Cowgirl Bracelet

Just a photo of a bracelet I made over the weekend from some fairly tacky and chunky "cowgirl" themed charms....I'm not convinced that this one will be particulary wearable!

Jem Earrings!

Like most girls who grew up in the 80's - I have a special place in my heart for Jem and the Holograms.

Jem was so much more awesome than Barbie - she was a business woman by day (although I am not sure what she actually did for a living) and for some reason she was called Jessica during the day as well, I never quite figured that out to be honest. By night she was a rock star with a wicked hot pink mullet and equally cool "v" guitar.

Given my fond memories of Jem I was pretty stoked when my friend Emily asked if I would mind making her a pair of Jem earrings (as we all know it was the earrings that had the power to turn Jessica into Jem!).

I hope Emily likes these Jem earrings, they are made from fluro coloured fimo and lots of glitter.

Just to prove to the whole world Wellington isn't all rain & wind

Here's a photo taken from our deck on a beautiful, sunny, Wellington winter day last Sunday.

Please go through....

I remember way back when I first left home in my student days I paid for everything by eftpos - often when buying things, even things as small as a packet of chewing gums or a chocolate bar I would often have the words "Please go through, I'm sure there is enough money in there" go through my head as I stood next to the eftpos machine in the supermarket, dairy or wherever.

The money always went through but I was always paranoid I wouldn't have enough money - which I guess is what happens when you are living off such a small amount of money.

However, since I've been working and living off a little more than the $150 a week which was what the government gave me in student loan/allowance (oh plus the $50 that my parents used to give me - thank God for generous parents!) I have not been so worried about the money "not going through".

Anyways, if we fast forward to NOW - I have now had an experience where the money didn't actually go through - how embarrassing!!

I was at New World Metro earlier this week and was buying a few groceries to make dinner, I swiped our "flat" card and plugged in the number and got told by one of the nervous people on the till (a lot of the people there are nervous - most of them are backpackers or travellers I think - one day last week one guy had to ask me twice if the fruit I was buying was mandarins) that my card wouldn't work as it had expired.

My card had expired? What?

Someone higher up the chain of command came across and asked what was wrong and took me to another till and again - the same thing - card expired!!

I did have some of my weekly "spending money" in my purse so I used that to buy the groceries and effectively my card wasn't empty of money - it had just expired. But all the same - I was totally embarrassed!

I went to the post shop to sort out the drama (as our joint account is with kiwibank) and apparently replacement cards had been sent out to replace the now expired ones - but then we moved and didn't tell the bank. Oh Dear.

So now I am waiting for my new card to be delivery so I can buy groceries again without fear of being told I am expired.

More film festival films!!

So this week I bought four more tickets for the film festival - now we have half the tickets associated with our final 10:)

These are the tickets I bought - I can hardly wait for the festival to begin!

DONKEY IN LAHORE

There's no shortage of crazy love at this year's Festival, but Brisbane filmmaker Faramarz K-Rahber's account of his Aussie friend's five-year courtship of a beautiful Pakistani woman is out on its own. Brian, a sometime Goth and fulltime lonely heart in his late 20s, encounters 17-year-old Amber while visiting Lahore to perform at a puppet festival. When she kiddingly proposes he marry her, he's dazzled and makes it his purpose to do just that. His conversion to Islam is the first step on a long road fraught with obstacles, not the least of which is the impossibility of the couple's ever properly getting to know each other without first marrying. Brian persists through despair and discouragement, while the filmmaker fills us in on the changes of heart and perception undergone by Amber's perplexed family. The cross-cultural assumptions are sometimes so preposterous that you may want to laugh and weep at the same moment. Donkey weighs up the choices and chances that shape its unpredictable tale with touching insight.

TEETH

Mitchell Lichtenstein’s fiendish, black comedy-horror Teeth updates the ancient myth of “vagina dentata” into a high-concept social satire with a razor-sharp script, outlandish gore and a phenomenal comedic performance by the hypnotic Jess Weixler. As the leader of a school chastity movement called The Promise, virginal Dawn is pushed to go “all the way” by seemingly nice guy Tobey. Unfortunately they both discover, rather messily, that she has another set of chompers between her legs. As her sexual awakening blossoms, the arterial flowering is close behind and Dawn deals with the profound changes in her life. When Dawn’s creepo heavy metaller brother begins to act on his disturbing and lifelong obsession for her, we know that this probably isn’t going to end prettily. Teeth is possibly the worst date movie of all time, or the best: it depends on how perverse your date’s sense of humour is.

THE WAVE

This cautionary tale about the seductive power of fascism opens with a rush of energy and doesn’t let up. Based on a real experiment which took place in 1960s California, the film transposes events to a modern-day German high school, where charismatic teacher Rainer Wenger hastily devises a class assignment in autocracy. This is project week, and though Wenger, an ageing hipster with unconventional teaching methods, would rather be teaching anarchy, he prepares enthusiastically to teach the opposite. When his students won’t engage with the topic – “The Nazis sucked. We get it”, they moan, with believable antipathy – Wenger styles himself as a Führer and devises a set of social rules to give them a taste of life under a dictatorship. Those who belong to “The Wave” wear uniforms, adopt a secret salute and subscribe to an ideology of superiority. Those who don’t are outcasts. To Wenger’s surprise, “The Wave” takes off in a big way. What follows is a textbook case of how fascism starts and takes hold – and how it can very quickly lead to violence and devastation.

We are also seeing a film called "Timecrimes" but there is no description of it on the website, only the book!

Recent Jewellery completed for me:)

Sometimes I spend so much time making stuff ofr others I never have time to make stuff for me! (which is ok - as I like making stuff a lot)

So here's a couple of necklaces I made for me - the first is a red poka dot version of the necklace I made Jess for her birthday.

The second is made with my little pony charms - it's all about the my little ponies at the moment!

Stage 1 - Customising Pony

So here are the first stages of my first ever pony modification - "Bluey" was chosen as my victim for the modification.

Firstly, like killing a zombie, I had to remove the head from the body.

Then I removed the tail and the mane, tail was easy to remove, but the mane was more difficult - in the end I had to resort to using a pair of pliers to pull it all out.
Next step - washing Bluey with lots of soap and water to remove any marks and child germs.
Next, I had to remove the "bows" butt tattoo from Bluey, also, those sickly cute freckles on the cheeks. I did this by using lots of nail polish remover.
Next step, new tattoos for Bluely - I chose a skull of course. I bought Bluey's next tattoo from the $2 shop in a packet of "pirate tattoos".
Final step for this stage was to sort out Bluey's eye make up a bit - as it was a bit too nicely nice. It was pretty hard painting on some new eye make up but I finally managed to arrive at a look that was a bit like a cross between Amy Winehouse and Robert Smith.

So this is where Bluely's customisation stops for now, I need to buy some hair for Bluely which I have to order from the States so it could take a while to arrive.

Next time you see Bluely though, she will have dark blue locks rather than those pretty awful fluro pink locks she was born with.

It's cookie time!

My friend Donna came over this afternoon to keep me company seen as Rich has been away these past few days and I have become a bit lonely by myself.

I decided, seen as I had a visitor, this was the perfect chance to have a "practice run" with my "spooky" cookie cutters I bought for my upcoming gothic tea party.

For those who don't know, I've decided to have a "Gothic Tea Party" this year for my birthday - and a gothic tea party requires gothic food. I recently ordered some cookie cutters off trade me to make some gothic cookies for the party. The cookie cutters are in the shape of a skull, bat and saw.

Here's my first attempt at using the cookie cutters (based on the recipe that came with the cookies) I learnt from the first batch to roll the cookie mix quite thin. On the "big day" of my party I'm going to ice the cookies as well and give the skeleton some eyes!

Free Hugs?

So I walk through Manners Mall fairly regularly - it's near my work and relatively near my house as well and it can be a pretty weird place at times.

It can also be pretty interesting - I have two Manners Mall "favourites" at the moment. The first is "Bob Dylan Boy", well he's not a boy, he'd be in his early twenties I guess. He's often busking at Manners Mall when I am walking home and he looks and plays just like a pre-electric guitar Bob Dylan. This guy is amazing, he looks and sounds like a young Bob Dylan, I've actually seen crowds of people standing round him with their mouths agape at his awesome Bob Dylan style.

My second Manners Mall favourite at the moment is "Harmonica Guy". I see Harmonica Guy every time I walk through Manners Mall during my lunch break playing up a storm, this guy is amazing, sometimes when you hear him you are kind of secretly looking around for the rest of the band or at least someone else, because it seems impossible that so much sound could be coming from one man and his harmonica. Like Bob Dylan, Harmonica Guy also often has crowd's around him. I think it's because he seems to be once of those musician's that really becomes "one" with his instrument - he really gives it his all when he plays the harmonica making him completely awesome.

So today when I was walking home through Manners Mall on my way home from town I saw something which was pretty cool which I had actually never seen before - but apparently according to this website it's been done before.

http://blog.core-ed.net/greg/2006/10/free_hugs.html

I saw a bunch of people hanging about with signs saying that they were giving out free hugs , some were dressed like normal guys and there was also a guy dressed as a teddy bear and a guy dresses as a panda bear. I kinda like this free hugs idea - although I go get slightly creeped out at people dressed as giant animals so this one fits partly into the interesting and partly into the weird category.

@#$%* It's cold!!

When it comes to weather - I have a pretty low tolerance to the cold, basically, I don't like the cold I don't like it at all!!

When I first came to Wellington I had a definite dose of the weather blues as I moved in June when the weather was fairly cold (when I started my job a week later everyone at the office said how cold it was which made me feel a bit better - if Wellingtonian's also felt it was cold it must have been ESPECIALLY cold).

I have become more used to the weather here in the last three years, I can even accept the wind a bit more now - most days.

But I have to say today was one of the coldest days I have experienced since I have lived here - possibly one of the coldest days of my life!!

I think I knew it was a bit too cold for me when I walked to the dairy and I got hit with the hail - yes hail! The I saw the Rimitaka's later on this afternoon - they were the whitest I have ever seen them.

Later on I looked at www.stuff.co.nz , which isn't the greatest source of news I admit but I think I can believe every word it says when it tells me that it will be a "weekend of gales, snow and rain".

Maybe it will actually snow! At least that would be kind of exciting, it would almost make all this hovering about the heater seem worthwhile.

Meet my victims....

So a few blogs back I was talking about "modifying" a my little pony into something a bit more, well, interesting (well interesting to me anyways - these things are just a bit too damn sweet for their own good!). So after a bit of searching on my good friend Trade Me I found a bit of a bargain and was able to purchase four ponies for a whole $10. Little does their former owner know what I have in mind for them muhahaha! (In fact, I expect she thought they were being bought for a child as she included a lollypop in the package she sent me)


Here's a bit of a close up of each pony - I am trying to decide which pony is to face the wrath of my art first. I think it will be "Bluey" at this stage. Whist I am sure each of these ponies already has a lovely pony-esque name like "butterfly sparkles" or "cupcake flutters" I am choosing to call them Bluely, Pinky, Yellow-esque and Peachy.

It's nearly time to introduce these sickly sweet creatures to the dark side of life.

Should this make me happy or sad?

Right-o either this is going to make me cry or jump for joy - I got this e-mail from the Illicit mailing list today but it has left me a tad confused....

Clearly Wellington Illicit is closing down - sad and painful for me? yes! But the bottom of the add says "Miss Illicit coming soon" - good for me? Yes! More cutie cutie dresses and accessories and little cardies with skulls and swallows and such on them.

Please confirm for me somebody that where one illicit shop shuts, another one opens, and I won't have to wait for a trip to Auckland or Christchurch for more illcit clothing goodness.

That's too cool not to have....

I remeber once when Rich and I had a stall at Creftwerk, a girl came up a bought an old school hot pink "V" guitar brooch that Rich had made. She told us she bought it because it was "too cool not to have".

Today I have found something which is simply "too cool not to have" - I was out for a walk at lunch and went to one of my favourite shops, Calico Jacks. I nearly always end up buying something when I go in there as the guy in there is just so....well nice....I am pretty sure he's the owner and he's always happy to have a yarn with you. Which is a sure fire way to sell anything to me - you could be selling the best greatest most amazing thing in the world that I couldn't possibly live without - but if you act like a wanker I'm not buying anything from you.

Anyways see below for a picture of what I bought which was simply "too cool not to have" - they are hair ties!! OMG!!

I also checked out the companies website www.kreepsville666.com - is it possible someone went into my head and created a line of t-shirts and accessories just for me? Well perhaps not but you couldn't really get much closer to my dream accessory/t-shirt line. I especially like the "I Heart Zombie Tee" (because I totally do **heart** zombies) and also the skully hands necklace.

Friends - did I mention my birthday is coming up and the dollar is just so strong against the pound these days.

YOUR EYES ARE TOO BIG FOR YOUR HEAD!!

I remember when I was a kid, whenever we would go away on holiday or to New Plymouth or Hawera for the day we would go out for lunch. It was the 80's so all the cafe we would go to would be those places where you pick up a brown tray at the start of the line and then make your way down the line past the cabinets picking out whatever sandwich, pie, cake that you wanted. Whenever this happened I would always want more cake than a small girl could possibly eat and my mum would always respond "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach". It turns out she was kind of right in a way - but my eyes aren't too big for my stomach - they are too big for my eye sockets.

I went to the optometrist early this week for my yearly check up, as a lot of people know already, I am pretty short sighted (I love the person who invented contact lenses!). The optometrist told me that as I am so short sighted (which is caused by your eyes being too short for their sockets) she wants me to come back in for a special appointment.

You see the eyes are now so stretched in their sockets - they could literally tear! OH TASTY! If they tear I will need special lazer surgery to fix them - who even knew that your eyeball could literally rip apart in their sockets because they are too small!!

So in August I have to go in for my special "make sure my eyes aren't ripping apart in their sockets" appointment.

Sometimes I really think I should get a refund for all the small "issues" with my body!

Numbers, Numbers, Numbers

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have no head for numbers - I can't remember phone numbers or street numbers. If I am shopping with a friend and it's sale time and they ask me what's 20% off $56.50 I look at them blankly and say there is a reason I went to law school and that reason is numbers and I are not friends.

I do have a job that requires some numbers - but all I need to deal with is land areas and sometimes added or removing GST. I have a calculator and formula's for all of this which reduces the amount of brain power I have to use about thinking about numbers - in fact I now even have a table on my computer which converts metres square and hectares to acres, roods and perches and vice versa, meaning I can even forget some of the conversation formula's I have, which I like a lot.

I'm talking about the issues I have with numbers for a reason, that reason is that New Zealand post has suddenly gotten all militant on this whole postcode carry on. I remember maybe a year ago getting something in the mail saying that we now have a postcode - but to be honest - I really didn't pay any attention to it and continued along in my postcode free world.

I have traded with a few people on trade me who have included their postcode in their address but this never inspired me to do the same - I don't need more numbers in my life!

In fact, I remember when telecolm decided to change all our phone numbers. Until the age of 11 or 12 my phone number was 621, yes, that was it. Prior to living in the country my phone number had a whole FOUR digits (which I have forgotten now naturally).

Suddenly I wake up one day and my phone number is a whole SEVEN numbers long - WTF - do you know how long it took me to remember them.

Now I have to remember another number - my postcode!! Which is made all the more difficult as no one can seem to decide what suburb we live it - it could be the Aro Valley, Kelburn or Highbury? I have personally chosen to say we live in Aro Valley - it's the most interesting suburb of the three in my humble opinion and it's where the electoral roll people say we live.

Well I am off - I better look up my postcode and try and commit it to memory before New Zealand post stops delivering my mail because it lacks postcodes.

George A. Romero's: Diary of the Dead

So it is coming up to one of my favourite times of the year, International Film Festival time!

But this is also ALWAYS one of the most frustrating times of the year also as there are so many interesting and crazy films on that I want to watch and I never have enough time (damn having to work for a living!) or enough cash to see everything I want to see.

I have to admit - film festival time also always leaves me wondering why we must endure so many crap movies at the cinema when there are so many excellent films being made. I guess it's the same reason why I must endure so much awful music when there is so much incredible music being made - if anyone knows the reason why please tell me!

Often by the time Rich and I get around to buying tickets some of the films we want to see have sold out. This year - we decided to make a list from the outset of what we want to see, and then we culled this list, and culled it again and managed to get the list down to ten films.

We haven't yet bought tickets for all of these films, but last week I did go and buy tickets to one of the films as I cannot miss out on it!

The film is George A Romero's:Diary of the Dead - unless you're are a zombie/horror movie freak you will, in all likelihood have no idea why I MUST see this film and why I MUST see it at the cinema. Put simply - George A Romero is the godfather of zombie movies, in fact, I'm not sure zombie movies would really exist without him- he's made all the best zombie films - Return of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead as well as a few other more random horror films like "The Crazies".

Put simply if you love horrors and you love zombie's George A Romero is the man - and I have to say I am more than just a bit excited to have two tickets to "Diary of the Dead" sitting in my wallet right now!

Ange's Birthday Celebrations

Over the weekend it was my friend Ange's birthday celebrations out at her place in Johnsonville, it's been far too long since we've been out at Ange's so I was really looking forward to it - plus Ange always makes the most amazing food (and always takes into consideration vegetarian types like me).

So it was good just to hang out, have a fun meal have a few drinks and celebrate Ange's birthday!

The very very tasty and very very cute cake that Ange made - it was from a healthy cook book too - healthy and tasty is possible!

Ange's Paper Bead Necklace

So this is something I've wanted to make for a while, and I thought the lovely Ange would appreciate a necklace made from paper beads so I decided that seen as it was her birthday I should get sorted and suss this project out.

I turned out to be a bit more time consuming that I thought it would be, what with all the cutting and cutting again and rolling up and gluing and varnishing and threading. But I think that the final result was pretty worth it!

Bead Making Class!

Recently, it was decided that the craft group needed to move beyond just everybody sitting around the table doing their own thing. A few of us thought it would be a good idea to introduce a teaching component into the mix. So recently I taught the first class - it was an earring making class.
Even though I have been doing jewellery making for years the thought of actually teaching other people something was a bit dauting - luckily for me only three people showed up. May sound like a poor turn out but it took the pressure off me a lot.

In the end I decided to teach those that turned up (Kat, Fiona & Celia) some simple dangly star earrings.

Fiona's Whale Brooch

So a few weeks back when it was Fiona's Birthday I decided to make her a softie - but so it was a more useful softie I decided to make it a brooch as well. It was a bit of a big brooch though so I think it may live out it's life attached to a bag rather than a top!