The Incredible Hulk

On Saturday we decided to drive down the South Coast across the border to Kingscliff in Northern New South Wales for the day. The new Tugan Bypass takes what seems like an hour of waiting in traffic off the trip. The plan was to head to the beach so that Remy could have a game of soccer, a nice cool swim and then we'd all enjoy a long relaxing walk along the beach.

So following all that activity, we settled down under a large shady tree at Fingal Head, to a picnic lunch of sliced chilled Tandoori chicken, Coleslaw, tiny seeded Dinner Rolls and my version of a Greek cous cous salad (actually its one of Ainsley Harriott's recipes that I've adapted) along with some fresh cherries, slices of cold watermelon and crunchy seedless green grapes, followed by a bottle of iced Tea...Yum!

All was going to plan until just after lunch when Remy managed to recline on an Ants nest. These were not just your average little black ants, but really big, black, nasty, ferocious stinging ants.

Within seconds the area around his entire right eye blew up, then the right side of his snout, followed by the bottom and corner of his left eye. The poor little guy was in agony and trying to rub his eye with his paw. We managed to settle him somewhat with an towel dipped in icy water, but after about 20 mins decided to head back to Brisbane to the 24 hour vet hospital at Manly. Remy lay across the back seat of the car and tried to sleep, but his little face resembled that of the incredible hulk, minus the green tinge. I could feel his radiating pain, poor little guy.

After driving for an hour and what seemed like eternity in the waiting room we managed to see the vet. By this time it was over two and half hours since he'd been stung and some of the swelling had started to subside. He was given two injections, antihistamine and steroid.

The vet said he'd feel alot better after that. Anyway the swelling had disappeared by morning and he was back to his usual self. The funny thing was as soon as we got home from the vet he was keen to have a game of ball in the front garden. No way I told him, you're going to hop on your bed and have a little rest.

"Grumble, grumble, grumble. Geez mum to I have to?"

This will be my last post till next year. Summer is here in Australia and I have tonnes of holiday reading to keep me amused, might also find some time to laze about the pool in the back garden. The water was clear, sparkling and so very refreshing on the weekend.

Have a enjoyable festive season and most happy new year. To my Aussie friends have a great summer and to my many friends on the other side of the world, stay warm. Catch you all in 2009.

And the winner is........

Ok, so we now know who the winner is of the 2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Competition... drum roll please................."Caroline Fung" with a fabulous creation entitled "Dance of the Fire Phoenix".

Caroline is a member of our very own Australian Beading Forum, a talented bunch of Designers and Artists in their own right, these girls and boys are reaping prizes and publicity the world over.

Caroline's piece is an absolutely stunning work of art. She states that her inspiration came from some gorgeous Swarovski pendants which she found on the Internet whilst searching for information about Thailand as she planned a holiday there.

She goes on to add, having seen pictures of Thai dancers with their rich and vibrant costumes of red and gold along with their very unique posture, she set about working in an attempt to incorporate all those images gathered in her mind. The whole design has been constructed via wire wrapping techniques and using different gauges of gold filled wire.

You can view Caroline's masterpiece at http://www.crystalpark.com.au/

As well as in the next issue (Dec 2008) of Australian Creative Beading.
In the Jan 2009 you'll also find a profile of Caroline's work. Caroline has won a trip to Austria. Congratulations Caroline, fabulous effort.

The Five Stages of Jewellery Acquisition

1) Infatuation — "I want it."
2) Justification — "I must have it!"
3) Appropriation — "IT'S MINE AT LAST!"
4) Obsession — "Precious!"
5) Resale (usually after you're sick of it) — "Make me an offer."

Christmas Dog

Been messing about with the Nikon again, trying to decide on photos for my special Xmas cards this year. I managed to get the young fella to sit still long enough for me to snap off a few pics. As usual he got bored and starting yawning (well I think that's why he was yawning), then lay down with his nose between his paws, had to bribe him with a liver treat. Then he lost his Santa hat and looked at me as if to say "well come on and pick it up, so we can get on with it" He really does have the patience of a saint and is so very obliging whenever he's asked to sit for pics. It was overcast today, so lighting's not so good. I might try again when the sun comes out.

By the way, did you know that Border Collies yawn the most out of all the different breeds of dogs. According to a report in the London Daily Mail dogs yawn when their owners do, although I've never tried this with Remy. Yes indeed yawning is infectious, we all know that, but new research shows that dogs can apparently catch yawns, too. Scientists from the University of London's Birkbeck College found that 72per cent of dogs placed in a room with a yawning person would follow suit. And they don't do so out of tiredness or boredom, the researchers suggest, but as a way of empathising with their master.

Little Miss Peppa Pants

Here's Miss Peppa Pants... as I call her because she is such a little bossy britches and a mind of her own (well she is a female after all)....lol.

Peppa is Remy's (my border collie's) niece, born the same day as him and I get to pet sit her occasionally. She must be fed first and get all the attention...lol...
Remy just takes it all in his stride, he's so easy going. They get to spend heaps of time together, running in the park, on the beach, playing Frisbee although Peppa won't return it and I have to send Remy to get it when she finally drops it...It's a funny sight. We meet up with Peppa's human parents fairly often.

Here's the pic of her I used to do the painting.

Not exactly the same pose but I think its a good likeness of her and her little personality.

I used Atelier Interactive Acrylic paint and this time I tried a new sealer from Windsor and Newton - Galeria Acrylic Medium Gloss Varnish. It went on easily enough but like most sealers one needs to be mindful of not over brushing and only using a light coat, otherwise it can tend to look milky on the canvas.

Solomons Treasure

Don't faint I actually made something... lol

Mother inlaw has been bugging me for one of my bookmarks, it was a struggle to pull out the beads, but funnily enough once I got going on it.. well you know how it it. She's turning 75 next week so this will go with the rest of the present we got for her.

I used czech crystals, glass pearls and beads and some faceted semi precious stones I had lying around in the left overs drawer. The fish came on a strand of beads I bought last time I visited the "Feeling Inspired" show here in Brissy. I made the squiggly shape, a beaten piece of wire and managed to hit my finger in the process. ouch! In hindsight I think the beaten wire kind of looks like rolling waves.

Oh and I added a little Turtle (Solomon) who inspired the whole piece.

"Solomon Honu"

Finished this little fellow yesterday, I love turtles so this one is all mine. Ever since I visited Heron Island off Gladstone a few years back I've been amazed by these wonderful creatures. Although, the Turtles visiting Heron Island are mainly Loggerhead, this fellow is a Green Turtle.

Once again I used Atelier Interactive Acrylics, but this time I used a glaze too, a mix of paint and thinning medium to give the effect of the coral being under the sea.

The canvas measures 1200x900, so its probably one of the biggest paintings I've ever attempted.

I also got to use some of my fave colours too, gorgeous mixes of blues and greens for the sea.

Anyway he's now hanging in the hallway off the back deck against a golden sand painted wall and he looks devine.

Froggy No. 4

Just finished another painting. You may have guessed by now if you follow this blog fairly regularly that I adore frogs. Lamp worked (of which I've used several in the many pieces of jewellery photographed for this blog) painted, real or otherwise.

This little guy is a "White Lipped Tree Frog" and is happily perched upon one of my favourite tropical garden flowers, a Heliconia.

I used Atelier Interactive Acrylics and pigment ink for something different. I love these interactive paints, the colours are so vibrant and a joy to use.

This is probably one of the largest paintings I've ever completed measuring 900 x 900.

Interestingly, yesterday I happened upon a book about "Picasso" whilst cleaning out my book cupboard. That book bought back lots of happy memories. Inscribed on the first page was a hand written note:

"Presented to Bernadine Yourell. First Prize Kilcoy Show 1977. Donated by Mr. A Tulloch."

The painting that won first prize from memory was a Still Life study, would you believe, of Oranges, cut, peeled, quartered etc. I forget how many countless pencil, pen and other drawings I had to complete as part of my study, before tackling that painting.

Unfortunately I no longer have it, being completed in ordinary old student acrylics there were certainly no archival qualities associated with that paint.

We tackled lots of interesting projects in those classes, lino cutting, screen printing (yep I still have the afternoon tea cloth to prove it and its in original condition, never been used) charcoal and pencil drawings, designing posters using mixed media, doing portraits, never pets always human...lol, are some of things I can recall.

I have been painting for a very long time on and off and way before 1977. Alan Tulloch, now a Brisbane Artist, was my Art Teacher for two years in the late 1970's.

So Alan if you happen to read this, thanks for the happy memories and knowledge you passed on to me.

"Cookie"

I've really gotten into the Pet Portrait thing lately. Here's my latest a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel by the name of "Cookie". He belongs to my niece Samantha, but has a very strong attachment to her mother, my sister-in-law, Jennifer.

Cookie tends to get a bit put out when Remy appears on the scene, because Cookie is an older dog and dislikes having a young pup jumping all over him

A couple of weeks back at a family BBQ Cookie saw Remy appear and scampered off to sit with his back to us all between his mum's feet , a very funny sight. If Remy is doing some of his tricks, Cookie is always keen to join in so he can score a treat too.

This painting will make up part of Jennifer's Christmas gift and was painted from two original photographs shot by both Jennifer and Samantha.

PS.. Jan '09
The painting was very well received, Jen said she loved it.

Whats Up

Gosh, its been a while. Spent half of winter laid up with some illness or another.
Luckily I had two weeks of Olympic Sport to keep me amused. Mind you, the games were almost over, when my DH decided that he'd better go out and buy a Set Top Box so that I could see all the action in High Defination. Well frankly, don't know what all the fuss was about, sport is sport and it looks the same to me whatever the Defination. Perhaps having a TV the size of a movie theatre screen would help, maybe should have put in my order for one of those too. hehe.

Anyway what have I been up to lately???? Lots of reading for a start, thank goodness for the local Library and of course my mate Remy has been great company. This pic sort of gives you an idea of what he's been up to most of the time. Typical Border Collie pose whilst sleeping.

I've also gone back to painting. Yesterday I finished my first Pet Portrait, of guess who? What fun, ended up searching my computer for all the pics I've taken of Remy for the last 14months or so and found one of my fav's, printed it in A4 size on photo paper, just so I could see more detail.

I've never painted animals before in such a large format and felt really inspired by some of Brisbane Artist Tracey Keller's animal portraits. I love her unique fun style. Anyway I've given the portrait to DH, who had a good giggle and commented on how I view Remy's mezmerizing stare. Remy really does have the most amazing eyes in real life.

Now I've just got to think about my next project whilst I'm in the mood to paint. I'm enjoying the way the hallway downstairs is starting to take on the feel of art gallery.

2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Awards

Wow. Some amazing pieces have so far been entered in the "2008 Swarovski Creative Beading Awards" (Aust) Many of these sparkling and fabulous entries are from the very talented members of the "Australian Beading Forum". Its a such a privilege to know these ladies and gents, their talent is incredible.

Its difficult to pick a fav, all are winners in my eyes and I do believe the judges will have a very hard time, picking a winner this year. Can't wait to see the top 25.

If you're interested in checking out the entries so far go on and visit http://www.crystalpark.com.au

Birthday Present for Jennifer

I made this bracelet a while back using some of Bev's glorious Lampies. I teamed the Lampies with Stering Silver and Swarovski crysals that are half silver and half crystal. They really give a glam look to the whole piece. The beads were actually commissioned for a customer who then changed her mind and wanted one of my gorgeous green lampie bracelets also made with Bev's beads.

Thought the black and silver plum beads made a great winter piece, so as its my sister-in-laws birthday in a couple of days time, she has scored it as her birthday present along with a set of sterling silver, grey and black toned earrings.

Yes, we have no Bananas!

On my recent trip to North Queensland we passed through the town of Innisfail on the "Great Green Way". Innisfail was severely devastated by Category 5 Cyclone, Larry, in March 2006. The town has a population of about 8,000, and is the centre of the Johnstone Shire, which has a population of around 19,000 all up. It is located on the Cassowary Coast (named after the rare local native bird - more about these in a future post )between World Heritage Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.

This region today is Australia's largest producer of bananas, rivalling sugar as an income earner. Tea, Papaws and exotic tropical fruits are also grown.
Beef cattle are processed in a modern abattoir near Innisfail for domestic and overseas markets. Aquaculture also plays an important part in the region's economy, ranging from prawn, barramundi and fresh water crayfish to crocodile farming.

After more than two years life seems to be getting back to normal although there are still the odd one or two wrecks of houses remaining. We were told by a local tropical fruit winery owner that most of those would have been under-insured and if they hadn't rebuilt by now they had no plans too. The winery's crop of passionfruit was entirely wiped out too, so now they buy all their fruit in. Their Passionfruit wine is rather a nice drop too I might add, think it would go down mighty well with Strawberry, Mango and Passionfruit Pavlova. yum!

I was utterly amazed at the number of houses that have bright shiny new roofs in and around the town, it must have been terrible, almost every house seems to have been damaged. Innisfail is also known as the Art Deco capital of Australia. Many of these buildings can been seen in the centre of town. These were built after the town was devasated by a cyclone in 1918, so the town was rebuilt in the style that was popular at that time. There are many examples of Art Deco design facades including Spanish, Sicilian, Moroccan, Italian and Anglo Saxon.

I was also interested to see how the Banana crops were coming along. Things have improved somewhat as not that long ago, supermarkets were charging around $10.00 kilo for bananas. Now things have improved they're back to their pre cyclone prices.
Lots of green fruit appear to be hanging from trees all brightly bagged to keep fruit flies away. The bags reminded me of brightly coloured balloons of red, yellow blue, orange, silver and green hanging from the trees.

The pic above was taken on the way to the Tully Gorge a popular spot for White Water Rafting.

Copyright

Logged on to the Australian Beading Forum this morning to find an interesting and heated discussion on Copyright. I must say I was sad to find the thread closed by the time I got to the last page, although anything that I might have added I've already posted here in this blog previously. (Click on the Label below entitled "Copyright" to see other posts)

Lets hope that the thread on the forum doesn't get deleted this time as it contains some very useful info and can certainly be used as a reference by any new and unfortunately inexperienced beaders.

Just back from Holidays

Returned home late yesterday from Far North Queensland, hence the reason I've not posted for a couple of weeks. Found both good news and bad news sitting in my email in box.

Received a very nice email from "Burkes Backyard Magazine" here in Australia after submitting a little story and accompanying photo of Izzy Liz.

Here's what I said in my original email to them

"Hi there Don. Just thought I'd send you a pic of our friendly backyard eastern waterdragon "Izzy Liz". Sadly she is no longer with us, but as you can see she wasn't to be trusted around food and her table manners were a little lacking... ie...foot in the bowl. She loved to raid leftovers off the table on our back deck and not too long ago I found her sitting amongst upturned tea cups helping herself to the biscuit crumbs after I returned from seeing my guests off at the front gate.

I snapped this particular pic one morning a couple of years back after my husband Michael left his cereal unattended whilst he made coffee. She loved grapes, cherries and strawberries and the odd painted toenail...lol. I learnt really quickly not to paint my toenails orange and sit barefoot at the table.... ouch!!

She became very friendly around 4 years ago when Michael was digging and levelling an area in our garden which was to be paved. He kept throwing her earth worms that he dug up as he came across them. From that moment on, she hung about the back veranda and would sleep in one of our hanging orchard baskets till the end of April each year and then would disappear till the beginning of Spring. Occasionally she would come into the kitchen via the back door and one day I even found her investigating the corridor off the kitchen. She became so friendly that I could just call her by name and she'd appear from the back garden, often getting up on the chair beside me and resting on the back of it whilst I read or made jewellery. I occasionally fed her worms from the pet shop, these she would take straight out of my upturned hand, plus she would also let me stroke her neck."

Here's the magazine's response

"What a great story, sounds like you had a wonderful relationship with Izzy Liz. Your photo really captures that cheeky side of her that you described so well :)

I have sent your photo off to the shortlist for possible publication.

Good luck!"

I won't write about the bad news as I'm still digesting it as well as coming up with an apt response to the nutter who sent it.

Another thing I really hate is the amount of junk mail that hits my in box. I arrived home to find about 300 time wasting emails. You've won the Lottery!! We want to give you USD24,000,000 as we've found a long lost relative of yours!! Can we launder money in your bank account and then clean you out of house and home!! Please tell us you user name, password and birthdate so we can clean up your email account!!

Time I got a new email address which only my friends will be privy to.

To all those fraudsters, I hope the long arm of the law eventually catches up with you and you get what you fully deserve. A nice long holiday without your own set of keys!

Gimme a break. I'm still learning.

"Ooooh, its a Sheep! What am I supposed to do with them again"?


"Yum"

Do I operate or not?

Mean't to post about my fun day a couple of Friday's ago...

Early in the morning went to check on my aquarium and feed the fish. Thought I caught sight of a bug caught in the plants that are growing in the tank. Went off the grab the net, then I heard a crunching noise.

Well too late, the bug which just happened to be a giant roach was swallowed up by my 16cm long fancy tailed Shabunkin which I've had for sometime now. Darn, now what to do? Could see the fish wasn't able to swallow the whole thing and part of one of its barbed legs was hanging from its mouth. Oh that's just dandy I thought, I'm going to loose that fish, he's going to die for sure. Not happy Jan, that fish cost me Forty big ones.

Sms'd hubby at work, no sympathy there. So then joined an Aquarium forum and of course not too many people had experience with this sort of thing. Why me? Someone suggested that I could perhaps operate on him by removing the bug with a pair of tweezers. Eeeek! I'm squeamish at the best of times and was sure that I'd gone out in sympathy with the fish without even knowing it. My throat felt like it had something caught in it all day. Darn that fish! By this time said fish, was lying on the bottom of the tank, still upright, but obviously not feeling very well.
"Serves you right for being a little pig", I said.
Of course every time he opened his month slightly I could see the bug lodged in his throat, which made me feel sicker.

ok ok a plan was forming. I'd wait till Hubby came home then he could help with the operation. After all, he'd kept fish for years as a child and young adult, surely he'd know what to do. By the time he came home, fish had managed to get all of the bug into his mouth and was obviously swallowing it slowly as he digested it. Several more hours of sitting on the bottom of the tank, hardly moving and continuing to look very sorry for himself followed. After about 36 hours he was fine and swimming around looking for something else to gobble up. Just hope he doesn't decide to eat the rest of the goldfish in the tank, just because he thinks he can.
PS... that's him in the pic above swimming about happily today.

A fun way to select colours for Jewellery Design

Most of us at one time or another have trouble coming up with new and exciting colour combinations. Of course one way to get out of trouble is to use seasonable colour charts many of which are accessible on the net; one such site that comes to mind is Fire Mountain Gems who are actually a bead and finding supplier in the USA and you can check out the 2008-2009 colour forecast guide on their website.

Alternatively you can raid the paint charts and chips which are also seasonal and available at your local hardware store, but one of my favs is to use fabric or a piece of clothing out of my very own wardrobe.

Here's a piece of jewellery I designed around colours in a new blouse I bought in the summer. It was a combination of deep violet, white and rust tones.
I had been saving a luscious strand of violet dyed large fresh water pearls to make something for myself. I teamed these with sterling silver, and various swarovski crystals to match the colours in the fabric.

Summer time Bracelets

This is one of my favourite bracelets. I adore the colours of the Swarovski crystals and pearls together, but the big feature opalite bead in the centre to me seems to capture the essence of summer from within.

Guess I'm just trying to remind myself that summer will reappear again in a few months. Today its dark, gloomy and cold outside. Rain is forcast along with a possible storm. Maybe a good thing we could certainly use some rain and goodness knows my garden would love it to.

Something not quite right

Last week was a stinker of a week. It started off well enough, then on Monday a dust storm hit without warning. No ordinary dust storm, this one was man made. Let me explain.

The property behind our house was sold a few months back and now seems bought by someone intent on pissing his neighbours off before he even moves in.

The house was "demolished" on Monday with no warning, after being delivered a letter to say the house would be "removed" on Saturday. We naturally assumed that the house would be removed on the back of a very large trailer around midnight with a police escort as is often the case with old Queenslanders in our area. But, at 6.30am on Monday morning we were all rudely awakened by an excavator crashing about, smashing roof tiles and basically creating havoc and unsettling years of dust, which I might add managed to find its way over my back fence, showering my upper and lower outdoor entertaining areas including the pool with dust and filth. Took me four days to clean up the mess which wasn't easy when we're not allow to use more than 140 litres of water per person per day here in Brisbane because of our drought and so called lack of planning by councils and Government.

On Tuesday to add insult to injury and whilst I was at the vet with Remy, all the vegetation was removed including a large Jacaranda tree, more noise and more dust. These clowns also managed to wreck a section of our back fence whilst trying to remove a very large Cocos Palm. That fence also encloses our pool area. Enough was enough. Over I went and let 'em have it. Normally I'm a very patient person and will put up with all sorts of crap, but not anymore.

They proceeded to tell me that there wasn't that much dust. "Well how come then, that guy over there is wearing a mask", I said. Some very sheepish looks and a promise that they weren't fly by nighters and would fix my fence that evening. Well yes they fixed the fence, in dark. Needless to say the job was pathetic, tonnes of bent nails and unsupported work that had to be ripped out and put right on the weekend by Hubby.

I'm sure this is not the end of trouble. I can hardly wait, I would rather have continued looking at a very green if somewhat unkept backyard that provided tonnes of privacy.