Some Art Journalling and Playtime

Happy Australia day for yesterday to all you proud Aussies.  We spent the day with family and friends enjoying a peaceful day and being thankful for this great country we live in.  There was a wee bit of tennis watching going on too

School holidays have just ended here in sunny Queensland.

We look after Lilian for most of the duration of the school holidays, and the one thing she loves to do the most, is paint with Nana.

She now has her own little art journal made from an old repurposed book and she has had loads of fun transforming the pages into art works.

After watching a video by Claudia Rossi, she wanted to embark on this one. Firstly she painted some bright rainbow colours onto the page in acrylics.

Then it was a fairly thick layer of gesso and while it is still wet she drew in some flowers with the end of her paint brush, which revealed some of the lovely colours underneath.

A little border around the edge and some words and she was done and happy!

My page shown start to finish below – I know, not as ‘free’ and smashing as Lilian’s.

  

I did this page spread which is at the beginning of a little travel art journal I have been playing with. This was our first trip we did in a tent.

One day when Lilian went to visit her little friend, I made her this sweet little pin cushion.  I had the components sitting in my cupboard for about 5 years.  She loved it and immediately raided my pin cushion to fill hers.

The Travelander is being packed ready for another little trip.  This is how it looks off the truck and then the tent all folds down into the white part and it will go onto the back of our truck. 

Until next time……………….Dianne

Seventy Surprise & Sunsets

Today one of my dear friends turns 70. 

We met at Toowoomba Quilters in the year 2000 and when I went to work at Blue Care, who should be also working there?  Joan.  We worked together for some 5 years and became firm friends.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOAN!!
We have been sneaking around behind her back and have put together a little photo/memento book for her. It will be a complete surprise when we present it to her at lunch today.

This is the front of the book.  I did an ink drawing of Joan & her husband’s house.  It is an historic old house built in the 1800’s which they love. I used my favourite pen the Sakura sepia pen.


Page by Shirley

Page by Marleen

Page by Vicky

Page by Loretta

My Zentangle page – All the items listed on the right appear somewhere in the doodle drawing.  This concept was from my friend Kerry’s website, “All About Drawings .com”

Page by Alison.  Alison has done a colour photocopy of the actual stitchery she has done for Joan.  Can’t wait to see the real thing!!
On each page spread I have also included some photographs of Joan with her friends.

We have recently returned from a trip to the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Our first camp spot was at Lake Waruma (near Eidsvold).  We have voted it our most favourite campsite ever.  The sunsets were amazing.  There were no bugs, it was peaceful and warm and we had this area to ourselves. 


I nicknamed it “On Golden Pond”!

The mix of colours changed as the sun started to disappear.  The sky remained a beautiful turquoise blue – so many different colours appeared.  

Until next time...........................Dianne

A few days in the bush–Good food–Good company

We had a few days getaway in a State Forest about 2 1/2 hours north of here last week.  It was so peaceful and relaxing and the weather was delightful.  Um, until the last day when we got wet tails packing up!!   All in the fun of camping

When we arrived these guys were having siesta time.  They also found it peaceful and relaxing and they were not one bit timid.

Our camp on the edge of the creek. 

Beautiful serene bush walks.

It is such a shame this rotten lantana has taken over a lot of the bushland in this area.  Such a pest and there seems to be no stopping it.

A game of 500 was very popular and proved quite hilarious as we were all very rusty on the rules.

Beef stew done over the camp fire – delish.

There were quite a few of these large goannas about.  They look so prehistoric.

We came across this rather long carpet snake on one of our walks.  He was not interested in us – thankfully.  They are pretty harmless.


Our extremely noisy neighbours, the sulphur crested cockatoos.

This roo was carrying a joey in her pouch.

The blue faced honeyeaters were being very naughty and were relentless in their efforts to get to our honey, bread and tomato sauce.  This one is perched right at the pantry ready to swoop in.

The noisy miners were also very cheeky and one of them was even pecking at my socks to get the fluff for his nest. 
There was no technology for four days and it was blissful.  Now back to reality!
Until next time………………………………………Dianne.

Felting and an old Project Re-discovered

It has been a long time between posts.  Life sometimes gets in the way.
Hope everyone has had a very happy Easter.
Lilian loved the whole Easter experience this year.  Here she is as the ‘Easter Bunny’.  Once she had the ears on, she took the role of Easter Bunny very seriously and began hopping around our local shopping centre.  Many people stopped her and asked if she was going to call in on them.  She would just nod and twitch her little nose. It was very cute. She seemed to have boundless energy!

Before Easter I got a bee in my Easter bonnet and decided it was time to get the felting machine out of the cupboard and give it a whirl.

I was a little bit rusty on how to go about it and ended up breaking 3 needles in quick succession.  Nonetheless, I did manage to make a couple of small items from the embellishing I did, and now have to embark on finding a local dealer to purchase more needles.

This first project was a case for my clip on sunglasses.  The black lines are herringbone stitches done in six strands of embroidery thread and then felted through the machine afterwards.  (Saw this on You Tube – so not my original idea). 
Basically the projects were done using wool roving and embellishments of other yarns onto an ordinary old piece of acrylic felt. 

Stage 1 laying down the roving       

I do a little bit of hand felting to secure the wool to the background first
          

Then comes the fun bit of embellishing.  One of the embellishments was this glorious yarn from Fibreworks (Kid Mohair Yarn) and then I used various other yarns and pieces of silk scraps etc.

A case for my new iphone.  It seems I have a penchant for green lately
During a mad de-cluttering stage a couple of weeks ago I came across these very old crochet squares.  They would have been started some 15 years ago probably.

I decided this would be the perfect project to do in the car as we are travelling along.  Luckily I can read, sew, crochet etc as we are driving along without getting car sick.
So, I have done a couple of squares to refresh my memory and the wool, hook etc is packed in a bag ready to go.
There are a few trips planned over the next few months.  This coming week we are going to spend a few days in a forest park about 3 1/2 hours north of here with our travelling friends.  Should be loads of fun.
Here are a couple of favourite pictures of our last trip to the southern beaches of NSW and Victoria.
 
Lake at Eden N.S.W

Wilsons Promontary Vic.


Sculpture of Ned Kelly at Jerilderie bakery make entirely out of old bread tins – ingenious!!

Until next time……………………….. Dianne.