Birthday Flowers

Anyone want to guess what significant birthday my Grandma just had? :)

I spent a whole night making lots of tiny flowers (I really should have counted them, I made almost double what I ended up using), and the next day my hand killed.

But the finished product looked so pretty :)

Cinderella

Some new art journal pages.

Watercolour, black ink and chalk pen.

 I went to Equip and one of the speakers told the story of Chrsitian singer Steven Curtis Chapman. A few years ago his young daughter was accidently run over in their driveway and of course the whole confrence was in tears. When I was looking up more of the story on the net I found a few songs of his and came across one called Cinderella that was about taking time to dance with his daughter while she's still little. Made me cry, again, but was the inspiration for this page.

Sewing again

It's been about a year since I sewed anything. But I've been feeling the urge lately to begin creating with fabric again.

Joshua's wedding isn't until the end of the year, I found a dress by Talbots online that I love. It's only in the navy blue which isn't a colour I wear alot of. I was thinking maybe an aqua, or lighter blue/purple.

So I bought a few patterns (NewLook is on sale at Spotlight!) that I'm going to play around with to try and create a similar dress. I've never sewn a princess line dress before, so I'm excited to give it a go.

Finders Keepers

Tonight we went off to Finders Keepers market. It's an annual designers market I kept meaning to go and check it out. And when Joshua's friend had a stall it was the perfect excuse.

Lots of gorgeous stuff to look at. A creative girl's dream.

One of my favourites was a stationary/card business called We Are Messengers. The cards have a clean design, and have many nice sentiments that I was delighted to recognise.

If you have the chance, go over to Finders keepers - you won't be disappointed.

My Sewing Circle

My Internet time lately has been taken up by this very cool site - My Sewing Circle. Basically it's like ravelry for sewers - you can add your projects, look at patterns and see what other people are making and comment on it.

It's still in it's early stages, but looks very cool. The Aussie sewing/craft online community seems to have taken to it, lots of the women whose blogs I read are on there. I think it's also a nice place to have all your projects in a nice neat file (rather than photos all over my computer as mine is now), and you can add any notes you want to remember about the pattern.

If you're interested, sign up for an account (it's free) and add me as a friend; I'm Purple Frangipani - of course :).

Creative Sewing

I realised I haven't been sewing just for the sake of being creative. And the reason I love sewing so much because it is my creative outlet.

Not that Purple Frangipani isn't fun, but making the same garment a few times isn't as creative as making something from scratch. For me, half the fun is the developing the pattern, cutting out the fabric and watching something come together. It's that feeling of not knowing if it will work or not - then sewing the final stitch, turning it right side out and getting a little giddy because it has worked. The little sketch I dreamed up weeks ago is now a real three dimensional thing in front of me - I can touch it and use it and know "I made that".

So I got out fabric scraps and started a patchwork skirt. I stayed with the blue/purple colour scheme but just used up all the scraps I have lying around (I seem to have alot of those colours lying around, can't think why ;) )

And I started working on a project that's been kicking around in my head for a while. Just a sneak peek for now because I want it to be a surprise for the recipient - but so far I'm pleased with how it's turning out. And it's giving me a little hint of an idea for a new direction for Purple Frangipani. Love the joy of a new idea. (I'm using the fact it's a secret to account for the bad photo - not the fact that the lighting was awful!)

Creative Space 22/10/09

I couldn't find any buttons which looked right. So today I'm learning to cover buttons.

To add to a pretty little pinafore.

More creative spaces at Kootoyoo.

Green dots

I've had to put most of my creative ideas on hold for a few days because I remembered I had to make a present for a little baby who will soon arrive.

Even though I know it's a boy I didn't want to go with the predictable blue, and went with a nice green colour palette. It's not too bright, but not too pale either.

This is my first venture into quilting - I've got a little over a week to get it finished! :)

Day dreaming outside

Today I spent the entire day inside, as I was working at the store from open to close.

The weather the last few days has been so beautiful. Real go-outside-and-lie-in-the-sun-weather.

I've started some of my observation days for prac. Spending your day with under two's teachers you many things. One of the most important is to delight and wonder at the world around you. I laughed with the children as bubbles floated across the playground and popped when we tried to touch them. I delighted with the children in the different noises we can make from simple toys cars (more than you would think!). I wondered at the blue sky and the birds the flew around.

This is your task; get outside and wonder with childlike delight at the world around you. Don't try to explain it away and don't try to make sense, just wonder.

(picture credit)

Creativity

I was reading in the Good Weekend (Saturday's Paper) a short snippet of an article about setting up an craft room. It was only a few paragraphs but my mind already started to dance and plan and dream; I wouldn’t call it a craft room. It would be a creative room, a room in a house in my future somewhere. A room to love in and live in.

It would have a place for my sewing machine so I can have it set up without having to lug it around when I’m doing projects. It would have my easel permanently set up, with a huge canvas always ready to be worked on. Paints of all the possible colours right there to grab. Every piece of my craft supplies would have a place of their own.

There would be a huge useful box for children to dive into and create with. They would have so many beautiful supplies to work with and it wouldn’t matter if they made a mess, because you could just shut the door. There would be shelves for my books and a CD player to play praise worthy music. There would be a beautiful comfy lounge for climbing onto when it rains and snuggling up with an old quilt and reading stories and watching the rain drip down the windows. (I forgot to mention that there was a wall of windows for looking out over the back yard). There would be no TV.

One wall would have a huge notice board for putting up postcards from friends, and beautiful pictures from magazines, and lovely verses I’ve written up. And another wall would hold artworks children have made.

I had just finished planning my room, when I remembered that I am trying to limit the ‘stuff’ I have in my life. I remembered that I want to live a life that is looking outward, serving God with all I do. Is dreaming a room just for my family and I to create in, is that serving God? I believe that all good things come from God, even my insatiable appetite to create beautiful things. But shouldn’t I be reining that in some how, using it for Gods kingdom? I don’t even know if I’ll be living in Australia; have a house in suburbia (oh, blah, I hope not). If I can afford a house with a room just for creativity shouldn’t the money be used in a better way?

So, somehow I managed to turn a fleeting 2 minute day dream into a guilt trip. It did look beautiful though, in those two minutes.

(photos courtesy of sxc)