Ciao 2011 How You Doin 2012?

As the sun sets on another year I am happy to be home.

The Vegie Garden is thriving

The cherry tomatoes are just about ready to pick

But best of all we finally have birds back on the block.

Be brought the muscovies home today and thats them on the bank of their pond.

Chooks will have to wait till next year.

And yes we still have George who we raised from a duckling.

Paper Gail

There is a very nice tutorial over at PaperGail's blog on making your own Paste Papers. I would of course add powdered earth pigment where she adds acrylic paint for a more natural finish but apart from that it is geat.

x te

Market Day

Market Day in Denmark Western Australia and what a beautiful day it was

Unlike today which is cold wet and windy.

And this is my stall.

Yes that is me in there

Little egg and dye books

a little something in charcoal, milk paint and gum resin

Some more

and another one with a fringe of earrings

Little wrap books with gesso pages

Encaustic pieces

More encaustic pieces

And a large journal with paper pages using up some of the prints I made at uni

I had a great day met lots of people and renewed my acquaintance with others.

And made a few sales

Now to put some of the pieces that didn't sell in my Etsy Shop

 though I think maybe not in time

to arrive before Christmas.

New Years gifts anyone?

x te

Home

The first thing we had to do upon our arrival

was hack a way to the front door by pruning this enormous

Kangaroo paw.

The vegie garden was also just a bit overgrown.

And there will be no chickens till this lot get sorted out

But the mint is still gowing strong

And the rose is gorgeous even if I di miss it at it's best

There be tiny apples on the apple tree

Water Lillies in the overflow pot

Artichokes are past there best but the bees love them and they are lovely

And parsley gone beserk

Hopefully the seed will ripen

and there will some more edible stuff very soon

We have been working hard to get everything into a better state

Not much art has been happening

but I did do a market

and made some money

which was most welcome

Pics of all that real soon

x te

The Trip Home

Here we are driving onto the Spirit of Tasmania to begin the long journey home.

The last bit of Tassie slips away and we get to go to our cabin (best idea ever) then a meal that was very ordinary and overpriced before settling off to sleep rocked gently by the ocean, ( I could get very used to that) before being rudely awakened at 5.45am!!!!

We spent a couple of days in Melbourne before continuing

 on to the coast  

Into South Australia and our timing was right for the Blue Lake

More lovely coast a walk out onto a jetty which looks deceptively calm

even though it was blowing a gale.

Onto the Coorong which was so full of water was a wonderful contrast to how it looked

when we passed through 3 years ago.

More Coorong

The car loaded to the max by Lake Alexandrina

And then onto the train, this is the stop in the middle of nowhere Cook.

Talk about 2000 acres of Sky.

And finally we made it to Perth where Dan had to have a swim at Cottesloe Beach.

Liebster BLog Award

Oh me oh my, Thank you so much Jo Murray for presenting me with this lovely award.

The Liebster Blog Award originated in Germany and recognizes up and coming bloggers. It is meant to showcase those who have fewer than 200 followers. (Liebster means "favourite" or "dearest" in German.) This is done in the spirit of pay-it-forward. In accepting this award, the recipient agrees to:

• Thank the person that gave them the award and link back to their blog

• Copy and paste the award to their blog

• Reveal the 5 blogs they have chosen to award and let them know by commenting on their blog
 
So now I will pick five favourites to present the award to who of course don't have to continue this fine tradition but what a lovely way of letting another blogger know you love what they are doing.
 
I will start with Jilli over at Jilli's Stuff, she has a relatively new blog with only 11 followers and it was I who encouraged her to start a blog while I was in Tassie. I am sure it will grow. I do miss spending time with her.

Another delightful blog is The Barnswallow. Posts don't happen very ofteen but when they do they are gems.

Another must visit blog for me is Alice Fox always intersting things happening there.

Heres another favourite to visit Crow Zen Art there is always something to inspire and I just love the name.

And how could I not include Michelle Belto as I eagerly await her new book on Encaustic my current favourite passion?

And that's my five. I think I could have easily kept going.

Meg Fowler and Melinda Bloom

I still have not heard from these two winners of my giveaway and it has been quite some time.

If I don't hear anything by monday I will do it again.

Especially as I am now home and I left the packages for someone else to post.

So there may be an opportunity yet!!!!

Will do a real post with pics very soon.

x te

Winners are Grinners

Thanks to everyone for entering the giveaway. It would appear that I am hugely popular overseas but have yet to make a massive impact in my own country. Though I was quite suprised to find 3 fans here in Launceston. So what I have decided to do is

Choose 1 person from Australia.

Jo Murray.

Look at the beautiful vessel I found!!!

 2 people from Overseas

Meg Fowler and Melinda Bloom

And for the 3 locals Anna Lizotte, Jen Eddington and Gina, I will divvy up what is left and take it to Niche with me if you would like to do a personal pick up or leave it at theTin Shed for you to pick up at your leisure. But that way you will miss out on saying goodbye.

As for the other winners, much as I would love to hand over your prizes personally, I think we will have to settle for snail mail addresses. So if you could get themto me asap and then I can get your parcels in the mail tomorrow.

And yes I do have that much stuff left over!!!!

x te

I still haven't received any addresses for my winners so it looks like I will have to put the packages together and leave them for someone else to post next week.

Niche All Wrapped Up

This will be my last Market in Tasmania.

I have heaps of lovely things to sell

and sell it all I must

as I will be leaving on the boat Saturday night

 immediately following the market.

The car will already be packed

and there will be no room for extras!!!!

Giveaways

Ok, here we are post number 200!!!! Who'd a thunk it. And in honour of this auspicious occasion and the fact that my studio is all packed up and I have a pile of leftover bits and pieces, I am going to have not one but 2 giveaways. 1 will be for people within Oz and the other will be for people from Overseas. This all about the cost of postage so the lucky? Ozzies get more bang for their buck, well they would if it wasn't free! Now I am not promising that either package will contain anything in the way of masterpieces but their will be small painted pieces, some gessoed cloth some bits of dyed fabric, stuff like that. So if you are interested in a colllection of my bits and bobs leave a comment or if some of you can't due to bloggers contrariness send me an email and sometime next wednesday your names will all go into whatever receptacle is still here and some ones name will be drawn out. Don't forget to let me know whether you are local or not, and will need an address asap as I need to post these on friday morning. Best of Luck, x te

Love this Post

Great post over here at ZenDotStudio today.  I think I will be looking for a copy of this book when I get home!!! As there is now no more book buying for the moment. I say this while contemplating the exessive pile of them that I somehow have to finangle into the back of the car for the trip home. Yes dear I have culled it down to the absolute minimum. They won't take up any more space than you big screen TV!!!!! I like my priorities better than his. The funniest thing, when we get home we don't have any TV reception??? So what is that about? Busy at the moment preparing for our sale on saturday where hopefully we will offload some of our stuff in excahnge for money, essential stuff esp when ttravelling. So anyone local would love to see you down at the studio, there will be art studio stuff for sale as well.

Egg Obsession

Even more egg pictures

I am having so much fun doing these

And as I only have one hot plate

And I need to be dyeing at the moment

Instead of playing with wax

These little babies keep me amused.

And these are just the dry ones!!!!!

I have done a few small ones

which are still wetI will matte them up

and sell them

These will probably end up as bookcovers