Orchid Paintings

World of Australia Long-term/On-going/Very Big Quest

OIL PAINTING - Enough for a Cafe Show/ Fair Booth

Orchid Painting -Medium size - DING!

I've actually had some pretty good traction on this quest, so I figured I would share. I'm taking progress shots after each painting session, and it is very satisfying to see how it changes as I get the colours onto the canvas.

First I wanted to have the silhouettes down.

The start of the flowers, and deciding on the colours.

Almost finished. This is the stage when I'm nearly done and decide I hate it. It took me a few weeks to go back in, redefine my whites, muck about with the darks and sign it.

Finished. Rather enjoy it now.

Of course, photography of oil paintings is notoriously unreliable, and I am still of the school of point and click and maybe fiddle with the flash, so this is more of a gesture towards what the painting looks like, but still, a pleasant start.

Victoria Day Picnic & Hat

Guys, I trimmed a hat! (like forever ago, but it seems I've been a bit busy moving to Australia, so you are getting this post a touch delayed)

I picked up this riding helmet at a flea market (because why not?) and actually got around to adding some ribbon to it for our Victoria Day Picnic on Victoria Island with the Ottawa Steampunks (we were kindly invited along by the Ottawa Goth Syndicate). You will notice I also added a brooch which I bought for I believe 50cents at either a garage sale or one of those work jewellery charity things. 

Add some goggles (Dear Girl Genius, thank you for your lovely goggles, they can jazz up almost anything [please note that I don't think they are for sale anymore, which is a shame]) and voila!

Okay, so I added a couple of extra elements, but really I am just pleased that I finally started in on the DIY part of Steampunk. Much as I love delving into my costume wardrobe and putting together random outfits out of pieces I've acquired over the years, it is also very satisfying to actually do something requiring a needle and thread. 

So Much Lace

So I bought about a mountain of lace at the Antrim flea market the other week (and a cedar chest, but that's a different story). 

Then, at Bluesfest, this woman from Funk my Junk was selling lace gloves. She didn't have the exact one I wanted, so I was going to go back the next day, and then I got home and remembered the GIANT PILE OF LACE that I had. Lace I spent so much time selecting that I acquired a sun burn on the back of my neck. Lace that is PERFECT for me. Perfect because it is exactly what I would have picked because I picked it. Lace that I realize I have ten to twelve bags of and just ONE of those bags contains 15 meters (I have already started using lace instead of string). 

So now I'm making lace gloves out of various trim. Without a pattern. Basically willy-nilly.

That obviously needs something more. Wait, I know, lace that has RIBBON.

Now I just need to make a second one AND a matching collar piece. Ok, and work out that whole thumbhole thing, but hey, I have lots of lace to practice with. So pleased.

Important Puppet News

I went to a monster making party and have returned home with a new puppet!!

Allow me to introduce you to Jack!

Yes, I made a toilet paper roll, pipe cleaner armed Jack the Ripper. (He has Stabby Arm Action!)

And yes, I've put him in the same house as Puppet Napoleon Bonaparte.

I am a little worried that this means nothing but trouble! or maybe....

He's a megalomanic genius who nearly took over all of Europe. He's one of the most famous London murderers of all time and has never been caught. Together, They Fight Crime.

Bathroom Poetry Update: Still on Whitman. Ended up having to go find Song of Myself because the anthology was missing it.

Bathroom Reading

Bathroom reading is very important in my house. I have been reduced to reading the backs of toothpaste tubes before, but I try to avoid such drastic measures in my own home. Because I accidentally read some of the articles once in the ever present Reader's Digests at my parent's, I can not supply myself with that monthly collection of entertaining anecdotes, kitty rescue stories and appalling conservative rhetoric.

I've been supplying my bathroom with soduku books from christmases (two books. two christmases.), but sometimes little numbers are just not satisfying. Also, sometimes you are a little tipsy and those grids get much harder.

So I've moved my Anthology of Modern American Poetry edited by Cary Nelson  to the back of the toilet and I plan to read it cover to cover over the next year (this timeline may be revised). If you are in my bathroom, please feel free to read a poem, but don't move my bookmark! (also feel free to read my bookmark. It is a tiny chap book.)

First up: Walt Whitman. Excellent beginning.

Long Weekends

Since becoming single again I have found long weekends to be particularly challenging. Suddenly there is time that weighs heavily in my hands, and no matter how many games nights (yahtzee!), outings (Vintage Urban Cabaret - a belly dancing show with steampunk leanings) or breakfasts at Elgin Street Diner I plan, I always end up with just a little bit too much time in my apartment. This is of course compounded by the fact that on the holiday, things aren't exactly open, which makes running errands slightly less likely to happen.

But, this long weekend involved a couple of exciting developments. One: I discovered I can make raspberry pie as good as my dad's (this is unfortunately also coupled with the discovery that I am fully capable of eating most of a pie all on my own) and Two: I have missed crochet.

I have just finished a hat, and started a new one. I tend to like very simple projects, often ones that I can work on while watching something with subtitles (Today's korean drama is Sunkyunkwan Scandal which is ACTUALLY a school drama set in historic times and involves a young lady disguised as her brother so she can go to the all boy academy and get stuck in a room with a honourable lord and a guy described as "a crazy horse" [oh god, I love it so much])

So honestly, the hat is totally not worth showing you. BUT, I recently finished a project with a friend for an other more different friend's baby. We made a baby blanket. And because this friend is part of The Who Council (I may have been out at a show, slightly intoxicated, and decided to inform my friends that we were all Wise Owls and as such were on The Who Council. I may also demand they fistbump me and say Who! The Who Council is totally awesome), and is in fact one of the founding members, we made him a baby blanket with crochet owls. Guys, these owls are ADORABLE. The blue one is the tiny owl once I'd worked him into a granny square.

 and this one is the one that lives on my office wall. I call him Puppy. (The Poppy is for Remembrance Day! Remember! It is coming up!)

You can find the pattern here. Umm.. the eyes aren't supposed to come out mismatched, but be warned, that happens a lot.

From Toronto: A Bento Box

Work sent me to Toronto last week (no, wait, week before that? Why is keeping track of past time so very hard?), which was v. fancy etc, (despite not getting to train business class as I was promised. NEXT TIME! Very keen to try out the fancy travel), but I decided to stick around and see the sundry family and friends that I have kicking about that city.

Which of course meant I went shopping.

In the course of Saturday, I went to Chinatown, Kensington Market and bopped around Queen's and King Street. This was by far the best trip to Toronto  I have yet had, and I finally FINALLY understand why some people really love the city. Although riding the subway with baggage is still not my favourite thing.

So what did I buy while I was in Toronto, you ask?

Well, a number of things, one of which I am still keeping a secret (Can we say Halloween Costume?). But one of things is that I finally found a bento box!

Yes, it has Happy New Year written on it, but I have crafty plans for this little lunch pail, which will hopefully involve awesomeness and not disaster (there may be chalkboard paint. but only if it takes well to plastic).

Part of why I am so pleased is this partitioned lunch box is a size that is actually useful, unlike the previous lunch box I bought.

Yes. Here it is beside the much prettier bunny bento box I purchased from the internet. And which, when it arrived, I realized was of the appropriate size to house three celery sticks. Four if you were VERY determined.

So Happy New Year to you guys, and I am very excited about bringing my lunch to work. Of course, I am going to have to also bring a plate because I can't go putting metal into the microwave, but Whatever! I needed to stop microwaving plastic into my food anyway.