my creative space

my creative space for the last little while has been right here. on my computer. see i am researching away merrily for piece i am planning for an exhibition in the melbourne fringe festival (its called echos lost and is being run by the lovely sayraphim from page 63). and i just wanted to share this great blog i came across while researching. caravan of curiosities it is full of collected fantastic stuff from all over - i love being creatively inspired by other people's creativeness... play along with kirsty and be inspired too!

antidotes to grumpiness

so, today was just one of those days. i got out of the wrong side of bed or something. i was grumpy pretty much all day. metaphorically stomping around everywhere (i was at work and i thought that real stomping would be frowned upon). coffee didn't make the difference it usually does and after three in a row, i decided to try for something stronger. but even a piece of sour cherry pie from one of my favourite cafe's didn't help (if you have never been to sweet source on rathdowne st in carlton - you so should go, they make amazing food - the kind that usually makes me happy). so i came home and made magic chocolate brownies. cooking and chocolate - two things guaranteed to make me feel better... the recipe came from a friend a few years back - but i can't be any surer of its origins that that. so magic chocolate brownies: 140g butter 200g dark chocolate 200g brown sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract 2 eggs 1 egg yolk 85g plain flour 75g chopped toasted walnuts (although, i toasted slivered almonds i found in the cupboard) sifted cocoa to dust heat oven to 160 degrees C. grease and line 18cm square tin. melt butter and chocolate. leave to cool a bit, beat in the sugar and vanilla, then add a good pinch of salt. whisk in eggs and egg yolk. then flour. then fold in nuts. bake 40min. allow to cool and then turn onto wire rack. cut into 12 squares and dust with cocoa to serve. mmm, nothing like warm just made chocolate brownies to make you feel better.

don't you just love hard rubbish!

we so do in our house - lots of our furniture comes from hard rubbish finds. but sadly, these days, our local council has changed the rules, with no more hard rubbish weeks, where everyone puts out their rubbish together and the whole street scours each others junk for gems. but still - every now and then, you get lucky. someone moves out of somewhere, and leaves their unwanteds on the curb. it happened to me the other day. i popped out of my house to head to the supermarket, and sitting on the curb a few doors up was this fabulous bookcase. i dragged it inside and with a bit of help, up the stairs to my art space. i'm so pleased with it that i just had to share. i can't wait to fill it up with more crafty goodness.

oh what fun...

its so nice when you have lovely people in your life who are full of artistic-ness and creativity. its especially nice when you decide to spend the day with some of them - making stuff. i spent yesterday with some lovely friends (old and new) eating, drinking and generally being creative together. there was paintingand journal covering more painting and me - well, i was granny-squaring. all in all it was a fabulous day.

my creative space

well, actually, its not so much my space this week. it really belongs to a photographer and two engineers... see, i bought this amazing print from the very talented Ilona Nelson about a month or so ago. but it has just been leaning up on the dining table since then for two reasons. 1 - i couldn't decide which wall to hang it on and 2 - it weighs about 7kgs, and i was worried that about how to make sure that when i did hang it, it didn't then fall back off the wall. so last night two of the engineers in my life put their heads together and using nothing more than a screw, a pencil, a coathanger and a strip of material, they managed to hang the print in such a way that they assure me it will stay up. creative engineering with found objects from around the house - i love it! join in with kirsty here

long weekend

so, its a cold and wet queen's birthday weekend. but i have really gotten to the point where i enjoy some rain. its so good for gardens, for growing things and for grannying... i'm also at the point where i absolutely cannot put down my crochet hook - i was warned about this, but didn't take the warning anywhere near seriously enough. i have to say that i am pretty proud of the fact that i am grannying old style, with random leftover wool that i had lying around the house. the only problem with that is that i have pink lying around the house, because, well, i have never been fond of it. so now i have a growing pile of pink infested granny squares. still, i am fortunate that i have people in my life who do like pink. people who have just had a birthday and i forgot to get them a present. people for whom i am now grannying a scarf. (now all i have to do is figure out how to join up all my grannies and i am set!)

my creative space (heartless)

my creative spaces this week are heartless. despite being very excited about the heart treasure hunt when kirsty mentioned it last week, i completely forgot until after i had packed everything away (see i do try to occasionally pack up). this space is from my spare room, working on the base coat of what will eventually be a print for the wall just above my table - basically just above where it is now. and this space is back in the lounge room - my all compact and packed up crochet basket. now that i can crochet (she says smugly), i am trying to keep my grannies from spreading all over the house.play along with kirsty here...

eek!

so very exciting! lookie lookie... big thanks to sayraphim for her brilliant rescheduled crochet lessons!