Kittys Drawings

Hi Everyone!
Oo-er I’m a bit slack on the blog front at the moment aren’t I!

To be fair though, I’ve got an excuse. My bro is up visiting from Tassie. I did finish a dress just before he got here though…the “red” one – which I thought would turn purple when dying with blue – which it did – despite me saying in my last post that it was looking rather blue. That’s because I was looking at it while it was still wet in the washing machine. Ha! The purple is awesome though!

This is Butterick 6876 – A button front dress from the 50′s.

It does need a few fixes. The bottom buttons are a bit out of line – so I might snip those off and reattach. I also underestimated just how many buttons I’d need…and when I went back to Lincraft, I couldn’t find them anywhere. Even though it was only a few days later! BOO. So I’ve just safety pinned the bottom closed for now.

The pattern was very easy to follow. I did a bit of fitting – taking heaps off the side seams and shoulder seams. It fits really well in the bodice so I’m rather proud of myself for that. I also used bias binding on the sleeves which worked out nicely too. The collar was dead easy – a lot less trouble than I was expecting. The hip area needs to be smaller I think. I need to find a way to take excess fabric out from around the front of my hips. Any tips on this?

I got to use my “new” buttonholer. Wonderful little gadget that! Only took a few minutes to do all ten buttonholes. It CHEWS through bobbin thread so I had to change the bobbin halfway through and then I only had just enough to do the last few.

Lots of pics this time. Got a bit more experimental with the locations. I credit my bro for the photography – he did a really good job!! We went out to the street in the back of my house. Lots of cool walls and textures and colours that worked well with the rich purple of the dress. And I’ve found a new indoor location. Still accompanied by furry intruders of course hehee.

Now I know you’re all wondering where the drawings have gone. I have been working on them. I’m having a go at attempting more than one piece at a time. So the longer project is still in the works but I started something quick last night which I should be able to finish in a few more hours. So I’ll have TWO drawings ready soon. How bout that!

As for the giveaway…I’m about ready for that too – When I get my shit together I’ll organise things for that. Expect my giveaway post next week! Woohoo!

Till then, seeyas!

Hi!
So the zip is fixed and I can wear my new dress. Yay!
Here’s some gratuitous ME shots – with Puss getting in the way as usual.

Scuse my dumb head

Look at that regrowth! Arrrgh – gettin it FIXED on the 22nd – still way too far away!

Yay scallops

So there ya go. Overall I’m pretty pleased. It’s a bit shonky but hey it didn’t fall apart on me when I wore it today.

Bya!

Hi!

Exciting day! I just picked up my Vogue Kris Kringle present for the year – weeeee I am so happy! I got utterly spoilt with a whole bunch of awesome stuff from lil-miss. *squeeeee* THANK YOU if you’re reading!
Of course, I couldn’t wait to open it – bugger waiting til Christmas! Hehe.

For those not in the know – Each year the girls (and guys) on the Aussie Vogue forums do a KK. The lovely Purplewhiskers takes the time to organise the whole thing, collating the email forms we send her and passing on those details to a randomly picked forum member. Then we all go out and buy a present and send it off, while eagerly awaiting our own in the mail. I’ve always had fantastic presents and have been participating for about 3/4 years now. I looove shopping for my KK too – it’s never been difficult to buy a stranger a gift surprisingly.
Mine hasn’t been sent off yet – I have been truly behind. The present is all bought and wrapped I just need to go and deliver it.

Now what did I get? I would have been easy to buy for because my Etsy favourites list is immensely long and filled with heaps of items within budget. lil-miss got me exactly what I wanted.

Have a look at all the goodies:

A perfect skirt pattern! Woo! SO versatile.

Yum smelling Lush stuffs. Soap and a bath bomb. They made the whole package smell awesome!

Sewing bits and pieces like some nice hem facing, zips and lace trim. Some AMAZING buttons! They are so fabulous – perfect glass vintage ones from an Etsy seller I’ve been eyeing off for a while.  There are 15 – plenty for a dress or 2. Wow.

Also – she even considered my kitties! They each got a toy to play with which I just know they’re going to love.

This is the lot of it. So stoked!

While I was at the post office I also picked up my latest fragrance purchase. I’ve wanted a bottle of Penhaligon’s anything for a long time and they finally had some stock on StrawberryNET – didn’t take me long to snap some up – for a supreme discount price of $53 including shipping. These are usually $120 or so in the boutiques here (not stocked at Myer etc). Unlike many of my previous perfume purchases from SN, I have sniffed this one before.  I’m very partial to soft florals and this really fits the bill.
And would you LOOK at the PACKAGING!!!

So cute!! Smells divine too – bright and fresh on the opening and then dries down to a soft, delicately spicy warmth.

What I also have my eye on is Penhaligon’s Douro – which is actually a cologne but hey, I wear Bvlgari Pour Homme occasionally….anyway – its all lemony and soapy and incredible. But that’s on the longer wishlist along with Parfums de Nicolai – Sacrebleu and Comme des Garcons – Stephen Jones.

Can you tell I really love perfume???

I’ll stop yabbering now. I actually have a drawing to work on. Spent 4 solid hours on it last night. We’ll see if I can squeeze out a repeat performance today but I’m pretty damn tired. Sooo – till then…

Ciao!

Hi everyone!

I thought today I would show you all my house. Since I’m always rabbiting on about how awesome it is and I don’t even have any photos. We moved in last October – renting of course – I could never afford to buy a house like this!
When we walked in we were all “OMG” – I was running around saying “eeeee I LOVE it LOVE it want want want”.
We were mega lucky because the Saturday we went to inspect, it was Grand Final day (massive sporting event “football” for my overseas readers – pah! I have little regard for sport ) so there was no one around. Only two other people came through that day and we managed to schmooze the real estate agent. He even gave us the keys that weekend and told us to show our friends around and come sign the lease on Monday.
So when we went to sign all the papers he tells us that he had over 14 emails asking to come see the property because they were too busy watching “footy” when the open for inspection was. Well – you snooze you lose! Ha!

Onto the tour – Let’s preface this by saying I’m only showing you a fraction of the house. The main bedroom is nowhere near ‘display quality’ as yet and the second bedroom is an utter shambles right now on account of my sewing projects strewn all over the bed.
The rest are the rooms we use most often and a part of the way to being decorated in how we like. All these white walls we constantly need MOAR ART to hang on them.

I’m really not much of a home stylist either so I know there’s all kinds of pics here that could be presented better.

K – I’ve tried to put everything in some semblance of order. The French doors lead out to the courtyard and the window is really high and arched – too high to photograph. It reaches well into the second storey. We have two mezzanine floors above the ground floor Puss likes to sticky-beak and follow me around the house so she’s in quite a few of these photos! The pic on the right is the entryway. There’s a powder-room on the left and the garage on the right. This view looks towards the inside of the building. Picture a big barn with a shared driveway down the middle and all the apartments branching off.  Bamboo floorboards which are nice and quiet compared to hardwood

Boof relaxing (furring) on the couch. That’s his favourite spot and he gets rather upset if you sit in it. The couch set I scored off eBay for $90! Freshly re-upholstered too – great colour. They’re supposed to be Parker …they look it. If they are, then I really really did score a bargain!

Dodgy blurry photo. All these are natural light btw – That’s what I love most about this house – so much light!
Also, the beginnings of our art collection. All from Outre Gallery hehe. We plan to cover both walls eventually. Excuse the vacuum cleaner in the corner *ahem*

The steamer trunk is another eBay find. I won the auction for $150 but the guy dropped his price to $50 after telling us that it had woodworm holes. No matter, it’s great as a coffee table hehe. I really should move that box eh, doesn’t look good there does it.  See – not a stylist at all!
Abstract wooden form there is a piece Dad made and gifted to Jonny

One of our Expedit bookshelves. They’re so handy! Few knick-knacks and models…Playstation….etc

My lovely kitchen. Which is awesome. Except no pantry – see? Kinda annoying. I need to get my butt into gear and design something for dad to build. It needs to be enclosed as that shelf has everything rather precariously balanced. And look – dishwasher!! Been a while since I had a dishwasher before we moved here. I hate doing dishes! Still need to do some of course but its that much more tolerable to have a machine do the majority of the work.

My Ikea stainless steel bench. Another thing this house lacks is bench space. So I “needed” this. Its very handy. Dad made me that chopping block. And the little wooden bowl in the background there that I put sugar in.

From the kitchen to upstairs…. Curious kitty

Random things….Jonny’s collection of “stuff”…on our second Expedit…

Girly art on skateboards…..And my paintings on the right. Sitting on my easel. That Dad made for me. Yes, Dad can pretty much make anything
The stairs leading up to the main bedroom are behind the easel.

My jewelry sitting in a hand-tooled leather bowl I brought back from Hungary. Some paintings Jonny’s friend gave him.

Jonny’s red “man chair” – that Puss really loves to get her claws into. Such a naughty cat!! You can see the top of the rangehood there and the window that leads to the courtyard.

Jonny’s desk. Much more sparse than mine. He doesn’t use his computer – preferring my laptop instead. And he says he’s not a Mac convert. Bull!

My desk. You’ve seen all this before….

That door leads into the second bedroom (with its own bathroom). Bookshelf packed full. No more room for anything! Jonny’s mountain-board which he doesn’t ride all that much.

Aaaand my new sewing area. Yay! I need more storage solutions. Everywhere. I want to hide stuff – begone STUFF!!

So that’s my PAD. I love it. Great place to live even though it’s not quite magazine quality yet. Yes, I want it that way too hehe.

Nowwww – better do some drawing huh?

Seeyas!

Hi All

Slackie blogger is back. Been a bit of a hectic week here at home and also we’ve been SHAPED. How can that be when we’ve got a 70/70GB download limit??? Well I’m sure downloading 50 or so gigs of files won’t help *ahem*…so I’m posting in those rare few hours of awake-ness before 12pm on a weekend ehehe.

This week’s life drawing we were focusing on the head and how we shouldn’t treat it any differently to how we draw the rest of the body. It can be hard trying to draw a face quickly while disassociating yourself from the fact it’s a face and trying to get all the features accurate. We were told not to aim for a likeness, just DRAW.
And draw I did

So here’s the results…A bit blah but I like the last one. Usual mix of quick warm ups, contours and then the longer poses at the end.

And this time Boof wanted to check out what was going on. This photo is better of the drawing too – less blurry! I SUCK at photography ehehe.

Hello Everyone!
So since I’ve been such a hopeless blogger of late…I thought I might do a little post about the things that got me a bit excited over the past week or so.

First off…I won tickets to the Good Food & Wine Show through one of my fave food bloggers, My Food Trail along with entry to the Celebrity Theatre. I generally suck at taking photos of food etc but me and the bf had a blast. They didn’t do the “Drunk Corral” as in previous years where they fenced off the wine tasting sections. Instead everything was spread out evenly. You buy a glass for $3 and just hand it over to the various vendors to get filled up
We wandered around, trying wines and sampling foods. There was heaps on offer and lots of good deals to be had. I didn’t end up buying much being a bit short on funds…I stocked up on Vegeta and couldn’t resist the $10 Always Fresh ‘showbag’.
The Mr also bought 4 bottles of wine which will only contribute a tiny bit to the filling up of our way-too-big wine rack. We’ll never fill all 480 spaces – especially when we drink it at the rate we do! Ha!

The Celebrity Theatre was fun too – George and Gary (from Masterchef) are pretty funny guys. I was disappointed they didn’t pick anyone for freebies from our end of the seating but oh well. They each made a dish out of beetroot and one with prawns. Can’t remember specifically what they were – Gary roasted his beet and there was prawn tortellini in there too.

So here’s my pile of goodies that I brought home…Not much but it’s all about the samples you try there.

Next up is some more free stuff! I’m a member of Meg’s Makeup – Linky to your right –>
…a site where you get points for contributing to makeup reviews and general forum-y stuff. The reviews are always hilarious and informative and Meg and her team often pick products that aren’t so mainstream. It’s a good place to go to find out about new beauty products etc..
Once you build up either 50, 150 or 250 points you can choose to get some goodies sent out to you – for FREE. Well, almost. This is my first ever claim on points and I submitted it back in March. Back then it was 100% free…However, since May you have to pay for postage for your items. This I think is completely reasonable as Meg was spending quite a bit just sending these packages out all over the world. So I’m totally okay with spending $15 for $100 worth of stuff!
And yes, that’s how much cool stuff you get for redeeming 250 points. This is my haul:

* China Glaze nailpolish in Bad Landing
* Napoleon Lip Glass in Protege
* Tarte Seal the Deal lip sealant
* Tarte Eyeliner in Ballet Dancers
* Urban Decay Cream Shadow in Whipped
Score! Check it out

Aaaand….to finish off – a gratuitous photo of my kitty Boof, being utterly cute and hanging his super floofy paws over the couch. Look at them! SOOO cute!!

Bye bye for now then – til I actually do some drawing

Hiiii!
Gee haven’t I been slack? Two weeks into life drawing and I’m only posting now. And I never did find that memory card so I had to use another camera instead. This is why the photos are REALLY crappy. Seriously I’m ashamed at how bad they are. Should be taking them in daylight but it gets dark pretty early these days.
So this is gonna be a mega post with heaps of cruddy images. I’ll work on making them better for my next life drawing post.
We’ll start from the beginning and go from there. Click to make bigger – I’m trying to keep them smaller this time… Sorry I can’t be bothered formatting them so they look tidy either. Meh!




That was the first week. Notice the different techniques? We had to do some exercises like drawing without looking at the paper, drawing with our eyes shut, with our non-preferred hand and with a continuous line only. Tricky stuff! Oh and the one saying “Sorry” is when we had to rotate and finish other people’s drawings.
Onto this Monday:

Practicing negative space…

Really bad proportions….Yipes

Overall…I am loving the classes! They go for 2 hours and it’s just the right amount of time. My hands get filthy with charcoal and graphite. Awesome. And it’s all kind of freeing.
Oddly enough, out of all the people there it’s only me and my two buddies from ConceptArt that are using tone in our drawings at this stage. Which would be frustrating cos getting lines right with soft charcoal is a pain in the butt. All learning I guess. Ick these are pretty horrible drawings. It feels better to use really soft graphite over charcoal. And I need to get me some spray fixative.

Well I’m off to bed. I should be drawing more outside of life drawing. Slackie. This is invariably what happens when I pick up READING again. I have two books on the go right now so they’re taking up more of my time than they should. Naughty.

Night!

PS…and this is what happens when Puss wants in on the action….

What is it with cats and paper? She was diving under the sheets! Crazy kitty.