Egg Couture

Now that we have our own BRILLIANT egg-laying chickens in our own backyard (feeling very rural now), there is the concept of how to store said eggs between laying and eating...

As my friends and family know, I'm a sucker for good packaging (and like to reward clever marketing... or I just like to shop for quirky things... best not to read too much into it really).

Getting to the point - have you checked out the variety of egg cartons available now? I love this black carton that holds nine eggs (they were yummy, but not quite as good as ours) and it will now be the storage container of choice for our eggs. It's neat, blends into the counter top, and holding only 9, will encourage brisk rotation of said eggs so they won't need to go in the fridge.

And it's much better than the daggy old Coles one we were using.

Who is it that said to 'have nothing in your house that isn't either beautiful or useful'?

It's a small thing, but it's making me happy today.

Observe and reflect

Monet said: “It’s on the strength of observation and reflection that one finds a way. So we must dig and delve unceasingly.” “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you own naïve impression of the scene before you.”

I'm tired tonight. But I'm going to do this as a painting exercise. Reading something like this is just what I needed tonight. Have you thought of how you can 're-see' what you're doing creatively? Break it down and build it back up. There may be a better way to do it.

FREE POSTAGE on all Golden Paints, Gels and Mediums

Yep, I haven't made a big enough deal about it - until now.

Tell your friends, tell your mum, tell your artist neighbour... Golden paints are available from Shiny Happy Art and there's no postage charge 'til the end of Feb 2010.

Quite simply, I was introduced to Golden Paints a couple of years ago by my dear friend (and artist who's work features prominently in my home) Nic Hohn, and I liked them so much I didn't quite 'buy the company', but through my Shiny Happy Art business, I became a retailer of a range of Golden paints, gels and mediums.

At the time, I was opening the studio in front of my house most Sundays (there are advantages to living on a highway!) and I had Nic and Kym Breeze helping me and selling their art also.

So I bought the whole kit and kaboodle. Display racks, lovely boxes of stock, all ordered from the US and taking months to choose and have delivered... and then, as the universe usually conspires to do, it was time to have my daughter who is now 2 and a half.

I kept up the pace for quite a while. We even had a joint exhibition up in the studio when my bub was just 3 months old. But with 3 kids at home, and then my husband heading off to Afganistan for 4 months and the website taking A LOT longer to get up and running than I had originally envisaged (another long story) the studio just got too much for me, my helpers moved away and/or got full time jobs, and things changed. And then they changed even more when my latest little girl (nearly 8 months old) came along.

Now, I'm not overly worried, because these beautiful paints can wait for their discerning owners. They are neatly displayed on their racks waiting... waiting....

And the studio will be open again sometime in the next couple of years! (We've just got to teach a couple of little ones that nighttime is for sleeping...)

From time to time people call or email a Golden order through, and I love having the paints here at my disposal, but I need to decide if I'm going to continue to reorder, or just sell what I have.

So, if you've ever wanted to try Golden paints, now's a great time to go for it.

• I painted the paintings at the top of this post ('A Very Special Occasion' and 'Innocence') using Golden Paints. The gold colour on the green background of 'Innocence' is Golden Iridescent Gold Fluid and it is fabulous to use (and it should be for $35 - it is also a great gift for an arty friend - you can always find a good use for gold paint!).
  

• Read glowing reviews of Golden Paints by other artists at the American Dick Blick's site here.

• And mixed media artist Kelly Rae Roberts loves Golden too (see, here's a pic of her desk!).I like what artist, Kiandra Jimenez, says of them -

- the paint will last in the tube till the last drop. if you take care of your tubes, close them up properly...your paint will not dry in the tube.

- every tube has a hand painted color swatch on the tube so that you can see the color and the translucency of the paint...this is so valuable in choosing your paint colors...you have to be educated about the paints in order to mix colors properly

- I can honestly say that using these products have made me more passionate about painting again...the possibilities...the ways they are constantly pushing the limits and boundaries of painting is astonishing.

All that and the postage is FREE (in Australia) til the end of February.

So I hope I have what you want in stock. Even if you pick your favourite colour and then just pick whether you'd prefer 'fluid' (like runny cream) or 'heavy body' (like oil paint consistency), and order it just to play with, you won't regret it.

All orders are wrapped with care and I always try to include a little extra something for you, and I also draw on the packaging - so you can really look forward to receiving your 'Golden' in the mail.

If you're a Toowoomba local, you can come and browse for yourself! Just call me and we'll make a time.

OK, gushing Golden blog post is now over.

Tomorrow I may tell you about interesting things like the bottle of olive oil I dropped in front of the fridge (pictured below being mopped up with oats because I googled it and someone suggested 'oatmeal' would help, so I tried oats instead, and it worked ok) today... and we'll resume normal programming. (I do have a Valentines Card idea to show you - and I promise it'll be interesting!)


May the creativity be with you.

Borrowed vision for today

Love this video made by Amy Krause Rosenthal, a very talented writer on a mission to make the world a lovelier place.

Check out her "Loose Change the World" project here.

As the new owner of a terrific little flip camera, I'm looking forward to making a vid for this space sometime soon (after the notebook cover tute - I promise it's coming! My husband is sitting his FINAL EXAM on Monday morning - after studying (and working full time) in various forms for over 10 years - and then things will free up a little around here. Can't wait!)

Chicken Tonight

Had Tandoori Chicken from this book for dinner tonight. Delicious. Sorry, no photo. Arms full of babies.

I bought this book for my sister for Christmas and now Jane Kennedy has a blog and is reproducing some of her recipes on it. So click here if you'd like to see a little more.

I like the way in the book she credits some of the recipes to Jamie Oliver (and perhaps others, I'm not sure) and the way she writes is fabulous. Down to earth ("You say you can't cook. What are you? A baby?") and entertaining ("Boombah - food that makes your arse huge").

Just a little community service.

Photos that tell a story

Here's a story about a really expensive lunch box that is designed so that you don't have to use any packaging - and that makes it better for the environment... and yet it breaks after the first use! I'm going to email the company on this one and I'll report back.

Here's the one about the 11 year old who now proudly mows the lawn... but occasionally has some trouble with the mechanics of it all.


Love the expression!

And here's the story about the second egg. Held ever so carefully in two year old hands. And only dropped once before it got cooked and eaten. Delicious!

A birthday and a chook shed in action

This is what the birthday painting ended up like. The dress was Jacinta's valedictory dress, made for her by her amazing mother. Her mum made a lot of her clothes, but this was an extra special one, and Jac wore it a few more times while we were at uni. It was so heavily boned she sometimes couldn't quite sit up on a couch. This dress brings back so many lovely memories of our friendship all those years ago.

This is us now. A lot more black going on. Hopefully we'll be back in gold again by the time the 50ths roll around.

And look at Jacinta's amazing blue eyes. She's just gorgeous.

On a totally different note, here's S checking out the roosting box in the new chook shed.

Here it is. All ready to go.

And here are the chooks. Patiently waiting for their check in time. One got so excited she laid an egg, which was carefully washed by young J, and then fatefully dropped, just in front of the sink. So egg number 2 will be our egg number 1. That's how he's figured it anyway. It's all very exciting.

No more art or craft to report. Made chocolate cupcakes and have covered school books, but that will be all until school goes back on Wednesday. And then the year can really start!

Mixing Skin Colour

After about 38 years of attempting to mix a true skin colour, I've done it! (As demonstrated here - totally blending above the lip!)

Unfortunately it wasn't in paint, but in a delightful mix of banana and apple puree and yogurt. Go figure.

The Chookshed

I haven't spent much time on the computer this week, but because I have had so many lovely friends ring and check that I'm getting by with such little sleep, I thought I'd better check in. We're having some success with daytime sleeps at the moment, they're not long, but they're not on my lap. We've also just realised that the little one has 3 teeth coming down at the top, so that may account for some issues. The bigger one is just being two I think.Anyway, we're all ok for now.

The pic above is inside the current work in progress - the Glenn Whitton Memorial Chookshed (below). Of course, as it's built by David, it's the taj mahal of chook accommodation, and we're looking forward to spending less on eggs (we're going through so many at the moment!). It still needs to be painted, and he's down there now doing some extra things so that I can do the painting.
Speaking of painting, we're off to a dear friend's 40th this Saturday and I've done her a painting. I can't show it yet because I don't want to spoil any surprises, so here is a teaser. I'll post the finished work next week.


That's it for now. Next week is back-to-school prep, so if I'm not here much, don't worry. Normal transmission will return soon.