…right now…maybe not with the heat we’ve been having…but a nice 25degrees and a gentle sea breeze…yes that would be nice!

{Tathra Beach September 2009}

We lost power on the weekend. At about 1am loud buzzing and zapping noises, big orange glow, sparks flying out where the street wires meet our house. Scary! Caitlin woke up terrified as she has developed a fear of storms and thought it was thunder (Even went to bed tonight still saying ‘no thunder?’ poor poppet). So by candlelight at 1am on Sunday morning I was making some of these hand shadow puppets on the wall complete with silly voices. She seemed to appreciate it, and it even got her giggling her adorable almost two year old hearty chuckle.

This old card is just smaller than A4 and has no details on it other than shown.

If you place your hands as shown in these pictures, and hold them in front of a light, their shadows will make the many creatures shown here.

Sitting here uninspired, tired and in all honesty feeling like grabbing a peppermint tea and watching some crap TV! But I am sooooo close to completing my NaBloPoMo challenge that I refuse to fail! One week to go! It’s been an interesting exercise so far. I blog mostly at night and I have found it’s the ‘forgetting to take photos during the day’ that makes me falter. That is something I really must get better at organising in between kindy pickup/dropoff, dance classes, work, Christmas shopping, toddler melodramas and trips to the park! Hmmmm what can I scan tonight….

The girls have a little desk in my studio space where they like to sit and create their masterpieces. I often find random artwork taped to the walls and furniture, my very own gallery complete with two mini curators! This treasure above was left for me the other day! Eloise is into drawing ‘hearts’ at the moment and I often make the mistake of asking ‘and what’s that’ which is greeted by an exasperated ‘it’s a love heart Mummy’ complete with rolled eyes. Ahhh silly me! (They’re love hearts around the top of the carriage, just in case you’re like me haha). She’s starting to get more detail into her drawings and it’s so interesting to see the way she thinks. She can be so slap happy sometimes. She does not care about what she uses, but it’s usually the closest thing she can find even if it’s a blunt pencil or a half dried out texta. But she is lucky. She can be creative, free and unrestricted. I try to just let her go and not influence her (besides, she’d get cranky at me if I started to tell her what to do!). I love watching the process!

The artwork above was really interesting to watch. On her own initiative she decided to trace around scraps of paper, bottle tops, small objects she could find within arms reach, and then used the shape to determine what it would be: an alien, a person with a spotty guitar, a hand with a face and legs, a platypus…and she seemed to have a lot of fun in the process and was really proud of her masterpiece! Usually she writes her name everywhere, sometimes it’s only her name on the paper, over and over again…sometimes right way around, sometimes backwards, sometimes upside down and sometimes the ‘E’s have half a dozen cross strokes! I’m now watching Caitlin start to obsessively scribble, and waiting for the first recognisable face or person to appear. I’ve always been fascinated by children’s artwork, and it’s incredibly exciting to watch my own! A little window into what’s going on inside their head.

Featured Gem 21
Real Photo Postcard
‘Beside the Seaside’

Date: Unknown
People pictured: Unknown
Postcard Back: blank/unused

Notes: I really do find seaside images quite delightful. The fashion gives us a fabulous glimpse into the past, and the people pictured usually look like they’re laughing and joking around! Just look at these couples…they look like they’re having a great old time! Visually I also like the figure wading in up to their waist in the background. Off to trace the exact dates by tracing the swimwear fashion….the back of the card is unfortunately blank.

I’ve had this little book for a while and have included it in my little Zine experiment but never blogged about it. The Ghosts of My Friends is a quirky variation on the traditional autograph book. This little copy, is completely full, most entries dated around 1918. Published by Dow & Lester it measures 10cm x 17cm. It was compiled by Cecil Henland and originally published around 1906.

When googling to find out more info (as you do!) I discovered I am not the only one to uncover this wonderful little object! See the fabulous Design*Sponge . There are also some super images of ghostly signatures over at How Now Brownpau.