Shweshwe birdie

This little birdie is made with Shweshwe fabric. Shweshwe is traditional South African printed fabric - it comes mainly in blue and white but you can also get it in red and brown.

Goodbye - gentle gaint

Sam our, sweet big clumsy dog - thank you for being such a loyal pet. R.I.P

Another bag

This is not one of my favorite bags - but I have been using it recently and getting complements - perhaps it isn't as bad as I think it is ???
I love to put little sayings on my bags - unexpected words.

Spaza shop

My daughter Jess, had to complete several pieces of art for her matric practical exam. This picture is of a spaza shop, she took photos of different images in the streets of Pitermaritzburg. I love the way she has caught the motion of the man looking inside the boxes of fruit for sale. This is a real African sence, full of colour.

Simple

I always say that life should be simple - yet not simplistic. This little picture captures this belief.

Packing orders - a 'real' job

This was the second order I got for a whole consignment of bags and chickens. It has inspired me to continue creating for profit. I always felt that not having a 'real' job was not quite the done thing, until I got a 'real' job as a teacher and then making stuff seemed a far better idea.

Cushions

My daughter Jess wanted to give her friend a special gift for her 18th birthday. She wanted it to be something that would remind her of their last year at school. We decided that a cushion would be a good idea. Jess chose the fabric and the pics to go on the cushion.
Mom then completed the project and one very unique gift was the result.

My past life -

This is a picture of my old workshop. This is during the Picket Fence era - cute wooden signs were the creative outlet and the 'job'. It did very well at the time and I was able to stay at home, be with my girls and earn a good living.

I got bored looking at the dirty white walls in my garage / workshop - easy solution paint stone bricks on the wall and create a hole in the wall openning up into a fairy garden. A few years after we sold the house it was up for sale again and I went along to have a look and there was my painting still on the garage wall. I wonder if it is still there?

Bags bags and more bags

Once I began making bags I just couldn't stop - here are some more bags

Scrap Hearts


Scrap Hearts
These little hearts are such fun to make. I use all my scraps to make them. I begin by making a crazy patchwork base and then sew crazy stiches all over the base in different colours. The fun part is cutting them out and getting different pieces of fabric in each heart. No two sides are ever the same. Once I have cut out the heart shape I then embellish them with lace, rick rack, old cloth tape measures, beads and buttons. I print out little sayings onto paper and then sew the sayings onto the front on the heart. Once all the embellishments are complete I stuff them with lavender and cushion stuffing, put a few drops of lavender oil into the stuffing and then I have a cute gift. They can be hung in a cupboard or on a door handle. My favorite way to display them is to put them in this old brass jam pot.

Old Bags

This was one of the first mixed media bags I made. It started off as a crazy patchwork base and then I embellished on top of it with buttons, beads and tape.
Making bags is a bit of a family obsession. My mom loves making bags and her sister, my aunt, is also a bag maker. My daughter Kate (aged 12) also loves making bags, and enjoys rummaging around fabric shops looking for off cuts. I guess you could say we are all 'old bags.'
This year I've made lots of bags for Kate's friends, birthday presents. This particular bag I posted on Bid or Buy and sold it within a few days. I have made about three bags using the same little girl on the front, she has an innocents about her and at the same time seems almost sad, it works well with the words that I like to put on my bags.

Funky Chickens

Beginnings

As with everything there has to be a beginning. My creative beginnings began more or less from my first memories. I love to make, to create. I love the process of getting an idea and turning it into something tangible. The process, the dream is as important as the finished article, often there is no finished project, but that doesn't matter because it's not really about the 'thing' at the end, it's more about the journey. A new journey begins today.

"What are you looking for on the internet mom", ask my kids. Mixed Media Art - boring. I love looking at mixed media art and here is my first atempt at mixed media art.



My Funky African scrap chickens. I made these from scraps and printed onto fabric little fun sayings which I then sewed onto the chickens. It took me ages to work out how to print onto fabric without using transfer paper.





A few days before Christmas 2008 I decided that I had to make a few shopping bags for gifts, with temperatures reaching around 40, it was too hot to sit inside and sew. The back veranda become my sewing room for the day and has been my new sewing room on many hot days since. The only problem with sewing outside is that I get bitten to death by the mosquitoes






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