happy valentines

These are some Vvalentines day cards I made for the markets.

I hope you all had a special day of love. I have noticed that in NZ, valentines is really seen as only for those involved in romantic love. I wished someone a happy valentine's day at the markets and she looked puzzled. Her reply was, "oh I have no boyfriend," as if that meant the holiday weren't for her. too bad.


Growing up valentine's day was for everyone and was meant to celebrate many different kinds of love. Friends exchanged cards, teachers with their students, parents with their children, and yes of course those in romantic love celebrated as well. I can't help but enjoy this holiday. No I am not a cynic, and its only a 'greeting card' holiday if you make it one.


Anyway, I spent most of this day at the Cross Street Carnival markets with Lies and other stall holder friends. We braved out the rain and cold, huddled under our leaky marque, and ate cookies someone brought. Surprisingly, people turned up, and we had on okay day selling our goods.

Though I admit I would have rather been home, warm and dry, with my guy.


I hope everyone else had a good weekend too. I have been thinking of those suffering from the bush fires in Australia, and my thoughts go out to them. Hyena in Peticoats, has blogged a bit more about this with some actions you can take so if you want to learn more go HERE.


I missed writing on the blog last week, some exciting but busy stuff came up but more on that later.

until later,
-k

goodbye for 2008

Now its time to say goodbye, to all our company A-N-E (see you real soon!) -M-O-N-E (why? because we like you!) C-R-A-F-T.

This will be our last post for the year, we are shutting down everything until mid January (like proper kiwis do) so that we can enjoy the holidays with our friends and family. I am leaving you with a few random pictures from the last few markets we have done and some misc news.

loan sharks by paper fish!

paper skulls that are individually decorated by hand! sorry vendor, I'll get your name next time :)

Little Golden Books notebooks by ruby in the dust.

Illustrated characters by Xander (note 80s wresters at top) who also makes Sparkle Friends for What Now.

Some new toys made by yours truly.

The latest issue of world sweet world has some great stuff in it including how to make a couch from an old door, how to knit with plastic bags, and my little card and envelope tutorial.

You can get this at several locations in Auckland including, iko iko, oiu boutique (in st kevs), and the eco store in freemans bay. Here is their website for more info.

also I am working on getting our games up on the side bar so that everyone can play again without having to hunt through our archives. This is why I had to repost them below. I'm halfway there, but just need Luke for technical assistance in order to get the wabbit breeder up.

Well, its been a good year, thanks very much for following along! Have happy holidays everyone!

-k

post craftwerk and my fambly

craftwerk was amazing, crazy busy, and moved at lightning pace! There were crowds 6 people deep with human traffic, lovely bands playing, a fashion show, live poetry readings, and a string orchestra at the very end. The whole event was merrily merry and both Lies and I agree that the buzz is back.

I bet right now you are noticing that I have no pictures of the night, firstly because it was night and I just HATE flash photos, so I didn't even bother. But even if I had wanted to take photos, I couldn't leave the stall, it was that busy. Lies and I did quite well, so THANKS to everyone who came and supported us.

For those of you who are wondering, above are details of a smallish watercolour I worked on this morning.

Rain My Deer!

The night of craftwerk a few people were interested in my bigger collages. These are mounted on the backs of children's books and I most people seem buy them for their children's rooms. For those of you who wanted to see some more (you know who you are :), here are two that I did yesterday. If its not your thang, no worries, just watch this space for others.

One of the best thing about this craftwerk for me was the amount of men who bought things from our stall. All my small wabbits were purchased by males between 18-30; I also sold many cards, some prints, and some bigger collages to young men. Now isn't that surprising?

London Bridge Birds

FAMBLY: a few little personal notes for those who want to get personal

Luke in his new World t shirt, a birthday gift from me.

Today my husband Luke turned 27. We've now been friends for 11 years and I still remember when he (okay his mum really) invited me to his 16th birthday party back in Minnesota. I saw the invite and thought "I hardly know this guy!" and immediately called one of my friends to see if she was also invited. She was, but even if she hadn't been, I would have gone anyway. Luke was somebody I wanted to get to know.
Anyway, we have now been together' for 7 years and married for 4 and a half years. That's a lot of togetherness for people our age, so I am very thankful.

The other member of our small family is the Yosh. In this series of photos he is practicing sit, down, and die. Yoshi and I are attending dog school (not puppy school, no, this is for misfit adult dogs) so everyday we do our 'homework' in preparation for our next lesson. Even though his obedience is top notch, he does not play well with others (he's a combination of nervous, scared, and really excited around big dogs) so that's why we go.

This Saturday is the 'tricks' session which the yosh excels in. We are supposed to teach one trick to the class and I have decided we should do "the lone gunwoman", a one act play in which I pull out my gun (pointed finger) shout BANG! and yoshi falls over dead. This is a violent game so I am curious to see how the class will react. This perhaps is the week they find out I am several shades of crazy.

My brother had his daughter this past weekend and my parcel arrived just in time for her turn at dads. Here is sweetie Ella in the sunshine top I made her. I don't think I am going too far when I say she is the cutest child who ever lived. ever.

okay that is all for me.

Cheerio,
-k

to market, to market, to market, we go!

CRAFTWERK TONIGHT! BLISS!

so we are bringing:

our dolls

our pretty pictures, our toys, our shoes

clothes for babies and toddies

many many cards

more cards

and also
bags
bibs
boys pants
paper art
and maybe more!

we really hope to see you there
ST KEVEN'S ARCADE ON K ROAD
6-9 PM TONIGHT Thursday Aug. 14th

we are upstairs to the left of the stage

and while hunting for some last minute supplies, I found these rabbits at $3 Japan. but I would have paid twice that.

and when I opened them up, scented!
THIS IS A GOOD DAY.
I hope for you too.

-kimberlee

A lot of flapping

We're having a stall at the Craftwerk-fair this Thursday. It's been a while (about 3 months!) and we're so looking forward to it. It's such a pleasant and different fair with quite an alternative creative athmosphere. I'm almost ready making my things for the stall :

pinafores of course

poppy canvas bags

Notari bag

Colorful bibs
(I know that bibs are
about the most generic crafty thing about,
but I really get good responses
to these colorful unisex ones.
The crazy cows on the right are my favorite!)

And this morning a parcel with new fabrics arrived with stunning stuff. I'll have to put them aside for later. But oh. Very nice eh.

trees, flowers and vines

beautiful beautiful Fuwari branches

And Lieveke is no longer Lieveke. She is now a fairy-magician as it happens. Her name is Merlin. She wears her crazy funky 'ballet'-slippers. And purple magic cap. Scaring away naughty dragons with a fluttery dance. It involves a lot of flapping.

'And you hoped I'd never wear pink fluffy stuff mum?'

Heh

Heh

See you soon, perhaps at the fair even.
-Lies

The Starving Artist Fund

Art Space gallery had a starving artist fund fair today to help raise money for an $2000 artist grant they give away each year. Last year Sam Hamilton won and used the money to record sounds of the amazon rain forest, so as you can tell its a very worthy cause.

The event is set up sort of like a school galla with different stations/ booths in which you can buy something interesting and have a unique experience, and of course all the procedes go towards the fund.

Craftwerk was there with an old fashioned silhouette booth where people could get a their portrait traced -fabulous idea, eh! This is the clever sign they made to go along with it. Can you read it?

Local artist/hairstylist 'cellulite' Rose gave me a much needed trim (this is just the before shot when all my hair was still tucked into the cape, so no, I have not had a chop). The after shot is nothing to speak of and unnecciary since one would need a microscpoe to measure the change -just how I like it!

My beautiful friend Emma was much more bold, and I really like the results. She as epic hair, so no matter what she does, the results are favorable.




Lieveke, Lies and I had much fun at the 'build your own vegetable animal ' booth.

this 'pussy cat' was masterminded by Lieveke but assembled by lies and me.


I found these toast racks at the junk booth, but I have found another use for them:) They will have their card holding christening this Thurday night at Craftwerk. We hope to see some of you there.


*******PAPER DOLL UPDATE
Also if you won the Paper Doll draw, I sent them out on friday so start checking your letter boxes soon:) If you missed out and you are local, my paper dolls will be at the Craftwerk at a very low price ($5 basically just to cover costs) so here is your second chance.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.
-k

when you want to find us, we're always around

Anemone crafts is spreading out a bit more, and I am happy to see the growth. Having our things in OUI shop this year has been one of those steps out, and this week we walked a little further, all the way to south Auckland.

Our gear is now in Pakuranga's Te Tuhi Centre for the Arts. No, we are not getting all high brow on you, we're just in the shop alongside other NZ designers and crafters, such as jelly bones and antifashion league. What an honour! So if you are there, look out for our bags, pinnies, little wabbits, and collage cards and more.

Another new place you can find us is KRAFTBOMB. We are looking forward to this brand spanking new fair which will run at the end of this month! I will be talking more about this so consider this just your first dose. For more details they are here.

And we just got confirmation that we will be at the next craftwerk (a week thursday!) so we are busy busy busy and happy happy happy. Lies posted their flier earlier, but this other one is worth seeing too .

With all this craft action coming up, I have been in the studio working and discovering new ways of getting R.S.I.
One way to cause repetitive stress injury is to try tracing, cutting, and folding 50 envelopes in one afternoon power session. But its all worth is when I look at this pretty stack of completed envelopes. Imagine all these old pages from books would have just been thrown out! but now they have a second life. hmmm its craft poetry, I tells ya.

Here also are some cards I have made:





This set of cards uses images from my favourite outsider artist Henry Darger. Maybe this is causing you long time readers to roll your eyes for I have gushed about my love for Darger in the past probably more than once. But if this is news to you and you want to see more go here. and if you want to know more, go here.


Another arist I am charmed with is Yeondoo Jung who stages photographs based on childrens drawings, I had seen his work a while back but Helen of stripy socks reminded me again the other day, thanks. He has a whole series of these called Wonderland and some are simply magical. so check him out here.

I think its important to do 'just for fun' projects as well and in that spirit I made these peasant tops for my 2 and a half year old niece. My brother is finally getting to see her more regularily so I wanted Ella to have a some fun clothes to wear at his house. They are not pink and are not endorsed by cartoon celebrities -yeah a break from what she usually wears at her other house. (*for the record I am not against pink or totally against cartoon clothes, kids love that stuff, you just need a bit of variety, right?)

Thanks to lies for letting me borrow her custom pattern and also to little lieveke who kindly let me try them on her and said, "I think ella will like it" what a sweet muffin!

I leave you with this battered business card I found in my stash, it was printed by an artist friend of mine a few years back, and is, at my best guess, an ironic gesture. But a very beautiful one. The back is blank aside from her name, kate newby.

bye!
-k