Watercolours on a rainy day...

I haven't painted in so long! I neglected my cleaning and my prep for tomorrow's photo shoot; I popped on the lovely CD that my darling friend Bec bought me, pulled out my paints and brushes and just relaxed a little! The thunder was rumbling away (and my stomach too come to think of it), my music playing softly in the background and nothing but an array of colours, brushes and blank paper before me. These past few days have been both fabulous and stressful, I'll explain more about that later; I really desperately needed to sit down and balance my equilibrium for a while...it's amazing how much painting grounds me! I feel so refreshed!

How divine!

My latest pencil portrait ~

This work was completed on Friday; a gorgeous drawing of two sisters who adore each other! It was a pleasure to work on and I am more than happy with how it turned out! What do you think? :o)

This Quirky Bean has been a bit out of sorts recently, but the crafty goodness is coming back soon I promise! I have plenty of ideas for new tutorials, you'll love them ;)

Xox

FLASHDANCE CURLS for the win! Busy weekends, photography and fun hair do's!

I am completely pooped today! Another practice photo shoot, skating, bowling (both of which I sucked at), dinner with a friend, many many games of Labyrinth, 2 hours and 45 minutes of Sing Star and three nights of not being in bed until after midnight! I don't think I've done quite so much in one weekend in..... I don't even know when! How old and boring does that make me feel!?! And I got absolutely NO housework OR gardening done! It was all fantastic fun though :o)

A HUGE thankyou to my model, Cerry for volunteering on Saturday!! These are just a teeny weeny selection of photos from the shoot! Ain't she just the cutest thang? You can check out the rest of the photos at Pretty Things Art and Photography if you'd like!

I uploaded a few photos of my watercolour paintings too! Go check them out and tell me what you think!

Oh! And I posted my Round 6 granny squares today to their mystery location! This exchange has been oodles of fun, it's fantastic receiving a pair of unique crocheted or knitted squares in the mail with no idea of where they came from!

This is Labyrinth...sooooo much fun! It's seriously an awesome board game!

Tomorrow morning at 9am I have my last practice Portfolio shoot and then *SQUEEE* I can do my price list and actually start (hopefully) getting a little bit of business! I hope I'm good enough, I'm certainly not qualified but I don't think that matters much these days...as a hobby I mean. If I was wanting to go into it professionally I would be getting a hold of that Diploma in a heart beat (and when I win Lotto coz there is NO WAY I could afford it at the moment) I have absolutely no idea what to charge but I guess with a coffee (or two) and a bit of thought I can probably think of something..... I don't really want much, just enough to cover the batteries in my camera and the time editing really :o) Is that ok do you think? People tell me I undercharge for my drawings too, but if I'm not a professional I don't see why I should charge someone a lot of money for something...I want to stay as affordable to everyone as possible!

Hmmmm what else... oh yes! My Pinterest hair experiments! My aim was to test out if this.....

Source: Uploaded by user via Candylove on Pinterest

and this
.....

Source: theglitterguide.com via Destiny on Pinterest

would work! So I did! And here's what happened! Will braiding your hair and running a straightening iron over each braid a few times get you waves in thick hair? Nope, not really....not unless you're willing to put a BAZILLION little teeny weeny braids in and personally that's a tad too much effort BUT will putting your hair in braids whilst your hair is damp, letting it dry for an hour or two AND THEN running over each one a few times with a straightening iron work? Sure will!!! And they'll hold nicely too! See? SUCCESS!!

 Onto the next experiment.... FLASHDANCE curls! Now I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for curly hair.... I LOVE big bouncy curly hair do's and they are just soooo me! So this one I was super excited to try out! Soo I did this...

Before I went to bed I put my hair into little wormies whilst my hair was damp, and bobby pinned the crap out of them to hold them down (I have UBER thick hair)...

Had THE WORST night's sleep trying to get comfortable on all those hard little bobbles and the next day...

I quickly went over my whole head with a hair dryer to set them a little more, then I took out the bobby pins and had these really cool tight little springs for hair! I carefully pulled them apart and VOILA! FLASHDANCE curls!! Was I totally in love them and feel like a million bucks? I sure was!! And I sure did!! Was it worth the terrible night's sleep...probably not, BUT I feel like next time I try this I'll work it out so that the uncomfy bobbly things are on top of my head and not in the way when I sleep. ANOTHER SUCCESS!!

So if you are like me and have super thick hair but still want to try out some fun experiments, these two methods are fantastic! If you happen to come across another hair do on Pinterest (or wherever!) you love but aren't sure about it in your thick hair, email it to me! I'll test it out for you, blog about it and share it with everyone else! :o)
So now...I'm going to trot off and do some research for tomorrow mornings' outdoor shoot, find something comfy to wear and get started on some 'to do' lists for the EPIC declutter and organisation adventure I'll be doing to my flat soon! Stay tuned for more on that! I'll be sharing my favourite DIY storage and declutter solutions, creating a few of my own and generally cutting the crap out of my living space so it feels more like home and I can take pride in it instead of resenting it and leaving everything all icky. Sounds like a plan right!?

Nighty night!!!

A few failed attempts but I got there eventually! Drawing in uggies

Morning guys! Here is a grainy schlumpy iphone photo of me today rocking tights and uggies... it's freezing here today!! *waves!* hello!

As you may know, recently I held a little self-hosted giveaway here at the QC Shmoogle Bean where I offered, instead of an item, the chance to win a hand drawn pencil portrait. A huge thankyou to everyone who entered by the way!! Hopefully you'll keep your eyes peeled! I'll be running another portrait giveaway in the near future! Or if you're a fellow nerdling and zombie lover, get an entry in our current giveaway! As it turns out, our resident Caffeinated Army Wife was lucky enough to be our winner this time and sent me a photo to have turned into a drawing. I'm here today to share the process of the drawing being created! I procrastinate a while before I get started..I'm always nervous before I start drawing...which is weird coz as a hobby you'd think I would enjoy it more! Im always worried it won't turn out, or that my mood won't be stable enough to handle mistakes (believe me, it happens!)

It starts out looking much like a Mr Squiggle!

Then I do battle with a violin. Man I didn't realise how tricky those things are to draw!!

I realise how terrible I am at drawing hands and begin to lose enthusiasm... look at it and decide I've got the composition all wrong, get cranky at myself for not seeing it to start with and realise that I need to start over. At this stage my husband calls me and says he is having trouble focusing at work and is grabbing a coffee to bring home for us both. I decide to pick this up again after coffee. I then find myself debating whether or not I should continue with the drawing at hand to see how it goes before I start all over. CONFLICTED!!! I was right, my current mood and bit of brain that lets me draw aren't speaking to one another like they should be... how childish!

So I put on a load of washing and here I am again sitting at my desk willing my motivation to make a comeback....

Nope it's gone. Kaput...vanished... hope lost, kicked the bucket and gone to meet it's maker.

*SIGH*

 Start again :/

And not looking much better

Worse than last time :(

Start again.

I got there in the end :o) I hope you like it Jessi! I'm getting it laminated for you this arvo and in the mail on Monday!

Also I was bored thismorning and took a photo of a bottle cap. It's truly a masterpiece! HAHA

Oh deary I need more coffee :p



Grouchy catch up - craptastic craft stuff and general crankiness

Having a royally sh** day and seriously couldn't care less if the world imploded and all that was left was an army of nuclear-enhanced cockroaches. I have cramps that could kill people, my usually cynical outlook is now plain vindictive and it seems everyone is out to test how far my temper stretches. There is not nearly enough chocolate in the house and I feel like the Good Year blimp right now, bloated, full of hot air and a huge eyesore!

I could go on complaining in more detail but the specific people who are currently annoying (I very much wanted to use a more colourful word but I didn't think you'd appreciate that) me off might get narky... or at least more so than their usual kind loving and considerate (BARF) natures.

Anyway, here are some photos of things I've been doing recently. I feel like I haven't blogged about anything crafty in a while. I am barely bringing myself to formulate sentences but hey, you get that on the big jobs.. DAMNIT i'm mad. Ah who cares...sorry, on with the catch up stuff.

I made a tiny crochet top hat..

I drew a chibi Jade from Homestuck - if you don't know what that is, I'm not explaining because it's all insane..just enjoy the pretty picture

I drew some portraits

I made a pair of baby booties

I took a Hipstamatic of my dog

I finished a baby blanket I was working on

and I took a silly photo of myself on my webcam.

That's about it! Now I'm going to go make myself French Toast DRENCHED in sugar because I am hungry and already feel like a fatty so I don't care. So what if all my blog posts aren't all happy cheerful grammatically correct stories of wonderment and joy! That's just life sweet cheeks!

Hope your day is less... infuriating...

I love the feeling of a completed artwork :o)

Isn't he just the cutest little munckin you've ever seen? I hope my client likes it :o)

If you would like a portrait drawn, I'd be happy to do one for you! Pop by my page and say hello!
'Pretty Things'

I love being a craft-a-holic!

My name is Tash and i'm a craft-a-holic!

There, I've confessed! Your turn! :p


I've been a busy bee these past few days immersing myself into various little projects! Nevermind the housework or the cooking or the taking care of my sick husband...actually that's not entirely true, I have been taking care of my sick husband but the housework and cooking duties have suffered. I needed to do the important stuff first!

So let's see, what have I been up to? Well, I started making granny squares for a blanket Im making for my grandmother to send to her this winter. I have to say I now fully appreciate the time and effort that goes into these things!! I'm not a particularly fast crocheter...you know, not one of those people who you can sit and watch and a blanket magically appears growing inch by inch every second...nope that is definately not me! I can't predict how long it will take me to finish, but I enjoy the process.

So far I've joined enough squares to get the width of the blanket i'd like, and now it's just a matter of crocheting my little heart out! It's a fantastic evening after-dinner (provided I've actually cooked some) activity as I find it very relaxing. It's a gorgeous mint green and chocolate brown colour combo, intended to be a small throw for my grandmothers couch. Granny squares are suprisingly quick and simple! It's the sewing of all the loose ends in that is the time consuming part. I will hopefully have it done by the end of autumn! (fingers crossed!)

I've also found myself getting back into the groove of painting recently! To be honest I haven't picked up my paint brush in almost a year then all of a sudden I have completed water colour paintings in front of me! In following with my 'Journey of Autumn' series I thought I'd be inspired by the colours of the seasons and do some themed artworks. I suprised myself with what I was able to do, after so long I worried I'd lost the skill but all I needed was the right inspiration and some soothing background music and look what happened...

Very rarely do I actually share my artworks with anyone, but this time I decided to post a photo of one of my paintings in an online group, and the amazing ladies (and lads!) were just so supportive and kind towards it that I was inspired to open a business page of Facebook for my art! It feels amazing to finally be able to share my artworks with the world after so long of being told I should! They may sell, they might not, the point is just that you have to get your name out there somehow through crook or through nook, and as far as I am concerned, as long as someone, just one person, is seeing them, regarding them and appreciating them I will be happy. At the very least, with the closing down of my craft shop I am well prepared to tackle Facebook business pages again. It can be extremely competitive, people try to bring you down, and you fight for your place to be recognised. Not this time! This time I've learnt enough to know that my art will ALWAYS come first, and that I do it for the love and joy of it and not for the sake of anyone else. What I will always remember is that whilst you may not feel that you are making impact, you may feel that you aren't as good as the people around you, you do what you do because of who you are. If you stick with it, through thick and thin then you will come out the otherside and all of a sudden realise how appreciated what you do is, and that you have created your very own niche, just for you that no one else can take away from you.

My busy bee creations didn't stop there though! I whipped up this fun bright red 'Lil Devil' earflap beanie for a friend of mine who is going through a rough patch at the moment, I thought it would cheer her up a little.

Then went to the park with the hubby one afternoon to play around with some late afternoon photography for Part Four of my 'Journey of Autumn' series...I guess I could give you a little sneak peak :p Part Four is due to be published this Saturday and there are some amazing photographs as we get further into the season!

I crocheted myself a hat in one of my favourite colours to match my cardigan...

and made my first own design patter crochet beret tutorial and on top of all that, yesterday I made my first dress with the most adorable cherry patterned fabric I have ever seen! It was so rockabilly, it was so vintage, it was so beautiful and it just absolutely had to come home with me to be turned into a dress!

I had no pattern but the concept of a pillowcase dress seemed simple enough! Not entirely so... I ended up the first time round making the armholes MUCH too big! I sat for a while pondering how to fix it and eventually deducted that the easiest way would be to cut about 4 inches off the top of the dress and re-sew the tie in...solved the problem perfectly! It is really just 2 x 2m wide pieces of fabric sewn together with armholes cut into it and hemmed, which when you add the underbust belt gives the dress that nice flair at the bottom! It is essentially a traditional pillowcase dress, I just chose to use a stiffer fabric instead of something flowing as I am very curvy and didn't want anything that would cling to my lumpy bits! And I am a big fan of vintage AND I love cherries so this turned out perfectly! It will be my birthday dress for next Saturday (my birthday falls on Easter Saturday this year!) so now all I have to work out is what kind of vintage hair do to go with it and a headband with my remaining fabric.

It really was a very simple dress to make! I am working on a tutorial for it the same way I made mine so keep an eye out for that one!

Naturally to find inspiration for accessories and hair dos I went on another Pinterest Peruse!

Source: 50s-style-wedding.blogspot.com via Laura on Pinterest

Source: google.com.au via Tash on Pinterest

Source: google.com.au via Tash on Pinterest

Source: wanelo.com via Kristel on Pinterest

The only thing is that on top of all this craftiness that will continue to happen over the next week we are expecting visitors at the same time in our tiny unit! I guess my house-wife duties will have to kick back in at some point! We have a friend staying with us a few days this week, family staying with us over Easter and after that another family member coming to visit for a few days after that! Busy busy busy! I was also hoping to get a few sketches in aswell, but that might have to wait!