Proud Mumma stopping by....

Hi all

This is only a quick post as I am just out of bed (I have a lovely ear and sinus infection - hopefully I am the last sickie in the family for the rest of Winter!) to share exciting news.

Yesterday at school assembly my little man was awarded a "White Card" - THE card of recognition - for:

"An absolutely Awesome 'S' day costume"

for his Shredder costume!

Way to go little man - you may be a little left of centre and think way out of the box, but THAT is what makes you, you!!

Have a super day!

Cath
x

Inspiration Saturday

Good morning and welcome to a beautiful Saturday!

Despite the cool winter wind coming off the mountains and having spent all morning out in said wind at sport with the boys, I appear to have a healthy home and am having a couple of hours on a mini-date this afternoon with my lovely, enjoying a coffee in a little cafe somewhere, whilst my eldest attends a birthday party. (Draw breath) Bliss.

I thought this morning to bring you a site that has inspired me today to create, do and be BEAUTIFUL!!

{sigh}

The latest offering from Dreams Come True is just gorgeous.

If it was a food with a sweet smell to match...if it was a food that would bring memories of happines and love, it would be fairy floss.

So please, if you feel like some heart warming - and be sure to watch with the music on, which sets the whole experience off wonderfully - go have a peek at Dreams Come True.

Have a beautiful Saturday!!

Big love

Cath

xoxo

Creative Colour Challenge - Turquoise

Hey all


This week has been a total creative black hole - with lots of sickness in our home - it's that time of year isn't it! So I was a little disappointed to find I had little time to puddle around with the Creative Colour Challenge run by the talented Louise Gale. As a result, I was left mulling ideas over in the wee hours of the night, which isn't a bad thing to be truthful as I find I tend to get most of my creative ideas when I should be sleeping - do you find that? One side of the brain is saying "sleep", but the other side of the brain is saying "if you try this...mix that...blend, glue, stick, print..." :-) Maybe it is all that coffee LOL

Anyway, in my mulling I came up with the idea for making a little gift box using fabric roses, as I thought the gorgeous colour would be perfect. So, when the lovely headed away last night for work, I sat myself down in the quiet and made some burnt roses in turquoise!

The best tutorial I have found for making these is at DuhBe. I decided to make some in satin, and also an organza and was really pleased with the results. Not only that, I had a blast making these as they were dead easy! Yes, I got addicted very fast, so be on the look out for these to pop up everywhere LOL

I teamed a couple of my results with a little white gift box I had and some pale turquoise ribbon! And tah-dah!!!

I hope everyone has a super fabulous weekend - I for one am going to steal some time to make some more roses and complete a bunch of projects I have started around the house.



Cheers!



Cath

xo

Complete! Re-newed Water painting

Finally it is completed...the "re-newed" Water Painting, in oils :-)

Lots of glazing,

lots of layers,

lots of waiting for the paint to dry ;-)

And here she is!

( The whole painting is in the middle, third down...)

It was very difficult to photograph, due to the reflections and all the glazing in different light throwing off...I need my Dad to photograph this one for me properly, and at the moment he is (last heard) at Uluru.

So, to try and compensate for the "whole" poor image quality, I took photos of the various parts that make the whole.

Hopefully you can see the different colours, the glazing...the drips! I am new to drips, but I kind of liked it.

Please let me know what you think!

Cheers

Cath

Textured Tuesday offering

Good afternoon my gorgeous friends

Well, today I am home with my sick little lovely :-( So while she has a long needed nap, I thought I would take a long needed break :-) So yes, coffee cup in hand I bring this short little offering to you.

Over at the gorgeous blog of Kim Klassen Cafe, (she had me at "Cafe") Kim is the beautiful creator of textured paintings (amongst other beautiful offerings), that are then used with an image in Photoshop to create some beautiful results.

Pop on over the Cafe and have a look around - Kim is very clever and knows a thing or two about Photoshop which she also offers to share through tutorials.

When I came across the Cafe, I decided it was a place I was very happy to mull over while sipping my latte: not only does Kim create beautiful textures in art through layering all sorts of mediums, but Kim also makes these lovely textures available so that we can try our own hand at a textured photo.

Gotta love that!!

So, being that my wee one is sick and Spring is beginning to bloom here in Australia - therefore I have just the image at hand - I thought why not give it a go.

So here is my before photo:



And after applying my texture and having a jolly good play in Photoshop!

This is using Kims "Art & Joy" texture - isn't the name perfect!

My end result is by no means perfect, but that's not the point :-) I had lots of fun: first because I didn't have to wash the brushes afterwards...but mostly because it was just so easy using the gorgeous texture that Kim created to get a unique result.

Have a gorgeous day!!

Cath
xoxox

Paper shredder to wear!?

Good afternoon everyone - how is your week treating you so far?

Mine has been quite lovely and I was excited to take our little chicklette to her first dance class this morning - though today it is raining, which is lovely, but certainly makes for a very sleepy day. Now she is having a nap and I just want to snuggle under a blanket and have a nice nap too - but I am happy to settle for a cup of coffee and a chat with you lovely folks instead :-)

Now this week, whilst waiting for the paint to dry (literally), I had a different creative challenge to keep me going: I was informed yesterday that this Friday at school is dress as something starting with "S". My eldest lovely said he was going to go as a Sports player...he refined it to Soccer player once he realised he could wear shin pads to school ;-) My youngest little man tells me:

"I want to be a Shredder!"

Hmmmm,...

"A paper shredder?!" I ask.

"Yup! I thought I could go as the Sock man, but I think a shredder is way cooler!"

Awesome!!

So we put our creative hats on and together came up with his costume.

You will need to excuse the very (VERY!) dodgy photos; my phone is taking all my photos at the moment, until I find the charger for the camera!

We used a box from Aldi; lots of black paint; some milk bottle lids for our ON and OFF buttons; some coloured cardstock; white ink and some printed "lines" - I thought what would be better to shred for a school dress-up, than some "lines"! I admit I pinched these from Barts "blackboard lines" on the Simpsons.

So my little man is shredding;

"Funny noises are not funny"

"I do not have power of attorney for first graders" (he is in first grade)

"I will not teach others to fly"

"The boys toilet is not a water park"

...you get the drift ;-)

I did tell him that I could also do the Sock-man, if he wanted to do that - afterall, I have oodles of single socks in the "single sock" basket that we could use! It would certainly put them to use ;-) But no, paper shredder it is!!

The really fun part of this process, was that I bought myself a glue gun!! I can't wait to start sticking lots of stuff now... LOL

Have an awesome day and be back with you soon.

Cath
xoxo

A brief stop in...

Good evening lovelies,

I have just returned from a couple of hours puddling in my art room, working to rectify the "ruined" painting of water.

The other night, after I had a few days to mull over my course of action, I decided to really "let it all go" and whipped out my Sennelier oil sticks and just started to draw on it.

Wow, talk about tapping into the ol' right side of the grey matter!

I had held back against the oils, only due to the drying time and I am impatient by nature: I want results now thanks!! However, I had forgotten how much I love working with oils for the purity of colour that can be achieved in blending and glazing....I love glazing....sigh.

The reason I decided to do attack the painting with the oil sticks, was because I had done this many years ago on another "flat" acrylic painting that seemed to be going nowhere: I had layered colour...I used a palette knife to bring in texture...I pulled off colour to create interesting effects in the background...but to no avail, it was lack lustre. So, I decided to whip out my oil sticks and just scribble all over it. This led to some more oil, a bit of glazing.... and the result was really satisfying and became my lovelies favourite painting: the Tulips.

It is about 1.5m x 1m in size, with lots of layers of colour (acrylic and oil), glazing and texture. A photo just does no justice to it at all.

So, all being well, my water painting will return with a vengeance and my renewed love of the oils will lift this painting...fingers crossed I can bring a "work in progress" update very soon.

Have a lovely evening,

Cath

x