More for Creative Collective Easter project...

I've been playing with patterns in Illustrator and have made this 'Bunnies' paper as a trial and error project.

The bunny shape is made from the ellipse tool in different sizes and 'shapes'. I just elongated the ellipse for the ears and feet.

I think he's cute, with all his 'clones'. You know what they say...breeding like rabbits!

Not sure about the colours...

I thought it would look good as wrapping paper, maybe...?

My Creative Space...A gift for Chelsea

Lots of baby news happening at the moment...

My eldest son's best mate, David, and his lovely wife Kate, had a beautiful baby girl, Chelsea Beth, on March 16th. David and Kate were married a little while ago now and I made them this wedding gift for their home.

Brendon and David have been friends since their school days and shared a townhouse in Brisbane (with a couple of other people) for about 5 or 6 years. They play in the same social soccer (football) team, too. Never thought I'd see they day my son would strap on a pair of soccer boots. Both my boys played a lot of baseball and softball growing up.

Anyway back to Chelsea...A few weeks ago I made a lovely day trip to Berrima, south of Sydney. I love this little village but don't get there often enough. I did the usual 'browsing' (with intention to buy whatever struck my eye!!!) at a gorgeous shop, 'The Brown Shutter'. If ever you are in Berrima, you must make the visit to this shop. It is packed solid with fabulous gifts, notions, home wares, baby gifts...Yes baby gifts, and yes I did pick up a beautiful pink and white rabbit for Chelsea. Unfortunately I don't have a photo as the lovely owner of The Brown Shutter gift wrapped it for me.

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My original intention was to make some bunting for her nursery in the 'Pink Diamonds' fabric range I designed, but knowing I probably wouldn't have enough time to make it before I left on my recent work trip, I felt at least it would be nice to have the gift for her (just in case it would be a while before I could make the bunting).

Wouldn't you know it, in the rush to pack and leave for Brisbane and Toowoomba, I left the gift in Sydney...Arrghh!

While still in Berrima, on the way back to the car, I came across this little gem, Berrima Patchwork.

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Didn't even know it was there, it's a little bit hidden from the road, back a bit for the actual street, behind some trees. This store apparently has a 27 year history in Berrima and Sue and her Mum were so lovely. I bought some contrasting fabrics for the bunting and really had to restrain myself from walking out with a piece of every Amy Butler fabric they stocked. Don't worry Sue...I'll be back.

I knew I didn't want to use the 'Pink Diamonds' range for the front and back of the bunting, so I selected a pink stripe, to match the pink diamond fabric (was a great match actually), then I found a yellow check/gingham and a green spot. The yellow gingham and green spot are the backing fabrics. The bunting is finished with a yellow and white spot ribbon on a white tape. Lastly, I printed her name in a matching green as a transfer and ironed each letter to a flag on the bunting. 

If you look closely at the transfer, it didn't come out 'that great', but the fabric is a linen base so it has a texture anyway, which makes the transfer look like it also has a texture. All in all, it's pretty cute..well I think it is.

The only place I could find to take a photo of the end result was on my dining room blinds, it looks better against a white background.

Two more lovely bits of baby news to come...standby, one is very close to home!!!

More Creative Spaces over here at Kootoyoo every Thursday. Kirsty is having a break until the holidays are over, so Creative Spaces are back on April 28. I thought I'd still like to do one though!

Creative Collective April Project - Eggcellent Easter

Here I am sitting in another hotel room, whiling away the hours. My job has taken me to Toowoomba for this week, which is great because it gave me an opportunity to drive here, so I was able to bring my own laptop to work on a few things.

I made a visit to Brisbane last weekend, on the way through to Toowoomba, and will head back there this Friday night.

There's a few Easter gifts I'll drop off to the family back in Brisbane this weekend, and then face the long trip back to Sydney on Saturday and Sunday.

A lot of my current projects have been gift tags, with the latest fitting in with the monthly project for The Creative Collective.

I'll get a few of them printed while I'm here so I have them ready to drop off this weekend, then when I get home I'll take some time to play around with the design and colours to make a set of maybe 6 or so.

Brendon Grove Blog

I'm sure you are all aware by now that my eldest son, Brendon is a photographer. Well, he's taken the plunge and is now a blogger.

Brendon's first few posts are up now. The most recent being his trip to New Zealand a couple of weeks ago. You can link into his Travel website to take a look too if you like.

He's also showcasing one of his best friends, Tass Greenwood.

Tass is a musician. The two of them have collaborated with an idea for music to compliment the screen play Brendon has been working on for a little while. All still a work in progress. Including the music, but I had a chance today to listen to the piece Tass wrote for it. He has 'read' exactly what Brendon is after and it will fit in so well with the film.

When I have more news on the film's progress I'll give you some teasers. There is still location and production to finalize and some dialogue he's not quite happy with.

This is what he is aiming for :)

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They are also in training for a trip to Nepal planned for sometime next year I think. They'll need to be fit as they will be trekking, and then there's the visit to Mt Everest. This is all still in planning stages also, but the training is going well.

Brendon's portfolio is growing considerably now, with music photography through one of the music publications in Brisbane, his wedding photography and of course his own travels. The website will eventually cover his film work which is something he is striving towards.

If you are after any work in the Brisbane area, please contact him through his email address, he's only too willing to talk to you about your ideas.

Pink and Orange

When faced with such beautiful colours how could anyone go past these roses.

My patience is paying off with taking photos on my good ol' Fuji camera, and with a few new hints and tips from a photography 'guru', Leslie Shewring, my point and shoot hasn't done a bad job.

What do you think?

Not a bad attempt at arranging the roses either, if I do say so myself... The colours came out quite well also, so I haven't touched them up much at all. 

1. I'm comfortable using the macro on my camera, as it's quite easy to use and beeps when the photo is focused at a good focal length
2. Tried to show an overall view here without showing too much of my daggy kitchen table
3. Still close up with the macro feature, but pulled back a bit to show some more colour. I don't have the feature of F stops to enable focusing on an object and having the background appear out of focus
4. Focused on the orchid in the background, a bit of the front appears out of focus - getting there
5. Another overall view 

Creative Collective March Project - Green or Green

Well I'd love to say I've been very environmentally friendly with this project, and recycled something for the challenge.

To be honest, I recycle all my household rubbish, but haven't done much in the way of actually recycling materials OR up cycling them for projects. This is a challenge for me. Storage is minimal at home and so is work area, hence a lot of my small project magic happens on the computer and printer, or my sewing machine, and on occasions when I'm at the family holiday house I get stuck into the BIG projects (like my ottoman, which I am yet to complete the instructional post for!!)

Where am I heading with this...whilst I would love to be able to scout more op shops, vintage shops etc etc, I have to focus on where I am going with this blog and 'the business'. There will be time for all the other stuff when I get past thinking I have to do ALL the projects rattling around in my head. Not all of them fit in with where I'm heading...

So to get at least ONE of these projects out of my head, I decided it fitted fairly well into the criteria for this month over at The Creative Collective.

Behold my new Sling bags, in my own fabric design.

My level of satisfaction went through the roof when I finished them, I'm so happy with the fabric design. I'd have to say my favourite one is the one on the left, the one with the circle fabric on top and the complimentary stripe on the bottom.

My fabric designs have been uploaded to Spoonflower, and they print them on natural fibres with eco-friendly inks.

That's one part of the 'green' criteria for this project!

The other is...the design has an olive green background colour.

The fabric is part of the 'Circle Circle' collection, with a complimentary stripe. There are about 25 of my designs up on Spoonflower at the moment, some of them are the same but in another colour way. I still have about another 10 coming, again the same or similar designs in different colourways, or as part of a collection.

I took my favourite one to work on Friday as we were having a team day, and a couple of the girls mentioned they wouldn't mind one, then one of them thought they'd be great for Christmas presents. 

Next step, try a couple of different colourways, and make a few more bags. I have a quick job to do first, some bunting as a gift for a new baby girl. This will be in another of my collections 'Pink Diamonds'...some samples are over here on 'jane on jane st', my other blog.

I'm off now to start the bunting and to post about a little trip I took today to Berrima and Mittagong. I have some goodies to show you from the trip and I'll post about the bunting when it's done too!


Have a good week everyone!

A thought for you...

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'There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those 

who wish to make those dreams a reality.' - Jonas Salk

(1914-1995 - an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his 

discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine)

This is such a gorgeous photograph. I wonder what she is wishing for!