when the crazy wheel slows down… where will I be? Back where I started.

If you are a close friend of mine or any of my family, you will know that things are pretty wonky with our lives right now.

I plan to make this blog a place of inspiration and creative uplifting things and joy and love.
I will be back when I feel I have some of that to spare. Right now, there are real world places that that energy needs to go.

In the meantime, when I find pretty things on the internet, I post them to pinterest. It’s basically my virtual ‘inspiration wall’. Please feel free to visit and comment over there. The link is just over here —>

wishin and hopin

Hi.
If this is your first time to my blog, feel free to ignore this post. It’s mostly here for convenience.

It’s my birthday soon.
I have lots of projects I want to get rolling on, and terrible time management skills and 3 hours of travel time a day.
What I don’t have is a convenient way of working on productive things while I’m travelling.
I would love a laptop. Particularly, a shiny new laptop that is mine-all-mine because it’s rare that I get yummy technological things straight from the shop.

Given that my finances are pretty dismal, I thought I’d ask my friends and family and the world at large to contribute towards the purchase of a laptop if they feel like it. If you’d like to contribute, you can click here to do so via paypal.

Big love.
-Bec

new starts

After months of soul searching and thinking and resting parts of myself and nutting out what it is I really want and what’s holding me back… I’m beginning to get to some conclusions.

Rather than just keep thinking things through, I’ve decided to just start doing the things that need to be done regardless of finetuning my decisions and to-do list. Which basically means a big clearout and a gathering of finances and preparedness.

In doing this, I’ve noticed that my approach to art is a lot like my approach to everything. A little slapdash and experimental and stop/start with a lot of ideas thrown out and abandoned and then returned to later. Then when I’ve refined the process, it’s hands right in there getting messy, powering through the work until it’s done (but I could continue tweaking forever).

Recently we’ve been working on the business, and continuing on with the ‘like making art’ anaolgy, It’s been at that stage where things appear to be shaping up. The sketches look okay, and paint is going on smoothly, but then you add that one colour over the top and it just looks wrong wrong wrong and you want to rip it up and start again. Not that I ever rip things up and throw them out. I let them rest for a little while and come back to them with fresh eyes and a new idea to try to make them work.

So right now I’m in ‘come back to it with fresh eyes and make it work’ mode. I’ve been looking at the fundamental things about my business – what I love and what I don’t like and why things aren’t sitting perfectly well with the store as it is. I have a few ideas to try out. But there’s some housekeeping to be done first.

In the next few weeks I’ll be cleaning out the clutter of the shop and of my life. I’m looking forward to it. (and you should be too – there will be treasures up for grabs that’s for sure)

inertia

change is in the air, but this particular ball has yet to gather momentum.

the deep breath in

I’m in the moment between things.

the juicy paintbrush hovering over a crisp white page
the deep breath in at the rivers edge
the morning light through sleep-heavy eyelids
the hush as the house lights dim

tingling and ripe with possibility

it’s nice here
but i think it’s time to dive in.

Under a cloud

I’m still here, every now and then.

Life has been throwing one thing after another at me recently, and I must admit, I have been letting the clouds whoosh over me without seeing any silver linings.

Last week I had to say goodbye to my other Nana – Nana Lennox. She was 90, and had been ill, but it’s never easy to say goodbye. Nana Lennox was a big inspiration to me – this is a lady who decided to go back to Scotland, aged 90, and against all advice, to spend christmas with her sister. Although we weren’t close and I didn’t see her much, I will miss her. The world could do with more people like her.

The ‘great storm of perth’ sent me into a spin, with storm water rushing in my front door uninvited. It made itself at home in my loungeroom carpet, and had the grand tour of my house while it was at it. Fortunately I managed to save all the electrical stuff and furniture and the only casualty was our carpet. We’re living in the ‘renovators dream home’ at the moment, with very classy concrete floors and a still unfinished kitchen.
Oh, if only ‘when it rains, it rains pennies from heaven’ was true!

In short, things haven’t been easy, but I suppose that’s what makes life interesting.

In other news, I’ve been doing a little bit of painting and drawing lately. After seeing the amazing stuff Mum has been creating, and getting a few tips and mini classes from her I’ve been trying my hand at some faces. I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m reasonable happy with my progress so far. I never did art at school or anything like that (too much of a drama queen!) and always thought that being a ‘real artist who can paint real things etc etc’ was out of my reach. Well it’s not. Not for me or anyone. It’s just a matter of developing skill and practice and patience.

Patience is one of the things I definitely need to work on. Even working with acrylics, waiting for one layer to dry before I add the next one is excruciating. Not to mention the building up of layer after layer – not something I’m great at. I whinge every time I realise it needs another shading layer, but can always see the difference that it makes when it’s done.

Speaking of layers, this one could do with a few more. I painted her last night, and I’m not finished with her yet – but knowing me she’ll stay like this for a while. I’m building quite a collection of ‘not quite finished’ projects!

This little girl was my first experiment with artist quality watercolour pencils. I claimed a set of Prismacolours from the shop before our big sale – the tin was a bit dented and I couldn’t bear to see them go out the door for less than we paid for them! (Is that justified enough!?)

Getting Things Sorted

Over a week into the new year and I haven’t really achieved a lot yet.

I did make a bit of headway into sorting out my spare room/ craft room though. You can at least get to the bed now, if not the desk. I’m going to do you all a favour and not post any pictures of the room in its current state. Instead, I’m going to post some pictures of how I used to have my room set up in our old house.

I’m a big big big fan of these ‘letter drawers’. I usually get mine from Big W for around $25AUD,  but sometimes they’re on special and I grab a few more. My collection has grown quite a bit since I took these photos!

I’ve made little labels for the drawer fronts, they come with coloured stickers, but they were a bit too plain for my taste, so I used tiny scraps of polka dot scrapbooking paper and Sakura glaze pens to write the titles on them. They worked when I only had a few drawers, but I haven’t had a chance to re-sort and re-label since my stash has grown. Yet another project for the new year!

This is an old TV cabinet that we had lurking around – it was too small to fit our new tv. A 12″ crate fit nicely in the bottom, and the shelves could be adjusted so that the letter drawers fit on them. The doors hide big messy storage boxes with papers spewing out of them. But no-one needs to see what’s behind closed doors!

A closer view of the TV cabinet. There’s a tiered metal rack that holds plastic envelopes full of scrapbooking papers and odd scraps. I think they’re originally used for filing or for displaying records. I got a whole pile of them from an op-shop for a few dollars and have used them as magazine racks as well.

I had a row of small ikea jars on the top of the cabinet, but I found that I didn’t really have anything that fit in them that didn’t already have a place to live. I ended up mixing up embellishments which was not the greatest idea and took me ages to sort back out again. I still have the jars, but I might use them for something else. Buttons would work well…. any excuse for new things. =)

And he’s my old craft desk. I’ve since gotten a bigger table too, but this served for a while-  I just used the floor to hold everything that I wasn’t directly working on. I’m not a big fan of the plastic drawers you can see on the right. They’re great for a while, but if you load them up the way that I do, they end up too heavy for the track they sit in and all fall into each other. It’s not a major problem most of the time, but it can be a little annoying.

Oh, to be that organised in my new house!
I’ll keep you updated on my progress with the new room as I gradually get closer to seeing the desk surface again. At least I think there’s a desk under there – I’m sure I remember moving one in.

2010 – The year of making a difference

I’ve decided that 2010 is the year of making a difference.

Both to my life and to other people’s.
Mostly, this means that I’ll be working my butt off.

This is how I’m going to do it (I’ll probably add to this list before Jan 1) :

I’m going to put some solid work in on improving the store and getting all those odd little things sorted out. I’m looking into having an apprentice or trainee coming to work with us. There’s so much more that could be done if there were more hands to do it. The old working ‘in’ the business instead of ‘on’ it headache of small biz owners everywhere.

I’m going to make time for exercise/play/dance – partly because my plan for 2011 involves me being on stage somewhere and it’s too hard to find costumes/roles for the shape I am at the moment – but also because I feel a hundred times better when I’m doing something physical that I enjoy.

I’ll learn to drive. I still don’t really want to, for various reasons. But I’m also planning things that involve lots of being out after dark and I would rather spend half an hour extra at home than waiting for a night bus to come along.

I’m going to do more for other people, particularly  for people I care about.  I’ve been feeling disconnected and wrapped up in my own world, which I hate, so this is going to help with that.

I’m going to read a book a week. Cook at least 1 meal a week. Waste less time watching mindless things and more time learning things.

Letting Go

sorry for such a fragmented post. this is hard

Yesterday we had a party to celebrate my Nana’s life, including releasing yellow and white balloons, lighting candles and listening to her favourite music.
The week before, she took her last breath as Mum, Dad, Amy and myself held her in our arms.

Life without her seems inconceivable. But it will go on. Clocks will keep ticking and the sun will rise and set as it always has. We have to somehow let go of someone who was a huge part of our lives. It still doesn’t seem real.

Nana taught me how to knit. A few times, because I was never any good at it. I’ve only ever knitted one scarf and it took me forever, and it ended up way too wide and way too short. And the only good rows are those ones she sneaked in for me to help me along.

Nana taught me how to wrap a present. Again, she tried but I never quite got the hang of it. I can make presents pretty, with ribbons and bows, but the actual wrapping part… well, I’ve always said a quiet apology each time I’ve tucked in a chunky corner and stuck it down with a wonky piece of sticky tape.

Nana always made handmade cards for birthdays and christmas, and one of the last things I did with her before she went into hospital was sort out this years set of cards. She always decorated the insides of her cards as well and made sure they had a nice verse in them. She didn’t get a chance to write in her cards this year, the cancer and the pain were making her too ‘doolally’ (as she would say) and we thought we’d leave it for a few days until the pain was a little more under control. However, things progressed quicker than anyone expected and the cards are still unwritten. (I’ll be sending them out sometime in the next week or so)

Yellow roses were Nana’s favourite flower, and so Mum, Amy and I bought a yellow rose bush each with the last bit of cash Nana had in her purse.

This is the little booklet I made to give friends and family – it wasn’t a ‘funeral program’ as such but more a little memento with some interesting facts about Nana’s life.

this was originally going to be a links post

Once upon a time, somewhere around year 8, I had a headache at school, and went to the nurses office. I was told to lay down on one of the beds and spend the afternoon there until it was time to go home. There was a pile of books next to the beds and the one I picked up was SARK’s ‘Inspiration Sandwich’.
It was a lightbulb moment for me because it just clicked perfectly with my view of the world and the way I wanted to live my life.

To put things in context, a bit about what my world view is:

I was pretty depressed at 13/14, and I suppose kind of nihilistic too. I pretty much viewed myself as an outsider or observer and sometimes I’d do things just to see how people would react. I used to sit on the ledge of a multistory carpark and see how many people walked by without saying anything (more than even I’d expected). I was a performer and I loved it because I could become someone else – not because I didn’t like myself, but mostly because I was at a stage where I didn’t really know who I was. Other than the usual hormonal things, there wasn’t anything happening in my life that I was depressed about in particular, but the general feeling of pointlessness made life seem pretty dismal.

Then one day I’d had enough. Something clicked when I was sitting in my spot at the carpark and I just decided that things were going to be different. My whole attitude to everything changed and I just decided that I was going to be happy and positive from then on. I’ve always had a bit of a pick n mix approach to philosophy/religion. I had quite a spiritual upbringing (My mum & grandad ran a psychic development group) but I’m also quite analytical and science-y at heart.

I don’t believe in a single higher power, or entity or creator. I do believe in energy and that there is more going on in the universe than our science has fully understood as yet. I believe in karma and affirmations and the benefits of meditation and positive self talk. I believe that we choose how we react to every given situation. It’s very easy to choose the path of least resistance and that is how downward spirals begin. I believe in salience and coincidence and that you’ll generally see what you want to see. But mostly I believe that we are in control of our experience of the world – even when everything seems out of our control, there are always little decisions that we make that can make a difference to how we feel about things at least.

Okay. enough ramble. Here is what came here to post.

Keri Smith is pretty great. I was very jealous when Mum bought Wreck this Journal. But I got to help her wreck it, so I forgive her for being cooler than me. You should look through Keri’s whole webpage, but this is what I read today that I had to share:
Keri has secret powers

SARK used to have a little camp on the internet and it grew and grew and it’s now a planet. I have owned a few of her books in the past, but I loaned them out to people and never saw them again. I like to think that they needed them more than me. When I’m a billionaire I’ll buy multiple copies of her books and give them out to people on public transport.
Visit PlanetSARK

The Lost Soul Companion – particularly the things to do instead of killing yourself list.

Tera’s Wish

Okay, it’s time to close up the shop and go see how Nana’s going. I’ll post some more links later on, when I go through my bookmarks at home.