Monday, January 31, 2011

Quick fix

Before
After
Ah, much better.

That was Saturday


A blustery picnic, a strong coffee, a seaside wander, a sneaky eel. That was Saturday.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Fast food

I must admit that sometimes cooking isn't my favourite household task. And sometimes before grocery shopping day there's no food in the house apart from some manky old veges and some aged baking products. On those days, it's good to have a little fast food. Like beer pizza.

If you have these three things in your house you can make beer pizza:
You need 4 cups self-raising flour, 1 teaspoon of salt and a bottle of beer (or a can - just add as much as you need until it goes doughy) .

Mix the dry ingredients, then add the beer. Mix, then give it a bit of a knead.

Roll it out (it can make one giant pizza or a couple of smaller ones).
Add the toppings of your choice (or whatever you have left over in the fridge) and bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20 minutes.
Too easy! You might even have some leftovers for tomorrow's lunch!

Monday, January 24, 2011

Paper trail

A4 to A3? A5 to A3? I've been playing around with enlarging and reducing some of my drawings today, as you can see from this giant pile of paper full of tails and feathers and owls and huias. Soon, hopefully very soon, I'm going to get them made up into a silkscreen with lots of different images on it, so that I can print things onto fabric at the drop of a hat.
Hopefully the finished layout will look something like this:
but without the giant rip in the screen!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Victoria & Albert

Have you read White Teeth by Zadie Smith? In it, there's this bit where she talks about how whenever there's a street called Victoria St near a street called Albert St, people always say "oh Albert, she loved him so." I chuckled when I read that bit, because that's what I always say when I find a Victoria St and an Albert St!

So here are some pictures of the recently revamped Victoria Theatre in Devonport...


Scrubs up nicely, doesn't she?

...and Albert Park:


...which are not really anywhere near each other.

Speaking of royals, look at the two latest additions to my royal memorabilia collection!


Might just have to get a Wills & Kate souvenir spoon next!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

My funny valentine

Oh my ears and whiskers! It's far too hot to think about wearing one right now, but isn't this Valentine's Day fox just fabulous? It's made by Etsy seller Celapiu. A heart-shaped nose...a "subtle and nostalgic" face...aww!

I just might have to get myself one of these when winter rolls around!

Image from: http://www.etsy.com/shop/celapiu?ref=top_trail

Friday, January 14, 2011

Owlcatraz*

I was mucking around the other night drawing an owl in the back of the scrapbook where I keep my inspiration pictures and I came up with this fellow:
I didn't really want to cut up my scrapbook cover to transfer him to a gocco screen, so I tried to redraw him on white paper, but it didn't work out, so I sacrificed the back of my scrapbook and cut it up.

Then I printed him in silver on some cream-coloured cards:

And some nubbly-textured red ones:
And I still had some ink left over so I made myself some owl envelopes for posting the prints I sell in my shop.

*Yes Owlcatraz is a real place! It's a bird sancturary in Shannon where they have owls with really bad pun names. Like Owl Capone. And Owlfalfa. And Owlvis Presley. I really want to go there, it'd be a hoot!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Secrets in the garden

I've been noticing lots of secret things hiding in people's gardens lately...
Like this fellow. He's definitely lurking.

I could've sworn this one was real



This is the Nickle-Nackle tree, world famous in Otaki.

So it was with delight that I noticed my neighbours had hidden this wee chap in the herb garden out the front of our house...
Sneaky!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Colourful



Don't old mattresses have the best colours?

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Duck, duck, goose


When I was in Otaki last week, I found a flock of white ducks, the nice kind that stand up really straight and have long, skinny beaks. The kind that look like the duck from the wonderful book Duck, Death and the Tulip. I tried to show them to Mr Millicent Crow that evening, but they had disappeared. On our way home, we heard quacking from a completely different field and found the white ducks and a whole lot of ducklings jumping around trying to reach the grass seed at the tops of stalks. Which is quite a boring story, but I was very happy to find them again.

Just like I was happy today to find this skirt in the op shop, which is covered in what look like the very same kind of ducks. Although the op shop woman said "oh, you're buying the goose skirt."

So this skirt has a few problems. It's a particularly gaudy shade of fluoro pinky orange (which doesn't really show up in the photos, it looks much more tasteful in them). The ducks, or geese, have beaks and feet which are a rather insipid shade of teal. The waistband is only big enough to go around my leg, but there's plenty of fabric in the rest of the skirt.

But aren't the ducks cute?

I'm wondering what to do with it. I'm thinking about taking the waistband off, painstakingly unpicking it and turning it into an A-line skirt. Or taking the waistband off and running a piece of elastic through the top and turning it into an elastic-waisted skirt. Or making it into one of those bags that you keep plastic bags in. Or cutting out the ducks, backing them with interfacing and making them into patches...

Any ideas? What would you do with such a fabulous but weird garment? I'm hoping you won't say "take it back to the op shop!"

Monday, January 10, 2011

Seashells

Here's an ink drawing I've done of my shell treasures I collected the other day - the same ones that are in a pencil drawing in this post. Next up they're going to become a gocco print...

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Beachcombing

While there have been tumbleweeds rolling through my blog, I've been out looking at sunsets. Sunsets round a fire, at the beach, with fish & chips and old friends...


I've also been doing a spot of beachcombing, collecting some shells which I'm going to turn into a gocco print. Here they are as a pencil drawing:
And speaking of beaches, I couldn't resist buying this little stamp from the Sallies yesterday:
Isn't he a sweetie?

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Happy New Year!

If my post scheduling goes according to plan you should be reading this while I'm off seeing in the new year...technology eh? Happy new year to you, and thank you for reading my blog and supporting Millicent Crow and Miss Crow in 2010!

Any orders placed in my Felt or Etsy shops between 30 Dec and 9 Jan will be shipped on Monday the 10th of Jan.

Now for those new year's resolutions...