Dress Up 2011 - February

The Dress Up 2011 theme for February is Gustav Klimt, the painter.  Now those in the know will probably be saying 'ah, The Kiss' but as I had no idea who he was or what he had painted it was all a mystery, so I did what I always do when faced with a mystery... I Googled it!!  What on earth we all did before Google is another mystery - either hoped we had an intelligent friend or a set of Encyclopedia Britannica handy, I guess! ;)  Oh and if anyone out there wants a complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica, with updates to about 2001, just let me know??? which would leave people to presume that I have no intelligent friends, but you would be wrong, the Britannica's are immaculate!! LOL
Then I was in the local thrift shop perusing the book section and I found a book on Klimt!!  It must have been preordained... I swiftly purchased it at a ridiculous price and took it home in the hope that it would give me inspiration for my dress this month!

Completed in 1907, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is a painting by Gustav Klimt. It was painted in Vienna after being commissioned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy industrialist.  It took Klimt three years to complete the painting.

Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model who was ever painted by Klimt twice, being also the model for the painting Adele Bloch-Bauer II, which was painted by Klimt in 1912.

Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted in 1912 by Gustav Klimt.  Her husband was a big sponsor of the arts, including of Klimt, which probably had some influence on her sitting for Klimt twice. Both portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer were part of a protracted court battle in the United States and in Austria which resulted in five Gustav Klimt paintings being returned to Maria Altmann, the niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, in January 2006. 

So these were the two paintings that caught my eye, the first because of the colours and the eyes on the centre   panel of her dress and the second for the lines of the dress and the way the fur around her shoulders draped.

So here is my mannequin in her Klimt inspired outfit! As you can see, I have taken inspiration from both paintings to arrive at my one piece. I used Basic Grey papers and lots of bling plus a piece of fur from my lace bag.  If you want to see all the other dresses pop over to Angela or click on the Dress Up 2011 picture on the right hand side of my blog.

WOYWW 26th January 2010

Here we are almost at the end of the first month of 2011 and the weeks seem to speeding by!  My work desk is looking pretty tidy for a couple of reasons, the first being that I haven't had a lot of time lately for sitting and playing and the other, I tidied up after a project a few days ago!

A couple more envelopes which are now finished and should be going in the post in the next day or so.

The close up pic doesn't do the colours justice as they are far more vivid - as you can see from the desk photo.

This is the other side of it - not a proper envelope as one end is open for a large tag.

The colour is washed out in this photo too - it's very difficult to get proper colours in the light I have here... I think I need to invest in a proper lighting box setup.

This is the back - love these papers but I have lost the front cover so haven't a clue who made them! 

Here are the close ups of the letters in frames I did last week.

and speaking of dream.... we went to Lake Louise in the Rockies on Sunday to see the Ice Festival.  The scenery was spectacular, the chateau is huge and overlooks the Lake - which was frozen completely solid and people were skating on it.  the ice sculptors had done a magnificent job of carving the humungous slabs of ice into magical forms.

This was a huge castle carved from blocks of ice actually on the frozen lake.

This dragon looking in the mirror was carved by the British team - called 'Who's the fairest of them all'.

This was a rabbit pulling a child from the hat!

and look who managed to get her photo taken with two Mounties???  I didn't realise just how tall they were till I saw the photo... I think I must be shrinking... (eat your heart out Toni)!!

Don't forget to check out the other desks - pop over to Chief Inspector Snoop of the Desks - aka Julia.

Dream and Envelope

I had quite a fun time in the scraproom yesterday and managed to get a couple of things I had started completed!  Wooo Hooo!  This is the envelope that was on desk yesterday.

Anyone bored with the bird cage yet?  Eh?  I'll take that as a no and carry on using it then!! LOL

I keep forgetting that the idea of these envelopes is to post them and then I go and put bumpy stuff like a bird cage on them... and add ribbon that will get caught up in the mail.  Best laid plans of mice and men?

I also finished the letters in frames... I went with some new papers I had bought by DCWV called Street Lace, they are lovely, have foil and glitter on some of them so they actually did all the work for me and I left the letters and frames alone except for some bling... and a girl can never have too much bling!!

I woke up this morning and there was the weirdest layer of icicles on all the sides of the trees... fluffy icicles that did not fall from above but must have been blown on the wind and stuck to all the sides of the branches.

See?  Fluffy icicles!

It says on the weather channel (yep, we have an entire channel devoted to the weather here)!! and its the Brits that are supposed to be obsessed with the weather, yet we only tag it on to the end of the news broadcast!

that we are to get snow this afternoon.... so my nice snow free driveway will be covered again...

WOYWW 19th January 2011

I had a clean up during the week and sorted some stash out so it is looking relatively tidy at the moment.  I have lots of things I should be doing and a few things that need finishing off but I am sitting playing at making more envelopes!! I gave up on the collage effect and decided to make some 'my way' in the words of Frank Sinatra!!

OK... maybe not that neat and tidy...

This is one done 'my way'...

and this is on the other desk... I found some black frames at the dollar store and now have to decide whether to go with colour on the background or black and white papers.

Before my Mum left to go home we went to the pet store for cat food and this fell into Chris basket for Tom-Tom.  They already have the very tall version so this one was for Chris' study where Tom-Tom sleeps beside him in a cardboard box.  Now, these things don't come cheap and anyone that has a cat knows that they will do the opposite of what you want them to... and yes, Tom-Tom was not impressed that his old cardboard box and blankie had disappeared and been replaced by the new addition and chose to sleep on the floor in front of it.  Mum decided that it was unfair to leave Pandora out of the equation and picked her up a pink sheepskin bed for the scraproom...

Pandy thinks its the bees knees and spends hours in it..... mostly because of this

Yep... it's the ceiling heating vent and the hot air blows down on her... she is a true Saudi cat and loves the heat and plonks herself down on top of the floor vents in whatever room she happens to be in.

And the new climbing frame bed for Tom-Tom? It has moved upstairs into our bedroom and Pandora thinks it is great! LOL  (I found Tom-Tom another cardboard box and replaced his blankie and he is quite happy again now)!

Don't forget to check out the list of fellow What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday folk over at Julia's!

Tipping.... as in gratuities... I really, really wish that this practice was stopped.  I hate tipping, I figure I have been charged the market rate for whatever job has been done and figure I shouldn't then have to sit and try and work out what would be an acceptable amount to tip on top of it.  I look at it that I wouldn't tip a bus driver for getting me from A to B so why do I have to tip a taxi driver?  I don't tip in MacDonalds but have to in a restaurant but they both supply me with a meal? I am expected to tip my hairdresser and manicurist but I would never tip my podiatrist or chiroprator.  

For my birthday Chris arranged a surprise meal with our friends - 13 of us in total in the restaurant - the restaurant that mislaid the booking but was luckily not full so could accommodate the number when they all turned up ahead of us.  After the meal, Mum and I headed for the car with Chris bringing up the rear, but he took a while so we waited in the cold until he came out.  I asked him what the hold up was and he said that the waitress had stopped him as he was leaving and told him he hadn't left her a big enough tip.  Eh?  Yes... she explained that it was an industry standard to leave 15% of the total bill and went on further to tell him that the restaurant only paid minimum wage and therefore the tips were required to make up her money.  I sat in the car open mouthed... what?  Never!  What did you do?  I asked.... gave her the rest to make it up to 15% was his reply.  LOL  You have to give the girl some credit, it takes guts to do what she did.... but I so wish it had been me instead of kind, nice Chris, because I would have taken back what had been given and left her with nothing for the cheek of asking for more!  

Envelope Fun....

I was sitting mooching through YouTube clips last night and watched a lady make a collage envelope from a file folder, it was very pretty so I thought I would have a play, the first problem that arose was that I couldn't find a manilla file folder in the scrap room... nope, not a single one!  Now, I know I have about a gazillion of the darn things... because I bought them when I was going through my 'I will be better organised' phrase - which was about 5 years ago!!  Obviously when I was packing to come to Canada I figured I had no need to be organised and left them in my scrap room at home... but, all was not lost, how hard is it to make an envelope??  So I got a piece of A3 cardstock and folded and cut and stuck a couple bits down and voila!  Who needs a manilla file folder!!  The next problem arose when it came to putting the collage together.... now, the lady in the video clip appeared to just tear odd bits of paper up in weird and wonderful shapes and slap some glue on them and then transfer those in a higgledypggedly fashion onto her manilla folder and it looked fabulous!!  She then added some bits and pieces and even got her sewing machine out and ran a couple of lines of thread through a photo and there it was, completed and looking very arty farty.... so it can't be that difficult can it?

Obviously the answer is yes!!

and the back didn't improve with practice either....

But... I haven't given up... I'm going to give the idea another go 'cos I'm no quitter!!  I might even get the sewing machine out...