Fun at the Fair

Friday evening found me at the Barker College, Hornsby taking part in their Christmas Fair.  It was held this year under cover in their brand new multipurpose hall, fortunately as it rained all afternoon and evening.  Given the terrible weather, the customer turnout was not bad and there were certainly lots of trading stalls to tempt them. 
My daughter Lorna came along to help and proved very good at marketing my wares, far better than self-deprecating me!

I thought we were going to be entertained with cheesy piped christmas music all evening, but the school string and jazz ensembles appeared instead which made a lovely change as they were so good.

A lot of friends came by but I also got a bit of interest from "new people" who appreciated the fact that everything was handmade so all in all it was a good night.

The flying birdhouses....

Many thanks to all of you who came along to Thornleigh Community Centre at the weekend for the NSCG Boutique Christmas Sale.  I recognised so many people and did appreciate your support of us and of Dial-a-Mum charity.

 On of the Group's new members since the last exhibition, Ruth Fugar, a ceramacist from Dural, was very popular and rightly so.  Her birdhouses practically flew out the door on Friday.

I resisted from my usual amount of purchasing during the weekend, but I did treat myself to this beautiful necklace by Rachelle Juter.  It's a good thing my husband never reads my blogs.

I had a few new additions to my bags and scarves such as the silk based clutch below

Next up is the Barker Christmas Fair on Friday 25 November 3-7pm at Barker College, Hornsby, where I'll have a stand full of Christmas goodies.  Love to see you there.

North Shore Craft Group

I do hope that if you are in the Sydney area you will be able to drop in to the NSCG Boutique Christmas Sale 2011 at Thornleigh Community Centre this weekend.
As well as lovely goodies from more than 35 members including me on display for sale, there will be demonstrations each day eg.weaving, and Penel will be making her lampwork beads, not to mention yummy refreshments.

Hope to see you there!

Sculpture by the Sea

It's that time of year again in Sydney!  My daughter and I went along yesterday morning to enjoy the walk from Tamarara Beach to Bondi along the cliff top to see this year's entries in Sculpture by the Sea.  We went quite early but by lunchtime it was chocca and pretty hot.  Guess who forgot the suntan lotion on her feet!

I didn't think it had the wow factor of some past years but still pretty good - here are a few of my favourites:

 mosaic glass and mirrored tiles

 detail of above

 There was a matching giant plug hole on the beach

 This was completely woven in straw and reeds.

Still life with glass

We had a social day at ATASDA today in Epping with a theme of sketching still life so it seemed a good opportunity to follow a little of Sian's suggestions in her drawing challenge for November.

I took along a collection of glasses purposefully to challenge myself a bit as I usually avoid glass and its reflections.

I coloured the A5 pages with diluted Brusho paints that the group had available, and some of my own inks, so that I could use white Inktense pencils and white gel pen to draw in some of the light reflections on the glass.

From one of the sketches with 3 glasses I had a go at drawing the same arrangement in one continuous line. 

I can really see how some stencils or stamps of this shape (or sections of it) could give interesting designs.  More to follow hopefully....