallers, Altered Artists, and more!

I went to the very first SENZ event in Hamilton, a few years ago now. I took a class by D J Petit there, just as the whole altered books movement was taking off. It was lovely…

Shopping…learning…shopping . So many craft shops in one place! bliss. Esp when you have no craft shops near you at all.

Anyway in the interest of promoting the Art retreat next year, I’ll be popping up to SENZ which is being held in Christchurch next week. 16th to the 18th of July. I can go and talk to shop owners and hopefully give them posters to take back to their shops .

I couldn’t resist signing up for the advent calendar class on Saturday though. I’ve been on the look out for something similar for a while. and it has been a while since I’ve been able to look at all the new scrap book papers (yum) so it won’t be all hard work!

fishing

2010-07-03T20:53:00.001-07:00

We school holidays have begun a little early for the boys. They started last Wednesday with another fishing trip to Milford.

The had the usual success with grouper and cod, but the catch of the day had to be this Blue shark that Zak caught. about three meters long. Zak said he was fairly easy to pull in. He sat on the surface for a wee while, then gave a flick, snapped the line and took off.

Such cool animals, the shark. Makes you respect the ocean a bit more.

the weather has been fantastic down here. which means nice sunny days and very cold at night. I’m looking into the possibility of making an ice skating area in Glenorchy. It certainly gets cold enough.

You will have noticed that the Art retreat website now has the price included and that registrations open on the 9th of March.

Glenorchy Art retreat web site goes live

2010-06-13T20:54:00.001-07:00

So I’ve been a busy little bee, and have thrown together a web site to advertise the Nina Bagley art retreat being held in Glenorchy next year.

Here’s the link Glenorchy Art Retreat

Ok so there is still a bit of work to go….quite a bit actually

The main one being the cost. I need to get that into NZ dollars for the ease of all us Kiwi’s but our sister retreat in Perth organised the whole deal to start with…hence the Aussie dollars in the mean time.

As soon as I figure out how to fix a price that doesn’t have, a/ the Tutor and, b/ the organisers out of pocket because of the changing exchange rate, I’ll be able to put the price in NZ dollars as it should be.

There is room too for a few more details, like the various ways to get here…and so on.

but anyway

please let me know what you think…if I’ve missed anything out…if it all makes sense…etc

Oh it is going to be so much fun…

daily art

2010-06-02T15:34:00.001-07:00

he he he

this piece of wood has been sitting around forever. It does kind of look like a face…maybe a troll or a gnome. One day I’ll get out the dremel and sand off the rough edges. The dead dragonfly was found on the window sill. We get a lot of them but I can usually rescue them, and set them free again.

Playing

2010-06-01T18:32:00.001-07:00

the random arrangement of stuff….

Sometimes the fall of shadows are more interesting don’t you think?

I’m very new at this. I can only hope to get better and more original as I go along.

A bit of art again.

2010-05-30T15:23:00.001-07:00

Or maybe I should re- phrase that to read… “Where I clean up my art studio/playroom so I can do some art again”

So far it has taken a whole day just to get to the stage where I can walk across the room and gaze with pleasure onto my huge art table, and the empty space that is urging me to forget the rest of the room and MAKE SOMETHING!

I’ve been totally inspired by THIS LINK Scroll down til you see the “unwritten book” gallery.

Wildgoosechase…uses these little arrangements/collages, as a 10 minute warm up when she first starts her day.

Aren’t they beautiful? So while sorting and tidying my STUFF I decided I could do with a bit of motivation to start my day off too.

Well now of course I don’t want to stop..

I have discovered that 1/it isn’t as easy as it looks.

2/ Composition is like water…and runs away whenever you try to hold on to it…

3/ all my early efforts look mostly like hers

..so I won’t show you what I’ve done yet, but will wait until I can see my own style emerging.

Thank you to those who have expressed an interest in the Nina Bagley art retreat next year. We just need to pin down the date, and get a web site up and running and we can start to take registrations. Spread the word, because we need 10 people wanting to take the class before we can confirm it.

Possibilities

2010-05-15T19:12:00.001-07:00

We’re off to Blenheim tomorrow.

Dad’s 70th Birthday is on Wednesday, so we’re going up for the celebration. We haven’t been up for quite a while so it will be nice to have a break. The girls are going to go to the theatre while we are there. Sian hasn’t been to the theatre before so we are looking forward to that.

I also have some exciting news.

I’ve been keeping quiet about it because we have been working out details.

Next year, we are planning to have our own New Zealand art retreat.

Right here in Glenorchy.

Four wonderful art filled days…

With a tutor, all the way from America.

The lovely Nina Bagley.

Yes truly!

She will be teaching her lovely Gatherings journal – These are the page samples she has sent us -

We are still working out the fine details,

but at this stage we are looking at July 2011 for the retreat.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is real…Nina is such a wonderful generous teacher.

I took two of her classes at the Melbourne retreat (two years ago now!), and loved her easy style of teaching.

She will also be teaching in Perth, so we’ll be able to share the cost of the airfare to get her here.

My head is spinning at all the details We’ve been trying to work out, but it will be fantastic if we can pull this off.

I’ll keep you all posted with the details

Aren’t these pages beautiful? Don’t you want to make a journal like this?

Early May

2010-05-07T13:25:00.001-07:00

Thought you might enjoy these photos

Proof positive that fairies…or at least elves live here.

Judging by the amount of red toadstools, they have been all over town.

Danger over

2010-04-30T21:22:00.001-07:00

At least for this week.

The sun is shining, and the kids are drawn to the flood water like bees to honey….

They aren’t the only ones of course

There are a fair few people out viewing the sights

The kids dug out the kayak to play around in.

We did need a fair bit of duct tape to block up the hole in the bottom.

and the paddle was missing so we had to use the ones from the fun yaks…

I think we’ll be pumping those up tomorrow. It looks like far too much fun out there.

The water is only knee deep most places. but all the kids down there ended up drenched. They fell out of the kayak twice, and those paddles are pretty good to splash each other with too.

Here you can see that the lake did in fact go over the marina edge, by about three inches in the end…It has been over the road here, but mostly because of wave action.

I don’t think the water got into any ones house this time.

Fine weather for the next couple of days and then a southerly change and a bit more rain.

Flood waters rising

2010-04-28T15:53:00.001-07:00

Take a look at this photo

I took this one last winter, with an average to low lake level.

This it what it looks like now, taken from the same spot.

Actually not quite the same spot because there isn’t a wee beach down there any more. It is all under water.

The far end of the wharf is under water, and the water is lapping at the boards along the rest of it.

The lake is over the road here and the picnic area on the foreshore is flooded.

And in the marina, you can see there is only about 2 inches to go before the lake starts going over the road.

It’s still raining.

Heavy rain is forecast from about 6 0 clock tonight to midnight. At this rate Thor will be able to drive his wee boat up the main street by tomorrow…if he can get to it that is. We have tied the kayak to a nearby tree as a precaution.

More photos tomorrow

Glenorchy Walking tour

2010-04-25T21:46:00.001-07:00

This is so funny…I just took a virtual walking tour of Glenorchy.

I clicked on this link and then clicked on the South Island to zoom in. I zoomed in a couple of times until Queenstown showed up on the map. Then I clicked on Queenstown until I could see Glenorchy. Kept clicking on Glenorchy…and low and behold Glenorchy Fur products showed, so I clicked on that to get closer, one last click and the map disappeared and a photo of the actual fur shop appeared!. I could turn 360 degrees by using the little whatsit on the upper left corner (and look up and down as well)

and by double clicking on various parts of the image I could move around as well, as if I was right there on the street in GY taking a look around.

I even went down to the boat marina and saw they were still building Thor’s boat ..1/2 the town was in summer and 1/2 in Winter which was amusing. The images all seem to be about three years or so old.

Then I went and zoomed in on Mum’s place up in Blenheim. It is still being built on Goole maps, but I could find exactly how to get there when we go up later next month.

Give it a try! I bet you can find your house too.

Quilting progress

2010-04-21T13:57:00.001-07:00

Got a few panels done now, and I can start to play with the patterns

I have another 8 panels to make.

Trying to quilt

2010-04-09T20:43:00.001-07:00

so the Easter holidays are upon us…normally this is a blur of days with the occasional trip to the cinema, or off camping or fishing.

So far these holidays though, the kids have been taken by the “earning money” bug.

Zak is learning how to clean motel units, Max is learning how to take skins on and off boards at the possum shop, and Sian? well she has been washing windows while trying to avoid cleaning her room which is what I actually want her to do.

All of them have been going to help gather fire wood in the afternoon.

and while that has been happening I’ve decided I’m going to try and make a quilt. There is a tutorial on the “down to earth” forum that sounds like I could manage. This is what I’ve got done so far…seven panels of greens and cream colours in strips

It’s a lot of fun, but I need much more material. I had a quick search on Trade me that had me gasping at the variety available, and a look in the fabric shop was nearly overwhelming (thank goodness for the remnants bin) I’ve broken the rules already by not just using 100% cotton (a bit of silk slipped in there) but I’d rather use what I have than spend a fortune on what I like ha ha.

Stewart Island

2010-03-19T22:30:00.001-07:00

Well we’re back from a lovely camp at Stewart Island. I have to say that even though the weather didn’t co-operate, we had a great time.

Stewart Island has wonderful beaches, fantastic forest, terrific wildlife, and …fishing. What more could you want?

The first day we nearly didn’t get there because of gale force warnings in Foveaux Straight. The ferry had already been cancelled the day before so it was full of people who had been waiting to get across. We endured a very rough crossing. 1/2 the class went green and vomited their way through the hour long journey.

but anyway…we got there…found our lodging at the backpackers and after settling in, the kids set off to do a spot of fishing at the wharf. We mostly caught Spotties or baby blue cod – which we put back.

Then we trotted around the corner to visit the Department of Conservation, where we were given a slide show on the history of the Island, and also touched on the National park, and all the wildlife in and around it.

We were supposed to go fishing the next day, but alas it was both raining and windy, so in the morning we went back to the department of conservation where the kids watched some videos then we went off to the museum.

by the afternoon it had stopped raining enough to go for a short walk to find somewhere else to go fishing. Here is the view from observation rock.

and some of the lush rainforest – these are tree ferns that grow everywhere on the Island.

We found a cute little wharf to fish off. We caught mostly Spotties again, but saw a jelly fish, and a carpet shark.

The next day although overcast, was fine for our planned walk from Lee Bay to Port William. Lee bay marks the entrance to Rakiura National park.

The kids are on a sculpture of a chain, the other end is by lands end at Bluff. It is to symbolise that Stewart Island in Maori myth is the anchor stone of Maui’s Waka (canoe /South Island) the North Island being the fish that Maui caught.

The track around to Maori beach is very pretty

There are lots of fantastic views up and down the coast.

We got as far as Maori beach and stopped for lunch

and a spot of swimming (It was freezing)

hunting for crabs in the rock pools

and then some sand sculpture. and generally had a great time.

We even saw some dolphins out in the bay.

These are Oyster Catchers – in the black phase.

We walked to the end of the beach and then went back again.

Very tired kidlets that night, but not too tired to go down to the wharf for another spot of fishing. Their teacher caught a very nice sized blue cod.

The next day we all went fishing.

Once again we were followed by the local albatross.

These ones are the same as we see in Milford and are more properly known Mollymawks…the smaller birds of the albatross family (being merely very big instead of huge) The seagulls look tiny next to them, but apparently royal albatross, and wandering albatross are half as big again.

We also saw terns, a little blue penguin, Sooty shearwater (mutton birds) and seagulls.

After catching enough fish for tea that night we went to visit the bird sanctuary on Ulva Island.

More lovely beaches…and lots of Weka.

The island is predator free, so a lot of rare birds have been realised here.

Weka are so friendly they would come right up to you…looking for food I guess, but we aren’t allowed to fed them otherwise they would starve over winter when there are few visitors.

We also saw Kaka, fantail, tomtits, Stewart Island robin, The day before some visitors saw a kiwi, but we had no such luck.

Fish and chips for tea that night, and an early start the next day to catch the ferry back to Bluff, and home to Glenorchy.

Bat hunting

2010-03-09T22:00:00.001-08:00

Wow, time is zooming past at a rate of knots and I’m hardly keeping up. No time for Art right now, although I’m inspired to create an albatross piece (lots of ideas and nothing on paper yet)

Meanwhile the second Department of Conservation Bat survey trip happened last week. The kids and I went up to the start of the Routeburn for the survey this time. We didn’t hear so many on the Bat detectors, but we could see a lot, esp at the beginning of the survey, while it was still dusk.

Then a local man had told the department of conservation, that he thought he could see bats around the street lights in town. So after the survey lines were finished, we went down to see if we could find any in Glenorchy itself.

YES we did. YES there are.

The Native long tailed bat eats moths and other insects and has discovered that there is a plentiful supply around street lights. In a short search around the streets we found the bat population around Glenorchy seems to be thriving. We have some right outside our house…

Did I mention they are on the endangered list?

Anyway. Next week the senior class of the school (Including Zak and Max) are going to Stewart Island. I’m tagging along as camp Mother. I haven’t been down there before so I’m looking forward to it.

I’m an albatross

2010-01-31T17:03:00.001-08:00

This one we think might be a white capped albatross

We also saw the ones with a yellow stripe on their…beak? bill? They are the Bullers albatross. I tried to get a photo of one flying but they didn’t really come close enough.

And did I mention the seal that was floating on the open sea with one flipper up in the air?

As we got closer I was really worried that he might be dead, and then it poked its head up and glared at us for disturbing its lovely rest.

A family holiday

2010-01-28T22:58:00.001-08:00

Whenever you get a chance to get away as a family should should grab it with both hands. Our chance came last Monday. Thor had intended to go to Milford fishing with the boys, and maybe take a friend as well. However everyone is very busy around here at this time of year. Summer is our time to make money, and no one could spare the time away. At the last minute however we found someone to look after the Motels so we decided to have a rare family holiday.

Since the weather forecast was looking so good, we decided to go down to George sound. None of us had been there before.

Our boat is at Milford so we had to get away very early, and steam down. We arrived at the Sound entrance about mid day just as the wind started to get up. George sound is quite big. It has three good anchoring spots, so after a spot of fishing (we caught enough for our tea) we chose a spot at Alice falls right at the end of the Sound.

Such a beautiful spot. We soon met up with the real inhabitants of this place. Sandflies. Lots of them. These are the Alice falls..more like a huge water slide. Very cool.

During the night, Thor was woken up by lots of splashing, and the next morning we saw a seal on the rocks….and further along we saw some more

The Crayfish pots didn’t yield anything, and as it was still quite windy we decided to head back to Milford. On the way we put out the fishing rods, and to our surprise we caught some Tuna.

We stopped for a bit of fishing closer to Milford as the wind had eased off and the sea was quite calm. We caught a shark on the dropper rig…Sian was very happy about that since she was longing to see a shark.

Although it was well tangled we managed to unwrap it and let it go again, without losing any of the line or hooks. It swam off very quickly…pleased to get away, I’m sure.

And after a very pleasant day we headed for the birth at Milford. We stopped to get a close up look at Stirling Falls

and then just as we were getting close to the harbour we had some dolphins come in and ride the boats bow wave

We went back out to do a bit more fishing the next morning. The sea was very calm. and the fishing was so fast..Thor didn’t have a chance to put a rod down himself because he was always running from rod to rod, getting fish off, putting more bait on..helping whoever needed it, Like Max who caught a good sized Grouper on his rod…and needed Thor’s help to get it off the bottom. (see how calm the ocean was?) Zak caught lots of different things…barracuda…cod….sharks (spotted dog fish, and grey boy)

Sian caught lots of terrikihi and enjoyed taking photos of this bird who liked to swim up close in case we dropped something overboard. It’s a lot bigger than a seagull But I don’t know what it is called.

So all in all it was a very nice trip away.

It has been very hot in Glenorchy, Summer has finally arrived with a vengeance.

Summer at last

2010-01-23T02:25:00.001-08:00

SO Christmas and New Year have gone by in a rush, Then my parents and niece came down for a visit, which was lovely although the weather was about as bad as I’ve ever known it in summer. We even got some snow on the hills.

During all the bad weather, I managed to get a lovely lot of sewing done…Some quilted tote bags…

made from this tutorial here. The bag in the tutorial is very small, so I made the first bag bigger by 1/2, and this was a nice size, but not really big enough to be useful, so I doubled the measurements and now have a very cool bag to take shopping..to the pool etc. I immediately had to make one for my daughter and then my niece.

On a roll with this sewing thing, I had some time alone while the family went to Milford during the only fine weather we had had in about a month. I found and made a Hobo lunch bag…

The instructions can be found at this web site.

It makes a super cute wee bag to carry lunches in…Not sure when I’ll use it. But if I do need one then I’ll be prepared won’t I?

Then I needed to make some sandwich wrappers, to go in the bag. Here is the design I used. I had to make some in Camouflage material for the boys to use.

I’ve also made some bread bags for the bread, (made in the bread maker that Mum gave me since she no longer uses it.) Next on the list are some netting bags to go with the fabric grocery bags.

After that I may have to branch out and try some tops and pants for the kids.

Meanwhile the weather has improved with the temperature reflecting that it is actually summer. The kids have been swimming off the wharf most days, the garden is starting to make up for lost time, and we may all get to take a short holiday to George Sound next week.

The launch of the Sea Harvester

2009-12-10T12:14:00.001-08:00

This is what my husband has been quietly stressing over for the last couple of weeks. His beloved boat has been in the final stages of getting transported over a rather tricky route to Doubtful Sound.

You’ll be pleased to know that all went well, the boat was loaded onto the truck, transported to Manapouri, went over the Lake on the Barge, and over a steep and narrow gravel road to Doubtful. It also unloaded just fine and there was even enough of a weather window to steam from Doubtful back up to Milford. Thor tells me they caught enough fish for a meal that night and also enough Crayfish for lunch the next day. They’ll now spend a couple of days fishing and come home with plenty of fish for all of us.

Sian plays with the Symphony Orchestra…

2009-11-10T23:42:00.001-08:00

Sian has been playing her Violin for two years now.

Tonight she was the staring act playing her violin with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra

Age 8

Playing.. Twinkle twinkle little star….

Her parents are so proud

Of course she brought the house down

The native long tailed bat

2009-11-09T14:14:00.001-08:00

We’re feeling a bit tired today. Last night we joined in with a Department of Conservation survey of long tailed bats in this area. The bat…both long and short tailed, are New Zealands only native mammal and are considered endangered, so it was fun to go out and discover how many are in this area.

Here he is. They are very small, and are easier to hear rather than see. To help us we had what are called bat boxes which is a kind of radio that picks us the bat’s um…sonar? anyway we can here a clicking sound on the radio thingy when the bats go past. We counted 6 in the area we surveyed.

Other groups were lucky enough to actually see some, just on dusk flying around the tree tops at the very start of their survey. We’ll join in with the next survey in Feb. It was a really nice night out.

officially summer

2009-11-07T18:37:00.001-08:00

Well officially summer today in this neck of the woods…may not be tomorrow so I’m ignoring all the work I should be doing and have headed out to the garden where the weeds know it is summer and have done for a while.

Merry the duck is growing…fast …and getting feathers, and now lives outside the house even at night (phew) but the kids still delight in bring him in to play with

I took him up to the garden today and taught him to eat slugs (yum) he also likes worms (not so good) and lettuce (darn)

A week ago, our poor cat was nearly put down.

Before school, Sian came upstairs to say that Pionjar wasn’t right. On investigation she seemed to have gone blind overnight.

I was busy that day, but rang the vet to tell her things weren’t so good with the cat. (She is 18 years old after all) we arranged a time for the next day.

The next day she looked a bit better and was coping with her blindness, so we decided to see how she went for a while. Since then she has steadily improved and even gained back some sight.

She is being very pampered of course, all the kids leap up to open the door for her. Special food from the supermarket and so on. but I don’t know if she’ll be with us much longer.

Happy Halloween

2009-11-02T17:44:00.001-08:00

It is a bit late but happy Halloween anyway

Merry the duck

2009-10-16T14:42:00.001-07:00

Living in this area….means that every so often, there are lost ducklings or canada geese babies that need to be taken care of.

This year we have a Paradise duckling chick.

He’ll grow up to look like this..

The one with the black head is the male…white head female.

We don’t know what Merry the duck will turn out to be, but he is very cute.

Glenorchy Flower show

2009-10-11T22:02:00.001-07:00

The weekend after the Fishing competition is the Glenorchy Flower show. Also a fun weekend, I really enjoy it because by this time of year I’ve adjusted to daylight saving and it is getting obvious that Spring is well and truly here, and Summer is fast approaching. The Flower show is a lovely day. There are cut flowers of course, and daffodils, and flower arrangements, and there is also a crafts section, a photography section, a children’s section, and this year for the first time a cooking section.

It doesn’t take long to work out how you should exhibit your precious blooms, and everyone is there to help. You can enter the night before, or in a frantic rush on the Saturday morning…

I admire the people who are able to arrange flowers (seemingly without effort) I just can’t. So I’ve never won a prize for a flower arrangement (sigh) something I shall aspire to in the future.

This is my daughter’s sand saucer It won first prize. She also got a prize for her arrangement with a favourite toy…her necklace, and her lego model, as well as a few daffodils that she

entered herself

and She won a cup for most points in the junior section (her first cup, she is very proud)

So then we went and had a look at the local art…This is Amanda’s work, all embroidered with silk and so rich to look at, Lovely stuff.

Zak was pleased to win something in the kids art section,

We also looking forward to buying the homemade sweets and other produce that helps to raise funds for the community.

Snow again

2009-10-03T01:53:00.001-07:00

Actually the first snow that stayed on the ground all winter…

Today is the day of the Glenorchy Fishing contest. This means getting up at 5 o clock, in the dark, and getting out on the edge of the lake by 6 o clock. There are a lot of fish to catch and cool prizes to be won.

By 7 am the sky opened and out poured the snow. Right about the time Max caught our first and only fish. By 7:30 we were back home and Sian took this photo of the deck.

by 11am the snow had stopped and the rain started and mid afternoon the snow had all gone again. Max won a prize for his fish so he was happy.

I have an art class in Queenstown to go to next week, so I decided in a moment of madness that I probably needed an apron so I didn’t ruin my clothes. I found a cool pattern on the web that adapted old jeans into an apron, so I took that idea and blended it with another one and here is what it looks like so far. It isn’t very big, so it may have to be Sian’s while I make myself another one. There are four pockets so far… the two at the front, one behind the waist band, and another big pocket behind the yolk bit.

The top part of the apron is made from unpicking the leg of the jeans, so the seam doesn’t quite go down the middle. It also had a hole/worn bit on the knee, so I’ve had to double the material for this part.

I’ll have a go at sewing it together tonight since I have a big day cleaning the motels tomorrow.

Routeburn track

2009-10-02T02:58:00.001-07:00

School holidays and it pays to keep busy…

So off we went to walk the Routeburn track.

Actually at this time of the year the pass is still usually shut with snow..and avalanche danger, so we walked in to the first hut. Stayed the night and walked a bit further in the next day and then back out again.

Unlike the track going up Mt Alfred, this one is wide and well maintained, and easy to see. It goes through some beautiful bush lower down, crosses over a few side creeks, and some spectacular gorges

The kids found a few caves to crawl into

and every hollow tree had to be investigated but we eventually made it to the hut and a welcome cup of milo.

Routeburn flats hut has the river running past right next to it, and of course the kids can’t help themselves…they have to play in it…

First one, then the other comes back to the hut dripping wet from having fallen in the river.

The sunset was beautiful

The kids played spotlight with another kid also staying in the hut, and the next morning we left our heavy packs behind and set of up the track a bit further to see Routeburn falls hut and into the Harris basin.

By the time we got to the next hut, the cloud was starting to come in and the weather was getting cold. We couldn’t see too much with all the clag around, so we headed back to the hut for an early lunch This hut is a bigger one, and has a stunning view…when you can see it..

Of course the moment we headed down the cloud started to lift, and the valley opened up in front of us. By the time we were half way down we started to get some sun and it ended up being a nice day.

A quick snack back at the hut and a tidy up before pulling on the packs to head home again

A quick stop at forge flat to skim stones, and Sian found an arrow rock

which she was very proud of…here it is. It really is part of the rock.

She tried to wash it off in water, just in case someone had tried to draw it on.

Now we have to plan which hut on which track we should visit next

Climbing Mt Alfred

2009-09-27T14:28:00.001-07:00

School holidays are upon us yet again, and we have had a busy few weeks.

First up a new baby lamb for spotty sheep. He took a while to find out where the food came from so she was in the yards for a while.

The twin lambs born mid winter are doing well and now look like this

It helps that the grass is growing and the new mums can get a decent fed for themselves

although they don’t complain about sheep nuts.

Then Thor’s brother and nephew arrived from Ozzie for a ten day visit, along with Thor’s Mum and another nephew from Auckland for five days or so. The kids missed a bit of school for a while there as they all went fishing first thing in the morning.

We took them all skiing as well while the snow is still lasting

The boy’s tried snowboarding for the first time and loved it, by the end of the day they were off the learner slopes an on the chair lifts.

They also stayed in Pigeon Island overnight..the boys that is (I had to promise Sian a girls night out on the Island later as she wasn’t too happy at missing out.)

The boys took Mathew along to school a couple of times to play soccer with them all. He kept them entertained all lunch time. It’s wonderful to have an older cousin.

Now they have gone back home, and the holidays are upon us.

so Yesterday we went for a walk up Mt Alfred… I hadn’t actually been up here before…well not using the proper track that is, I’ve been to the top before by going through the farm land on the other side. It is actually a lot easier as it turned out, but anyway.

There was lots of lovely bush to explore. Streams and waterfalls, moss and lichen, hollow logs and trees. In this old forest “Tree Beard” could be any of these trees

The little track was quite steep in places and it took quite a while…most of the day in fact

Above the tree line the country got very steep and rocky and there was still quite a bit of snow lying around. We climbed a bit higher

and got a great view of the lake and the Dart river, and then turned around and came back again before the rain started to arrive.

On the way up the kids found clay. Lots of clay. It seems like the whole mountain is made of clay, so a small amount was brought back home. That should keep them occupied for an hour or two. maybe..

Qualmark

2009-09-07T18:04:00.001-07:00

I’ve been trying to get my head around applying for a qualmark standard for our motels. (that’s what gives you a star rating) We haven’t really bothered before since we are the only motel here, and it costs quite a bit of money every year to have a qualmark rating.

However, another accommodation place has gone and got the rating and qualmark have also brought out a new enviro standard which I think would be of benefit to the motels.

but boy…the list of things the qualmark people want you to get/have is quite daunting. The enviro standard is easy, we already do very well at that as we built the motels ourselves, and we built them to be efficient…not for environmental reasons but for economic reasons.

Some of the standards contradict each other…for instance, qualmark expect all units to have lined rubbish bins…Just this year however we have stopped lining our rubbish bins as we are trying to limit our use of plastic rubbish bags, which often only have a tea bag and some plastic wrapping in them, surely a plus for the enviro standard? so I can see I’m going to have a very interesting conversation with the inspector when he comes round to give us our rating.

We are also expected to be monitoring aspects with evidence of improving efficiencies….in waste, gas, electricity, or carbon emissions….this is a bit tricky since we have no way of monitoring how much water is used…and in everything else we are already pretty good. So I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that.

At the moment the biggest waste coming out of the motels is soap.

We provide individual bars of soap for our guests. Often they get unwrapped, and used once or twice and that’s it. We then have to through the rest away. I don’t know how to get around this. Does anyone have any ideas?

Each unit should also have some art work on the walls…particularly plain walls….up til now we haven’t worried about it as it is hard to compete with the view out the window, and no art on the walls give the rooms a large, open, uncluttered and clean feel. However, if art on the wall makes a difference to the rating we get, then art there shall be…

Film Crew

2009-09-03T15:59:00.001-07:00

When Thor arrived at the water front today, to carry on working on his boat, the whole place as a hive of activity. Cars, vans, trucks and people every where. Another film crew is in town.

Hardly surprising since after over a week of crap weather, we have returned to clear sunny skies, and it is a magic day.

We know a lot of the film crews these days as they are a frequent occurrence around here, and we’ll often get them staying in the motel and sure enough one of the people wandered over to Thor’s boat so we could ask him what was going on.

It is an Indian company, doing an advert for a washing machine. Nothing too exciting

They've taken up position on the end of the wharf to catch reflections apparently.

Film crews make me laugh. It is no wonder it is so expensive to advertise on TV. I lost count of the people involved in this one. Well over 50 I’d say, all standing or sitting and scratching their heads waiting for something to happen

Belonging to a film crew is all about “hurry up and wait”

Good money for frequent standing around and interspersed with periods of intense activity.

You can’t really complain when you have a day like today to stand around in though can you?

and back to winter…sort of

2009-08-29T21:02:00.001-07:00

I guess I should learn to keep quiet about the weather, because since the last post the weather has turned to custard..

Rain…

and more rain…

and a bit of wind

more rain

and now some thunder

We did see some sun yesterday, and at least the temps haven’t been too bad, but that means that the snow is also melting and the skiing isn’t so great.

Still the garden is growing, just enough to make me want to dig in it…and sow the lettuce that I have growing on the window sill

I do have to be a bit careful though because I think I have a possum who has adopted the garden as his own special supermarket. Grrrrrrrr

Ahhhh Spring

2009-08-23T16:16:00.001-07:00

Today is one of those day’s that makes me remember why I enjoy living in this part of the world.

The sky is blue, the slight frost didn’t last long, the bell birds are singing and it is going to be a beautiful day.

I have gst to do, but first I went for a quick walk with the camera. It is easy to take for granted the beauty of the area we live in, and forget to look out the window, and enjoy what is here.

The first flowers are out and even the odd daffodil has appeared, no mater how much I tell them the flower show isn’t for another month…

It is hard to stay inside on a day like today

Getting back into art

2009-08-15T16:47:00.001-07:00

Here is how my disintegration collage has evolved so far

closer view

and the other side

Hmmm I haven’t stuck the images down yet. I think they’ll change again.

I few years ago I belonged to various yahoo artist groups. I was involved in quite a few swaps which I loved even though it was expensive for me to swap with ladies mostly based in America.

In one swap a group of nine of us were making 3x3 panels for a wall hanging. We each chose a colour, and then we made nine panels using each different colour. The theme was flowers.

Here are some of my panels I sent away for the swap.

My colour was green and the idea was that the hostess would put all the green panels from the swap together, mount them and send them back to me. Every would get their own chosen colour back .

They could be 3D but not bigger than 1 inch high since they were supposed to hang on the wall, and needed to be posted.

Everyone posted photo’s of their finished panels on the yahoo group web site, and it was looking like the greatest swap ever….except the hostess never returned the panels…

She was very apologetic…she had a very ill daughter who was also suicidal and very hard work…she would get around to it very soon….and then nothing. And no one lived close enough to go get all the panels and post them away for her.

I often think of that swap.

I was so looking forward to getting the end result back again as it would have been the first piece of group art I could hang on the wall, all previous swaps had been of altered books, and ATC’s which are lovely but hard to show off. That swap also became the turning point for how many swaps I was joining in with.

but since then I haven’t been doing so much art….I find I work best with deadlines. I think I’d like to recreate that nine panel wall hanging for myself…and I think the deadline will have to be the Glenorchy Flower show in early October.

Home made hand cream

2009-08-13T19:23:00.001-07:00

While going off on a blog surf the other day I came across a blog with a recipe for hand cream.

Having the ingredients on hand, in no time at all I had made two gorgeous pots of lovely hand cream that smells divine and I know exactly what went into it. Of course now I can’t find my way back to the blog with the recipe, which is a bummer since I’m sure I saw a link for deodorant as well.

I’ve made cold cream before, and I adore it, as it really suits my dry skin, but it is quite waxy and hard to work in to your skin…really good for cracked heels and chapped elbows and hard working gardeners or artists hands tho…

This is the recipe I use for cold cream…

4 tablespoons of almond oil (or olive oil) 1 table spoon of beeswax, and rose water (you can get it from the chemist) about 2 tablespoons, maybe more, maybe less…you might also want some essential oils for fragrance – this makes about 1/2 a cup altogether.

Melt the oil and wax together. Let it cool a little and then add essential oil if you like, then add the rose water bit by bit mixing well. A stick blender speeds up the process. You may find that some of the rose water won’t blend in, and that’s fine, tip it into a jar and use it in your next bath. Put the cream into a wide mouth jar and use when you need a heavy duty hand treatment. Just before bed is good, or after a nice hot bath etc

I haven’t needed to keep it in the fridge and the bit I have left is about five months old now with no sign of deterioration.

The recipe for hand cream I found is very similar except instead of the bees wax the recipe called for emulsified wax. I’ve tried to find this before. The chemist gave me a blank look when I asked then suggested emulsifying ointment, which has the wax in it as well as some liquid paraffin, (which I’m not so thrilled about, )however the recipe went like this

1/4 cup of emulsified wax

1/4 cup of oil

1 and 1/4 cup hot water

essential oils

again, melt the wax and oil together, add essential oils, add the hot water stir the cloudy mix well and pour into jars (how easy is that?) I found I needed to keep mixing until the potion cooled down a little other wise the oil tended to float to the top, and I should have used the stick blender as the cream could be a bit smoother..it is a tiny bit lumpy but I’m sure the blender would cure that.

This makes a very soft cream that is easier to rub in, doesn't cost too much, and makes heaps. Probably a fantastic fundraising item at the next market day.

It’s only August

2009-08-11T16:48:00.001-07:00

but the weather doesn’t think so.

The last week or so has been very mild, and has made me start to dig the garden and order new seeds and even plant seeds to grow on the window sill.

I found this in the garden

there are four more still growing. It’s a broccoflower…yum. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t plant more…I didn’t know that broccoli would keep growing over winter. even in –6 frosts when all the leaves flopped down and I thought the whole thing was a waste of space.

The silver beet is starting to grow again, so is the celery.

Henry (who has a big tunnel house) told Thor he had already started growing potatoes this time last year. So I have a space ready to poke a couple of spuds into the ground in the greenhouse to see what happens. This morning we woke up to very heavy rain. The lake is rising so Thor is rubbing his hands in glee that at last he’ll be able to get the boat out of the marina and go for a ride.

Then the rain started to get thick and white. Then thicker and whiter and now it is coming down mostly as snow. Nothing is sticking yet as the ground is too sodden but if this keeps up I can see that we may have the school closing very soon, as the teachers try to get home before the road gets too dangerous. and to think that only yesterday the first brave crocus poked out it’s head and dared to think that August might be spring.

Disintegration project reveal part 2

2009-07-31T23:16:00.001-07:00

I always enjoy taking a peak over at the Altered Page, to see what Seth is up to. A while back I joined in with the disintegration project. Today the 1st of August is the day to reveal what we have been doing with the bundles we left out in the weather way back in February.

I decided a collage using some of the pages that I left to the various elements would be a good start. I made several bundles and left each to weather in different elements…air was hung in a tree, fire put in the fire pit (and a fire burnt on top of it) water was put in the lake, and earth was buried in the garden, apart from the water bundle which was swallowed up by the giant of the lake, I was left with papers from all the elements in varying states of decay.

I also did another bundle called spirit, which had a bit of all the elements in it, as well as a seed. I was hoping the seed would germinate so I could represent that all elements together =life.

The seed did germinate, but didn’t grow much at all, so I have tried instead to express this idea in a collage. I don’t think it is finished yet.

either that or I may start another one as I just let this one develop and I think I need to adjust the composition.

Great fun though…this may turn into a whole series.

Cooking for boys

2009-07-29T23:14:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we had another afternoon of technology at school. My group joined their book covers together with fabric and settled in to make pockets and envelopes, and then do some stamping on their pages.

Behind me the cooking group (including my son) were making Smoked mashed potatoes, Creamy bacon and leek, and Ratatouille. It smelt divine…and was also quite clever. The first group of three for cooking are all boys. These dishes involved lighting fires, creating smoke, and using vegetables they normally wouldn’t touch. .. come to think of it, I’m not sure if Zak has ever tried eggplant. They loved it!

So guess what we had for tea last night…yes that’s right. Smoked mashed potatoes, creamy leek and bacon ratatouille stuff, along with beef kebabs. Quite fancy really.

The boys were shown how to make special little parcels with the potato, and to think about presentation. It is all very funny, but the time is getting closer when I can give each child one night a week where they do all the cooking and not me. Mind you I think I’ll be trying to grow eggplant this year as well as zucchini and tomato.

The big reveal is just days away now so I’ll save the progress photos until the 1st of August. I’m starting to feel pleased with how it is all looking.

Here comes the swine flu

2009-07-28T21:28:00.001-07:00

The news came to us on Monday. Four kids who go to Glenorchy school have been struck down with the Swine flu…and then the phone rang, one of those kids is the brother of the wee girl my daughter was playing with this weekend. There is a 10 day incubation period. That means about Wednesday next week we should know if anyone else around here is going to get it.

It also gives me a 10 day window to stuff the kids with every immune boosting vitamin I can think of…and a few other things besides.

So the budget went out the window this week as I stocked up on Oranges, and kiwifruit, and bananas, and even frozen berries for smoothies. I even got some tonic called “Viralex liquid for winter wellness”…oh my goodness it is disgusting! Really really bad! so I put a teaspoon into the smoothies this morning, the kids all commented on the taste. “It isn’t supposed to taste nice” I said, "It is supposed to be good for you!” They did drink it but no one came back for more. Maltexo is easier to get them to swallow. I decided against cod liver oil…I might get done for child abuse if I made them drink that.

ART

2009-07-22T21:41:00.001-07:00

The big reveal is getting closer,

My collage is starting to gain a bit of momentum now, although I haven’t yet found the perfect twiggy bit for my tree.

I’ll probably paint over some of the papers, but I just thought I’d show you a bit of progress anyway.

Closer view

I haven’t stuck the hand down yet, and I feel like I need a few more bones too.

I also went to school yesterday to give the first journal lesson.

It takes so much time to prepare pages! How ever the group I have were very enthusiastic about slapping paint around and not having to exactly measure the pages etc

They were allowed to carry on painting the pages during lunch time today The floor is covered with pages as well. Next lesson will be to join the spine to the covers and prepare the pages…I’m hoping we’ll get time to stitch them altogether as well, but it does take time to decide important things like what colour should go where, and for boring stuff like glue to dry. The last lesson will be to collage and stamp in the pages.

The lambs are doing fine. It is time to take their jackets off, but we have been having thunder storms and snow to low levels again, so I’ve left them on in the meantime.

It starts to get tricky to catch them now though.

Our hens are laying again! 8 eggs a day at the moment, so I have lots of eggs to cook with. This time of year is the only time we get an abundance of eggs, the rest of the year they are too busy sitting..or hiding eggs so I can’t find them, or looking after chicks, or moulting.

I’ve been able to plant my garlic at last, and a few daffodil bulbs that never got in the ground in autumn, and I transplanted some white raspberries. These raspberries are heritage ones that were brought here by the gold miners..I have gooseberries that got here the same way, although the birds usually get the gooseberries, they ignore the raspberries. Maybe it’s because they think they aren’t ripe.

We’ve got lambs

2009-07-17T14:46:00.001-07:00

Look what I found in the paddock the other day

Twin lambs!

Poor wee things. I’ve put a couple of jackets on them since the weather has been so cold, but actually the last couple of nights were quite mild…not quite freezing.

All the same it is a long way till spring and these guys have a long way to go before I can feel that they might actually survive.

I’ve got some sheep nuts as well as hay for our little flock as unfortunately if one is pregnant then chances are the other three girls are too.

so cute tho’

Those black legs in the background are the cows we got a couple of months ago Very fascinated with the babies and quite keen on the sheep nuts as well.

The Glenorchy ball was a great success It was very funny because even though I wore the same dress that I’ve worn for the last three or four balls, and the same possum fur cape that I always wear, No one recognised us! So hard to believe that a half mask is so effective a disguise, but it was…until we spoke, that is.

There were some fantastic masks. Some used make-up, or should I say face paint to paint on a mask. A good idea too because although I loved wearing my mask it was very heavy and I only wanted to wear it for short bursts at a time. A pity because I found some fantastic false eye lashes that looked great under a mask but not so great without it…I stuck them to the mask in the end, which I should have done in the first place.

Update. The lambs are now three days old and look fine.

Earthquake

2009-07-15T16:41:00.001-07:00

We get quite a few Earthquakes down here…We live near a fault line after all.

Last night we had a big one.

The kids had just gone to bed. Both Max and Sian aren’t too well, so I had sorted out glasses of water, and various inhalers and vaporisers etc and had just sat down again when it started.

Normally I can hear earthquakes coming. Like a truck coming closer, but there was no warning this time, just a gentle rocking.

“Earthquake” we said to each other and waited for it to stop…it didn’t.

Our house is a bit upside down. It is two storied, but all the living area is at the top, and the bedrooms downstairs.

So we stood up and went downstairs to check on the kids. “Hop in the doorway kids” I said and the boys were already there, Max flushed with fever, both wide eyed. I went around to Sian’s room and got her into the doorway too. “It will stop soon” we said. It kept going…by this time the house was swaying around like a boat. Still gentle though.

“I’m getting dizzy”

“It’s going a long time, isn’t it?”

“Is it stopping yet?”

and as quietly as it started it began to stop.

Normally earthquakes are quick and sharp. By the time you stand up and say “Earthquake” it is all over. According to the newspaper this morning it was centred in Dusky Sound, a magnitude of 7.8 and a depth of 12km. That is pretty big, but as I said a slow rolling quake that didn’t even knock anything off the shelves in the pantry where we are.

We got a smaller aftershock at about 2.00 this morning, again a gentle rocking that didn’t wake the kids.

We haven’t had an earthquake for a while so I’ve been expecting one.

Masquerade

2009-07-10T21:44:00.001-07:00

It turns out I should have started on a mask for the Glenorchy Ball, a couple of weeks ago. I had a quick Google for some inspiration and immediately realised I needed more time…

I could have made something like this !

The following images are from the site www.masqueradevenetianmasks.

Pretty cool huh?

Or how about this?

Oh yes…I want one like this!

Made of paper it said, including music manuscripts ooooh yummy.

Sadly I only had time to zip up something more like this.

I’m not so sure about the sticks though, I’ d rather not have to hold anything except a wine glass

I found this mask in a local shop here in Glenorchy. A few of these had already been sold for the ball though, and we don’t want to look like everyone else do we? so working on the more is more theory, it now looks like this..

I don’t think I’ve finished yet, but it is a good start.

something more for the eyes and a few more feathers and beads and we’ll be good

Now for the other half. Sometimes it is useful having a possum fur shop…lots of fur to play with in times like these. So a mask shape out of possum fur, I had to outline the eyes with sequins so the fur didn’t cover the eye holes. A few feathers sewn on top and we’re good to go. I tried to talk him into beads across the bottom, but NO!

I can count myself lucky he’s wearing a mask at all…and it will take just one person to say he looks like Treebeard and off it will come .

Now then, back to the bead stash..

Ice Skating

2009-07-09T00:53:00.001-07:00

We’re so lucky here.

We have access to a huge pond that turns to ice in Winter (It’s more like a bit of flooded paddock actually.)

There is really ice under all that snow.

What we need now is a bit of rain to melt the snow and level out the ice again. The kids love it anyway, as it is a great area to explore.

It is right under a cliff , (called Lovers leap,) so the area gets about an hour of sun in mid winter.

It is about four inches of solid ice, so there are only a couple of places where there are some holes that it is possible to fall into.

These holes are quite obvious and usually break so you can see where they are.

Here are the kids skating in one of the holes, that has fallen in, filled with water and frozen again.

There are tussocks poking out of the ice to keep things interesting

and it’s a beautiful place to hang out for a couple of hours.

We had hoped the ice would be in good condition for some moon light skating…you know, full moon, bon fire, mulled wine, and a game of ice hockey played with either a pine cone or cow pat as the puck. but no…Glenorchy got a bit of rain, Paradise got snow, and where it landed on the ice it stayed there. DARN.

This weekend is the Glenorchy Mid Winter Ball

It is a masquerade ball. That means I need a mask…like NOW

Time to hit the art supplies

Corrine’s magic cough mixture

2009-07-06T20:27:00.001-07:00

Two syrups which I usually make each year (but forgot to this year) are Elderberry syrup and Blackberry vinegar. Both recipes are from A Modern Herbal by Mrs M Grieves and both are very good for a feverish cold. I have the book at home and it makes great reading, but you can also find it online at the above link.

Some time ago (while I was still working as a bar maid actually,) and fighting off a cold and sore throat, a friend of ours made me a drink which involved crushed garlic, honey, lemon juice and rather a lot of Stones Green Ginger wine.

Since then …and with a bit more knowledge, I’ve come up with a cold and flu mixture that, (as long as you have the above syrups handy) You can make a fairly effective cold remedy. With swine flu looming closer all the time, I thought I’d share the recipe.

In a saucepan, put in a merry mix of the following:-

equal amounts of elderberry syrup, blackberry vinegar, and Stones Green Ginger wine.

add three or four cloves of crushed garlic

the juice of one lemon (just because lemons have always been used for colds…but I’m sure there is probably enough vitamin C in this mix )

honey

gently heat together and add crushed chilli to taste. As hot as you want, but if the mixture is for kids then fairly mild.

heat until everything combines nicely, and leave to cool.

Again if this is for kids then simmer gently to evaporate the alcohol in the green ginger.

Strain, and pour into a clean jar and keep in the fridge. Because the garlic hasn’t been cooked out, then you should probably use this mixture up fairly quickly.

Put a dollop or more in a cup and add hot water. Drink before bed.

Blackberry vinegar and Elderberry syrup both make great hot drinks that are soothing on throats. Quite often I’ll just make up a bit of a mix directly into a tea cup…but it is better if you can strain the garlic out before you drink it.

There are plenty of other things you could add in here…chopped sage, or chopped thyme, both good for sore throats. Cinnamon helps to calm a stomach as well..and so on.

Winter

2009-07-06T17:28:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I really like Winter. Like when the frost turns all sparkly in the sunshine, and the pond turns to ice so we can skate on it. The water in the hills turn to icicles that hang off the rocks and the whole cliff face looks like a wonderland …

and other times…

Well lets just say, I’m really looking forward to spring.

School holidays have started and I have put my oldest son in charge of baking. At 12, my brother and I were certainly doing a lot of the family baking, so there is no reason why he can’t either.

I found the recipe for these choc chip and raisin cookies on Farmgirl Fare. Very nice cookies…soft in the middle which was a surprise.

I was going to try making some gnocchi with this …

Purple mashed potato…Mmmmmm

They are actually more purple than this. Almost glow in the dark purple.

These are my Maori potatoes. They are very very dry and floury when cooked. But the trouble is my husband is gluten free, and so I can’t add flour to make the gnocchi. I tried a bit with rice flour but it just fell to bits and dissolved into the water. So I think the rest will be made into potato cakes. If anyone knows how to make gluten free gnocchi then please let me know.

The other surprise is that I actually have growing things in my garden. These are romanesco broccoli. (and some parsley) I don’t know how they kept growing when the ground is literally frozen solid. I managed to dig some yams and potatoes yesterday, but only after a couple of mild days and only those on the sunny side of the bed. At least they hadn’t all gone to mush which surprised me too. Now I just need to work out when I planted these so I can do the same next year.

It’s a busy life

2009-06-30T21:37:00.001-07:00

This is “Midnight” Rabbit. The most likely cause of all the computer woes. I say most likely because we aren’t really sure. She only comes inside once in a while, but she loves having a run around which she can’t really do in her cage. Since the last post we’ve been skiing, and ice skating, and most recently have helped to build the new adventure playground at the school.

This is the junior section.

The big kids part is more of an obstacle course and fitness workout.

A bit hard to see here, but there are plenty of ropes, and nets and climbing walls etc

The kids were finally allowed on it yesterday.

The boys however have been laid low with a stomach bug, and haven’t been over there yet. We live just around the corner and have been able to hear the happy sounds of kids playing ever since it has been open.

The weather has been mostly fine and frosty…with occasional clag and fog

Here the mountains just starting to loom out of the mist. It is so nice to see the sun.

We had a meeting at the school and I showed them my journal, and got approval to teach the kids next term, so I’m looking forward to that. Now with all that out of the way I can concentrate for a bit on my own art. I started a collage using the disintegration bundles yesterday.

I’ve gone back to my equations for a bit of inspiration, but have decided to mainly just see what comes out of the whole process as I only have a very general picture of what I want in mind

Its a start anyway. Now I just have to find the time to keep going

Ahhh back at last

2009-06-23T22:57:00.001-07:00

Well the computer is back in action, I have all the old programmes at my fingertips all is well with the world…except for –6 degree frost last night. That was cold! Looks like the same again tonight as well.

Take a look at this

We have a green waste site by our section, where everyone in the town can dump off anything green…ie branches and pruning's and various other bits like that. Then every six months or so a big chipper comes along and turns it all into mulch which the community can then take away and use in the garden. The latest pile was done a week or so ago, and here it is, white with frost and with steam coming out the top…like a kind of mini volcano. Awesome.

So of course I was in straight away, and transferred a trailer load to my compost pile, layered it with chicken poo, horse poo, and garden waste…as well as a bucket of bokashi that I can’t bury in the garden because the ground is rock hard.

It’s hard to see but it is steaming too. I love the whole magical alchemy of making compost. I’m a convert…my previous compost making experience only involved piling up horse poo. This is far more interesting. Especially on a frosty morning when you can see it is all working.

OK enough about compost. Next post will be about art Promise.

No Computer

2009-06-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how quickly you come to rely on such a thing as a computer. You don't even realise how much you do rely on the things til you don't have one.
We're still waiting on the replacement cord for the old lap top...It had to be sent from USA and will take about 10 days approximately...3 days to go.
Meanwhile we have got ourselves a new laptop since the old one was ...well...old. But we have to wait for the cord for the old one to transfer the files over...on and on it goes, so I've got a computer again, but not much further ahead.
Lots of other things have been happening, We've been skiing, ice skating, making compost, and making art...
It is the shortest night tonight, and time to wassail the fruit trees, but everything in my garden is frozen solid (except the compost pile which is cooking nicely and steaming whenever I take the carpet off it) I knew I should have dug the yams and the last of the potatoes while I could still get a spade into the soil. Hopefully I'll get some photos up again soon.
Happy winter (or summer) solstice everyone

Back soon

2009-06-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say I'll be back soon. Our darling rabbit has nibbled through the computer cord so we have had to order a new one. Hopefully that will be here tomorrow. Not having the computer is a bit like having your arm chopped off...although I have to say I have got a touch more house work done ...blahh

Journal making

2009-06-04T18:33:00.001-07:00

So here we are… after a lot of looking around and trying different things, I finally found a way to make a journal that I can teach to the kids next term, and have some fun doing it.

I found the instructions on Teesha Moore’s site (thanks Jacky)

I’ve been trying to make sure I can break making a journal like this into three 1 and 1/2 hour lessons which isn’t as easy as it sounds. everyone works at a different pace, and I want to spend more time on decorating the pages than making the book. However, if I pre cut the pages so that all they have to do is decorate the covers, glue on the fabric spine, and then paint the pages, we should have the journal sewn together for the first part of the second lesson then we can get on to the fun part of the techniques for decorating.

Although you can’t see it too well here, I’ve tried to keep the pages mostly recycled, using brown paper, paper bags, old maps

shipping tags and all sort of odd bits and bobs.

Some pages have been folded up to make pockets, and I’ve also used manila folders as pages to add a bit of guts…

I’ve applied gesso to some pages and left others plain, but I’ll continue to decorate and collage the pages etc to have an example to show the kids (and teachers)

The covers are just artist canvas panels from the warehouse. I’ve painted and stamped on these ones. I used fabric remnants from McKenzie and Willis for the spine since I don’t have any book binders linen. It has created a nice sturdy journal and I can see I’ll be making a lot more of them.

Time goes by faster and faster

2009-05-25T17:57:00.001-07:00

Oops. It’s been a while I see, and not much has been getting done either, yet I feel like I’ve been flat out.

We have ERO (Education review office) visiting the school and since I’m on the board of trustees we’ve been busy making sure that we have all our I’s dotted and Tee’s crossed.

The weather have been horrible for ages…cold windy overcast and even tried to snow a couple of times. The snow is low on the hills, and the Lake has risen again to nearly flood level

A couple of rainy weekends means the house has been even messier than usual, so of course the real estate agent wanted to visit, because someone in England has made an enquiry about the motel being for sale…

and somehow in all of that I managed to get myself roped in to helping the kids at the school with their technology next term.

Technology is the modern terminology for Manual training…ie cooking, sewing, woodwork, metalwork and art. The kids do a technology dinner every year for the parents and as a fundraiser…So it looks like I’m in charge of helping the kids to design the decorations, invitations, and written menu, and I think I may try to throw in a recipe book, depending on the time we have available. The theme is yet to be decided, so I’ll have more to go on once we know what that will be.

Anyway, we have a beautiful fine day here at last, so I’m off to pull up the last of the tomato plants and dig in some more mulch every where.

The Reveal - inside the bundles

2009-05-07T22:45:00.001-07:00

I have a lovely lot of papers from my Air bundle. The one that hung in the pear tree. No bugs and some nice changes in the wax and feathers

Some of the leaves and feathers I put between the pages have stuck quite firmly to the paper, and can you see how the wax has changed colour? yum yum yum

Little bits of black mould on both paper and material, mould patterns on the leaves, and other gentle aging.

The other bundles are still a bit soggy but I couldn’t wait any more…

The Fire bundle was gently teased apart.

but they’ll have to dry a bit more before I’ll know if I can use it.

That brown splodge is the red rose I squashed between the pages. The cinnamon sticks held up well though.

The pages of the earth bundle have been eaten away, you can see the different layers of pages, I think I should have used more colour on this one. I haven’t been able to tease the layers open yet as they are very fragile

The spirit bundle was also eaten into, you can see the layers a bit better in this one. I did manage to pry it open to see into the middle

And here you have it… The extra secret something revealed.

No, not the nail, the seeds.

I put inside the Spirit bundle two apricot kernels in the hope that they would germinate and grow roots etc through the paper.

I probably should have used something that would germinate a bit quicker…beans maybe, but I was hoping for a woody root structure that would stand up it a bit of punishment with paint and gold foil etc. You can see that one of the kernels is indeed starting to germinate so the experiment isn’t a total failure.

In the meantime I’ve been digging up the hot box and it is full of roots that seem to be coming up from the plum tree. They are nice and woody, and it won’t hurt the plum tree to use them. I’ll put the apricots into the garden and see what happens.

The great reveal – disintegration project part two

2009-05-01T22:16:00.001-07:00

Way back in January I read about the disintegration project being held by Seth on his blog the altered page

So of course I joined in, and after thinking about it for a while I created five bundles

One for each of the elements, and one for Spirit.

This one, to represent water I put into the lake.

You can read about it here

This one for earth I buried in the garden

You can read about it here

This one for air I hung in the pear tree.

You can read about it here

This one for fire I buried in the fire pit.

read about it here

And one for Spirit

You can read about it here

Now on a bright sunny Glenorchy day, with rather a white frosty start to the morning Time has come for exploring what has happened to my various bundles.

This is what is left of my lovely bundle for air, that I hung in the pear tree.

A lot of the papers and feathers blew away and I had re tie it a couple of times, but it is intact dry and has lots of yummy changes…more on that later.

Fire bundle. It has been sitting in wet ashes most of the summer, but last month we did have a fire in our fire pit and the boys cooked potatoes and sausages. It was a small fire. I don’t think the bundle even got warm.

The back of the bundle is a more vibrant red, but the whole thing is welded together in a sodden mess. At the moment it is sitting on the deck waiting to dry out so that I can peel the papers apart to see what the inside is like

The Earth bundle was mostly buried.

When I pulled it up there were a heap of lovely slugs and slaters. A bit of mould on the beads. Again it is sodden and the paper is all stuck together

so It has joined the others on the deck.

Alas my water bundle has vanished away. Read about it here and the new bundle hasn’t shown much change at all, so that one will have to stay a work in progress for the meantime.

And last of all … the spirit bundle.

Faded and soggy, it is out on the deck as well.

I desperately want to see inside, but I’ll curb my impatience. I want some of those papers to be usable.

I left a secret something inside and I so hope it has turned out how I want.

A couple more days for the bundles to dry…then I’ll post the opened bundles…how exciting.

I already know what I want to make with these, and the next part of the project is to make the bundles into art of some kind. All will be revealed at a later date.

back again

2009-04-27T21:45:00.001-07:00

Ahh, holidays. It was lovely.

We stayed in an apartment at Southport on the gold coast Australia. I woke up to this fantastic view every morning, and we spent a week doing the theme parks and hitting the beach.

The kids had a great time, the weather was warm! and the beach was beautiful.

I got to spend a 1/2 day in Wellington on the way back and took the chance to look in on the Monet exhibition at Te Papa.

I haven’t spent much time studying the impressionists before, and at first I wasn’t that impressed. As a group they all seemed quite bland. A few stood out, this being one of them.

After my sister in law took the kids to see the colossal squid, and I wasn’t getting “I’m bored” in my ear every few minutes, I had another chance to take a longer look. The room was starting to fill up fast as a huge amount of people have taken the chance to see this collection and I was looking around to locate my brother when I glanced across at a row of paintings from a distance and at an angle, and suddenly I could see what the artist was doing. The row of paintings (including the one above) all had subjects that were back lit, and it seemed like there was sunlight coming out of each painting.

You can’t see this effect close up, or even straight on really, but I found that the longer I looked the better I liked them. I’ve never seen this before so I was really impressed.

This one wasn’t as clear as this in real life, it was almost like a mist or fog in front of the buildings, but again you can see main building is back lit.

I really enjoyed this painting, mostly because it reminds me of the beach where I grew up.

Again from a distance you could see the salt spray and almost feel the wind along that beach. Lovely stuff.

and time flies by

2009-04-17T01:45:00.001-07:00

boy…holidays can sure use up any spare time you may have.

The kids are busy, Rugby practice has started, the rabbit has been sick, and Sian and I are about to fly out to Brisbane tomorrow for 10 days. This last week has been a bit of chaos because in between the vet and rugby practise I realised I needed to do both Paye and the gst before I left. YUK

Although my studio table is fairly tidy (for me) the rest of the house isn’t, so there will be a mad panic tomorrow morning before we leave.

I’ve been searching in vain for a decent book to read on the plane, but as well as my journal I’m also taking this book. Drawing on the right side of the brain by Betty Edwards. It’s a fantastic book, and I’m thinking that the various exercises outlined in this book will help me to help the girls, and improve my drawing at the same time.

So I’ll be back on Anzac day with hopefully lots of photos and journal pages to show you, and before I know it It will be time for the disintegration project reveal.

Crusade # 30

2009-04-06T19:46:00.001-07:00

I haven’t taken part in many GPP Street team crusades so far, but I enjoy the techniques and following the links to see what others are up to. This is a great site to for inspiration.

This crusade is all about using words and writing in your journals. And since I’ve just finished making some journals I thought it was a good reminder.

Sometimes I get a bit hung up on my journal looking nice and well… artistic on every single page, and that tends to mean I don’t use my journal. Not as much as I should anyway.

But I have another journal where I scribble down art techniques and ideas as quick as I can, so I can remember what I did to get the look I wanted, or just to experiment and play. If I don’t like a page then I rip it out or paint over it.

I find it nice to have a place where the look of a page isn’t nearly as important as the information captured on it.

If I had thought about it I could have pre painted the pages but the focus as I said was on getting ideas down as quickly as possible.

These pages were mostly from a workshop I did over a year ago.

Looking at the samples now I’m liking what I see and think I’d like to use some of these techniques in a new project I have in mind. Luckily it is all written out, with examples attached, that I can refer back to. Otherwise I’m sure I’d miss out on certain steps, and although this can lead to new discoveries. it can also be very frustrating.