Hello old friend

Dear Blog,
I have been thinking of you lately and would really like to re-connect. I'm sorry for neglecting you and I hope we can become good friends again. Here is my offering of friendship, a painting of Castlepoint that I did while on holiday over New Year.

With love, Tracey.

Love Cake

Made my valentine a yummy cake. Two vanilla cakes joined together with jam and topped with vanilla icing, hundreds and thousands and jelly hearts. Yummy yummy.

Christmas Decorating- The Best and the Worst of 2008

So I'm thinking this could become an annual thing, Tracey the Christmas tree critic. First of all here are some disclaimers, I have only judged the decorating efforts of places I have encountered while doing my general day to day stuff (Wellington City and Karori), I am lazy and have not gone out of my way to search for these examples, also I am too lazy to take photos so if you are really interested you will have to go look for yourself.

The Worst

1. Christies Flooring, Karori
OK, I understand that decorating with carpet may not be easy but, this is an example of if you don't think you can do it well don't try. Here is a description: an angel made out of carpet with a polystyrene ball for a head with tacky tinsel and a couple of sheep. I suggest that next time they keep with the Nativity theme and the sheep but forget the angel and the tinsel. Just make a cradle from some wood and fill it with straw and a baby doll.

However Christies Flooring can share this prize with most of Marsden village, here are the exceptions Cafe 162, Hopscotch and Marsden Books.

2. Wellington City Council Tree, Midland Park
There is no excuse for faded decorations! In the past this tree has looked fine but now the red bows have faded and almost fallen off in the wind. Again I can understand, it must be difficult to design a tree to withstand Wellington's weather but, please can we have some new decorations next year.

3. Bennett's Government Bookshop, Lambton Quay
Bennetts mainly wins this prize because they have not lived up to expectations, they are very talented at making interesting shop displays but their tree looks like it was decorated by small children. I have seen what children can do and its not pretty.

4. Dymocks, Lambton Quay
I feel alittle bad saying this because I really understand what they were trying to achieve. Less is More is usually correct, however if only they have used wider ribbon it would of looked so much better.

The Best

1. Kirkcaldie and Stains, Lambton Quay
I'm alittle reluctant to give Kirks this prize because I do have a few issues with this years window display. Firstly as always the Christmas shop is beautiful and every tree in the entire complex has been decorated very well. However, while executed to a very high standard the window displays have been let down by poor conceptual planning. There doesn't seem to be an overriding theme to tie them all together and the mechanical actions are too small to be seen from anywhere other than right up close to the window. Kirks this is a warning, to keep this prize next year you must try harder.

2. City GPs, Willis Street
I wasn't expecting to find brilliance here but I did, well worth a look if you can find it. Their single tree is decorated with the theme of the Maori 12 days of Christmas (A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree). For the rest of the words for this song see http://folksong.org.nz/nzchristmas/pukeko.html

3.Holiday Inn, Featherston Street
Inside the lobby of the Holiday Inn there are two trees decorated exactly the same, the thing that makes them special is beautiful hanging lanterns. I have never seen decorations the same before and I really like them.

4. Farmers, Lambton Quay
Having visited Farmers in Cuba street early to look for decorations for my own tree I felt most of the decorations seem rather tacky and therefore, I am very impressed with how the tree in the Lambton Quay store looks. I am especially impressed with there ability to put pink and red together and make it look good.

Special Mentions

Starbucks, all stores
I love their theme! Homemade presents the perfect concept for this holiday season.

Plimmer Shoes, Lambton Quay
The best decorated shoe store. Simplicity is the key for small shops, love the baubles filled with beads.

Menswear Stores
Sorry girls the Menswear stores have outclassed the Women's boutiques, well done.

Statement of Intent

I am planning to create a new painting and have decided to declare my intent to do so on here in the hope that I will follow through and finish it. I friend of mine recently visited my blog and told me they didn't know I could paint, this came as a shock to me because I often think of drawing and painting as being similar to breathing. But, in all fairness since finishing high school almost ten years ago (scary), I haven't exactly been prolific.

Anyway, I am planning to create a non-physical self portrait. This plan is inspired by a quote from Queen Elizabeth I, speaking about the catholic/protestant divide she stated;

"I have no desire to make windows into mens souls."

I believe no one can truly see or understand anyone, if you are wondering I do think of myself as a misunderstood introvert. I want to create a self-portrait based on those things that can't be seen. My painting will be in the style of a stained glass window, each glass panel will represent a different part of who I believe myself to be, my values, beliefs etc. I apologise for inflicting this deep stuff on anyone expecting just pretty pictures on this blog, but no one reads it anyway, right?

Tree 2008

I'm a very bad blogger

So this is my first post since May, not very good. It's not that I haven't been making crafty stuff it's just I keep forgetting to blog about it. Anyway some of the things I have done recently that I really like are long stemmed tissue paper flowers, cover seal fairy wings and three posters for work fairies, ballet and space.

It's now the start of October and Kirks Christmas shop is already open, time to start planning my tree decorating. Because we now live in an apartment with high ceilings we have to have a bigger tree, so we went to The Warehouse today and got a 6ft tree for $20. After visiting Kirks I have a plan, my colours are red, white and gold. Also I am working with a theme of things you would find on a tree, flowers, birds, fruit maybe even fairies. Don't really want to use tinsel this time so I'm planning on using thick wired ribbon instead. Hopefully I will put up pictures when it's done.

Crazy Noodles

Walked into work the other day and saw noodle boxes and rolls of ribbon next to each to other on the shelf. Well of course I had to put the two things together, and straws for chopsticks just makes perfect sense.