Ispirato

Here’s another scarf, hand-felted in my studio.

This technique is called nunofelt. It involves combining fabric with handfelted wool.

I used a piece of Lara Downs hand-dyed tissue silk. I had some multi-colored “pre-felt” that matched it perfectly. I created a felt border for three raw edges of the silk and left the selvedge side unhemmed. I put some small pieces of felt into the scarf body and made a hole to thread one end through.

There is no stitching involved. The fibres of the wool are wet-felted into the silk fabric.

I’ve been busy in my felting studio. Here is one of the scarves I’ve made as a commission this month. Purple was requested, and I was pleasantly surprised by how magical these colors are together.

I buy my wool fibers already dyed. The fibers are laid out in the desired shape and wetted with a warm soapy solution. Then I roll the scarf up in a foam yoga mat, tie it up and roll it back and forth. I like to sit and roll with my feet. After a period of rolling I add more warm water to heat it up and rub the scarf against the bumps in the yoga mat to shrink them together even more and create a strong felt fabric. It is dried and ironed, then ready to wear.

My studio is above Lumina Gallery in Malvern East, Victoria Australia. We are having an open day Saturday the 22nd. That’s from 10.30am to 4pm at 89 Waverley Road. There will be free workshops and demos, so if you are in Melbourne come on down!

It’s been several months since I’ve posted any SoulCollage cards. This one is called “The Fool”. Seena Frost, the creator of SoulCollage and author of the book by that same title suggests that everyone consider making The Fool to include in their own personal decks. To me The Fool is the innocent, naive person setting out on this adventure called “LIFE”. The Fool can also be a clown. In a royal court the jester was often the only person who could get away with speaking the truth (probably as long as he did it in the form of a joke!). When we create a SoulCollage card it is named and placed in a suit. The Fool is part of my Council Suit - the suit of archetypes.

I’m posting this card in celebration of the fact that I recently undertook the SoulCollage facilitator training. Now I can run workshops on this fantastic practice which I’ve come to love so much. There are only 17 facilitators in Australia at present and I think I’m the only one in the South East suburbs of Melbourne.

I’ll discuss it more in future posts. In the meantime I invite you to read more about it by following the link below:
 SoulCollage is a registered trademark of SoulCollage LLC. More information can be found at http://www.soulcollage.com. Cards are made for personal use and are not to be bartered, traded or sold. Thank you to all the photographers and artists whose images inspire us to recreate and discover our inner and outer worlds.

This 1/12th scale parlor is my most ambitious miniature project to date. I made it at a weekend workshop run by VAME last month.

VAME = Victorian Association of Miniature Enthusiasts. Their annual show is on 13 and 14 July at the Mt Waverley Community Centre. It is well worth attending if you appreciate mini stuff!

 This room in a box features inserted walls, lit display cases flanking the fireplace and a window which is lit from above. I also added an overhead light and a free standing lamp. I’ve never done any intricate electrical wiring, but Jan, who designed the project, made it quite easy. I might add a lighted coal fire insert for the fireplace eventually. At the moment it just has some logs in it.

The bookcase is set into the wall and I made every single book from paper and balsa wood. I started making books for my schoolroom (see my previous post) and really enjoyed the process. Check out the bunny bookends which I made from two tiny metal rabbits purchased ages ago.

We brought our own fabric to the workshop and were taught to make the elaborate curtains. I put a magazine photo of a winter scene outside my window. The little dog looking out looks very much like my own little Jack Russell Terrier, Jasmine.

I had bought the harp on sale from a miniatures supplier and thought it suited the room. I made the stool to go with it.

I painted the fireplace to resemble white marble. I made the clock and put tiny pictures into the charm-size frames. I made a plate of tiny tarts for the famiy’s afternoon tea, which was set out by the maid, who has left to call the family to the parlor. I think the mother loves doing embroidery while the father and teenage daughter enjoy reading here. No dolls in my box, but I can imagine the space filled with tiny occupants!Â

This is one of my two latest dollhouse miniature projects. All seven members of the Tiny Tarts group here in Melbourne have made mini-classrooms for the upcoming VAME Dollhouse and Miniatures Show in Melbourne (Australia).

We all started with the same size roombox, kits to make four old-fashioned school desk, and a kit to build the bookshelf. One member made us all globes. We took it in turns to run short workshops when we met to make blackboards, books, satchels and backpacks, etc. I led a workshop where we all made desks for the teacher.

Though we all started with the same box and desks, each classroom has evolved so differently! Mine, shown here, is a 5th grade classroom in Indiana circa 1960. The other rooms might be older or newer than mine. One is set at Harry Potter’s school, Hogwarths!

There were no windows or doors cut into our boxes and I wanted to create the illusion of two windows along the back wall. So I made window frames and roller blinds to hide the fact that there is no scenery - just blank wall inside the frames.

VAME stands for “Victorian Association of Miniature Enthusiasts”. The annual show features many wonderful exhibitions of room boxes, and maybe even an entire dollhouse or two, created by VAME members. THere are traders there selling miniature wares, too.

The Show will be held 11 & 12 July 2009 at the Mt Waverley Community Centre, Millers Street, opposite Mt Waverley Railway Station. Ample free parking! Hours are 10.00 am to 4.00 pm both Saturday and Sunday. http://www.vame.org.au/

We had our June Paperific Expo in Melbourne. I was hoping to attract 25 exhibitors but we just fell short - there were 22. However, they were all great businesses and there was a good mix of papercrafting products for scrapbooking, stamping and cardmaking. And there were SEVEN make and take tables at the show. Plus the demos. It all adds up to a great day out.

Two thousand customers attended and they offered lots of compliments. The food was a winner this time, though the cafe was understaffed on Friday.

After just about every Paperific Expo I’ve put on (and I’ve put on 15!) customers send me emails with this plea: ‘Give the exhibitors more room so it is less crowded in their stands.’ What people don’t understand is that the exhibitors rent stand space. Each business owner chooses the stand size, how to set out the furnishings and how much stock to bring.

Art Stamps Australia had the most popular stand at the show last weekend. It was always packed! Marg and Louise came to me on Sunday to request a larger stand than they had originally booked for the next Expo in November so there will be more space inside for us fat-bottomed ladies!

Our building at the Melbourne Showgrounds does allow us to have nice spacious aisles. It was recently carpeted too, and the Showgrounds staff are very attentive.

November will be bigger - our Spring Show always attracts more exhibitors and around 3000 customers. We also run a wholesale trade event in association with the retail expo. It is set up in an adjascent space.

I believe we will have 20 of the 22 June exhibitors returning in November. And there will be 10 or 15 others on top of that.

I like being a show organiser. Paperific has been really rewarding on both personal and financial levels. I really love to see customers enjoying themselves there and I also love to hear how happy exhibitors are with the results they achieve. I get to talk to the exhibitors quite a lot during the show and I know, having exhibited at craft shows myself, how hard they work. The recession has hit many craft businesses hard. So it was a relief to know they did so well last weekend. I extend my thanks to both the customers and the exhbitors for coming along to the June Expo.

November Paperific is set to be successful, too. I actually hope to have handed over responsibility to a new owner before then. Yes, Paperific is for sale. I want to sell for health reasons - many of you know that I have cancer. For this reason I’d like to retire from event management and just relax, make art and focus on healing.

Here comes the sales pitch: If you would like to purchase an Australian business that offers flexible, part-time hours, and you have good organisational and people skills, consider Paperific.  Email my broker, Karli Dunham: karli@justbusinessbrokers.com.

Here it is: My new felt studio above Lumina Gallery in Malvern East (a suburb of Melbourne, Australia). It looks pretty tidy from this angle of the photo. On the mantle of the lovely old, non-functioning fireplace, I’ve place feminine images including felt works by me, my sister Vonnie and my friend Nonie. That vase of flowers near the corner - the vase is from Jane and the light-up plastic tulips are from Coralee. The pirate hat is a gift from my sister Trish and it is so comfy and becoming! Hanging beneath I have a basket of stuffed toys I like to think of as the studio mascots.

I’ve already made some felt pieces on my raised table and I love spending time here, working without interruption. I am trying to spend at least 10 hours a week in the studio initially while I’m getting the next Paperific expo organized. Then I’ll be able to increase my studio hours starting in July.

The next Paperific Expo - wowee! It is one week away! This one has come together so easily. There will be great vibes at the Melbourne Showgrounds on the 19th, 20th and 21st. Here’s where you can learn more about the June Paperific Expo for papercraft lovers: http://www.paperific.com.au/june.html

I had to renew my passport and that meant a new photo, of course. And it is a utilitarian photo - no smiles or head tilting and no multiple poses so you can choose the most becoming one.

The spare copies ended up on my computer desk. And I thought, “Ugh!” every time they caught my eye.

Next thing, I was scanning the photo into Photoshop to see if I could turn the image into something I liked better. Amongst the artistic filters were “poster edges” and “neon”. At left you see the result. I really like it. If it were a full body shot, I’d like to be wearing a silver space suit and sporting a blaster.

Through the ages, artists have painted self-portraits. Some painted themselves warts and all. Some did a little editing, eliminating wrinkles and spare chins (yup, I did this, along with applying the filters).

So who is this woman, staring ahead to the future? She follows the beat of her own drum, given her haircut and nose stud. She’s not shy. She looks optimistic and determined. Maybe a little amused. She is listening, intently … but I bet she will only hear what she wants to hear.

She fell into a vat of nuclear waste which caused her to glow. And aren’t the colors pretty? 

Â

Two months after chemo has finished, I decided to dye my super-short gray hair RED. Look closely in the upper left-hand corner and you’ll see my “before” shot. These aren’t my most becoming pictures and I feel very brave sharing them! But this is me, now. I am feeling well though not as energetic as I used to be. But I really enjoy relaxing and sleeping, so that is okay.

A year ago, after my cancer diagnosis, I promised myself a studio space - not just the bedroom here at home that I already use. Stuffed with papers, fabric and supplies, it is mostly a storage room with a desk where I can sometimes clear enough space to do stamping and papercrafts. That’s not a proper studio. The studio I imagine for myself gives me room to move. And also room to heal.

Today I signed a sub-lease for a room above Lumina Fibre Arts Gallery in Malvern. Hooray!

I intend to move my feltmaking gear into it initially. There is space for other arts and crafts I pursue, but for the next few months I’d like to focus on felt. The ground floor is occupied by the gallery and a couple of small teaching spaces. I already sell work through the gallery. And it would be good to run some workshops again. In fact, I have just booked-in to do SoulCollage facilitator training in late July with Karen Mann, and Lumina’s back workshop is a good space for running SoulCollage classes.

I get to move into my new private studio in early June. Now that’s something to look forward to.

Well, I’ve got my Paperific hat on again and it fits comfortably, I must say. There will be TWO expos in 2009:

19 - 21 June … and … 13 - 15 November

I’ve just updated the Paperific website with a list of the first exhibitors to confirm their involvement in the June show. Of course there are several others coming and I will add their business names as they formalise the commitment.

I already have customers asking about dates for 2010! Ai-yi - I should plan that far ahead, I know, but it makes my head spin.

I think this June will make the 14th papercraft expo I’ve organised.