Warning: 3 and a half days indoors

So Easter came and went. No images of bunnies and chicks here. Think more like sawing, nailing, "Harry, Ron and Hermoine", the bathroom door opening and closing, the kettle clicking on and off, half the toaster blowing up. Or in other words: Mr Redhead worked on the floor in the new room, Master R did copious amounts of model making whilst listening to yet another audio Harry Potter book, Miss Redhead had a stomach bug and couldn't leave the house, and Dudley - well i was forced to drink tea, eat hot cross buns and create. oh well.. I'm sure it was nice out ... but here's what happened...

I began by starting work on my next zine "found in Japan", which is a collection of things I discovered there on my trip last year. I'm using my photos, drawings, observations and things that have inpsired me. The little voice in my head was not helpful with its "so why do people care what you found or what you saw?". I dunno, good point - but then if I just put together stuff I like, maybe other people will like looking at it too?

So then I had to 'step away from the computer, no sudden movements'.
I went to the shed cut up some bits of foam, inked them up and printed these. I then crept back to the mac and coloured up "Suburban dreaming"

That was fun, but was it me, my style? what would I do with it?
So then I ditched the 'burbs and went back to the birdhouse - which was a sudden urge ( i think they are out in the atmosphere at the moment).. so for the northern hemisphere folk I decided to explore a bit of Spring .. here's how that went..


but was that a bit 'tea-towel-ey?' too much? ... what about this?...
Yeah, quite nice. But GREEN? I like green.. give that a go..Ok

AAAh, see that's quite nice. Let's maybe send this one off to get some nice little cards printed.
(at this point we were getting a little annoyed that our printer is waiting on a part - so we haven't been able to 'see' anything for days..)
We wanted to go out but with Miss Redhead not well,we had a quick look around some blogs and loved Anna Laura's embroidered owl. We have had the hoop on standby just waiting for that moment, so as Dudley stepped away from the mac once more off he went to do this..

I should've photographed him with an object - so you can get a sense of scale, he's about 8cm. Perhaps I can patchwork him into something, hhmm, not sure about the destination there. But was good fun, I used one of those pens that disappears when you wet it at the end. The most difficult bit was listening to Goblet of Fire on repeat. Just don't confuse your petronus with your daemon. Mine would most likely be like the squirrel that has a caffeine drink in Hoodwinked. Buzzeeeeziippppppp.
Ok, so with the end of the holiday in sight, not much in the fridge ('it's just like we're camping' - I tell the kids). I get the wiff of the hot glue gun and MUST make a 3D bird house.. I haven't really explored it before - not bad, just as well I'm not involved in any real building. I could just kinda patch and tear to cover the wonky bits..
here's what happened..

I think that will go on my desk in the new room. So that was a bit of the last few days, might have a rest now.
Hope you all had a lovely and safe Easter holiday.

mark this book

So what have I been up to? Trying to restore really. Looking forward to the Easter break. Planning what projects may be on the cards. Here was a quick one from last weekend, inspired by the lovely world of Japanese crafting and the gorgeous things they do with felt.
I think it might just pass as a bookmark gift to a friend...

Playing dress ups

Now I've been meaning to show you this.
Isn't it cute? I thought if somebody has gone to all that trouble to put each of these things together it deserves to be bought!

It's a creation by Daniela Catalano who is inspired by Nuigurumi and all things Japanese and she has recently started making felt items into brooches. Her current collection includes mice, rabbits, pigs, chameleons, elephants, snails, and frogs..

Can you really go wrong with felt?

Tonight we take Berlin

"Mama! come and see my set up." This is often some of the action on display on Mr 10 year-old Redheads window sill. We don't dust much. Although when the 'battle' is over they often do get stored back in the compartmented plastic box.

The altered book club

Last weekend was another meeting of the altered book club. This was held at Yum Cha down on Manly wharf, very nice. The usual things occurred - six trolleys of various food stuffs trying to tout their wares before we'd even pulled out our chairs to sit down, followed by not a steamed item to be seen 20 mins later and a hunt for the mango custards. Yep, just the usual.
(I hope these aren't too pixelated) but Helen's book is titled 'Deface me' and was excellent fun. She had been inspired by the book which is definitely worth a visit if you are interested in the whole altered book thing. My contribution is the spread shown here. The process usually goes like this: freak out about approaching deadline, get vague idea, go to desk, begin idea, idea doesn't work out - I mean idea evolves, wait a long time for medium/glue to dry. Wish you had waited longer before closing the book.
THEN we wandered round to the art express at the Manly art gallery and finished at the markets, where a very talented Chinese man was selling these beautiful paper cuts for $10. Wow.

Building site

Thanks for asking. Oh, you didn't.
Oh so incase you were wondering (or if you've just joined us..) the balcony was rotted, it was marked for destruction, Mr Redhead is extending his graphic design skills to 3-D and the enclosed balcony/bird house/new room now looks like this. Now we just need plasterboard walls, floor and electrics. It's becoming a drag but I guess we can see the end in sight... (the new back door had to be protected during all last weeks heavy rain).

To market to market

A bird is a bird, is a mother, is a creator. I dunno. Basically great news if you can get to Hobart on this Friday or Saturday for the 2nd Mothers Market. Mothers who make, bake, grow, sew, who are offering unique creations and timeless treasures... It's at St Georges Church Hall, Cromwell St. Battery Point. (no eftpos or credit cards).
But look out for Dick & Dora - who have kindly invited Dudley along to play. (Dudley can't make it to Tasmania but has posted his stuff to Dora - to whom he is most grateful).
You maybe able to pick up goodies like these from Dora...

Aaaaah.

Yesterday I had a really bad day. The worst I've had for quite some time. Our son was accused of an incident at a school, the evidence and witnesses seem less then reliable and the punishment is particularly harsh. We are now all working through this but it is far from being resolved. BUT...
in the post I received this delightful "Odd Sock Soup - or things to do with odd socks" completely unexpected from lovely Marianne at Applehead. (Who is about to have her third child). It was a lovely bit of light amongst the dark, and a beautiful piece of work!

the seven weirdo things... part 2

4. When I was younger I used to agonize over what special power I'd choose (obviously I was an optimist). Should I pick flying - or would it be better to be able to 'jump' in a bionic fashion? Or running at the speed of light? (I didn't consider strength). But now I'm older I have to say I'm glad the whole flying thing didn't work out - cause I've noticed that I've started to get quite squeamish being up high. Phew.

5. I'm suggesting this one as weird, but it could just be plain stupid. When I was 10 i broke my toe by jumping into a swimming pool and hitting it on the bottom. Why? 'because no-one told me to bend my legs" I replied. Let's hope I've developed some intuition since then...

6. As we draw to the end of the random revelations ... i do think sometimes we all need to connect with our inner child. Life can be serious and adult, but sometimes you just need a bit of silly nonsense.

7. So no volunteers then?

the seven weirdo things... part 1

Yes I'm still here, altho sleepy - so probably a good idea for us all to keep this brief. Perhaps come back again this week and I can fill you in on more useful/interesting items. BUT for the meantime the (I guess she's still lovely) Sally did this - the ol' 7 things about yourself. Now I'm going to enter into the spirit but, sadly, I am not able to pass it on. Cries of disappointment I hear you sniffle, well feel free to volunteer. But to you who lurk in the cyber shadows, quite frankly I've run out of people. Yes that is sad, now I feel teary.

The Rules:
1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post THE RULES on your blog.
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
here goes:

1. The other day I remembered that when I did a watercolour painting class at age 13. I did a portrait of Boy George. (For the young folk - he was lead singer of eighties band Culture Club).

2. One of the best things to me about being a teenager in the eighties was Flashdance and Fame.
I really wanted to break into spontaneous dance in my lunch break..

3. I've always enjoyed photographing things. I like using my eyes like a viewfinder and cropping scenes. Once I was on a train and imagined what it would be like to blink and be able to record an image. Probably illegal .

ps - looks like I have to tuck the cats in and go to bed myself (I know the suspense is also causing me pain) but blogger is not co-operating...

the double digit mystery tour

The excitement began on Friday night ... the clues were written, the presents hidden. Going along with our 'you're turning 10 - so lets have a special mystery birthday'.. we began with a mystery present trail. 10 clues each, in 10 separate envelopes. All penned by Mr Dudley (that was his workload for Friday!) such gems as "Where you sleep, have a peep, close to the ground you may find something to keep" or my personal favorite .."this involves a man on a motorbike that mama likes most, he visits the house many times a week to drop off the ----." Aaah and it seemes like only yesterday we were all watching Blues Clues...So off they darted looking for their presents - almost too excited to think. Then we heading off to the mystery destination - pausing at Nana's for some birthday cake. We overnighted in Wollongong - managing to find some crazy teppenyaki Japanese restaurant, nestled amongst various car yards. No spilt eggs, luckily.
Sunday the destination was revealed as Jamberoo, cloudy but fine. I can say I did experience free- falling sensations and multi directional forces, but managed to keep my cognitive ability intact despite experiencing all this backwards. For those not up on their water theme parks - I got into a large rubber ring (with family) and then proceeded into a pitch black (water slide) tunnel down the hill. Excellent, if not a bit giddy.