New Polaroids

A Week of Frenchness - 3 - La Tour Eiffel

1. La Tour Eiffel gates, found here.

Drawing of the Eiffel Tower (love it!) found here.

I just love the Eiffel Tower.

I arrived in Paris on a rainy Friday evening and was a bit culture-shocked after my walk from the Metro station to my hostel in the 18th Arrondissement (a near-mugging amongst other things). After getting myself sorted, I worked out how to get to la Tour Eiffel on the Metro (three changeovers, yay for being in an el-cheapo backpackers hostel way out of the city).

When I first saw the tower, it was lit up in green and gold, and I actually gasped! It was absolutely one of the most magical sights I have ever seen (of the man-made world anyway).

Above is the first picture I took of la Tour Eiffel. Lovely.

Frankie + Frenchness = Fabulous!

I audibly squealed like a piglet when I got home to find my latest issue of Frankie mag sitting on the coffee table!

I stayed up too late reading it but decided to save some for later. It took a magazine to teach me this... years ago when I bought a dollar's worth of lollies, I never saved any for later!

Seeing as the image of the new issue is not up on the site yet (subscribers get in first, ner ner ne ner neeerrrrr!) I thought I would post a CUTE-E-PIE pic from their wallpaper selection...

And after realising just how much I like carousels (see yesterday's post - Whimsical Paris), I found this lovely pic online when searching for the correct spelling of the place...

This photograph was found here and is by Pascal Agneray.

A Week of Frenchness - 1 - Whimsical Paris

After (only) four amazing days in Paris last year, I figured I can contribute to this theme, as seen on Meet Me At Mike's blog.

I will start off with my favourite photos from Paris, and then move onto some more interesting little snippets from my very short time there... (I just have to fire up the scanner after work and rummage through all my mementos!)

From the top...
1. A band plays in the street next to Notre Dame
2. Children are led on donkeys in Jardin des Tuileries
3. A mime artist on stilts on the bridge over to Ile St Louis
4. Carousel de la tour Eiffel by night
5. An amazing solo street performer in Montmartre (she was ACE!)
6. Jardin du Carousel (at Jardin des Tuileries)

Skirt and Shirt Market - Peta Pledger

Today I ventured to the Shirt and Skirt Market at the Abbotsford Convent after seeing the flyer for Peta Pledger on the Meet Me At Mike's blog.
I found a lot of the stuff there very arty and "samey" - lots of jewellery, clothing, bags and other accessories, but nothing really that I hadn't seen before... EXCEPT for Peta's little stall... Gorgeous! I have decided I like shirts a lot more than just t-shirts - something with flow or structure suits me far better than clingy tops or certain stretchy fabrics.
The amazing thing was, before I even began looking at her stock, Peta asked if I was a friend of Gemma Jones... which baffled me until I realised it was probably because I was wearing some of the badges I made at Gemma's Kaotic Kraft Kuties badgemaking day a month ago! Peta recognised the Wonderwoman badges from somewhere online, which was a bit flattering... aw, shucks!

So, I got this top for a song, and as a token of friendship, a little brooch that says "sweetheart". I owe Peta some Wonderwoman badges as a thank you!

Why I like the little empire of Peta Pledger:

1. It's cute.

2. It's VERY well made.

3. She makes clothes in sizes for all kinds of ladies, including D-cup boobies and rounded bellies!

4. Her colours, fabrics and cuts are gorgeous.

5. She's friendly & super-generous, especially with encouragement!

I will post some pics when I have marked more essays... boo hoo to working on a Sunday!

Peta and I also had a chat about me starting to sell some stuff on Etsy and/or Madeit.com, and some of the ways I can make contacts.

Thank you Peta for a lovely, encouraging chat, and for a fantastic item of clothing at a brilliant price! xx

Blogsville and Other Thoughts

I've been perusing some new blogs and have come across some new pages of dedication and loveliness -

• Bluebird Makes Her Nest - by a lovely lady named Tamara who writes about her children, her craft, her businesses and her journeys in blogsville. This is my favourite (recent) post on her blog (I'll admit it, I got a little teary!)
• Belle and Boo - by Mandy, an illustrator in the UK. I love her work, it's so adorable. She also has an Etsy store. I have this poster of her work from Frankie mag.
• The Complete Adventures of Violet and Rose - How can I go past a blog with violet in the title?! I like this lady's crafts, especially her choices in fabrics. Cuteness.
• Oriettacat - first of all, I like the name of her blog. Also, I like her art. It's all very cool.

I am so glad I spent time reading blogs tonight - What I should have been doing was writing my annual review in readiness for my review meeting with the principal on Thursday, so I can get a payrise - and what I wanted to do was upload my photos from our Monday night meanderings in the city last night, but I am at Jag's place and I forgot my camera and the USB cable for it! Botheration!

I have decided that my work-life balance is in fact completely unbalanced, and it's time I did something about it. Last night we discussed various things such as me honing my voice so I can sing properly, me owning a scooter (yes, I want a Vespa!), and Jag and I screenprinting for a living. I'm also considering teaching part time in order to have an extra day or two a week to fulfill my creative urges. Instead of thinking of what I can't do, I need to start thinking of what I am capable of achieving. I now know that despite being terrible at drawing, I can actually do another kind of visual art - screen printing. And that despite my sewing skills needing more practise and fine-tuning, they are skills that are improving. The key is TIME. I am very time-poor. Teaching is one of those full-time jobs that you take home with you; if it's not the corrections, planning or thinking, it's the emotional exhaustion of having relatively close relationships with so many individuals.
And whilst yes, the holidays are fantastic, it takes a few days to catch up on the normal cleaning/family/house/garden stuff, maybe go away somewhere or head to mum's for cups of tea and chats... and then in the last few days of the break I get the creative urges again... and then it's back to work!
There is space for creativity at work, in a sense, but of course there are restrictions. Today after work I was painting the sets for the school production, which was highly therapeutic, free and fun... but it meant I got home at 7.30pm, hungry and covered in paint, after being at work since 8am. Who has the energy to sew or screen print or make collages after that?! I could barely make dinner let alone be creative!

I am in one of those writing modes where I could just keep going, but I need to consider the time and the (few) people who might be reading this thinking, "come on, where are the pretty pictures?!" ... well, I'm sorry, no pictures today, just the thoughts that have been floating around my head all day...

Sweet dreams to all the night owl readers out there - I am hoping for some comments now that I am back in blogsville - they sure do make my day! xx Steph

Mixtape!

Thanks to Pip at Meet Me At Mike's for the inspiration to make a little mixtape! I even found out the artist of a song I was singing all last night as I wandered the city streets taking pictures - more of those later - I have LOTS of work to do today... (by the way, the song was "New Soul")

Screenprinting Saturday

Jag and I spent Friday and yesterday at mum's house to do some screenprinting. It was something that was fairly new to us both and mum was a great teacher. We created our stencils on Adobe Illustrator and then cut them out by hand. We screen printed t-shirts for ourselves and friends, as well as printing on lengths of fabric and some paper. I am going to use my fabric prints on bags I think.

What a great team!

Mum demonstrates the hand position.

My pink owls turned out really well - super-cute!

My favourite pic - mum and I being arty together!

Below: Jag's fantastic stencil of a shooting target.

The pink top above is one of my PJ tops - I thought it could do with sprucing up!

Below are my favourites - the black bunny worked out so well. On the slightly ribbed fabric it had a more washed out appearance. On plain cotton it looked great.

Above: My prints on paper.

Below: My face-washing bunny print on a blue top.

(NB: I got my tops/t-shirts from Rivers, except my Bonds chesty singlet. Jag got his men's t-shirts from Kmart.)

Above: Face washing bunny on purple spotted cotton poplin, and the black bunny face on white cotton poplin. I think they will make excellent panels or pockets on bags!

Badge makin' with the Kraft Kuties

My sister Eliza and I had a fabulous afternoon at Gemma's studio in Yarraville making badges! We loved it so much that we want to hire a badgemaker again and make trillions and billions more badges for our market stall in the future.

All the badges pictured here are mine except for the glam flapper girl, which was made by Pickles and swapped for one of my many vintage swap cards that she took a liking to!