I love Saturdays

Citronella scented geraniums in my garden

Photographers Gentl & Hyers at Edge Reps.

These Plaster Dolls from Etsy are just the cutest ever. The top doll is wearing Luella Spring Summer 2008 and the bottom doll is in Prada Fall 2008.

Sarap's beautiful collages at Etsy. From her page, "This collage features magazine clippings, old photos, text, and bits of patterned paper. Part of the beauty of these pieces is the bumps and crannies that add to the overall texture."

Journal page

Some photo's

have a happy weekend!

Corners of my home

Some art I did the other day because I'm happy that Spring is here

The side of my fridge - that's a tried and tested and loved Jamie Oliver recipe for Chilli Con Carne that my husband makes to absolute perfection

The front of my fridge.

One of three painted wooden statuettes from Thailand

A painted metal wall ornament I got down in Kynsna

Flowers in my garden

The cutest pair of puppy paws.

A lot of the walls in my house are this awful yellowy beige colour. When we moved in about three years ago I had planned to slowly redo and repaint. But now our plans have changed and we will be selling and moving on within the next year or so. So, seeing that the paint is in good condition I don't want to go to the expense of repainting the whole house if we're going to be moving. I will have to do the passage at some point because when the geyser burst a couple of months ago it ruined the paint there. Also I might do my bedroom which is the most disgusting shade of light blue, the rest I can live with.

By hand

I'm loving this hand lettering by Chris Piascik. I like to do hand lettering on my journal pages. It's nice to get inspiration from what other people are doing. Some people might call it copying, but for those of us who are self taught with the internet and books as our only teachers, it's a great way to learn new things - and eventually your own style does start to emerge.

I heart inspiration boards

I love inspiration boards. I always have. I think it's interesting how they reflect a person's personality, and I think they add warmth and intimacy to the home. They can also make great points of visual interest in a room. That's why I love the Flickr Inspiration Board group. Here's a small selection from the group.

Girlhula at Flickr

Inky at Flickr

Lobster and Swan at Flickr

My English Garden NY's flickr page

And my inspirations:

This is the inspiration wall above my art desk

Inspiration wire in my art work space

The whiteboard in my art work space

A close up of a picture I drew that's on the whiteboard

The picture on my inspiration wall that I copied for the drawing

A spread in a previous moleskine journal called My pinboard romance.

PS: OMG! It is totally and utterly ridiculous how a person can disappear into Flickr and get sidetracked! I'm guessing a lot of you know the feeling......okay, okay.....dinner's coming;)

It's beautifully kitsch

I had a question from femminismo at One Day at a Time asking about the painting of the green turbaned lady in my sidebar. The painting is by Vladimir Tretchikoff a famous Russian born, South African artist. Ironically, although he was put down by the art critics of his time who described his work as kitsch, he was incredibly popular with ordinary people who flocked to buy his paintings and prints, and many of his works have become iconic. You'd recognise them even if you didn't know anything about them. His painting "Chinese Girl" (fourth from top) is said to be one of the best selling prints of all time. He died recently in 2006 at the age of 92. His New York Times obituary is here.

I agree that his work is chocolate box kitsch at its very best, yet there is something immensely appealing about it. I would certainly buy one his prints if the opportunity (and the right price) came around.

A mixed post

This post is a bit all over the place...some of this....and some of that.

I've been pickling chilli's, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out. The chilli's are fresh, but store bought - in spring (It's winter now in South Africa) I want to grow my own chilli's. This batch I made is all different types of chilli's from mild to mouth numbing hot. I am crazy about chilli's and often eat too many and pay the price with a sore tummy after.


Some more journal pages. Even though it's not spring here, jasmine are my absolute favourite flowers. They bloom here in spring and their magical, enchanting smell lets me know that summer is on the way. We have had a very mild winter this year, very sunny with clear blue skies, which is typical, but usually there's some wind and although it's clear and sunny it gets really, really cold. This year has been great, from 10.00 in the morning till about 3.oo in the afternoon you can sit out in the sun and bake in a T-shirt. What I do find disturbing though, is that it's only the beginning of July and already my jasmine are coming into full bloom! By the time spring arrives they'll have probably have died out.....not good!

The old man of our household. Ben is going on for 12 and has arthritis in his back hips. He is a little slow to get up these days, but he still loves going for walks. Here he is carrying out his favourite activity - soaking up the winter sun and having a good sun bathe.

And some inspiration from others
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I love this evocative, moody photography based art by Tricia Scott.


I'm also loving these encaustics by Marybeth Rothman.