Some things I made.

I know these are a bit late but I thought I'd put them on here anyway. Out of my stash of driftwood that is currently in the front yard I made a little tree to go on the table for Christmas. It was easy to make with a bit of wire and some wood glue. I just drilled a hole through each piece and threaded them on the wire with the larger pieces at the bottom and the tiny bits at the top. Some little shells were hung as ornaments (they even had holes in them already, no drilling needed!) And it's finished off with a starfish on the top. I also made a couple of new baubles for the tree. I found the clear plastic balls at spotlight that you can put stuff in. (One of the only things I managed to find when I went in there, everything else on my list was either sold out, not arrived or mysteriously vanished.) After collecting a little bit of sand and going through our shell jar to find some teeny tiny ones, it just required a bit of glue to hold together and some glittery string to hang on the tree. Most of the other decorations we had this year were glittery, feathery, sparkly creations that the fishes made at Kindy. (Littlest one got to make some as well, she wasn't going to miss out on using glitter and glue!) I just had to throw in a couple of beachy things to balance out the sparkles!

These other bits and pieces are pressies for various people that have now received them so I can show you. Mum likes my sea fan that I framed and so when we found this one I thought I better make her one too. I managed to get a few shadow box frames from Big W (thanks to Claire for her very good finding skills) and painted the matts in a nice sea blue/grey sort of colour. Then with the help of my trusty toothpick I stuck that sucker down. You could make a nice display of shells or bits of driftwood or anything else that tickles your fancy, as long as it fits in your frame.

This pic is of a throw for the lounge I made for Aunty Sand and Uncle Brian-man as the fishes call them. As you can see it is being expertly modelled by littest fish (not sure why she has gumboots on). It was going to be made in fabrics that matched the table runner and wall hanging they have in their house but do you think I could find the photos I took to check what fabrics were used? They loved it and Sand reckons it will match perfectly so it turned out

A-Okay.

This is a monster shirt I made for a little man who likes transformers and robots and other boy things. I was a bit unsure as to whether he would like it (being handmade and not a transformer) but was assured by his knowledgable aunt that he would like a monster shirt.

He did in fact like it and even wanted to put it on so that was a bit relief. And being the lovely boy that he is, he even told me he liked it so that made my day.

We went away over Christmas to visit Mr Fish's parents and all the various Fish relatives down on the Sunny Coast. It rained nearly the whole time time we were there but despite the rain we still had a good time. I'll put some pics of the little fishes feeding the wallabies and the things we did in my next post. Hope everyone had a nice break and a bit of a relax :)

Some beachy finds!

Here's a couple of recent finds from our nearby beach. The Nautilus shell had me jumping up and down when I found it. It was hidden under a huge pile of driftwood that we were looking in (that was the reason we were at the beach, after the cyclone came through our beach is covered in mounds of lovely driftwood) and I poked it with a stick as it looked a bit like an eyeball all half hidden by everything. Then when I realised what it was, I did a little happy dance! I don't know if they are a common sight further south but this is the first one I've ever seen up here and boy was it a great find!

This sea fan was also found recently and after letting it completely dry out, I cleaned it up a little (brushed off loose bits of outer coral stuff) and framed it in a shadow box frame. I had to glue it onto the backing with a tiny bit of glue on a toothpick and waited impatiently for it to dry to check if it was held on enough.

More beachy finds are still to come! And there has been some major painting going on around here lately (pics to come soon) as well as some mega news (well I think so anyway).....

The building has begun on our rumpus room out the back!!!! Yay!!!!

Mr Fish and Poppy Fish started on it today and put the framework up on one side and a window in. I am sooooo excited that it has begun finally and hopefully all the wet weather is finally behind us.

Drift, driftin' away.....

Okay, so I haven't been doing much sewing but I did make something instead of painting another piece of furniture (you can hear Mr Fish breathing a sigh of relief in the background). I saw a gorgeous mirror with driftwood around it in a Better homes and gardens mag a while ago and kept it in the back of my mind. After about 3 trips to the beach recently we had a bucketful of driftwood (had to be fairly straight bits) to get started. First I painted a square canvas that was lying around a brown colour, do you think I can remember what I originally bought it for!?

Then I stuck a mirror that used to be in littlest fishes room in the centre with double sided tape. It's one of those cheap mirrors from the warehouse so I wasn't worried about wrecking it if things didn't work.

And then I started playing around with how to put the sticks on. I had in my mind a round looking shape (a bit sun like) but quickly decided that required to much fiddling with angles and was a bit tricky so I went with a simple square shape instead. After snapping a few to fit them in the gaps I glued them down and added a few more pieces to the sides when the top was dry.

The finished mirror came out pretty good and you can't really see the canvas unless you're really looking for it. Being on a canvas it's not as heavy as it would have been on a piece of mdf or ply.

(the picture you can see in the mirror is on the opposite wall, I thought it framed the painting nicely!)

Posted on My house of giggles

Homemade Artwork

After spending a bit of time lurking around Etsy and some other sites looking for some artwork to go in our bedroom after I give it a makeover (don't worry, it hasn't happened yet) I came to the conclusion that a lot of the prints I liked were fairly doable and thought I'd give it a go myself. The first two prints are ones I made up in paint shop pro and were very basic. The home one is just a simple quote that is sweet and true and the other one is a bit unique.

Anyone with an interest in home design mags and websites will know that the old bus/tram rolls are in big demand as artwork. I've seen a few around that have a London theme as well as Sydney ones so I thought I'd borrow that idea (I like the layout and look of them) and make my own with a twist. Instead of doing bus stops I did a list of places where we have lived since we got married. So It's a one off unique list that no one else has! And I love the coloured background instead of the black that the bus rolls have.

The beachy pics were done when it was a bit overcast and not so blindingly bright. The sand heart was simply drawn near the water and the shell one was done with some cowrie shells from home (collected on a previous visit) and arranged nicely on some drier sand.

So there you go, a few pieces of easy to do art that will be a bit special and unique so all I have to do now is print them! Oh, Happy Easter everyone!

I just finished making these so I thought i'd put them on before i forgot. they are made from the tins that baby formula comes in, though any tin of the right size would work. i think i'll need some more though, there's still elastic, pencils, threads etc to find nice homes for.