More fun with Fimo and a surprise delivery!!!

Hi everyone I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying a fun Christmas break!!!!

Now that our visitors have left and things have calmed down a bit I managed to incorporate some creative time whilst looking after the kids!! :0) The boys got some fimo kits for Christmas from my parents and they have been itching to give it a go as they've seen me experiment with it lately!

Here is what we made today!

A snake made by Rhys aged 7 :0)

A little green head made by Riley aged 4

A funny little character for the top of my pencil made by me ;0)

These are 3 pendants I made which I'm planing on painting a simple image on. Haven't decided what yet but will post it up when they are done!

Then this afternoon whilst making tea there was a knock on my door and a Fed Ex guy handed me a package. How exciting!!!! A few weeks ago a lovely person from Staedtler in Germany (the people behind Fimo and all sorts of stationary and art equipment) left a comment on my post where I had made my first ever fimo pendants. They asked me to check out their facebook page and if I would like to share a pic of my fimo projects with them on there. There are so many talented people on there and some amazing fimo pieces!!! To my delight after I checked out their fimo page they contacted me and said that they had a 'little' New Years surprise for me and thanks for my contribution. This is what they sent me!!!

Wow!!!! What a lovely extra Christmas present!!! I'm so excited and feeling very inspired so thank you very much!!! Check out their facebook page here

Lastly here are a few more experiments, it's such a new medium for me but I'm really really enjoying it and it's fun to do with the kids :0)

 For the Eiffel Tower I used a metal pendant and pressed it into the Fimo then painted it and varnished with a gloss varnish. The other is also painted on and varnished.

 This leaf pendant is made from blue fimo painted with green acrylic and then sealed with a waterproofing agent that I bought the other day.

Lastly this heart pendant was made with a tan coloured fimo (I didn't have red at the time) so I painted it in acrylic then varnished with the fimo gloss varnish!!!

Hope you all have a great New Years take care :0)

In colour!

Well the girl from my previous post for Sunday Sketches wasn't happy in black and white so I just had to colour her. It was the strangest thing she just wouldn't leave me alone til I brought her to life with some colour! :0)

Hope you're all having a great week and you aren't too stressed with the lead up to Christmas! :0)

Sunday sketches

This is a quickie doodle that I did in front of the tele this evening. I feel like I've been neglecting my drawing lately as I've been consumed by my jewellery making. So I really needed to sit down and sketch as I was feeling a bit rusty, its amazing how quickly that can happen when you've had a bit of a break from drawing.

I also approached this face differently. Normally I draw the shape of the face first then fill in the features but today I started with the eyes and did the shape of the face after the features and I feel like she really took on a personality of her own. I went against everything I've ever been taught in a drawing class, hehehe I'm such a rebel! ;0)
The words read 'She didn't care if it rained, she was happy and that was all that mattered.....'
Hope you are all having a great weekend!

New vintage style pendants!

Phew! I've got so many new ideas and avenues that I'm itching to pursue with my pendant making, there's just not enough hours in the day.

A couple of days ago I received some supplies which I have been eagerly awaiting. I thought these vintage style settings would be perfect for my pendants. I've only made two so far as I've been busy with the fimo too but I thought these turned out pretty cute!

 The chains that came with the settings are slightly longer so I shortened this chain so it sat in the middle of the chest.

 This pendant was made using a print of my painting 'Midnight Temptation'.

This is a shot of the back!

 This chain is slightly longer .

 This pendant was made using some gorgeous Japanese paper, the bright colours work so well in these settings.

I love the dome effect it magnifies the image beautifully! I'm thinking of giving this to someone for Christmas, I've got family coming from interstate that I haven't seen for quite some time, (don't worry I don't think she reads my blog :0)

This last piece is one of my newest that I shall be adding to my shop this afternoon, I love this little elephant charm sooooo cute!

So you can see I've been quite busy this week and I really should be getting stuck into the cleaning as we have family arriving for Christmas this week! Perhaps I'll just put it off one more day ;0) I'm off to fiddle with some fimo and do some drawing, I can't stop!!!!! :0)

New experiments- painted fimo pendants!

Hi everyone, we finally got our computer back this afternoon yippeeeee! So no longer having to use the painfully slow lap top! I'm hoping to go visiting all my blog friends again, after my eldests Christmas concert which we have tonight! (very excited about that!)

This afternoon I decided to experiment with some fimo that I have had for a while, now that our oven is finally fixed I was able to bake this afternoon, so I made some pendant shapes and painted them with acrylic paint. I thought it would be nice to make original wearable one of a kind pendants. These are the first few that I tried, and I only have black and white fimo but I think they turned out pretty cool. I've got lots of ideas about what I want to try next.

Illustration Friday Phenomenon and Sunday sketches

Hi everyone, thought I would create a Christmas themed piece this week as I really felt like doing something different from what I've been doing lately.

In some parts of the world a hot Christmas would be a phenomenon, but it's the norm in Australia! I grew up on the other side of the world so deep down I think that a snowy cold, even rainy Christmas will feel normal to me but I must admit, I do enjoy Christmas over here. It's all about bbq's and trips to the beach and summer holidays. I'm looking forward to doing just that as we finish up for the year at school and have the huge 7 week or so summer holidays. So this little snowman represents an Aussie Christmas!!! :0)

Illustratio Friday - Prehistoric and Sunday sketch!

Hi guys, what a busy week it's been! Things are getting hectic at home as we approach the end of the school year over here so my eldest has been busy preparing for the school concert and we've had lots of excursions and school fairs etc. Our gardening business is flat out especially now that we've been under water for the last week. We've had so much rain in the last week, our dams, which were once as low as 33%, are now at full capacity. I've lived here for 17 years now and this is the first time I've seen them full and I've never seen so much rain. It's wonderful so have the life back in the country side and not be surrounded by dust. But it's also stopped the hubby from going out to work as the weather has been so bad. I think we've been in drought for about 10 years now so you can imagine how it's changed the country side already!!

Here is my piece for this weeks illustration Friday theme 'Prehistoric'. The first thing that came to mind with this word for me was just how prehistoric dragonflies look. So I googled them as I was thinking of drawing one. I do love dragonflies.....then I came across some information which took me in another direction, how dragonflies used to be very large, and this image popped into my head. It's just a quickie as we had another busy day today. My oldest boy had his grading for Tae Kwon Do, and so we went along to that, he did so well we were so proud and he even got awarded a trophy for his achievements over the last few months!! He was so proud too!!

I was supposed to be doing another market yesterday but due to our crazy weather it was cancelled, I'm hoping to do another one next weekend instead as I've been flat out making heaps more pendants which I'm also slowly adding to my shop. It's so addictive!! Here are a couple of shots of  some of my newest pieces I've got lots more to add!

We are also having computer problems again, it's getting sent back for the second time to the warrenty people, so that's why I've not been blogging as much as I normally do or visiting all my blog friends. It's so frustrating, today it seems to be working fine but we never know when it's going to even log on in the mornings so we use it when we can. Hopefully this time they'll fix it properly! So annoying!

Hope you're all having a good weekend and I shall try to visit you all! :0)

Illustration Friday 'Savour' and Sunday sketches

Hi everyone, well this weekend I decided to work on a painting that I had sitting on my desk for a few days, I painted a canvas green and then let my imagination take over, I guess you could call it doodling on a large scale. I really didn't have a plan for this piece but I knew I felt like working on something more detailed than what I've been doing lately so I took Rose, a sketch from my previous post and worked on that idea more.

I've been so inspired by the roses in my garden, they smell so beautiful at the moment and look lovely. But some are already at the end of their little life span and loosing petals. So this girl is savouring the moment with Rose, and the beautiful smell! :0)

I have included some work in progress shots just to show you what I started with.

Even though I painted over most of the green I think the colour of the canvas gave the skin a nice glow.....

I started with a red rose but found that once I'd coloured in the rest of the flower it seemed to get lost in her hair......

I think yellow works well :0)

Hope you're all having a great weekend! :0)



'Rose' my finished piece, and Penny's Posts!

This is how rose turned out! I used acrylic paint and inktense pencils!

I also wanted to share this with you, Penny's Posts . Penny is my mum and she is a very talented artist. She blew me away with her latest piece which is a portrait of my youngest son. I hope that she gets addicted to her blog like I am to mine as I'd love for her to share more of her wonderful work with everyone. I'm so proud :0)

An art box and work in progress

Hi guys well this week has just flown by and I'm constantly feeling like I'm running out of time during the day. With a home business, two kids and my creative things I love to do I just never feel like I get enough done. I've been slowly adding pieces to my shop which in its self seems to take quite a while when you take photos and upload things, writing descriptions etc. I didn't get a chance to do something for illustration friday but I did manage to paint one of my art boxes that I mentioned in my last post. I've painted another version of one of my previous paintings and I really like how it came out. I will list it in my shop but I'll wait until I can take a decent photo, I find natural light so much better.

This work in progress is called 'Rose' and she was a sketch inspired by some photos I took in our garden the other morning. Our roses are out and blooming beautifully, they smell so gorgeous. I really love these photos and I'm going to try then out in my pendants too as I think they are so bright and pretty. The sketch is a sneak peak I shall show you the finished piece that I hope to work on tomorrow :0)

I thought you might enjoy some of the flowers from our garden!!