Archive for Niger

ACEO’s

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Have you heard of an ACEO? It stands for Artist Cards Editions and Originals and collectors buy them. They are kinda like baseball cards for collecting but are each an original piece of artwork. The main rule is that it must measure 2.5″ x 3.5″ and be original. You can make an ACEO out of any medium from paper to wood and of course…polymer clay.

I’ve attempted my first two ACEO’s and have put them for sale on my Etsy store. One is more ‘modern’ and the other more asthetic. One is based on my ‘funky bubbles’ range and the other draws on our experience in Africa. They are both very different to each other and should attract very different buyers. Here they are:

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This one is for sale here

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This one is for sale here

Getting Ready for Keswick

The next Keswick Convention is coming up in just over 2 weeks so I”ve been trying to come up with some new ways of presenting our display for SIM. I found this very cool tool on the flickr toys site and have made six cubes which will work something like a puzzle. Took me hours to get them exactly right (I’m a perfectionist) but I think they turned out well.

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Photo Friday ‘Heat’

This week’s PF theme is ‘heat’. Living in Perth means that heat is a part of life. In summer itusually gets to around 42C (thats nearly 108F), sometimes a little higher and usually for a few days in a row. Sometimes we have a heat wave where this last for a week or more. This summer wasn’t too bad. I’m not posting about Perth though because the hottest we ever experienced was in Niger, West Africa.

I’m fairly sure we had days where the temp got up to 50C (thats 122F). When we went to Papua New Guinea on our way home someone commented that we didn’t look very ‘brown’ for people who’d lived in such temperatures. There’s a reason for that. When its 50C outside you don’t really go and bask in it and try to get a tan (well, we didn’t anway). Besides, two words…..skin cancer.

Anyway, this photo is from the heat we experienced in Africa back in 2000-2001 (spot the giraffe by the way) and the second shot shows just how ‘white’ we really were afterwards!

Niger, West Africa

Papua New Guinea (notice the volcanic soil!)

IF – ‘Communication’

Haven’t entered in Illustration Friday for a while but this week’s topic is something I can enter so here’s mine.

I did this for some literacy work in Niger for SIL while we were there with SIM. They are sitting and writing which is a big form of communication. I have had some of these illustrations made into cards which I painted with watercolours. All proceeds from the sale of the cards goes to SIM’s work in Niger. Those are for sale on my Etsy site here.

Around world around the House

I was looking around my house today and thinking about the variety of things from around the world that we have. Most are things we have bought ourselves but some, particularly anything from Asia were bought in a shop in Australia. I have a real love for other cultures and love the variety of styles that can be found. For example, I have this (we bought this in Austria):


hung right next to this (which was bought for me for Christmas by my parents from a little Japanese shop in Cairns):

We returned from Niger (with our mission SIM) over 5 and a half years ago now and there are still a lot of Niger things around our house with no plans of putting them away any time soon. Such as these:

and these (they are actually small cards with batiks on the front that I’ve framed):



How could I forget this (if you are from Niger or live there you will know what it is!):

To top it all off (there’s much more than the above but the post would be too big if I kept going) we have some lovley little items from our visit to the USA (bought in the town of Galena, Illinois) in 1998 such as these:

How could I complete this post without mentioning Papua New Guinea. We spent 7 weeks there in 2001 visiting my parents and we bought back quite a few nice things (they also have given us a lot!), including this pig:

Anyway, thought I’d share my love of culture. It’s much more interesting to me if the item has some sort of direct connection with a culture I visit so I hope that one day we can visit Asia and south America (only been to Singapore and that was just for one day!). I’ve got more (deep!) to say on this subject but for now I’ll let you enjoy the pretty pictures!