Starmaker

Here I am, in my Secret Lair (or craft cave) making a crocheted star, one of about 500 I need to make for my Christmas Range.

Jacqstar- a month in the life (part three)

Week Three of Create and Thrive's a month in the life

(see week two here)

The lovely Jess from Create and Thrive has organised an Instagram challenge called 'A Month in the life in which we post a picture each day of our businesses based on a different theme, so I thought I'd share my photos and the stories behind them:

Day 15: Rest 

Mmmmmmm Cake...

To relax for me usually involves a coffee shop (I love Wray organics) some cake and either a book or my crocheting. I love to people watch or just dive into a good book and get away from the electronic distractions at least for a little while. 

Day 16: view 

Nice view

This is the view out the window of my craft room. Some mornings there are ducks swimming in the pool. I can't wait until it gets warmer so I can get back into it and shed some of the Winter kilos.  

Day 17: photography 

Jacqstar's funky photos

I'm not all that great at taking photos but I've got a few faves that I've made prints of and framed. This one is my favourite, a streetlight in Melbourne. 

You can see more of my photos here...

Day 18: Customer 

What a little cutie

My customers are mainly women, occasionally children and men but I couldn't resist sharing this pic. I made this hoot beanie for a friend's nephew but her dog got in first to model the beanie for me. What a cutie!

Here's another happy customer with her scarf:

Natalie

This is my gorgeous cousin Kelly, owner of Bright Pink on Facebook and love of all things Pink (naturally)

Kelly

And, the cutest of them all...

The cutest of them all...

Day 19: tools 

my Smiggle toolbox 

I've got a cute smiggle pencil case that I keep my crochet hooks, wool needles, stitch counters and scissors in and it zips up so I don't lose anything. I take it everywhere with me. I just invested in some bamboo crochet hooks and I'm loving them! 

Day 20: finished 

Eco friendly cowl and beanie

I made this beanie and cowl from soy protein wool. It's beautifully soft and warm and is made from Eco friendly products. It's for sale too! 

Sparkly!

This one is the first in my new Burlesque collection but it was snapped up by a bride wanting something to keep her warm in the evening after her ceremony.

I love the colours in this wool

This is another cowl made from Soy protein and wool. It's incredibly warm and light.

Day 21:  Morning 

Oh what a beautiful morning...

The sunlight and shadows crawl across my wardrobe

I usually wake up 20 mins or so before I have to get up and I watch the sun make patterns on my wardrobe and light up the affirmations to remind me to be thankful each morning. 

That's it for week three, one more to go.
See you next week...

Jacqui xx

Jacqstar - a month in the life (part one)

The lovely Jess from Create and Thrive  has organised an Instagram challenge for handcrafters called 'A Month in the Life' in which we post a picture each day of our businesses based on a different theme each day: 

Create and thrive a month in the life

So I thought I'd share my photos and my stories behind them. 

Day 1: Workspace 

Secret Lair (very messy)

                                      

This is the Spare Room. Also known as Jacqstar's secret Lair (I've always wanted a lair- it sounds so cool!), the Creative Cave, or most recently the junk room :)  At the moment, there's stuff everywhere, as I'm in the middle if several projects and working my way through Leonie Dawson's Double your Biz programme. 

Double Your Biz Programme

Day 2: Hands

                           

I didn't have someone Handy (see what I did there???) to take pictures of my hands in action so I improvised. I suppose wool is my first passion, followed closely by paint. If truth be told, I care less abou the medium and more about the colours. Oh how I love colours! 

Day 3: Work in Progress. 

One of my many works in progress

Wow. I started this over a year ago, and it still hasn't progressed much further than what you see here. I have no idea what it's going to be- I don't think it has decided yet. 

Day 4: Raw Materials. 

some of my raw materials

As I've said, the medium is secondary to the colours and textures, but I do love shiny glittery things. I love to feel the softness of the wool. I'm very sensory so as long as it appeals to a couple of senses I'm in love with it! 

Day 5: Sketchbook

a few of my musings on paper

I had forgotten what was in my sketchbook- it's been so long since I've even opened them. Looking at my ideas has inspired me to get back into sketching and getting all the pictures in my head out onto paper. 

Day 6: Action

but she had wings...

I don't have any shots of me in Action. But this is my Action plan. My dream board reminds me of what I want from my business and where I need to go. It's my who what when were and why -  It keeps me moving in the right direction. 

Day 7: Packaging 

brown paper packages tied up with string...

I use old knitting and crochet patterns and wrap them up with scraps of wool that are too short to do much else with. Mum taught me to waste not want not, so I'm the ultimate recycler :) 

That's the end of the first week. See you same time next week for week 2

P.S. follow me on Instagram http://instagram.com/jacqstarcreations/

Love, 

Jacqui xx

Jacqstar Creations - behind the scenes

...But She had Wings...

Recently I met up with my mastermind group of incredibly talented ladies from Leonie Dawson's Amazing Biz and Life Academy. Our mission for the day was to creation a vision board for how we see (or want to see) our businesses.

I've been giving a lot of thought to what I want the direction for my little biz to be. I've jotted down lots of words, ideas and feelings (both what I want to feel and what I'd like my customers to feel), and then found pictures that seemed to convey those thoughts.

It got me really thinking about where I'd like to be in a year or two or 5 years down the track, and what I can do for my customers. It's all about what I can do for you.

What Do I Have That Can Help You?

Now I'm a bit of a hippie tree-hugger save the planet,  ooh

yeah I love dolphins, rainbows and unicorns kind of girl, and so I really want to integrate that into the future of my business, so that's the kind of ideas I wanted to put into my vision board. I love peacock inspired colours and just colour in general, so there's an element of that.

I've also added inspiring words and snippets from song lyrics (can you pick the song?) that fit into my theme. I'm Allowing my business to be successful and giving myself Permission to receive all the abundance that comes with it.

I want to do my little bit to help the planet, so I want to

use Eco yarns that are Earth friendly and sustainable, don't use fossil fuels, have gentle dyeing processes etc. And I've added those images to remind me of where I want to be and why I'm doing it.

I've also added lots of butterfly and wing images which are aligned with my Butterfly Lady range of inspirational sayings and drawings (which I've made into a series of gift cards) and a snippet from one of my favourite quotes at the moment: 

'When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.' 
-Dean Jackson

OOH I love that quote to bits...

Thanks for letting me share this vision board with you and my vision for Jacqstar. What do you think? Did you spot the song lyric? Have you ever made your own vision board or have wanted to make one? Let me know...

Love always,

Jacqui xx

Express Yourself!

Hello Lovely Peoples,

Today I went to an expressive painting class held by an Art therapist. I think I was expecting to learn 'HOW' to paint expressively, but I suppose that sort of defeats the purpose. Instead we first took a few deep cleansing breaths, and cleared our minds of the distractions of the day. We were then asked to listen to the music playing and choose the first colour that came to mind and that would be the colour/s of the background of our painting.

Mine was purple. I had a flash of purple and green so that's the way I started heading, but soon it started looking like seaweed or fish or something that I didn't want it to be. One lady there said, 'oh it looks like little fish swimming through the seaweed'  (I had no preconceived idea what I wanted the painting to look like - I just didn't want it actually looking like something - I was going for a purely abstract sort of result) 

So I then dripped some water onto it to blur the lines a bit, and I kept turning the canvas around so there wasn't an  up or down, and smudged the lines a bit with my fingers - I did a lot of finger painting today  and playing with different tools; the green bits were done with pallet knives  :) 

 I then tried a different tack - I splashed some yellow across it in an attempt to get away from the 'under the sea' theme.

This was the point when I really started getting into it (about an hour and a half into the class - what can I say - I'm slow to get going), trying to get as many different layers as possible into the painting - It was starting to take shape in my mind; the purple and green background were to be the first in (hopefully) many layers in this work.

Now, I just can't seem to complete anything in one sitting - especially a painting. It needs to develop at its own pace , and just as I had a clear vision, the class ended.

So - here's what I've got so far:

I love the curve in the yellow red and orange dots (flowers???) and I'd like to do some writing / collaging around that curve, with an inspirational quote. I'm in an art journalling / collaging kind of mood at the moment.

The question is which way is up?

So did I get any therapy out of it?

I suppose in some way I did. The overwhelming feeling I had throughout the afternoon was that of frustration. I was frustrated that what I saw in my head didn't translate exactly onto the canvas; Frustrated that I wasn't getting as 'into' the class as some others were; Frustrated that some of the other paintings were amazingly beautiful and pretty much completed by the end of the class, whereas I'd hit a creative brick wall and just stared at the canvas for ages waiting for it to tell me what to do next.

But all that in itself taught me so much about myself.

I was painting with my head and not my heart;  I wasn't just letting it happen. I'm used to making a painting look like 'something' so in this class I was all about making sure it wasn't looking like anything, when the natural flow of what I was doing lent itself to looking like fish or seaweed or whatever, and I should have taken that as my cue.

I was also looking around at what everyone else was doing to gage how I was going in comparison (and to be truthful, looking for ideas), when some people got so 'into the zone' that they later said they didn't notice the people around them or how long they had been paining.

Anyhoo, it's Art: there is no right or wrong way. It was just interesting to see myself in that light, AND I've got the beginnings of a very cool painting.

I'll keep you updated as it progresses.

Let me know what you think of it.

love,

Jacqstar xx

Anatomy of a painting

This painting was completed during two, three hour lessons with Patrick at his Ryhill Road art studio. The flowers and stems were drawn with fabric 'puffy' paints, although Patrick has since perfected  the use of acrylic paints put into squeeze bottles to get the same effect.  Lay the canvas on a table, making sure it is level.

Once the outlines are dry, spray the whole canvas with water using a spray bottle. Apply fabric ink to wet canvas with a brush, doing one colour at a time. If canvas starts to get dry, spray with water again, but spray upwards allowing the water to fall onto the canvas from above. Don't spray directly onto the ink or it will mottle the ink, unless that's the effect you're after. 

Depending on how steady your hand is when you're drawing the lines, there may or may not be bits where the line is thin or missing. This is where the ink will seep through and make the beautiful effects. I think I did too good a job on lining some flowers, so I had to purposely allow the brush to stray into the white lily to allow some colour transfer.

The ink comes in most basic colours but you can mix the colours beforehand to make a new colour.  I also added one colour over the other straight on the canvas. The plant stems I firstly painted  green, then added a bright yellow over the top to make a yellowy green, but it also  made it mottled when I sprayed it with water, so both the green and the yellow were visible.

The colours available in the ink are beautiful and bright, but I went back over them several times to get some really strong colurs - especially the yellows and the purple.





What I love about this technique is that it's quick (but I'm such a fuss pot I had to keep going back over the colours to get them just right), and it's meant to be a bit rough and messy. The colours are supposed to bleed into each other, so if you're not steady handed (like me), and make a bit of a mistake with the lines or the colurs, it makes it look even better :)


And here's the finished result...

I'm hooked on this technique, watch out for the next one...