my creative space

it appears i have a really bad habit. the habit of offering up our spare room (my creative space) to waifs who are in need of a place to stay. yet again, i have changed my spare room into a hotel room. but that's ok, for there are times when it is nice to share. so at the moment, due to our current house guest, i have gotten a bit creative with my space. see, i often create on the couch in the lounge room (where the heater lives). but my current project (or more accurately one of my current projects) actually requires a desk. i'm working on some papercutting, and have found that sharp scalpels, tender fingers and soft furnishings are not an ideal combination. so i have purloined a 'lap board' from a friend of mine. its such a great idea - just like a desk, with a hard surface to cut on, but sitting here on my lap on the couch. (i sometimes even prop it up on an extra cushion to bring the little cuttings closer to my old tired eyes).

creating can then ensue...

join in with kirsty for more creative spaces

busybusybusy

i've had a really busy week last week, and then a pretty hectic weekend. then this morning, a bit of opshopping with a friend, home for a quick bite of lunch and i'm heading out shortly to afternoon tea with another friend... so its nice to take a few minutes out and sit in the sun with a cup of tea and some biscuits. i made these yesterday, and they are so very yummy. the recipe is in a delicious magazine cafe recipe special, but it actually originates from one of my favourite cafes (sweet source on rathdowne st, carlton north), i usually adapt it depending on what sort of nuts i have in the cupboard, and this is the version i used yesterday... Oaty choc cookies 125g butter 1/2 cup caster sugar 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 tea vanilla bean paste 1 egg 1 1/4 cup rolled oats 1 cup plain flour 1/2 tea baking powder 1/2 tea bi-carb soda 1/2 tea salt 1 block lindt 70% chocolate (which is 100g), broken into little pieces 105g almonds (dry fried in a heavy frypan and then crushed up a bit with a motar and pestle) cream butter, sugars and vanilla. beat in egg, then fold in oats. sift flour, baking powder, soda and salt and fold in. when nearly mixed in, add chocolate and nuts. spoon onto buttered trays and bake about 10 min at 170 degrees C. cool slightly on trays, then place on wire rack. serve with tea. mmm, tea.

knitta please

i am up here in canberra for the weekend, and decided to go see the soft sculpture exhibtion at the national gallery - it was brilliant (but no luck if you didn't get to catch it, for it closed today).

we parked and then walked through the sculpture garden to get to the gallery. and what fun - knitta please had been doing their work...

* with photo credits going to my sister - there is a fundamental lesson about using rechargable batteries in your camera that i seem to have missed

i love a bit of knitted graffiti, don't you?

one lovely blog award

how lovely! i got tagged by the lovely sayraphim of the page 63 of your manual with the One Lovely Blog Award. so very lovely - thanks sayraphim. so the rules are: 1. Accept the award, post in your blog together with the name of the person or people who gave it to you an a link to their blog. 2. Pass the award to other 15 blogs that you have newly discovered. 3. Contact the bloggers you award to let them know that they were chosen. such a lovely idea - without further ado (and due to time constraints), i pass on this lovely award to 7 of my fellow bloggers: 1. Clutterpunk (i know sayraphim tagged you but your blog is so lovely, that i had to tag you again) 2. little lovelies (whose blog brings me joy and inspiration) 3. sosewpoppy (who is amazingly talented) 4. kootoyoo (who makes thursdays creatively fun) 5. greedy for colour (whose current crochet obession brings me joy) 6. m* (aren't her wuppets fab) 7. vadjutka (who makes amazing jewelry) so big thanks to you all guys for making my world so lovely!

joining grannies

so, i've crocheted myself enough practice grannies. now i find it's time to join them up. again, my lack of ability to follow or understand patterns has caused a bit of chaos. i started off chaining them together, like this. but i was not really happy with the result. the great thing is that i popped over to little lovelies the other day and found that i wasn't the only one joining grannies. at her direction i popped further over to the lovely carina's craftblog for a fabulous tutorial! a-joining-we-will-go...

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!)