Saturday, September 29, 2012

Pass it forward.

That's what I intend to do with this card. Debbie from Hokkaido has sent me a few fan shaped etegami cards. These cards are unobtainable in Australia, add to that the complexities of ordering them online from Japan, which would defeat me, and this makes them a welcome gift. I was also given some handmade cards by Fumiko from Kyushu so in order to form a perfect circle I hope to make one of them into a card for Debbie..neat?
Fumiko is a big fan of purple, it pops up in her etegami constantly and lately it has popped up in her hair! Not a wishy washy mauve or even a jacaranda but a very decided purple. So, the pinky, purpley card says in Japanese (courtesy of Google translate and with fact checking by Debbie ) "For the use of my dear Lady Murasaki", The Lady Murasaki was the purported writer of "The Tales of Genji" which is considered to be one of the first novels ever written. The play on words in the card is that in Japanese Murasaki means purple, so an appropriate name for Fumiko who is also very much a lady.
I feel a bit like Big Bird on Sesame Street.."let's all co-operate children", won't that be fun?

Saturday, September 22, 2012

My Movie Star moment.

Every time I put on my sunglasses I think I look years younger (did I mention the scarf around the turkey neck as well?).
I love my sunglasses, yes, they are prescription lenses but nobody needs to know that.
Heavy black frames, hair pulled back, and for a moment I am a young slim Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffanys" and not a skinny wrinkly greying 67 year old with a vividl imagination! As they used to say in theatrical circles if it looks okay to a horseman riding by.... and even though the horseman would have to have severe myopia as well, I prefer to keep my fantasy.


Dream on!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

A deadly sin?

Covetousness is a sin, perhaps not a deadly sin, but maybe just a "not nice"sin.
I hold up my hands to being guilty of it though and I am gripped by it lately every time I walk the dog. My neighbours neglected and overgrown garden boasts several very lovely hybrid cliveas and I have been trying to think of something I could offer as a swap for one of his "pups". Now this guy is a musician and something of an ascetic so maybe the idea of a cake would not be appropriate, wine ditto. An offer of a bit of gardening? Maybe not as it seems not to be high on his list of priorities. I did think to offer never to sing in his hearing and I am sure he would appreciate that but it is a bit of a copout as I never sing in anyone's hearing, yes my voice is that bad!
In the meantime I have decided to send him a version of this etegami and just lay it on the table!
So neighbour, there it is, I lust after your cliveas!



Another version done on watercolour card.


Friday, September 14, 2012

Cupboard love.

"Cupboard love.
noun (Brit.)
affection that is feigned in order to obtain something."
No, no, no, not that kind of cupboard love, I mean I love a cupboard!
More specifically a particular cupboard and I definitely do not feign my affection for this little beauty.
Now I do like furniture (yes, weird I know but I can tell a Mies from an Ames from a Stickley from a Shaker at a thousand paces). However what I do like is Miniature furniture (did you know that  "minim"  is a red colouring used by the ancients and later used as a ground for miniature portraits and is actually calcined lead? but miniature comes from the Latin 'minima' meaning smallest, pedants may correct me as I am too lazy to check the facts!).
I digress, bear with me, I was expounding on my love of miniature furniture. I do have quite a collection of dollhouse pieces but what I really like are the oversized pieces which look charming mixed in with correctly scaled furniture. This long winded preamble brings me to the subject of this post...my Birthday Present!
Number one son who shares many of my strange interests found a beautiful homemade Depression era cupboard painted that ubiquitous green  and knew instantly that I would love it and I do! Along with the cupboard came a set of china, again wildly out of scale but in my favourite stripe pattern (have I mentioned my obsession with stripes? I am nearly cured of it thank goodness but these are wonderful). The piece was clearly homemade for a lucky little girl at a time when money didn't grow on trees (or in the pockets of the wealthy even).
Without further ado, Ta Da!


The lemon inside is for scale.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Scents and Sensibilities

Here I am banging on again about the wonderful flower perfumes of Spring. Current favourite is the orange blossom.
We do have an orange tree which every year promises much with a snowstorm of delicately scented blossom. Does it deliver on those promises? It does not!  In five years of cosseting this tree it has returned exactly five oranges, nice oranges to be sure, but five?
I have resigned myself to growing it for the intoxicating scent which conjures up visions of Spring brides (orange blossom is traditionally worn as a headdress for weddings).
Usually the trees here are abuzz with a small army of droning bees but this year not, so I may have a go at hand pollinating and see if I can do better than them in getting the fruit to set.
While peering into a blossom I was struck by the difference it makes seeing something up really close and that led  me on then to thinking how we often hold opinions without really scrutinising  the opposing view, yes, my brain synapses misfire in this way occasionally. This kind of thinking is possibly a  natural follow-on from my helping daughter in law hand out how to vote pamphlets at the local municipal elections on Saturday. (She won a seat on the city Council by the way, yay Steph). I got a chance to talk to others handing out leaflets and they were actually quite nice people, no horns or pitchforks to be seen. The dyed in the wool arch conservatives however did not engage in any friendly banter and stood with faces like sucked lemons. Soooo, while I may examine my beliefs, I have decided there definitely is a line I will not cross!


A fairly obscure way of introducing this etegami but there you go!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Look Ma, no drugs!

Each time I look up through the tangle of flamboyant Spring blossoms on our wisteria vine, the lyrics of the song "Purple Haze" run through my mind. The heady, heavy fragrance messes with your brain, enveloping it in a fog of purple, mesmerising and soporific.
Jimi Hendrix has been quoted as saying that the song did not refer to an acid "trip"but was about a girl he met and loved but then in the 'sixties you did not come right out and admit to drug taking did you?
Poor Jimi, he did some good stuff.
The etegami I drew can only hint at this all enveloping experience, just a taste (or a sniff).

(Disclaimer: This etegami was made using no artificial stimulants besides iced tea)!

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

A collaboration.

A little while ago Fumiko my etegami friend from Kyushu sent me three of her clever cut paper flowers, an art she is very proficient at. My task was to use them in an etegami and I have tried to use them to celebrate the ethos of etegami, friendship being the basis for our communications even though few of us have met in the flesh.
I hope Fumiko is pleased with how I have incorporated them into my etegami!