Lisa Kate Colour Me Happy

Under the Sea

My girls and I have been working hard lately.  They wanted to "work like mum" and also earn a little pocket money, and it will come as no surprise to anyone that I love to make pretty things and I LOVE parties.  So together we have started a little family biz called "Skip to my Lou" which you can find here.  We are starting small and enjoying working together, I am constantly amazed at my girls creativity.

Together we styled some very cute things for a little man named Harley who was turning one.  Bunting,cupcake toppers, lolly boxes and name tags... and then added a few other pretties.

 

 

 

I love that the girls and I can work together making pretty things, and then get to send them on to a special birthday party or occasion.

Rainbow party designing is next on our list.

Lisa

Wednesdays Top Ten

Ten reasons why today is amazing

 

• I have a new little kitty cat, who likes to snooze on my lap while I work
• The leaves on the trees are just starting to turn pretty red
• I have a soy latte in hand
• My son thinks it's ok to be just like his mumma
• A few sore muscles telling me I worked hard at the gym
• Slippers on my feet
• My husband still totally rocks my world
• Lindt 85% dark chocolate
• Pretty things to make today
• A peaceful home

 

 

Pink milk, sprinkles and turning nine

Another Brithday in this house, this time for our littlest one.  Liv turned
nine, with much excitement.  This girl lives for any kind of celebration, wether it's for her or the people she loves, so it's extra special when it is her turn and we get to spoil her.

Her day started a little different as I was in Sydney - it was a huge decision for me to not be there when she woke up and my heart was pretty sad till I spoke to her and heard her excitement as they were about to get in the car and meet me for a day of fun.  We headed to the powerhouse museum and she loved all the exhibitions.

The followng day we held a very small celebration with her grandparents and cousin Ruby.... and true to form one hour before everyone came around I decided to make it feel like a real party.  I quickly made some cute party bags, popped some popcorn and placed it into some quickly decorated noodle boxes, and added some cute flags to the mini cupcakes.

But the BEST thing I did was make sprinkled rimmed glasses for the pink milk.  Whats better is it is super easy to do.

Here's how I did it.

Make a mixture of water and pure icing sugar, it needs to be quite thick and gooey rather than runny. 

Dip the rims of your glasses into the mixture, then straight into a bowl of sprinlkles,  tap off the exess.  If you have time pop the glasses into the fridge till it is time to serve.

Watch the smiles on everyones faces :)

So much fun!!!  I love parties.

Lisa

x

It's all in the details

 

I love birthdays.... I don't care whether it's mine (which by the way usually includes a full week of celebrations) or a family members, I just love them, AND I love birthday parties.

Something about celebrating one special person for one day all of their own that to me is just very very special.

Lilli was not going to have a party this year, just a small group of friends for a movie and some popcorn.... and that is really all she had.  But with a few creative idea's, she had a great afternoon that FELT totally like a party (minus the expense!)

Because I was giving them only treat food (yes yes I know, lots of sugar no nutrition) I wanted to make sure it was portion controlled with everything in individual serves.  This to me makes sense on so many levels!!  Firstly everyone receives the same amount of food, no-body misses out on anything, I can control just how much they are going to eat (handy when it is all sugar) and there is not much chance of germs spreading into a whole bowlful of popcorn!!  LOL

I have a heap of photo's to share!!!

I airpopped fresh popcorn added a little salt then popped it into these cute red bags, finished with paper doiley and they almost look too pretty to open.

I found these cute paper cups (they are meant to be for cupcakes, and filled them with sweets.

 MMMMM..... sugary coloured popcorn.  This was super simple.  I already had some self sealing bags (which I use for cards and packaging), I simply put a cup of popcorn in, sealed it shut then popped them all into a basket.

Rather than a big traditional birthday cake, I again decided to keep with the individual serve theme and made a batch of scrummy cupcakes (no not from scratch!  LOL) and then displayed them on this super cute cardboard cupcake holder.  Which cost me about $2.50 from Woolworths - love it!

All displayed togther with a few balloons and some bunting.  I love how it all turned out and the girls LOVED how it all tasted!

It was so much fun to put together i can't wait till the next party.

 

Lisa Kate

my vintage home - camera love

 

Old camera's.... such good things to find and display.  I love that they are usually battered and bruised from use.  I love that they are still sturdy enough for my girls to play with.  I really would love to know the story behind them though!!!

Again, I don't have a big collection at all.... THREE camera's only.  But what would the fun be if you collected something that was easy to find???

 

It's all about the search, the hunt.... and the eventual thrill when you find one.  Yes I know I can simply go to ebay and buy, but really I love searching for them myself.  It means every one has a story how I found it.

I love that.

Lisa Kate

 

Strong Body

If you had of spoken to me 8 years ago after my diagnosis of RA that I would ever have a strong body again, I would have just laughed at you.  I mean how on earth can you get strong when you can't even walk?  you can't lift your baby and getting dressed takes every ounce of willpower you have?

 

It took my quite a few years to even feel game enough to try.  Once I had a good specialist who I trusted and once mentally I was ready.  Because to exercise the way I wanted with RA takes more mental strength that you can imagine.  Every fibre of your body screams at you to stop, every joint burns with pain.... but you know once you get over the first bit.... somehow your body just goes with it.

But to get to that stage where you even want to try it HUGE.  The one thing that made me get up and fight to stay strong was absolute determination that RA was not going to take anything else from me.  I didn't care how much it hurt, how sore, I was I was going to be like everyone else.  Silly perhaps, but that is just the way it was. 

and then I had the car accident.  Back to square one.

But I know how this story works, I know what I have to do..... so every week with my physio training me, we have been working very very hard.  LOTS of weights, I mean LOTS!!!

This week 23 weeks after my accident I was finally ready to RUN on the tready... not for ages, but I could RUN !!!  I was so happy I just about burst into tears at the gym.

 

So that's me this week.  Seriously happy and feeling strong.

Lisa Kate

 

new supplies make me all dizzy

Yesterday a big parcel of pretty art supplies arrived.  I have been waiting on these babies, watching the tracking, and couldn't wait till they arrived.

 

Of course they turned up just when I was heading out the door for a few hours, isn't that always the way???

I placed then on the table unopened and headed out the door.  I even fed the kids dinner before I opened them.  It took a whole heap of restraint.

Finally the kids were fed, washed and into their Jammies.  With glass of wine in hand I opened the box.

Oh my!!  what pretty colours.  Inside were pan pastels, inktense blocks and gelatos.  All supplies I had never used before. So much fun!

Time to play in my art journal!! I started with the pan pastels and I was not disappointed with the richness of colour, the ability to layer and how easy they were to use.

 

 

I simply added some india ink and that was it.  Such a fun night learning new things!

Can't wait to open the rest of the supplies now.

Lisa Kate

commissioned art for a friend

Most often the work I struggle with is art for a friend, probably because I put even more pressure on myself than usual to product something good, something they will love, something they won't regret paying for !!

In the parameters of a commissioned piece there are usually colour, size and image constraints.  This of course is the way it is meant to be.  But for me it means I take longer, put it aside more often and generally work harder.  Which is good for my own personal growth.

This piece I worked with additional care, love and the occasional "oh my gosh these are REALLY not my colours" as it was for a very supportive friend, who is always cheering me on.  We all need someone like that in our lives, and I am so grateful for her.

so onto the art.

 

See REALLY not my colours :)  The cool thing is that this particular friend loves everything shabby, pink and French.... I just happen to have a husbad who had recently returned from Paris bringing with him a handful of tickets, maps and ther ephemera = PERFECT.

 

By the time I finished with it, I was really really happy.  It's good to be stretched.

Then because this particular friend had been taking my girls to a local church every morning for the entire week to a holiday program and dropping them home, a thankyou gift was in order.

Which was perfect timing because I wanted to get my technique perfected for the pretty jewellry pieces I will be stocking.

 

She was so happy :)  and that made my day.

Lisa Kate

x

I love a little art journalling

Yep, I'm back.  That really was a bad virus, I hope it hasn't visited your family.  If it has I hope you have recovered.  It was a nasty one.

 

Onto some art.

I have a rather large collection of art journals.  Most are empty.  I have a beautiful leather bound one that I bought in Notting Hill... it cost a pretty penny, so it's just been sitting on the shelf looking, *ahem* pretty, I have a few spiral bound plain fairly cheap ones, that I use for writing phone messages or other notes I need - they have scribbles from the kids all through them too, I have a good collection of moleskin journals which Ipicked up at crazy cheap prices when the Borders Store near me closed down, and I have a super pretty one that came from a Donna Downey class I attended.... yep I have journals to fill.

Because unless they have pretty art in them, what exactly is the point??

so I decided to work in two at a time.  Because you know, that means I don't feel so bad with the amount of empty ones I have on the shelf :) 

The first one is a tiny 3 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches.  Its a moleskin with water colour paper pages.  So cute.

I grabbed supplies, just random stuff, not really knowing where I was going to go with it.

 

I gave the page a quick gesso and let it dry, that gave me a little time to work out what I wanted to play with - see that's the thing about art journals, it's all about play.  I like working out for myself how different paints work, how mediums react and learn what does and doesn't work.  So an art journal is a really big part of what I eventually put on a finished canvas piece.

Onto a few pictures ....

 

 

I decided to go with the oil pastels, I haven't used them in years and felt like smooshing colour with my fingers.

 

I kept the design simple, smooshing and blending colours as I went 

 

then layered up a stamp.  This is where I admit that I can't find my black stazon..... so i used another ink.  One that is mean to be permanent on non coated papers.  The very property of oil pastels means that they are slick and oily and not really good for stamping over with the wrong type of ink.

But this is the beauty of an art journal, I did it anyway to see what would happen.  And yep, it didn't want to dry very well.  So I did what i always do when something isn't working properly...

I took my heat gun to it.  I really love my heat gun.  I use it to dry all types of things you *shouldn't*.

and you know what happened???  the oil pastels melted and sealed OVER the top of the ink.  See AWESOME stuff happens when you just have a go.

 

 

Then I added another stamp - I was onto a good thing I thought 

 

 

Then it was the bigger journals turn, done very similar - nice and simple.

I did wash some paint over some of it, see you shouldn't do that either... but heck I was on a role doing things you shouldn't do. Why stop now?

 

Some rules are meant to broken? right??

Lisa Kate

 

What a week!!

Oh my, what a full and crazy week we have had in this house this week.  Justin is off in the UK for work, currently in Paris... and we are at home wishing we were there!!

It's been such a full week of school, after school activities, a little work at preschool for me (yay I managed my FIRST 6 hour shift since my accident!), my MIL staying with us to keep us company, trips to the gym, craft class at school, a post baby - baby shower, a day of shopping and so much more .... WOW it's gone fast though!!!

I feel a little behind in all my work and am really looking forward to getting a few commissions finished this week, a secret squirrel project finished and a few other things done around the house before Justin gets home!!!

One thing I DO have to share, is the gorgeous canvas I made for my cousins brand new baby.  His name is Harley, and he is just so scrummy and new .... mmmmmmm love that new baby smell!!

anyway I made Harley his very own peice of art.  Becaue I figured he would have a thousand baby suits, and singlets and things.  And because that's just what I wanted to give him.  Something special, just for him.

 

 

 

 

I always get a little nervous having over something handmade for a gift, there is an element of unknown, are they going to love it? or wish you just bought something from Target??  BUT is was received with so much enthusiasm and love, I was really happy!!!

If you would like a similar canvas for a littel boy in yor life, you can now order them through my Etsy Store which you can find HERE They are made to order, which the colours you want and the name you specify.  I can't wait to get started on more boy themed projects.

What things to you want to see for little boys??  or what things can't you find for the little men in your life?

Lisa Kate