... on fowl.

The Beckster asked me to make her a couple of Beasties, a hen and a duck. The chook is a bit of a weirdo but I'm quite pleased with the jawline and tail curl of this duck. I might make some more of them in the new year. It's odd how I never really know how a Beastie will turn out, even though I work from a sketch and draw them out on the tin before I cut them. I should know by now - I've made a stack of Crabby Beasties over this past year, and every one of them has a different character!

... on wall hangings!

Seems like I'm in wall hanging mode at the moment - I can't stop! I've finally made those little Fishie Beasties into something, and now I want to make more. When I was photographing this yesterday I had my big industrial fan on and the little fish were clanking together merrily in the breeze, and it made me happy!

... on shells and thread and little pink beads.

I just made this wall hanging thing for C. We collected the shells together on our first proper grown-up weekend away, up on the beach on the Noosa North Shore. We spent a whole day lying on a blanket under a pandanus tree up in the dunes: reading, eating cherries, napping. Bliss!

... on stars.

I've just made some tin stars to throw in with my christmas cards. This year I resolve most firmly to send out christmas cards! As I haven't been making anything for yonks (so much so that all my tinsnip and scalpel callouses had gone, to be replaced by mouse-using RSI in my index finger!) it felt good to get some tin splinters under my fingernails again. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

While we're on the subject of resolutions (for I quite like to make them throughout the year) I also have vague and hastily-formed ideas to A) not spend quite so much money on flowers and B) to play my piano a bit more, soon.

... on something lovely!

My day was made,yesterday. First thing in the morning, and I'm at my desk. Leah, who sits next to me, arrives and some minutes later she's just about jumping up and down with excitement as she carefully presents me with a gift. For starters it was funny because she'd wrapped it in a printout of one my rejects for the cover of this book I'm working on. It was a watercolour of some skulls, repeated - I noticed she'd added a bow to the side of one of them! Anyway, inside was this:


A most beautiful red doily, which she had crocheted the previous night. Leah is an excellent crocheter - we share stationery and she had made us a blue crocheted bowl to put our paperclips in. So, when I admired the blue bowl, she made me a red doily.

I'm delighted. Absolutely delighted!

... on workspaces.

Seeing where someone else works is always a bit delicious, isn't it!?

... on something new two.

Yesterday I listed these leaves. I photographed them late in the afternoon and my hanging branch thing just looked so lovely in the afternoon light, and there was this little block of sunlight making its way up the wall as the sun went down.

These leaves are something new for me - I was inspired by a deciduous tree outside my house which only loses all of its leaves when it's been a very cold year - right now it's bare, and I'm wearing four layers inside!