Newspaper Christmas Wreath

Every year I feel more and more conflicted about Christmas. It's a wonderful time for catching up with loved ones and letting people around you know that you appreciate them with gifts, cards and fantastic food. Yet, it is also so filled with stressy consumerism and disposability that goes against everything I (and many people close to me) believe in. So, how pleased I was when I discovered Eco Empire and saw the wonderful DIY Christmas craft projects that they are currently featuring.

All the projects are centered around recyclable and reusable materials - reusable bon-bons anyone! That's so simple, yet so genius. Does anybody ever really like those cheap plastic trinkets and bad jokes anyway?

Below is my version of the Recyclable Paper Christmas Wreath, now hanging proudly on my front door. I realised part way through making this that it is mostly the births, deaths and marriage notice pages from the West Australian newspaper. I quite liked the irony and symbolism of endings and beginnings that this unplanned feature brings to it.

Thanks so much Eco Empire for lifting my Christmas spirit!

Carpets for Communities

Carpets for Communities Promotional Video from cassarnorton on Vimeo.

Good little things

B took me to see the 35th Model Railway Exhibition at Claremont Showgrounds on last weeks long weekend, Monday. I was totally blown away by some of the wonderful exhibits, the creativity of the scenes people had built!

Below are some pictures of my favorites but there were so many good ones, so visit my flickr if you would like to see more.

The exhibition is held annually by the Australian Model Railway Association WA Branch so keep your eye out for it next year. Also click here to see a video of some of the exhibits in action on Jane's blog.

Red, White & Blue

Once the cooler months arrive I automatically feel the need to make soup and crochet. Hence, I haven't posted one of these in a while! This is a project I have been working on since 2009. I've been making all the squares from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks in an attempt to learn crochet inside out - while also playing around with photographing them.

This is 4 of block #68 (Red, White & Blue) joined together.

We've only just begun

Ok, so this is my first blog post. I've been deliberating for quite a while about whether to start a blog or not, worrying that I just don't have enough interesting things to say to justify my own blog, but I'm just going to jump in the deep end and try it out after reading Meet me at Mikes: How to Start a Craft Blog .

I've been a lurker on blogs (mainly art & craft orientated ones) for quite a while now, so perhaps it is time to share some of my thoughts and interests with others. I think it will take me a little while to get the hang of some of the technical parts of blogging! It might look a little plain for a while. Though I was very surprised how easy it was to upload a picture to this post...

I've kept journals since I was about 10 years old, this was started by one of my primary school teachers. Each morning the class had to write a journal entry in an exercise book kept for that purpose. I enjoyed it so much I continued on with this practice up until a couple of years ago, while I was at art school and my grandmother was sick with cancer. It was such an overwhelming time, I couldn't write and could only bring myself to stitch abstract patterns. Maybe during such an emotionally intense experience it is too painful to stand back and look at the situation from the kind of perspective (at least I) needed to write.

Well perhaps this will be a new beginning in my writing...