happy wet brisstyle indie mother and baby market

When it rains it pours in South East Queensland...

Friends drop by though, despite the weather ;o)

And friends and customers also braved the rains to join the joy of the Brisstyle mother and baby market.
I was delighted with my first dash robin stall at the Brisstyle market, meeting lovely fellow brisstylers -beautiful and generous Sam of Jettas nest, who came along just to lend a hand :o) and sweet Rebecca of Edward and Lily with her exquisite brooches and embroidery and my stall neighbour, gorgeous Teri showcasing her delicate designs of pass the parcel...
so many more too! And all the customers are more like friends, so sweet and generous with praise and suggestions.
I can't wait to attend the Brisstyle Eco Market and see all the other eco crafters...
(and I'm sure to come home with more of my new friends lovely eco arts crafts works!)

There were so many mums and dads carrying adorable babies and children I simply couldn't resist taking one home...

she's been very quiet and well behaved since I retrieved her from her basket...

(see below)

If you'd like to find out more about Brisstyle head here.
This week the amazing Melinda has posted up a dash robin interview
She has thankfully worked magic with my wandering thoughts!
xKate

meet me monday

Welcome to a meet me Monday mini interview.

Meet Jack, a young artist fascinated by science fiction, mythological creatures and crytpozoology.
'I do lots of drawings, I have a box full of more drawings than you would see in any gallery, so I only have time to share a few.I made a colouring book once and this one didn't fit in.

Its a cryptozoologic creature called Kongamato, which in African language is the overwhelmer of boats. I love reading about creatures like big foot and Kongamato and the search to find them. This one is flying over a waterfall.

I drew this one last Christmas and it is a hunting scene.

It is a fight between a carnivorous alien deer and vicious raptor like creatures. The blue areas are the gaps of sky between clouds. I felt really happy how this turned out!
Most of my pictures now are of aliens or monsters but I started drawing years ago, when I was very young. I drew lots of animals, especially Bilbies.

This picture is a cyborg dragon with metal horns and a gun on his paw. He comes from the future and his time machine is too small to have built in controls so it has a remote control. It was a lot fun drawing.

I once saw an exhibition of Ron Mueck. He makes sculptures of the human body out of silicone. Some of his artworks were so real looking you'd expect them to come to life and start walking around, you could see wrinkles on the fingers they were that detailed!

The only one that didn't look realistic was an enormous face which didn't have a back, like a mask.

Another artist I really like is Patricia Piccini. I have seen her works on the Internet. She does work sort of like Ron Muecks' but she makes sculptures that are half animal-half human. The pair I like most are of 2 half human-half meerkats.

I would love her to make one of half-animal-half human creatures protesting against animal scientific experimentation, maybe protesting against growing ears on mice.


I love to read and love my imagination. I enjoy thinking about creatures and I would like to make sculptures of aliens and write stories.
xKate

meet me monday

Mini interviews with creative folk.

This Monday meet Rebecca Lewis of Little Brown Dog, kindly sharing some of her stories and inspirations. Rebecca creates beautifully finished clothing and home wares- her designs and fabric choices are adorable, every stitch and seam is always exquisitely made.

'I love to sew, mostly one offs or short runs. I learned with my mum and great nanna Bella, who was a tailoress at Freedmans in the Valley...another great nanna was a seamstress and my dads' mum was also a sewer so I guess it runs in the family!

I use vintage or gorgeous Japanese patterns or occasionally draft my own.
I rework old clothes and make home wares and soft toys. Once I have figured something out, I move onto the next challenge.


My wedding dress is the favourite thing I've ever made,
it was so important to me as part of our DIY wedding day to make make myself
a very personalised, eco friendly dress.
I made it from the most beautiful hemp-silk materials
bought from a friend who was importing eco friendly fabrics.


It's because of my wedding dress Little Brown Dog came about...I was terrified of mucking up the dress and procrastinated by playing around with an op shopped E.T doona cover.
I made a skirt and fishermans pants from it which got a great reception and encouraged me to keep making clothes from thrifted material.
There's so much incredible fabric out there, it's just about seeing the potential.

Using discarded material like sheets, doona covers, blankets and curtains
provides me with a challenge-
to make something beautiful from materials often considered to have no value.

I have been gifted lots of fabric from friends cleaning their cupboards (lucky me) but mostly my materials are sourced from op shops.
Ipswich has fantastic op shops-I'm divulging my stash collecting secrets here...my faves are 'the hospice shop' on Brisbane St and 'keeping up appearances' on Glebe Rd...both are chock full of goodness hidden in little nooks and crannies. Half the fun is in finding it.

I have my fingers crossed more people will turn to reducing, reusing and Up cycling. There are clever people doing amazing things with found objects and junk.

I love the work of Don Pezzano(of Urbandon) who uses gifts from the ground, creepy dolls eyes, watch parts, washers, vintage buttons, meccano
and other bits and pieces to construct incredible wearable are.

I also greatly admire the phenomenal recycling efforts of my lovely friend Lesa,
who transforms mountains of office paper into beautiful art works.

We need to stop playing into the consumer trends which drive global manufacturing empires and are at the root of so many social and environmental issues.
Shopping for locally grown and locally made is the first step in right direction. There are great farmers markets popping up where you can meet and talk with the people growing what you're eating. There's also fantastic veg box schemes which source only local produce and deliver fresh fruit and veg to your door. Check out food connect if you live in SE QLD. And don't forget the craft markets, an opportunity to meet the talented people behind the design and production, a chance to buy local and original.'

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and photos Rebecca.
You can find Little Brown Dog at the little market in west end, Tricycle events, nook or contact Rebecca about ordering custom made eco friendly/upcycled clothing via her blog here
XKate

Meet me Monday -LiKim Chuah

Meet me Monday-mini interviews about creativity with my fave people!
This has been nothing short of fascinating and fun to work on, if you enjoy reading and looking at this half as much as I did you will be happy.

Viewing LiKims' photography and collage images bring me rapidly to a point to envy,but I can also find joy in sharing her sense of creative playfulness...

"I am primarily a photographer, exploring the streets of the city or new suburbs.

I am into geometric building lines, shapes, old abandoned buildings, decaying things, composition, awesome colours and textures like peeling paint or oil stains on the road.

I actually feel like I have run out of Melbourne places, which is scary.I need to know more cool places to visit...anyone with any ideas please let me know.
I use two digital cameras;my SLR EOS 450D and my crappy camera phone. Film cameras from op shops and a couple of special novelty ones like the Golden half which I bought online in a moment of weakness. I use normal film, cross process slide film, red scale film and on occasion I alter/cut/paste/ink onto negatives.

Some of my favourite creations are from a long time ago...my sister back in the day.

As an op shop addict I always come across heaps of old school cook books with garish, ugly and gross food photos.I never had any use from them, other than my buffet themed jacket costume last Halloween...

Recently due to cold cold weather and grey skies I have started using these cook book images in collage, along with old National Geographic mags, kids picture books, pet books and sports books.

I love the kitsch factor of the photos, sitting in front of the TV cutting out the pictures and covering the entire lounge room floor in peices of paper.
I don't have a table and work on the floor which is bad for my body and anyone else who is wanting to walk through the lounge. As relaxing as collage is- it's harder than it seems.
Sometimes I might sit for a hour or more trying to position a puppy in front of rioting protesters.

I use a very crappy cheap stanley knife, stolen scissors, borrowed cardboard glue and pens from work and some textas I bought in Japan.
Make something creative every week or every day, even if its crappy and lame...create don't consume! And also cheese and banana on toast is underrated. You can add in peanut butter to the mix(Don't knock it til you've tried it)'
Thanks so much LiKim,
I had such fun with this,
anyone else interested in being featured drop me a line,
Xkate
To see more of LiKims wonderful works of collage art and inspired photography go to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/li-kimchuah/
and blog
http://angryaliceart.blogspot.com/

gifts...

I am having a lazy Saturday afternoon, will be having fish and chips for dinner and so presently am enjoying being home with not much to do...

my sons are over their colds n flus so this morning we headed out to a local fund raiser, a 2nd hand book sale held by a local education centre for children with autism. I will post up some of the adorable illustrations from some of the cute vintage books I scored soon. CUTE, I tell ya.

Over the past few months I have been winning and have randomly been gifted some wonderfully fun things ...from hilarious blogger and crafter Sarah, of cottonkiwi I won a delightful pink striped sock monkey-with the cutest rosette hairclip detail...she has the funniest sweetest blog...
http://www.cottonkiwi.blogspot.com/


I also got a W.A tea towel from flicketty splits at http://www.alltoileandnoreward.blogspot.com/
this really made me smile because of the quirky subject matter of souvenir tea towels and the dramatic arrangement of crocodile looking like he's going to eat a boab tree


and from someone who would think a blogspot was some kind of disease my dear old dad has been through his things and found some 50's bird collector cards and tins which he gathered up for me-bless! My mum and dad come up once a year to visit and enjoy some Qld warmth. I enjoy the warmth they bring to me and my boys too!
XKate

Happy valentines day....

Happy Valentines day everyone, hope you feel loved, special and important. It is a beautiful rare thing to feel truly adored by someone, so enjoy even the smallest moments of it.

And if you don't feel so loved and cherished , I suggest you give yourself something special, give yourself permission to be happy anyway! And never forget to love yourself.
I would love to say I made the adorable woolly love hearts shown above, but I have been steering clear of wool in this humid weather and sewing instead. But to check more fuzzy loveys out lookit these websites;
lilfishstudios
tamdoll

xKate

crochet

After yesterdays humid dramatic stormy weather todays dull skies and drizzle seem very uneventful. Having heard about trees falling on cars and roofs and into pools and golf ball sized hail stones I feel very lucky! We didn't even lose our power fortunately.

Crochet, tea and music and Miss Lovely were peaceful company for me on this overcast day. Miss lovely is the sweetest, most playful cat, but she was eventually evicted from my room because the yarn dangling down from my work was too tempting for her.

Todays music: Swan song by Laura Jean, vanilla rooibos tea and some beautiful hand dyed blue wool, care of a Brighton op shop, which I am using to make up some purses.

I need to learn how to dye wool blue, I love these indigo, phalo and ultramarine blue shades, especially how they blend. I would like to try to re create a sea sort of look and I have some white and cream wool awaiting treatment. Meanwhile this wool was 50 cents, I was amazed finding it, in the exact colours I love.

I have been thinking of how much colour inspires and moves me and I am very happy to share this very pretty image, of a very sophisticated recycled artwork...

I can't tell you much about the artist because her (Finnish)website is not translated into English... but the whip-up site had this to say...

' Marja Hakala(artist), “Rename it”, made of T-shirts, installed at Kivinokka, Helsinki.

Marja collected second hand and discarded t-shirts then cut out the a circle shaped where the logo appears, then stretched the t-shirts between trees. The red of the t-shirts and the green of the environment contrast - the grass will eventually grow up inside the cut out sections to replace the logos. The cut out holes are also stretched and attached together nearby - without context the viewer can rename the whole work again. "

Well, I imagine the grass growing through will take a while, but the whole thing is very whimsical yet somehow deeply moving too. I was reminded of my favourite artist Andy Goldsworthy. He uses natural materials and spends hours, days placing them carefully and photographing them...this one is made with Rowan leaves stuck down with mud, and it truly makes my skin prickle.

The colours almost seem to have a life force in them, and this is the kind of art that makes my heart open and phew, these artists are very talented.

xdash

spring lovin and beastie boys...odd

Hello, hello, what have we here then? A bit of spring lovin'?

So, you may notice a distinct lack of craft photography, well, yup, I had one of those crazy-too-busy-days and only managed to make 3 tiny little crocheted mushroom tops (not even time for a single stem)

Although I usually think there is not enough time in my days to 'make stuff' today I really felt the lack...sigh. There is nothing like searching for rental accommodation to make you feel like you are not using your time efficiently! Yes, I am trying to find a rental house and I am sure a lot of people could nod their heads in empathy, as so many others are searching too...in fact I am pretty sure they all turned up to look at the same house as me in Woolloongabba today...ha, ha!

But damn it, I want that house so fingers, toes, everything vaguely cross-able is firmly crossed tonight...please let the real estate rats overlook the over-lookish stuff about me and look on over the look-ish stuff instead!!

"Be realistic - demand the impossible!" - Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible! -

Anonymous graffiti, Paris 1968

Now, I want to take a moment to direct any would be crafters to the most amazing site...it truly has the broadest range of craft related information including links to the coolest tutorials...some recent ones include making jewelry from resin and making felt foods, they have competitions and all sorts of other interesting links too,

so ch-ch-check it out, what, what, what's it all about...um...where was I...

....er, sorry feeling a little bit...um...

beastie boy-ish tonight... so anyway, just go here, I swear it's good

http://whipup.net/

xdash