Things I've Made: Cat and Me and Sunshine and Sea!!

Cute girl and me busy at the art table - love the little smooshed up face on the paint brushes!! Gosh i look bedraggled in all my crafting busyness!! 

Been crazy busy making these cute Kiwiana Love signs; I love making things that NZ people can relate to; summer blue skies and pohutukawa trees and harakeke flaxes in bloom. Such an Iconic NZ image!

A friend of mine returned to New Zealand recently and came to visit us today; first time visit to our sweet little whare in the hills! It was so nice to see 'our little world' through her eyes! We drove out to the beach where she was bubbling with excitement at the wild west coast waves and the gorgeous beaming sunshine... a huge difference from winter in Germany! It was such a delight to see her frolic amongst the waves; made me realise how much beauty we have around us in New Zealand and we should be forever grateful for what we have! I plan on making the most of this intermittent sunshine with trips to Piha and swims a plenty!!

Love to you all for this upcoming New Year!! xoxoxo

IMAGE LIBRARY #1

Desktop Inspirations.....

 

Latest Listings

Latest TradeMe auctions - So cheap! Must sell for Christmas!!


http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=1521843

Swanson Car-boot and Craft Market

Well, had my very first market stall day today, quite a learning experience; will certainly know what to do for next time!! It is amazing how much effort goes in to preparing for a market day, when you can potentially sell NOTHING!! I didn't sell much, but then I don't think that my artsy and craftsy bits really fit in very well there today - will see how it goes for the Swanson Craft Market on the 21st of November(crafts only this time!).
Here are some pics of my stall and items for sale;

MIX TAPES 2010; and now............eternity......

I soooo had plans to keep this blog up but alas, teaching has once again drawn me into its mad web of... madness!!! I am spending all of my time making crazy resources for 'my kids' and going to meetings and keeping up with all the assessment stuff and omigod it is really all too much to consider coming back full time!!
I LOVE these kids man they are the coolest dudes out! They get all my jokes and they play MAD basketball and we laugh pretty much all day (except when Im telling them to stop daydreaming out the window!!) I wish teaching was always this fun! Im doing screen printing with them this week so might take pics of their progress. We were gonna make basketball singlets, but I think that might be a can of worms I DONT need during Report Writing Time so we are gonna make patches to stitch onto swimming bags and we are also gonna tackle t-shirt prints! WEeeeHoo! Showed them this Bre and Matt Vid (From etsy.com) and they flipped completely and said they would give me all of their pocket money if they could just make photosensitive screen prints!! As I said these kids are AWESOME!


My one, personal, creative outlet has been my latest Spring Time Mix CD that I have just completed! (Phew) I LOVE the cover - except all of the dumb print mistakes due to 'teacher brain'(mistakes are on the printed ones, not the one shown here). 
If you would like one, let me know and I can send one to your corner of the globe!
So, Here it is in all its glory;

Summer mix is being created as we speak (is beaming through my ears at this very moment!) Dont miss the most joyful track of this summer El Guincho's 'Bombay'. Everytime I hear it, it just fills me with the delights of summer sun! Check out the crazy, sexy, saucy video via my 'Track of the Week' link :-) Peas to all xo

Latest Paintings

Here are my latest two..... am hoping to get the whole lot into a gallery soon if they don't sell this time round on Trade Me...  I'm loving making these ones, so much fun!!

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=1521843&mcat=0339-

MUSIC FEATURE; Jamie XX’s Mix

Ive been listening to this mix whilst getting some long overdue clothing alterations and screen printing done.... perfect for getting on a mission and especially for cranking it up a notch: my sewing machines never worked so hard!!

JAMIE XX MIX FOR COLETTE - tracklist

1. Electrelane : I Only Always Think
2. The Streets : Streets Score
3. The XX : Crystalised (DarkSky Remix)
4. Silentone : Beat For
5. Rossi B & Luca : Jah No Dead
6. Clubroot : Lucid Dream
7. Darkstar : Aidy’s Girl Is a Computer
8. Burial : Unite
9. Fantastic Mr Fox & Rich Reason : Lo-Fi-Ve
10. Joy Orbison : Hyph Mngo
11. Skream : Trapped In a Dark Bubble
12. Silentone : DUB PLATE 1
13. Aardvarck : One1
14. James Blake : Sparing The Horse
15. Boogaloo Crew : Hedgehog Sound
16. Zomby : Expert Tuition
17. Deadboy : Heartbreaker
18. Bad Autopsy : Psionic Terror
19. Cooly G : Narst
20. zed bias : To the left (test)
21. MJ Cole feat. Serocee : AO (MJ’s Open Your Gob Dubb)
22. DJ Champion: Motherboard
23. Bertrand Dupart : Ketokole (Boddhi Satva Ancestrial Mix) Fantastic Mr Fox : Plimsoul
24. Emvee : Glitch Dub
25. Dorian Concept : Trilingual Dance Sexperience
26. THE XX : ISLAND (JAMIE XX REMIX)
27. Silentone : You’ve Got No Love (Feat. Nigh)
28. Egypt : In The Morning (Original Club Mix)

Download Whole Mix Here: http://prettymuchamazing.com/mp3/the-xx-jamie-xxs-mix-for-colette

Get CRAFTY - Making homemade Mexican Votives and Papel Picado Banners

Well, the last few days have been very busy, making homemade decorations for my upcoming 30th party. As I mentioned in my previous post, I wandered around a few shops on my birthday looking for supplies, but I really didn't find exactly what I was looking for. So Ive been making both paper and plastic (for indoors and outdoors) Mexican cut out flag banners and a set of Mexican votives (which I based around a fleeting glimpse of a mexican votive in the Iko Iko store on K Road). 

PAPEL PICADO - MEXICAN PAPER CUT OUTS

I followed some instructions on how to make the Papel Picado but here are my versions - I have made them in both tissue paper and plastic..... here are the tissue ones..

Here are the Plastic Papel Picado - Made from thin plastic tablecloths from The $2 Shop - Red, Orange, Green and Blue...

MEXICAN VOTIVES ~ DECORATED GLASS CANDLE HOLDERS
The next crafty thing that I tackled was to make a set of Mexican style votive candle holders. I am about to go and pick up the printed stickers which will be wrapped around each votive, so will take more pics of the completed project!! Here are the steps to make your own;

SUPPLIES

• Votive sized glasses - although I bought 2 sets of tumblers from The Warehouse which stand at 11cm. I also bought a few random glasses from the op shop ( I would recommend op shop is best- RECYCLE!!)
• Strong Glue - I use Tiger Grip glue, you can use it for EVERYTHING! 
• Glitter in a variety of colours
• Adhesive jewels or rhinestones - anything hideously tacky and bling! (although these are 'adhesive' I still had to glue them on!)
• Gold paint (or in my case nail polish)
• 2 lids - 1 for the glue and the other for the glitter
• I have used Photoshop to make up a set of stickers featuring Lady Guadalupe, Frida Kahlo and Mexican Senoritas - all surrounded by rose and flower borders! See next post for new pics!

Step 1

pour glue into one lid and glitter into the other

Step 2

Dip the glass into the glue..... 

.....then into the glitter.....

.....roll the glass around in the gliter to completely cover the glue.

Step 3

Now is the time to bedazzle and bejewel your votives - I have used red, sapphire and baby blue jewels to adorn mine and all of the gaps in between are daubed with a gold dot (which I have now realised isn't actually shown in this photo.....)

Step 4

Now to add the stickers and candles. I created my stickers using images from the internet and the wonders of Photoshop - Here is one example of the kinds of labels I designed, this was then colour copied onto a clear adhesive sheet and then cut to fit the glasses.

I just left all the labels rough around the edges as I knew they were going to be cut out anyways...

Here are the finished products.....

Here are some shots showing the way that the flowers wrap around the sides....