Archive for February, 2006

I tidied up my Workroom!

Hi! Are you a new or recent visitor to my blog? I hope you stick around and have a bit of a read. To make it easier to keep up to date with new content, please subscribe to my RSS feed. Of course, feedback is always appreciated and leaving a comment is a great way for me to come and check out your site.

Oh wow! I tidied up my workroom! It looks fantastic and I like just standing there and looking at the beautiful fabrics - all organised and folded and stacked.

Here is the BEFORE photo again:

Messy Workroom

And this is what it looks like now - AFTER:

workroom 2

What a big difference! I could just stand and look at this for a while… :)
Here is a closeup of the fabric cos I know you want a better look:

workroom 6

workroom 5

workroom 4
And I bought a plastic cutlery container, stuck some Ikea stickers on it and now it holds all my most used bits and pieces:

workroom 7

You can see more of my Workroom photos at Flickr.

Comments (5)

Visited 23055 times

Red Instead PORTAL

I recently received notification that my Business Name is up for renewal so that means I have been in business for 3 years now! I have made mistakes and learnt a lot and really enjoyed the journey so far. I believe this year will be a great one for me and for the business and I will write more on this topic and my goals for the year another time soon.

Red Instead PORTAL www.redinstead.com

When I originally registered the Red Instead domain at www.redinstead.com.au I also took the precaution of registering www.redinstead.com but I have always had it redirecting to the main .au site.

Recently I realised this was a bit of a waste and decided to stop the automatic redirection and instead use the www.redinstead.com site as a portal to the many sites of Red Instead on the web. There are quite a few - I told you I was a hoarder. :)

I will soon be redoing my business cards and things - I will now use one simple URL and then let people explore from there. I’d love to know what you think so please leave a comment.

Comments (1)

Visited 22096 times

hello again

I know, it’s been a few days since I’ve posted. I’m not going to apologise to you though, Dear Reader, because well, it always seems a little sad to see someone feeling guilty that they haven’t posted an entry in the last few days, so no guilt here! Sometimes you just don’t feel like posting. My reason is that I have been dealing with depression again, if only fleetingly.

If you don’t remember my post on it from ages ago, I suffer from PMDD - Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder - which basically means that for about a week before my period is due every month I have three to seven days of depression, lethargy, etc and of course the most frustrating part of it for me is that it pretty much stops my creativity. The best part is that I am very grateful not to be suffering every day of the month, but even though I know that it is only temporary it still wipes me out every time.

I felt it creeping up on Saturday and then I spent Sunday in and out of bed, sleeping or laying on the couch most of the day. Then by 9.30 on Monday morning, I was in tears over nothing, then I pulled myself together pretty well to go to Playgroup with Emma (I felt a LOT better after my big pathetic cry session at my sisters) then I forged on to the Gym afterwards - exercise being good for shaking the mood - and ended up just walking out of the BodyBalance class before the end. Tuesday I was still feeling pretty blah, though I managed to get a few things done, in between zoning out in front of the telly or computer. I had no patience with the poor kids though. And then today, Wednesday I woke up and felt absolutely fine again. It’s as if nothing different had happened these last few days.

It’s a weird feeling really - comparing how I felt yesterday and the day before with how I feel today. Completely opposite frame of mind and energy levels.

One thing on the plus side of having PMDD (you have to find the silver lining!) is that often on the day that I come out of it, I am so pleased to be back to normal that I have a frenzy of activity. This afternoon I completely tidied up my workroom. Well, halfway anyhow. I will be finishing it up tomorrow so you will have to wait until then to see the evidence.

Here’s a reminder of what it looked like earlier - the before shot:

Messy Workroom

In other interesting news, I may have broken my left wrist! My non-dominant hand, thankfully. Astute readers will remember that I had a fall about a month ago (you can read about it here if you are not that astute! ha!) and hurt my wrist as I put it out to break my fall. It hurt quite a bit but that was to be expected and it soon felt almost back to normal. I had a niggling pain that remained but wasn’t too annoying - it was only when I had to do something that involved putting pressure on bending my thumb back. Helpful advice included the classic “Well if it hurts to do that, then don’t do it!” I managed everyday things quite fine and just was reminded of it here and there.

Then over the last couple of weeks I noticed the pain getting quite a lot worse and it was a dull pain pretty much all the time. Then the pain seemed to be travelling down my wrist, to the inside part of my forearm and I started getting quite worried! Of course it took me a bit of procrastinating to get to the doctor but I went today and she said that it sounded like I had fractured my scaphoid bone which is right inside the wrist. I just found this great site with lots of info (some of it a little scary) that you might like to read… you know if you are bored, interested or if you are my mother - hi mum!

So I have an x-ray tomorrow to see if it’s broken and then if it is I will probably have a cast put on my wrist on Friday afternoon. How often does a person get advance warning that they will be in a cast? So I have some sewing to get out of the way quicksmart as I’m not sure how easy it will be to guide fabric through the sewing machine with a cast on! Am I typing all this using my left hand right now? uh… yeah.

Now here’s a pretty picture:

still_life01

This is a shot I did a few months ago - it’s a giant orangey marrow that Paul’s dad grew, and it is sitting on a great old leather couch of ours, full of wrinkles and texture. I worked on it in Photoshop obviously but it did already have that glorious colour. We didn’t end up eating it but I’m pretty sure it was a marrow, though I didn’t realise they could be orange.

When I took the photo I was thinking of the amazing pinhole photographs of Bill Brandt - like this, this or this.

Bill Brandt - Bellgravia 1959 Bill Brandt - East Sussex 1953 Bill Brandt - London 1957

Comments (1)

Visited 27227 times

Illustration Friday - SONG

I haven’t taken part in Illustration Friday in the longest time. Partly due to a crisis of confidence, partly due to being slack and/or lazy and partly cos once I’d missed a few I just kinda… stopped.

Well, I may not be the best at drawing (okay, I kinda suck at it) but I am going to keep going anyhow. Who knows, I might just improve. Or at least find my own style. Or something! :)

Illustration Friday - SONG

I received the email detailing the new topic about an hour ago and after sitting on it for a few minutes, I thought “Right! I am going to do this! Right now!” so I did.
The first thing that came to mind were cats and birds and I guess I was influenced by all the Valentines imagery I have seen of late and I also thought of the owl and the pussycat and I knew I wanted the cat to be in love with the bird. Unrequited love. The cat is holding a love letter that he just can’t bring himself to give to the bird because he doesn’t think the bird thinks of him in the same way. Then he hears the bird singing her beautiful song and it just makes him sadder.

The cat doesn’t see the bird’s tiny little love letter for the cat, hidden in the tree…

I drew this in my drawing notebook with felt tip pen and then used my new Watercolour Pencils that Sam gave me for Christmas to colour it in and then put a wash of water over it. The pencils are great! It is amazing how much the colours pop when you paint over them with the water.

Comments (4)

Visited 16438 times

Next entries » · « Previous entries