ON SALE!

It's time for a grrl+dog sale.

I feel a need to freshen up,

 clear out and experiment in new directions. 

Everything in my etsy shop has been discounted by 30% or more.

Some old white gloves become ears on "loved".

If you've always coveted a little softie, now is the time. 

They are all going now, to make room for whatever will be coming next.

A little vintage juju bag, just big enough for the iphone or spectacles.

 

 Larger bag, linen and doily combo.

 Kooka used to be an Australian native bird tea towel,

 but don't tell him that.

 Little house pins, used to be $28 - now $15.

Tell me which one you want.

let me know you are a blog friend for some extra goodies.

Go to the sale.

 

I do believe in fairies, I do! I do!

 

...and pixies, and ghosts.

I believe Bruce has a guardian angel,

Nothing short of  divine intervention, 

so I am giving thanks.

Not long after Bruce returned from doggy boot camp,

 he got into a fight.

Dog owners will nod at this: 

You've been there.

Your dog gets into a fight in a park and it's a disaster. 

Owner screaming, hitting, 

people watching and your dog is in big trouble. 

Little chewed dog was not hurt at all, 

but owner was after blood.

 Local council gets a dog attack report

 and Bruce gets a visit from the rangers.

 

  I'd missed all his signs trying to tell me he was anxious

I realised Bruce was having panic attacks. 

Suddenly his reactive behaviour fell into place. 

He isn't aggressive with other dogs - he is terrified!

Living with panic attacks myself for over ten years, 

I felt awful that I was pushing Bruce beyond his comfort zone

 and not making his environment safe. 

It was like saying to a person who is afraid of spiders

 to touch one and be cured. As if!

When I called  the doggy specialitsts

I expected to wait weeks. 

The lady could fit me in that day

 due to a cancellation.

Off Mr Bruce went to a doggy shrink.

And the best dog shrink in town: Sydney Animal Behaviourists. 

Human shrinks are a third of the price,

but Bruce had the full deal.

We ruled out  medical things with a blood test and physical.

 We learned how to help him feel safer and

 calm until his medication kicks in. 

Yes. Doggy Prozac.

 I want Bruce to enjoy being outside,

 not be terrified of what's about to come round

 the corner at any minute. 

Thank you to great blogs like fearfuldogs blog 

 for helping me understand.

 Back to the big scrape  and our embarrassing incident.

 

  Now here's where good stuff begins:

When the rangers arrived, one was Chilean. 

Two good friends have just 

returned a three month stay there. 

Even though my charm button was turned on all the way,

 I wasn't going to say, 

"Hey I have two friends from Chile, you might know them."

 It felt lame, so I shut up.

The other ranger's name was 'Denise'.

 My name. 

She petted and played with Bruce the entire interview.

 So far so good.

yep - missed these signs as well.

 If I'd have read them, he'd never have been pushed

 into too close quarters with another dog.

Australia takes dog attacks seriously.

 All a dog has to do is look scary 

and it can be interpreted as a "dog attack" here.

Knowing Bruce already had a his rap sheet 

we took pre-emptive action. 

Maybe this was where I was finally listening to Bruce. 

We got help.

my new book

Dog shrink recommended the best trainers 

for anxious dogs in Sydney, again up to six weeks wait.

"I'll give them a call in any case," she says.

When the lovely Dr Caroline calls,

 they ask what type of dog Bruce was.

 "Oh, she said, I have a special place in my heart for Am Staffs. 

We can fit him in this Saturday."

So Bruce got help fast.

  

our trainers gave us a series of gentle exercises

 to boost Bruce's confidence and keep him calm

 till the doggy prozac allows the white noise in his head

 to settle down enough 

to learn some new ways of dealing with stress.

 Now every night I roll up special doggy canapes

 with his meds - cream cheese balls  rolled in chicken jerky crumbs. Yummy.

All this pre emptive work was in place BEFORE the rangers arrived. 

We could demonstrate how we were handling Bruce

and that was a major relief. There was a fine - $550.

 That would have been the end, 

had it not been for our Chilean friends.

 A picnic in the park the next week with lots of friends 

and dogs running about brought a ranger van

 rolling across the park towards us.

 Who should pop out, but the same ranger.

On goes the charm button chemically enhanced by two glasses of bubbly,

 but my friend had already spotted him. 

Not only did they know each other from Chile, 

 they grew up in the same neighbourhood

 and knew each other's families well.

 

Chilean ranger stayed and chatted in Spanish,

 and let me know Bruce's $550 fine may not come for a while.

I have a feeling Bruce's fairies will be helping on that one too.

Fascinated by Lisa Kokin

By Lisa Kokin

 When I was small- hurt and pissed off 

by whatever broke my tiny heart that minute,

 the worst revenge that could be exacted on my father 

was to violate a book.

What I didn't learn in Hebrew School - By Lisa Kokin

 I still have that Dr. Seuss book, 

ball point pen scrawled with dyslexic "d's and "b"s back to front -

unhappy recriminatory words to my father.

Man, did I get into trouble for that.

   So it's a wicked thrill

 to see the work of Lisa Kokin.

Lisa cuts, stitches and re glues books into collages

and mixed up messages,

 but it is with her work on photographs that I am fascinated.

Both the cutting out and the space

 it leaves behind is full of meaning for me.

Stitching right onto these relics, must be exciting. 

After all, they are one off fragments of a lost person's life. 

Always sad to see them in a flea market bin for sale.

Stitch transforms any medium to the land of textile.

A plastic pocket becomes a quilt.

Found faces become a patchwork or a tactile family tree.

Lately I have been playing with digital images,

 brushing up on photoshop skills and using found images in other ways.

What if these figures could stand up by themselves?

What if they had some crazy color and were stuffed,
 or stuffed into jars for "preservation"?

via

I've taken some fun images and begun to play.

Selective coloring isn't new. 

It's new to me and I am taking a leap to see where it goes.

All photoshop tips gratefully accepted.

Mingle + grrl+dog

 It's not often a publisher reads my blog,

 and rarer still that publisher likes

 what she sees enough to want it in her magazine.

 When Christen Olivarez from Mingle magazine told me

I nearly fell of my swivel chair.

   

 My trip to the Bordeaux area fo France to Les Seours Anglaise 

for a week with Julie Arkell is a feature story in this issue of Mingle magazine.

 They have even used my images which is most flattering.

It was a truly magical week and I hope to return one day.

Everyone looked after us so well, the team was amazing.

 They even let me pphotograph them saying "fromage".

Getting to meet Mary Stanley from Art Spirit and  

Syd Mc Cutcheon from Sheep Floozy was the cherry on top.

 Come and mingle with me and read the original blog post here.

Or have a mingle here in flickr.

Freebies!

It's freebie time! 

If you love vintage nursery rhymes as much as me,

 and love to make stuff, here are some ready made

 tag sized chunks of clip art love.

 A recent op shop trawl culminated in a beautiful book from 1948

 filled with full color images. It was much loved,

 as each corner had finger marks and softened, curly corners.

 You could tell which rhymes were the favourite

of whatever child grew up with them.

 They have been scanned,

 cleaned up and resized 

to a number 3 tag - that is roughly 2 inches by 3.75.

 My first go at making tags 

and then getting them ready for a PDF,

 so any feedback will be good, 

especially if you have tips on how to lay it out.

Download page 1 Nursery Rhyme tags here

Download page 2 Nursery Rhyme tags here

 But wait - that's not all.

Polishing up my photoshop skills, and in a sharing mood,

 some luggage tags for your downloading enjoyment.

 I did have fun removing the names..

So the link is below where the originals are zipped up and ready to click.

They are in a PNG file - that means the background

 is transparent and easy to clip and use.

Vintage luggage tags for your digital pleasure

The secrets we keep

This is me on my first day of school.

It's part of a slow stitch bunting I've just completed.

Right now, I am fascinated with the concept of bunting -
it flies in the breeze, entices one to look up,
 lifting the heart heavenward, and is cheerful and innocuous.

It lifts the spirit, and in it's guise as a prayer flag,
 can send wishes out into the world to be heard.

Bunting, garland, prayer flag,
whatever, the inference is one of upliftment.

When I had the chance to teach some bunting workshops
at Hazlehurst gallery, the excitement was palpable.
 I'm still not sure who had the most fun.

 We had two boys in the class
who decided that boy bunting should be called, "boyting".
We used rubber stamps, fabric markers, stitch,
 felt and embroidery thread.

Last year, after Julie Arkell's workshop
at Les Seours Anglaise, the small hand stitched bunting
we created stuck with me and would not leave.
 I found myself creating little flags in the sweet rest spots
 found in canal side cafes' and bars in Berlin and Paris.

 

 The idea stuck.
 I began digging through the piles of half finished
sewing projects, little samplers, fabric image transfer experiments
and all sorts of odd things.

Little lost ideas suddenly became pieces for bunting.
 They could hang and live a new life, exalted.

Then another what if moment:

 What if the bunting panels
 were like a journal page - telling a story?

The piece below is an image transfer
 of my father's childhood school book.

 If you look closely, you can still see t
he faded red star stamp in the top left corner.

  I wanted to expand on the idea,

 giving voice to a series of narrative slow stitch pieces

 I was working on. Hanging them as bunting 

worked especially well as the subject relates 

to a childhood time and loss of innocence.

I was six.
 My father had just walked out
 to be with another woman,

my mother was dealing with the death
 of her own mother

 and I was just beginning school.

There was so much suppressed emotion in the house.
No one was telling me anything but I felt it.

Hence the words by Robert Frost:

We dance around in a ring and suppose,
 but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

    

Done on vintage linen napkins, found fabric and image transfer.                 

See them better on flickr here.