Monday 25 June 2012

Reason to celebrate....

Here at Nomadic Tara's little workshop I have reason to celebrate - I had my first sale on Etsy!  How delighted I was to have someone decide to purchase my wares.  Here is the first purchase all packaged up in its best outfit ready for posting to my first lovely buyer...
I've been busy at the sewing machine again today and came up with this...

which pleased me no end - so much so, that I wanted to inhabit it straight away - reaching for my wallet and keys..... but no, I was good and put it straight in the shop for some other person to love. 

Willpower is the key here - but that doesn't apply to chocolate, just so you know.

Hope your world is good today....

Tara

Friday 22 June 2012

Late afternoon in my garden

The sun shone briefly today, so Mr Tara and I headed out to take some photos for my little Etsy store.  Despite him having an awful cold, he put on his coat and came outside to photograph me just so:
I am however, looking after him quite well - making pumpkin soup (from scratch no less!) for lunch and vegetarian bean chilli for dinner.  The love doesn't end there, oh no, I'm also making him apple crumble too... with icecream. Tara, quick with the needle and also, on occasion, domestic goddess.

After the photo shoot, with Mr Tara installed back in front of the telly and warm as toast with the heater going, I went outside again to photograph our back yard.  Our back yard is very ordinary but on occasion, can look rather nice - depending on what is in flower.  To my delight these beauties have just come out...
 These always look nice after the rain (with their diamonds)...
 Some greenery...
 Olive tree framing the lawn...
 One end of the Tibetan Prayer Flags attached to the fig tree...
The other end of the Tibetan Prayer Flags attached to the walnut tree... note the neighbour's nicely placed weather vane...
 Me waving goodbye in the shadows of the walnut tree...
Tara

Wednesday 20 June 2012

iPhone snugglies...

I had to borrow an iPhone (from Mr Tara) to create the iphone snugglies for Nomadic Tara's little shop. 

I really like the iPhone and all the accessories there are to go with it.  So, here is my addition to the accessories market - shabby chic and floral - for all the girly girls out there whose iPhones need protecting in their handbags (or just to play dress up).... $10 each

Nite nite....
 The back...
 All done up...
A little posing with my favourite jug...
More styles and colours are in the making - all in the shabby chic vibe.  The tote bags from the other day are coming along nicely too - all sewn up and ready for their handles. 

Tara

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Wild about flowers at Nomadic Tara

I'm wild about flowers, and so, here is the latest range from Nomadic Tara, plus some goodies in production which I hope to have in the store by the end of the week:

Orange Messenger Bag - $35
 Orange Messenger Bag (detail)
 Floral Doily Messenger Bag - $35
 Floral Doily Messenger Bag (detail)
 Yellow Sunshine Messenger Bag - $35
 Purple Doily Messenger Bag - **Sold**
 Here's some in production - ready to be sewn:


I must go, there are bags to be sewn.... and I figure the elves won't do it...

Tara

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Himalayan dreaming...

Today I've been thinking about the Himalayas.  I thought I'd share with you some of our photos from the Annapurna Trek in Nepal.  At the time I was quite sure that once was enough (it was a tough 17 day trek) but really, I'd go back in a heartbeat.  Here's why:

Fancy doorways...

It's so remote...

Mountain folk are happy souls...

 Cheerful, warm interiors....

Physical challenges of lugging a backpack over a 5,400m pass... overcome by determination and breathtaking views (that's me there in the pink hat)

 Domestic chores outside a mountain abode...
 Lush rice paddies in the foothills...

Until next time.....

Tara

Friday 8 June 2012

Temptu and correcting my Karma

Hello

Yesterday's henna afternoon with Erika did not go quite as planned... 

The henna I mixed up failed to stain the skin properly (luckily I had tested it the night before).  Sometimes you get a batch of dodgy powder, or like in my case, I used henna that had been open for about six months so it had gone stale.  Disappointing, since I had gone to the effort of mixing it (not just a case of adding water....it entails lemon juice, eucalytus oil, straining through a stocking, making a cone etc).

Still, not to be discouraged, we had a trusty fall back - Temptu!  Temptu looks similar to Henna but is painted on instead of piped on.  It's a little trickier and takes longer but the result is nice and we added some body glitter (which stays on for days!). 

What fun it is to take time out of your day to decorate your skin.  It's such a simple relaxing thing to do which doesn't involve any distractions or trappings of modern life (well except I always feel the need to photograph said occasions, so out comes the camera!).

Photographing these did turn out to be a bit of a challenge as Mr Tara had taken the regular camera on a short jaunt to New Zealand and left me with a big clunky SLR digital beast to use.  Mystified by all its buttons and dials most of my pics turned out either a) orange or b) blurry or c) orange and blurry.  Here's the best of them:

Temptu, glitter and brushes all ready to go...

Erika's arm...

Mine and Erika's arm - difficult to achieve this shot holding the clunky camera at arm's length - it has a timer function so you can set it up and get in the shot...but we couldn't find it amongst all the bells and whistles.  Hence the angle....
So, a lovely afternoon was spent painting flowers, eating biscuits and catching up.  Looking forward not only to Mr Tara's return from the homeland, but the return of the no-frills, idiot proof camera coming back.

So now to correcting my Karma...

Today I have also been making name tags for Nomadic Tara.  Given that Nomadic Tara's budget does not quite run to ordering commercially printed tags at the moment, I've taken to hand-writing my own and cutting each one out to become labels on my products.  Something borne of an empty purse, has become a bit of a trademark look for me, and I like it.  It's cottage industry at it's grass roots.  Never say never, but I feel that even when the purse is more full, I will continue to make hand written tags as each one is unique.

It's like being on detention and having to write my name 100 times....

Many years ago, my bestest buddy and I (Kim, you shall not remain nameless.....) were caught cheating in a maths exam by our teacher Mrs Slack (not kidding, that was her real name).  Both Kim and I were fairly hopeless at maths so came up with the brilliant idea of splitting the exam in two.  I'd do the even numbered questions and Kim would do the odd numbered ones, and we would share answers.  Well, we got caught "sharing" as we called it... or "cheating" as Mrs Slack called it. 

We didn't have to write lines, in fact we only got a telling off.  Still, my karma has probably been out of whack ever since.  So Mrs Slack, I know its been well over 20 years, but  now I'm inadvertently making up for my wrong-doing.  Correcting my Karma as it were....
Well, here we are on the cusp of another weekend - Happy Friday everyone!

Tara
PS.  Kimmy - here's an idea - in order to correct both our karmic balances, how about I write "Nomadic" and you write "Tara", then I stitch them together....???  See, over 20 years on and we're still working as a team....

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Henna and Hmong

Hello

It's been a week since I last blogged.  I think as a "blogger" its supposed to be more frequent an event but life just gets busy and before you know it, its Tuesday again.

I seem to have my finger in every crafting pie at the moment.  I'm working on some Henna Artwork for my little Etsy store - here's a sneaky peek of one of the preliminary Peacock drawings...

I'm making new bags after a bumper find of nice doilies at the thrift shop yesterday....

Talking of thrift shops, I managed to drag Mr Tara out to one of Melbourne's finest thrift shops at the weekend (do you like how I refer to it as "Melbourne's finest" as if its in the league of a classy restaurant or swanky bar).  I was loitering around the bed linen section waiting for another lady to make her pickings.  Not wanting to rush her, I waited at the next rack which held old curtains.  Lo and behold, off its hanger, and just lying on top of the rack, was a beautiful Hmong single bed cover sized piece of patchwork.  This type of embroidery comes from the hilltribes of  northern Thailand on the border with Laos and China (from the Hmong tribe) and is one of my favourite types of tribal embroidery.  Not normally does one find tribal offerings at a thrift store. 

I swear, I went weak at the knees.  Holding it up in glee to Mr Tara (who has seen me do similar joyful dances in markets in northern Thailand) he immediately recognised that it was a Thai Hilltribe piece.  I don't think embroidery pieces make him jump with glee the same way they make me do, but there was no denying this treasure was coming home with us.

A little note of extra niceness comes with this one - the price tag was $15 which I was more than happy to pay.  On taking my new best friend (whoops sorry Kim - this is purely a figure of speech - you have not been replaced) to the counter, the lady informed me it was half price off Manchester day, so my tribal find cost the princely sum of $7.50.  I took it home, put it in the washing machine, waited anxiously for it to dry in the sun, and now it resides very happily on our bed.   Bit like a tribal fairy tale really....
 Today I have also been busy mixing some henna paste, for my little cousin Erika is coming over tomorrow to let me draw on her arms and legs with henna.  Erika let me do this when I was learning the art of henna drawing.  Back in those days I could only manage the odd wonky flower or leaf design but she never cared, delighting in whatever I came up with, and wearing it on her limbs for the couple of weeks that henna tattoos last.  Now that I'm "up to standard" as it were, she's still my biggest fan and every so often turns up for her henna fix.
 
I've been using pre-mixed henna of late, but with time on my hands, I've decided to go old-school, and mix my own again.  Here it is, all mixed and waiting for Erika's visit...

 I will be sure to photograph the results of tomorrow's henna afternoon and post them here (hopefully before another Tuesday rolls around).

Ok, enough for now, what was going to be a quick note rambled on a bit, are you still there?

If so, Happy Tuesday everyone :)

Tara