Busy painting!

Hello again bloggers! Wow two updates in two days with limited computer access? Hmmm seems I can get organised when I have to! I've got two minutes left to upload this post, so here's what I've been working on this past week. It's a canvas painting that I have donated as a prize at our little guy's school raffle. It was very daunting creating for this because most of the parents are into modern decor and I just couldn't bring myself to paint a cityscape in grey and orange.

I figured, I'd just paint what I wanted to paint because I enjoy doing it and stop worrying about what the possible winner will think. Staying true to my style...


So I hope it goes to one of the people who loves pink and lives in a period home perhaps!




See you on the 1st June, or sooner perhaps. I'm going back to the sewing machine, making some delicious new strawberries. Oh I'm just loving the sweet fabric combinations... wait 'till you see them!!!

Bye,

Natasha xo

Out from hibernation to say hello

Hello blogging friends! Just popped in to say hi and let you know where I disappeared to! My internet usage for the month is almost all gobbled up so I can only be on the computer at off peak times, groan!

I've also come down with either a cold or something icky the past few days so I've been hiding under the covers, resting and going to bed early.

Last weekend before I got sick a few of my old work buddies came for afternoon tea. Ummm yes, that's the little man licking his plate on the left, he dropped some lemonade on it and didn't want to waste it. Thank goodness we weren't out at the Windsor!

It was a dark cloudy day so unfortunately the lighting is shocking in these pics, but you get the idea. The table was very pretty and I baked cupcakes and made real buttercream icing, not my usual trick of buying a can of Betty Crocker pre-made frosting!


Yesterday was the perfect day for my first Cath Kidston catalogue to arrive! The ideal thing for me to flick through while stuck on the couch! You can order yours here, they're free! I put my name down a few years ago, more than once, and I never received a thing. Then I tried again and even received a confirmation email so I knew this time would work!
It's so beautiful and fresh, and inspiring. It's just like a magazine you'd pay money for. I heart everything in this....
Cleaning would even be fun if I had all these pretty bits and pieces to do it with!

Her boy's stuff is fabulous too

Oh and talk about adorable, how sweet are these baby things?

That shoe organiser, oh lovely! I think I'd need 5 of these in the craft room!

Sweet photo of the little purse nestled in amongst millinery flowers

My fave bag, OMG how much I love this!!! I'm such a bag hag though....

So I leave you now, having to turn off the computer shortly. I'll be off making some freshly squeezed orange juice, getting myself well enough for the school function this week. OH and there's a painting for the raffle I need to finish!
I've been updating my little twitter page, sometimes via my phone if I can't get on the computer. If I'm missing in action here, you can follow me on twitter right here.

I'll be seeing you round, on the 1st of June, when my internet goes back to normal :)

Natasha xo

She sells seashells by the seashore

I'm so behind in sharing work with you! Way back when the weather was warm here in January, I spent some time, like I do every Summer, at my parents' beach house. It's a great place to get away to, so relaxing. The air is clean and fresh. The beach is a 5 minute walk from the house, and the bay is just a look out the back windows.

(frame made by Dad)

I wanted to make something for Mum and Dad's house. They've recently added an extension on themselves, and they were in need of "something" on the wall.

I got busy collecting the prettiest arrangement of shells I could find. The little man loved this task too. The shells varied in colour and texture and shape, and even the broken ones were beautiful.

The sand that I added had to be coarse sand, which was only at a certain part of the beach nearby. I had to just skim the top for the rough bits. When I got it home, after washing it, I sifted it too.

I added beads from my Nonna's necklace (the creamy one you see in the pic above and below) which were originally made of shell, along with trails of pastel coloured faux pearls.

It was a mammoth task, and took several days to complete. I had to add the sand in after, so that I could build texture. Of course, each time each layer dried, I'd find tiny spaces where I didn't stick sand down, so another coat was added.

I love the overall look though. I sit there studying it, looking at the detail and how TINY some of the shells are. How cute is that bright yellow one near my hand? It's the natural colour, would you believe?

There are also a few bits of broken sea urchin and hollowed out crab skeletons too. (is it still called a skeleton if it is a crustacean?)

I also added glass beads that reminded me of bits of sea glass, and some coarse grade glass glitter to lift it to a sparkly level, still keeping it natural.

Mum loves it, and Dad and hubby do too. I think it's one thing they quite like because it isn't pink or girly, and has some sentimental meaning.

Well I hope you have a great rest of your week!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Natasha xo

A fabulous afternoon

The other week I finally got around to visiting my friend Kirstie over in a gorgeous part of town, Eltham. She has the sweetest house that is full of fabulous treasures. I could have stayed in there for hours and hours and been as happy as a pig in you-know-what!

She put on a fabulous spread for me, and we ate and laughed and the time just disappeared! Isn't she just such a happy soul? I think you can see it in people's eyes, don't you?

I love how she layered her table linens. I do that at home on my dining table too, ever since Rachel Ashwell did it on her TV show, I was hooked!

Then onto her space in an antique centre nearby ~ a sweet little shop. My eyes went straight to Kirstie's corner, the colours just have this instant appeal. Her space is gorgeous, I wanted to go to sleep on that lovely bed, so dreamy!

A couple of interesting finds (no, neither of us bought these!) in some other people's spaces ~ this one I put in the "what the...?" category. I can't even begin to understand this... but I do like the pink at least!

Tiffany and Heather know I think lots of dolls that I see around the blog world are completely freaky, evil looking crazy things, and could become future Chuckies.... anyway, I was drawn to this one.... must have been its evil powers dragging me over there... "buy me, buy me, I want to plaaaaaayyyyy". I resisted, lol. But I do love the colours, don't you? Even if the face looks like it's from a horror movie!

Thanks for the fab day Kirstie!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. I'm off to do some housework. If I'm not around you can follow me on twitter (Yes, I succumbed and joined!). It takes me 10 seconds to update there and I can do it from my phone (oooo-eeeee I'm getting all mobile-technological now, lol!)

www.twitter.com/natashaburns

Ciao for now,

Natasha xo

OMG How Embarrassing! (come on, share a story or two!)

I'm sure we all have them ~ completely, utterly, totally, dig-me-a-hole-in-the-ground-so-I-can-hide, embarrassing moments.

They come when we least expect them (well I guess they wouldn't be so embarrassing if we could prepare for them!)

I'm going to share a funny one with you, and I hope you will share some funnies yourself!

When my friend Tiffany was here a little while ago, we were lucky enough to go swimming with wild dolphins and seals in Port Phillip Bay.

We wore wetsuits (the water was cccccold!). Long story short, when it was my turn to change in the "bathroom" on the boat, that tiny little box of a room that I couldn't find the shower in, well.... let's just say as I got the wetsuit off, and my bathing suit off, and was just getting my towel so I could dry my nekkid self off... and the "locked" door swung open! Oh yes, it did! In all my nekkid glory.... you've never seen a hand move so quickly to grab that door and shut it!!!

Thank goodness I don't ever have to see those people on the boat again! And Tiffany and her hubby were spared the "show". Not so sure about their daughter though.... think she had to put up with a flash!

Feel free to share a funny embarrassing story as a comment here, or, if you want to do a blog post about it, leave me a link in the comments box and we can share embarrassing stories together :) Think of it as a blog party of a different kind! Give us a giggle!!!

In keeping with this theme, I'll leave you with this video! Click on the play triangle to watch :)

Have an awesome end of the week!!!

Natasha xo

Boo!

Here's looking at you, kid :)

From the sweet and gorgeous 4 week old Scottish Highland calf....

To the sweet friendly gentle kangaroo..
To the curious rough kangaroo...
To the downright scary emu...
To the freaky unpredictable Cassowary!
Have a FUN day! You never know who is watching, so behave, *wink*!

Natasha xo

Pretty Labels for your lovely supplies. HOW/WHERE to get them

So here they are :) My newest creation designed to make your organising pretty :) available exclusively, here on my blog.

**Set of four labels ~ beads, ribbons, buttons and a blank scrolly label for you to add your own word to**

**These are illustrated by me, originally using ink, and are my own designs**

PLEASE READ ~ IMPORTANT INFO:

• Cost is US$4. To purchase, click on the top right side of my blog sidebar, on the Paypal "Buy Now" button.

• You'll be directed to a page to pay via Paypal immediately.

• WAIT!
• As soon as you have paid, DON'T CLOSE THE SCREEN!!

• You will be automatically redirected, after payment, directly to the label images!

• When you are there, you'll either see them very large on your screen, or, with a magnifying glass to click to enlarge to full size.

• RIGHT click on the image, and save to your hard drive, to print at your convenience.

• PLEASE DO right click and save, because the images won't be at that site forever.

• Print them out, have fun, colour them in, leave them black and white, burn the edges, glitter them up, do whatever takes your fancy!

• These are for personal use only and not for resale and not to be used in artwork that is resold

• (If you would like to pay via bank deposit from within Australia, please email me)

• Enjoy!

(The images you download will not be faded grey or covered in 'do not duplicate' images)

Here's some fun ways to use the labels. I coloured "buttons" with markers Same with "ribbons" ~ using markers
For the "beads" label, I burned the edges for an antique look. It goes without saying, please be very careful if you are going to burn the edges of your labels!! Best to do it over a sink, just in case!

I added the word "lace" to the blank label. You could add any word. You can print this label out tons of times and use it for every other thing you have in a jar or box that needs labelling. Enjoy!

Take care,

Natasha xo

New labels, and a freebie for Mother's Day

A few posts back, I shared a pic of a jar of ribbons ~ well this is what that was all about! I've created a set of pretty labels for your supplies, that you can download and save to your hard drive, and print out whenever you need them. I'm super excited about these, and really enjoyed sketching them for you :)

There's a button one I created with buttons and curly flowers, a ribbon one with ribbons, a bead one with beady flowers (you get the picture!) and a blank one for you to fill in your own word. They'll be available for US$4 within a few days, ONLY here on my blog. I'll fill you in with specific details shortly, but I wanted to show you what you're going to be able to get!

So Mother's Day is this weekend. If you're anything like me, disorganised most of the time for things like this, you'll have not yet bought a card. Well, as a little gift from me, you can click on this rose photo below to enlarge it, and print it on cardstock. Cut it out and write on the back, voila! Or cut it out and stick it onto a pre-folded card. Do whatever you like with it creatively (just don't resell them please!), and I'd love to see if you come up with something super cool!!!

We're off to our yearly Lavender Farm visit. Can't wait!

Have a wonderful, blessed and happy Mother's Day.

Natasha xo

I've been busy creating

Hello blogging friends!

I've been super busy lately, making new things, doing stuff for the little guy's school and being a parent helper in the classroom (I love it, we made butter today!) and feeling super exhausted all the while.

Anyway, enough chitter chatter, my eyes are very sleepy tonight so I better be quick. I wanted to show you some new stuff that is going up in my shop in the next 24 hours. The first one is already on there. (If you want to be notified when everything is listed, click on the link to have your email added to the mailing list, it's on the right sidebar)

This first pretty thing is something new I've started making. It's a doily holder (it's right here), that I gave you a sneak peek of back here. It was inspired by the very old one I have on my dresser. It's almost all hand stitched, and I used an Indian Sari for fabric because I just fell in loooove with the colour and lovely design.

Gorgeous old millinery rose on the front with beads and ribbons, and on the back I hand sewed on a sweet little old doily.

The next few lovelies I created over the Easter break. They're the ones that will be in the shop in the next 24 hours. I was in a bit of an embroidery mood, after making this apron. So I got out some cute frames I'd been saving for something just right for them, and worked at creating something to go in them.

I thought I'd try out how painting along with yarn and silk ribbon embroidery (on vintage ecru linen) would go. I like to put my own twist on things, wherever I can. Embroidery has been with us since ... well... forever. But I don't know if it's been combined with painting too. I hadn't ever seen it, so I thought I'd test it out.

(This one is now available HERE)

I'm really happy with the results!!!

This canvas needed a little extra oomph, since it didn't have a fancy old ornate frame around it. Textured glittery flowers and stems seemed to to the trick!

(It is now available HERE)




And I added some cute vintage beads and seed bead centres for bluebells on this next one. Silk ribbon french knots and yarn embroidered stems on vintage ecru linen.

(It is now available HERE)







This next lot of goodies are on their way to Macon, Georgia for my sweet friend Jenn's special Art Retreat, En Le Jardin.

Jenn's having a little "shopping" night and I am attending the retreat via webcam, since I just can't afford to go to the US again in such a short time after my last trip.

So these ones are available only to the ladies attending En Le Jardin. But I wanted to show you anyway, since I think they're cute and there are some new cupcakes I worked on too :)

More faux cupcakes coming to the shop one day soon. I had an incident and lost almost 80 cupcake bases that were ready to decorate, I was so annoyed! So I have to make new ones now :(

Anyway, I'm having an early night tonight, in bed by 11pm! A world record for me!!!

See you next time,

Natasha :)