*pats self on back* Curly scarf success

Yes! I finally figured it out darlings and don't I feel so clever. I have a long way to go but it is addictive. The yarn is a cotton/bamboo mix and its as soft as a babies backside. at $2.99AUD for 50grams I thought it was pretty reasonable.
OK enough chit chat. It is my eBay day today. Well that's what it says on my agenda for the week so it must be so. Ta Ta for now!

Silly me, I forgot to post the link to the pattern. Here it is at Unravelled

Give it a go! The finished product looks scrummy

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I Heart Melbourne!

Although I am restricted with the images that I can show from the exhibitions because I promised all involved that I would be good, I still managed to capture small reminders of a fabulous day, in a fantastic town with one of my favourite people, my mum. Mum is one of the red ladies you see around the city and she has been learning the history of Melbourne so I got personal tour. I would have to start a Melbourne blog just to tell you all that I learnt today of wht went on way back when but for now some images of my travels today will suffice.

Yes, those pipes are covered in gold leaf and we got to talk to the lovely blokes that were doing it.

Have a great weekend!

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What Inspires me!

I know that you didn't ask but I felt compelled to answer. I mean it is something that I ponder often and I feel the urge to blog it. What inspires me is actually a huge contradiction to what I surround myself with sometimes. I get excited when I see a multicoloured flower such as rose that starts off white, blends into yellow then is tipped bright pink around the rim. WOW. Those colors sound a little iffy together but mother nature somehow manages to co ordinate even the most gaudy combinations and makes them look fabulous.

I love reading interior design blogs or mags for patterns. I just love patterns. Paisleys and polka dots make me go WOW, Gingham makes me feel sunny and dappled shadows from the sun shining through trees just makes me want screen print it or scroll saw the image for me to keep forever. Interior designers put everything together brilliantly and they find the best fabric, wall paper and furniture which all makes for spectacular eye candy.
I get excited and inspired by historical buildings, textiles and furniture. One of my favourite films/doco's that I thoroughly recommend is Russian Ark.

Check out the interior and the costumes. The costumes are superb and the makers are artists in their own right. The wardrobe/costumes are the first things I look at when I watch anything historical whether its a documentary or a movie and it makes all the difference. The next thing I look at are the interiors/exteriors and the furniture.

St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum is on my list of places to travel in the future. As you can tell, buildings excite me. Old, Old buildings. I get my mum to drive me to the city so that I can look at the old terrace houses. Wrought iron and old red brick or rendered. I used to draw pictures of houses constantly, always old and rickety, and no, they weren't any good. I just loved drawing them. I hated going to the UK but I loved the buildings. All of them. My greatest passion is gardens though. Once again, my own garden doesn't reflect my passion for them but I intend on fulfilling this passion one day by taking a trip around the world purely looking at them. Not just botanical or landscaped but the average and the norm. I love them all. Even the most mundane has a story. When I worked full time I used to drive around on my lunch break just looking at houses and gardens
And my most favourite plants or gardens ever is anything from China.

For lazy but warm and fuzzy nurturing inspiration I love a good movie. Art movies especially and this one is one of my favourites plus I love the garden in it.

Some refreshing blogs that inspire me are 23BeechHill , Daisy Pink Cupcakes , Ravenhill and absolutely beautiful things. I stumbled on this and love it Jen Gotch Photography and I just added Brown Button for new inspiration and her badges cracked me up. Just as fabulous is LilyG and Cathy Pentone designs. So with my old and new additions to my blog roll I shall have plenty of inspiration from some extremely creative people.
Tomorrow I am off to the weavers exhibition in Melbourne and I am pretty excited about it. Which scarf to wear though.... oh and I finally figured out how to do the curly whirly scarf, however, much to my dismay it will not be complete in time. Thanks for stopping by. Feel free to leave me a comment so that I can come and look at your blog too.

What Inspires you?

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Thursday Craft Shop and Softies for Mirabel

Julie from the Craft Shop hand made all of these for Softies for Mirabel which is being run by Meet me at Mikes

They are on their way to Fitzroy now and hopefully will find a new home. Thank you Julie!

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New Scarf

2 weeks ago I made this in about 30 minutes using a poly tube and I love it to bits but it wont go with my outfit on Friday. I am going to an exhibition with my mum and I need a scarf because it is in Melbourne after all. Brrrrrr.

I tried to make one of these "Short Circuit" Scarves that Jejune makes but it all went horribly wrong. I am going to keep trying. As soon as I get it right on practice wool I will go buy myself some lovely cream pure wool which will match the little flowers in my top. Oh the fashion dilemma I am facing. Why cant I just wear my holey jeans and falling to bits tshirts that I live in? Ok fine!(mums disapproving voice is in my head) I will make an effort..... I simply cant be seen without a color coordinated scarf though. Oh Oh I know. Some one at the craft shop is sure to know how to teach me how to follow the pattern!!

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It's all go go go at nunde

The transition from a shed to a studio is complete. I couldn't rest today as intended so I did the final touches and then became inspired to finally create some nunde creations. Sketches were drawn. Templates cut.

Colors co ordinated

and placed in process line positions

Not one, but many nunde creations, lined up in an organized fashion ready for the next step. The cutting table full and piles of fabric ready to be pinned.

Canvasses already primed, paint brushes now placed in position. If my pictures are shocking it's not like anyone will ever have to see them. Coaxing myself to be brave and give something different a go.

Finally at 10:30pm I decided to force myself to stop

and now I will try to sleep and push all thoughts of the bags and the buttons and the bag handles and the bits and the bobs that I want to create because that is what I do. And so my day is complete because I did what I do because I can and for that I'm bloody well grateful.

and now my thoughts go to my shiny new shelves. mmm shiny glass shelves in my new wall units that reflect the yummy colors. Now to dream of bags and things. yes yes,I know, I have gold fish 3 second focus. ooooh colors

good night!!

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Shed Love, Op Shop Style

Before

mess mess mess

amongst all of this mess is 50 metres of hessian and a pallet of denim.... yes a pallet!

$200.00 and 3 trips with my handy Kia Carnival and I have 2.7 metres of my shed wall covered and hessian, denim and misc fabric all behind closed doors. I totally love the mirror back, its so 80's lol

Instead of having to turn sideways to get to each work bench I now have a whopping 2.5 metre clear floor area from one side to the other. I could do a little dance in there now if I felt like it. I mean, I would look utterly stupid and I would probably never do a little dance of any kind, but I could if I felt like it. I love op shop (thrift shop) furniture. Its cheap and brilliant value for money if you are decking out a shed. Looking more like a studio than a shed every day.
My fingers are cut to pieces and my backs out and I fell asleep while I was talking to dear M last night, so after 3 solid days of hard yakka ( theres a tonne of machinery I moved, not in this picture and a 10 foot long workbench that I dragged out on my own....who needs men eh), I'm off to bed. I am taking tomorrow off. I don't think I will be able to move anyhow.

Have a fab week!

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Sunday messy Sunday

Still wading through the chaos that is my shed. No end in sight. I need a skip bin, and a radox bath

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Fantastic Friday Shed make over part 2

I am exhausted. Pics are not ready yet, phone battery went dead. I am blogging purely to get out of facing the chaos I have just created in an already chaotic house. Mud everywhere. Dogs in the way. All that aside, I am having so much fun and cant wait to share. My shed is one day closer to resembling the studio it was built to be:)


2 hours later
I think I broke all of my muscles. I Know for sure I broke the draws that I just dropped..... bbl

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Thursday August 2008 Craft Shop @ the community centre

My creation
Originally uploaded by nundecreations

The Girls have been busy

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My photoshop broke

What to do?
I have been transferring data for days now from 3 hard drives to one big one. I cannot find the photoshop install disc and I am loath to buy anymore Microsoft products so I have successfully found brilliant replacements. We have 9 computers and only 2 are for my business so it gets too pricey to be reliant on MS products for them all.
I'm sure everyone has heard Open Office. It's a brilliant FREE substitute for MS Office and I have been using it for about 7 years now and I cant fault it. It also has free templates for a variety of office forms.
Photoshop was replaced with GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program and it is a brilliant program and it is FREE. Click on the name to go directly to Gimp 2.4 Download page. I know some family and friends that will greatly benefit from this program and its reducing file size abilities...yes guys, you know who I am talking to :) I am even prepared to come around and teach you how to use it for a cuppa and a bikkie (maybe some sticky date pudding mum???)
Both Websites will remain linked on my sidebar should anyone feel froggy enough to take the leap or maybe just a peak

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What's in the box?

The parcel was late , 2 weeks late, but here it is.
Drum roll!

TA DA!

(insert Toyota jump here)

Oh what a feeling!

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Is it Friday arvo yet??

So today was my admin day and what have I achieved?
nothing.
Oh the paper work was easy, but then came the forms and all the pc stuff and I learnt the following
1. switching from XP to Vista when you have 4 hard drives is as fun as running a marathon in high heels.

2. one terrabyte of space really means 1 terrabyte of mess

3 finding the original discs to re-install onto new vista ready HD is about as likely as finding the missing sock in the washing machine.

oh well, soldier on eh?

I did successfully design a functional inventory management spreadsheet workbook. Yay! I will now know what I have in stock down to the last inch of string.
Have a fab week end

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Fantastic Friday

In an attempt to manage my time I have designated Friday as my admin day. Because my paperwork is very little at present and I am still working on efficient ways to process and store nunde related information, I wont be tied to the desk for more than 3 hours. And that's including lots of fudge time. Fudge time = achieving nothing time.
In the creating of nunde I have learned a great deal about what I hadn't learned about business. My previous business was a heavy vehicle mobile mechanic business so the differences in how that one and this one run are quite different. For one thing we didn't have GST back then. There are forms that I need for nunde that I didn't need before and I find myself caught out and looking unprofessional. So today I will be rectifying that and I will endeavour to create templates of all the forms necessary. See, I really am creating nunde from scratch and I really am blogging the mundane points of doing so along the way.
Todays to do list
admin, yes yes I know already.
weekly time management chart
Forms
list work orders for next week.
Clean work area so it's fresh for the next batch of work.

Wishing you fellow crafty business like bloggers a successful and satisfying week ahead and a refreshing week end to kick it off with.
blog ya later!

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Thursday Craft Shoppe @ the community centre

Scarf anyone?

From conventional to novelty

to designer hand woven.



All Handmade. Support knitters in the community and the Narre Warren learning centre. Come and see if we have a scarf to suit you. Inside there is a wheel barrow full of them. Price starts from $11.95
Around the table
Joyce knitted some squares for Linnys blanket. She is so fast, even with her failing eyes, that she whips up half a dozen squares in the time it takes Linny and I to do one. These squares are precious to us and will be added to our own personal blankies....I am still waiting for one for you Linny!!!

It was the bosses birthday so we got to eat cake.
Linny made a gluten free almond cake and I had 2 pieces, yes , really! I'm such a piggy. But seriously, this cake was delicious.

We had a busy day and my cupcakes have been selling regularly which I am very pleased about. Time to make more and this time I will make extra to list on my online stores.

Hope you can stop by one day soon!

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Artful Things

This kind of art WOWs me
This is shadow art.
Brilliant!

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

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Great things

Yesterday was all about broken things. I have such a big list of broken things that I would have to start another blog about broken things. So this post is about great things. I don't know any of the girls at Meet me at Mikes but I do follow what they do for charity. If you love handmade softies that are unique then how about bidding on some of the items at Meet me at Mikes on eBay

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Broken, Fallen, and fixed

So, I went out to the back yard and was admiring the purple flowers on the native hibiscus and it occurred to me that the tree was much shorter. And then it occurred to me that the huge dead gum tree behind it was much more horizontal.
Now you may see a terrible mess here but I see buttons, bits and bobs and a fair bit of fire wood. I'm quite excited.

So now I have to get one of these in order to make said buttons, bits and bobs. Yay, more tools.

I had a refresher course on the lathe yesterday. Rick very patiently showed me how to make these cotton reels. I saw them in a magazine once and promised myself and friends I would make some. While Rick was fixing up the gouges I managed to decorate my reel with, a flock of woodworkers had swooped down on the broken band saw that I cunningly left on one of the work bench earlier.First Bob, then Hughey, Rick then Jack, then Hughey, Jack and Stuart with a couple of onlookers all at the same time.
All had a tinker with out me even so much as muttering a word and by the time my reel was complete, tools put back and my work area swept, I had a fully operational band saw again. Now that's called multitasking!! How lucky am I? Surrounded by such a great bunch of blokes. We all decided unanimously that the GMC band saw was a piece of &^%$. Well it must be if it took that many skilled woodies to fix the darn thing.

Ta da! a cotton reel.

Whats this? It is my old dog run. The 2 Labs destroyed everything in it so I am now locking them out of the dog run and I am planting it out with as much lavender, herbs and veggies that I can fit. I intend on harvesting my own lavender for use in some nunde products and it will be interesting to see how many I can grow. I dislike lavender a great deal but I will overlook that.
I paid 6 bucks for this ARGH I need to find a fellow gardener with lavender and snag some to propagate myself. I reckon Id pay $6 for Bindii before I paid that again for weedy smelly lavender.


The old wading pools will be recycled of course. Raise garden beds without even breaking a sweat to raise them. I like that idea.
I will be measuring up soon after I work out a design but it will basically be a copy cat of the ones on The ABC gardening show. Various berries will be grown up the back of my studio.

Yes I do need more wool...

Spotlight is having a sale and I grabbed these while I could to make bizarre scarves and other strange items that I am working on.

(note to self. Put more effort into better back grounds when taking pictures)
Another fixer upper. My $18.75 hat rack from the thrift shop broke and with a bit of wood glue and some new bolts where you cant see them, voila, good as new!

Oh how I missed my coat rack. Glad it's back

And here is my hat that I made as a bag and found it worked better as a hat because I had no hats for my very cold head but I already had far too many bags.
Well it was freezing!



No froofy pictures to end with. Just a thank you for stopping by.
If any of you are bored, please come and paint my house. I hate the green now. I will just add it to my to do list.....
Cheers everyone

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