Ice, coral and potassium

  I must admit that this place in winter is not for the faint-hearted.  On Wednesday I took this photo on the way to work - I know, I need to trim the grass.

A dear friend came back from a trip to the north and brought me some bananas - at current prices, a gift equivalent to a small gold bar - and a beautiful piece of coral, found washed up on the beach.  While my potassium levels climb I will be putting the coral into some type of frame arrangement, both to preserve it and to show off the amazing starfish detail.  

I was also featured in the blog of another dear friend, fellow wage slave, and cupcake queen.  She has very kindly included lots of my work and you can find the post here.

Hairspray - the true story

I nearly overdosed on hairspray, but I made it.  I haven't seen so much hair lacquer since the primary school production in Year 7 - sixty 12 year old  girls, one room, pre-performance jitters - it was character building.  School Ball, "prees" (pre-ball drinks), "afters" (afterball party) tick.  Girlchild returned so exhausted she can't speak.  Sanity - intact, almost.  Finances - crumbling. And oh yes - another working week to look forward to.

A glorious, sunny, warm weekend. Right now the wind is howling and thunder threatening but the washing is dry, and it's dark, so I have no more need to be outside.  I tripped over this earlier and so have spent a few hours working on it - doesn't look like this any more but you will have to wait to see the finished product.

The manchild, on the run from ball hysteria, hid out at mine and had a quiet day.  He had a bit of a sleep in so I got some time to work on some semi-assembled projects and recover a bit of the kitchen table's surface.  It's that time of year again.

rhinestones, bluebirds and how the stars move across the sky

I'm exhausted.  The girlchild has a school ball this weekend and every mother of a similar aged daughter wears the same hagged look.  We hemorrhage money. Dress, hair, hair extensions, eyelashes, shoes, nails, makeup, jewellery, more is not enough.  At 7pm this Saturday we retire to our virtuous couches (possibly clutching a bottle of gin) and relax.  Finally. 

I've been working on some models, for which I finally accumulated the bits needed for completion. I still have a star-ship under construction, as soon as I have an hour or so to myself it too will be done.  My star-ships are my version of how the stars move around in the sky - some have several stars, others massive infrastructure to support a single star. 
 
Once the models are complete, it's time to start on jewellery again.  The kitchen table is already overwhelmed as I'm sorting out what I have from what I need, and enjoying the randomness of putting things together and finding that they work.  I spent almost an hour last night untangling metres of chain.  The enamel bluebird earring finally turned up - I knew it was here somewhere.  I found trays of rhinestone jewellery, completely overlooked in a drawer. Some very nice sterling silver and marcasite. It's all looking very very shiny. 
I found a badge/button making machine yesterday on my travels - I'm thinking fridge magnets - who can say?  Note to self: read instruction book. Today, in a mid-week surprise inspection of the opshops I found a cute little box with lovely old (blank) cards for recipes - the colour and texture of the blank cards is just beautiful. Now, I need some tiny old bottles for a project which is starting to take place.  And I'm developing some definite plans for the giant plywood pterodactyl skeleton which has adorned the kitchen for the last two years.  You never know when you'll need one of those.


News just in... I hear that hair scrunchies are making a comeback - from the nineties.  Wasn't that only yesterday? Is it just me or is time speeding up?

Neopagan, occultist, ceremonial magician, and anarchist: how ducky...

I have been musing on musing as a pastime.  Some may call this staring into the middle distance, with prejudice.  I prefer to think of it as gathering my thoughts, indexing them and stashing them with the others.    Some would say it's the best place for them.

A quick dash through Vinnies last week yielded 2 handcarved wooden ducks.  I think they were handmade as they seemed to have some interesting joints and some very interesting bits where it looked like plaster had been used as filler instead of wood putty.  A little work, a little plaster removal. Some paint. Two rather ducky ornaments.  If I'm ever hunting wooden ducks I have the perfect decoys.

I remembered a great song about ducks, which I was unsurprised to learn was available on YouTube - you can watch it here.  I think that ducks are underestimated and we should watch them more closely.
I note that the lead singer of the Sinister Ducks, and the creator of the song, was known as Translucia Baboon, and described as neopagan, occultist, ceremonial magician, and anarchist.  His photo from wikipedia is not a complete surprise.  I think I shall have to have a little lay down -  YouTube and wikipedia in one day, it's all too much.  I see that I am not the only midcentury modernist not aging gracefully, and that's a good thing.



Otherwise an uninspiring week, treasure hunting-wise.  Positively barren of excitement, despite advertised deceased estate sales.  I'm working on some new bits and pieces, which will eventually show up here. I'm looking for my original Sinister Ducks record, with artwork by Translucia.   In the meantime - I shall continue to muse.

Oh Sunday, my friend

To celebrate the Sundayness of today, the sun, the lack of wind, rain and cold, I arose at the crack of 9am, having dragged my breakfast back to my cave and spent some quality time with Michael Connelly and a view of the mirror-like harbour. 

With no specific plan for the day, I started with some of yesterday's random purchases.  My workspace at home has been completely out of control, and some drawers found yesterday at a garage sale needed a quick facelift but were exactly the right size to sit on top of a wooden box which has been sitting outside the back door since it came home on a long ago Saturday.  A bit of sorting, a teeny bit of throwing out - you know my policy on such things- and its all looking terribly organised.  I even finished off a couple of unearthed projects as they surfaced.









 Buoyed by this success, I finally finished off a funny little cupboard - although I'm not wholly happy and will change the fish trim at some stage- which has gone to live on top of the fridge.




There was spare time for washing and for a tricky fish jigsaw, a bit more reading in the sun.  I also finally dragged a chunky wooden 'planter' which I bought at a garage sale indoors and transformed it into a bookshelf by laying it on it's side and stuffing books in it. ( I grabbed a book on Thursday morning and almost died in the avalanche. Something had to be done.)

That big flat thing will be the floor, then.  I am a domestic archaeologist.

I found an old and quite manky cushion at the op-shop on Friday, but I loved the design.  When I took it apart it was handmade tapestry, on vintage linen, and intact but grubby.  It was backed with a pretty little brocade, unfortunately with two holes.  Luckily, the piece was big enough to turn around and so after hand washing, re-blocking, and reconstruction, it's come up beautifully.  There's something special about saving something that someone has put so much energy and care into.  Just what I needed, another cushion.    
I keep thinking I should have a garage sale, but I can't find anything I really want to get rid of.

Post modern modern - Old is the new new yet again

Who knew, when all those record shops closed, and all the people selling records at markets finally gave up and switched to flogging cd's and dvd's, that retro would bring back vinyl?  My pathological aversion to letting go has once again paid off in spades as I have dug out the hi-fi gear, dusted it off ( and I do mean that quite literally) and excavated the record collection.  I note, in passing, that spending the extra way back when and getting the top of the range paid off.  O ye - who pointed out that Throbbing Gristle (a grunge band before grunge was even a genre) were wasted on electrostatic headphones - of little faith.  True, I gave away the TG album, which did indeed sound as though it was recorded on their manager's dictaphone from the back of a gig, to a friend for his 40th birthday, but I still have the headphones. (He was thrilled, by the way, with the gift.)

I can tell that you're dying to know - the single from the album in question was 'Discipline'.  I'd quote some lyrics but it's true, they were a bit indecipherable and haven't made it through the filter of almost 30 years.

Some unexpected treasures this weekend - some glorious 60's/70's fabric - John Kaldor and what looks very marimekko-like barkcloth in stunning black, white and grey. Some interesting satin-y fabric, intended for a quilted throw. Some glasses (for the eyes, madam, for the eyes).  Some interesting wooden boxes, jewellery bits.  A metal starburst black metal and brass clock - I know its 70's, because its engraved.  A funny little mirror. Some small picture frames.  This and that.  A walk on the beach, a Denmark pie.  3 local avocados for $2.   And a bucket of brilliant beach detritus, including a fabulous delicate dried seahorse.

I'm still busy knitting beanies, sometimes from the warmth of my electrically blanketed nest.  News this week, though, that a friend literally quite physically bumped into Johnny Depp last week, in London - six degrees of separation dramatically reduced.  I'm led to believe that when her ability to speak coherently returns she will have quite a lot to say.

What is it with men and maps??

A friend got in touch last week.  Haven't caught up for oh, 30 years.  He's travelling about and passing through and we thought it would be nice to catch up, do dinner, compare child horror stories, exchange 'whatever happened to...?' information, and so on and so forth.  I began to get nervous when he mentioned that he was catching the train.  We have no rail service.  I asked a few pertinent questions - did you mean to type 'plane'?  He assured me he had counted the wheels and there were far too many for a plane.  Be there soon. About 3 hours later - to quote him - the penny dropped.  Yup - wrong town.

My permanent acquisition program has been slowed by inclement weather (even for me!), a bit of a head cold (now passed), and lack of funds (post-holiday). I've spent some time sorting through more holiday finds and have included a couple of the fabulous and quirky vintage postcards and photos which seemed to just jump into my hand.
 

I also spent some time mounting prints of some of my original drawings, for listing in my Etsy shop.  I must admit that selling drawings is a bit like selling your children...and far more personal than selling jewellery. Strangely, the same images on a card are not so personal, and I will be making up some cards and postcards in the next few weeks.

 
I also found a copy of the 1965 'Red Book" for cars in an antique shop in Ulverstone, in Tasmania - along with  oh-so-many picture frames, which totally had to be left behind, to my pretty much eternal regret.  With it, I bought some 1920's and 30's copies of my high school magazine, one of which has an uncle of mine on the staff and contributing articles.  This stuff is really, really going to annoy my children one day.   

The cooler weather has re-awakened the urge to knit, luckily I maintain a stash of yarn for just such emergencies.  I revisited Ravelry for inspiration and downloaded some truly wicked hat patterns for free. If the dearth of truly interesting hats continues I may have to go back to making them- now where were all those hat blocks?