Wednesday Wishlist - Hands of Time

Inspiration found from the Time treasury I recently created. I hope you enjoy all of the wonderfully creative things that have been made from the humble hands of time x



Antickquities


labyrinthvintage



ladysteam13


Lconstructed


Tribalpunk




AutumFoxCreations


Antickquities



lushbaubles




EvitaAFD


EJPcreations

Friday Friends - Dusty Divas Part 17 - Rhasdala

Hello everyone - Happy Friday to you all ! Today I am so pleased to introduce you to a new Dusty Diva - Gai from Rhasdala !


Gai's ETSY shop announcement sums up her mission statement perfectly :

Rhasdala brings the best of nature to beautiful handmade bath, body and skin care treats. I love to help women feel as beautiful as they are.
Ever feel like you can never get even a few minutes to yourself?
I may not be able to give you more hours in the day, but I can help to make the few minutes you spend in the shower or bath, revive your mind and spirit.
All products are handmade using quality ingredients in a smoke-free environment. They are tested by myself, my family and friends, then tweaked, retested, tweaked, retested, etc. until they are GREAT. I won't sell a product I don't love and use myself

I drool over Rhasdala's pampering products often and think that I should order these for myself for an early Birthday treat (any excuse really) - just so I can be a soaking Dusty Diva - I mean how could ANY girl go past these : a Diva Milk Bath with Full Cream Milk Powder, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter that is Hot Pink,
a hot pink Diva soap made with real white chocolate

and a Tingle Sugar Scrub ! Delicious ! Sugary Chocolate Overload ! Yay !


Or for the serious coffee connoisseur why not try the
Barista Bath Salts made with Fresh Coffee, Sea Salt, Epsom Salts -by the way I have tried these and they are divine !

and this divine Barista Handmade Soap, Palm Oil Free made with Ground Coffee Beans,Fresh Coffee and Olive Oil.


Time to settle in with a cuppa now lovely readers and to relax into the world of pampering with the story of Rhasdala


The Story of Rhasdala
My name is Gai and I am the creator of Rhasdala. I live in gorgeous Hervey
Bay QLD with my amazing husband and 4 kids. I have two daughters (18 & 16)and two sons (6 & 3) and they greatest joy in my life is seeing the people they are becoming. They change someone's life for the better every day, I'm sure of it. The other great love in my life is my husband. We met online, he asked me to marry him three days after we met in person and we have been blissful for 9 years.

I never imagined myself making bath and body products but I guess I should
have.

Growing up I was always making facial masks out of eggs whites and herbs, putting mayonnaise in my hair, I even used to make homemade treatments for my horses mane and tail before any events we had.

So to other people, it wasn't a shock when I started making soap, but
I had never thought of it before.

I fell in love with soap making straight away! I love the science of it and
I love the variations that are possible. I think most soap makers are
obsessed with it and I was sure that's all I ever wanted to do, then I found
lotion making.

Now the problem I have is where do I stop. There are so many things I want to make and I hate not being able to do it all NOW (I am seriously impatient).

My goal with Rhasdala is to make quality products using as many natural
ingredients as possible. Where natural ingredients aren't possible I use
products that are PROVEN to be safe AND have minimal impact on the
environment both in manufacture and use.

I want a product that is as natural as possible but it HAS to work.

Currently I am introducing a range of shaving products for both sexes and
hair care is next. So far I have contained my impulse to delve into the
worlds of perfumes and mineral makeup...but as I said I'm seriously
impatient!


Want to get your hands on some lovely goodies from Rhasdala ? Check out Gai's online stores at :

Website: http://www.rhasdala.com.au

Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Rhasdala

Madeit: http://www.madeit.com.au/Rhasdala

Or connect with Rhasdala at :

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rhasdala

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Rhasdala

Wednesday Wishlist - Elements Air, Earth, Fire, Water

I had trouble finding inspiration for this weeks wishlist. Call it bloggers block. So I decided to get back to basics and find items that were inspired by the four elements - Air, Earth, Fire and Water. I hope you love these finds as much as I do. Happy Wednesday everyone xox


Air, elemental leather mask by faerywhere


Brown At Ease Capris by cocoricooo


Tears of the Phoenix Necklace by 3FUN





Siren's Song - Set of two taper candles by MoonlitHerbals


air by myheartmonster


Fall Woodland Fairy Bustle,Leg Warmers,and Shorts by Crude Things CrudeThings


Fire Opal Brass and Silver Steampunk Inspired Necklace by ClosetGothic



Tapped - doll head print by Frankenkitty



Aviator Fairy Business Card Holder by MykaJelina


Earth Colors Toasted Shredded Necklace Scarf by Textilemonster


The Element Of Fire Print by talk2thetrees


Water Currents - Little Fused Glass Dish by FirstLightGlass

Friday Friends Dusty Divas Part 16 Wiccked

Welcome to edition 16 of Friday Friends. I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend planned ! This week I want you to meet Melanie; the wiccked stepmother, multi media artist and website junkie behind wiccked. Her description by the way - I don't know that there is anything wicked about this lovely Dusty Diva ! Melanie is also a tireless,hard working DUSTer who helps to keep the behind the scenes techo bits and pieces running smoothly on the DUST team forum and on ETSY. Note use of my technical terminology *wink*.

I love the variety of talents Melanie displays in her work and featured this piece in an Industrial Themed Wednesday Wishlist a while ago
Bugs on a Screen door - a fine silver pendant with brass & cubic zirconia by melanie j cook, wiccked on etsy and

I heart the rich tapestry of colour in this piece

A Glass and a Half, single bed handmade patchwork quilt, by melanie j cook, for wiccked on etsy;

the amazing intricacies,textures and colours of this piece

tell me no lies, by melanie j cook, for wiccked on etsy

and I could happily gaze at this wonderful painting full of shape, colour and form for hours


chrysalis,by melanie j cook, for wiccked on etsy

Now brew yourself a lovely cuppa, sit back and relax and marvel at the extraordinary story of Melanie and wiccked !

Artist Bio : melanie j cook - multi media artist & website junkie.

about me

My mother says my father will take a photo of anything and everything. I inherited that gene, but I take ten photos of everything, or twenty photos, or even more! I love taking photos of light, and shade, colour and texture. I see things all over the place. I have a friend who loves to go walking with me, because then she gets to see what I see, and that is very different to what everyone else sees, or so she says.

I bought my first camera at about age 10, with biscuit wrappers that I collected from my school playlunch. That was a Diana camera, and I was terribly disappointed with the film slippage and light leakage. These days I have another Diana for that exact reason.

Times change though, and I still have the Olympus SLR I got for my 21st birthday over 30 years ago, but I'm on my fourth digital camera!

I'm becoming I’ve become a lot more comfortable with the idea of calling myself an artist. A multi media artist & website junkie, actually. I love colour and texture and I want that to be visible in all of my art.

Photography is one of the many media I love. When I show you a photo I want you to know what I felt when I took it. I want you to taste the lemons in the pie, feel the beauty of a tree, or the love of a small child. I want you to be awed by the blueness of the sky, or feel goosebumps on your skin because of the clear chill of a winters morning. I want your thirst to be quenched by my icy wet glass, and your skin to feel caressed by the water in my swimming pool - even though it's freezing winter where you are and hot summer where I am. An eye may be the window to the soul, but I think photographs are the windows to mine. That's my soul, out there, in pixels. I love what I see and I love to share it.

The earth is a canvas. Go create.

I wrote that over five years ago, so I’ve updated a couple of things. I’m still really proud of the project that I wrote it for.

A lady contacted me via flickr, about using one of my photos. More specifically, about her paying me for the right to use one of my photos. This was the first time (I think) that anyone had paid for the use of one of my photos. She paid me US$350 to use a photograph of lemon meringue pie.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/220755093/

She used my photo, along with another womans photo of a lemon, to wrap the ground floor of a tower on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/914190173/

Having my photograph there - metres tall, on Wilshire Blvd was one of the things that made me start to take my work seriously. That might sound silly, about a slice of lemon meringue pie, but people use all sorts of photographs all the time. And that particular time someone wanted to use mine.

I opened my Etsy shop in December 2006, but originally I think I only listed half a dozen items, and they all expired, and it was ages before I went back to add more, and eventually migrated my own online store into my Etsy store.
The first items I listed would have all been jewellery, or tarot bags.

Cairn Goddess, necklace, by melanie j cook, wiccked on etsy


African Squares - hand stitched cotton drawstring bag,by melanie j cook, wiccked, on etsy

It took quite a while before getting my first sale, in April 2008. My first purchase was in February of the same year (and she still makes the same item!), which makes me think it was probably around a year between me joining Etsy and actually starting to use it. A bit over two years later I’m almost at 200 sales.


Tree of Life #5, by melanie j cook, wiccked, on etsy

My last year has been sporadic, both in terms of sales and in terms of me making new things. I have almost finished a painting, which has taken ages, but I do have another ready to be painted once I have finished. I want to get back to creating new things to sell. I’ve kept on making things for other people, or for me, but I think that following my year since my breast cancer diagnosis I’ve been spending the time since treatment finished in a sort of hibernation mode. I think I’m regathering myself. I separated from my husband - I think for very much the same reason. I need time to find me again. I don’t want to be a cancer patient, nor someone’s wife. I want to be my own person. It’s been a costly journey, but I think I’m getting there. Little things I do lately have me noticing, and thinking hey - I wouldn’t have done that before!

But now I can.

I can quilt.

Fallow Fields Rag Quilt, by melanie j cook, wiccked, on etsy

I can be me. I am 52.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/4943721471/

I am melanie - woman, mother, nanna, daughter, sister, friend, artist, DUSTer, geek, tree hugger, earth lover, lesbian,
and I still take photos of my lunch.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/4944273696/


I’m all over the internet - (website junkie after all!)

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/wiccked

Facebook fan page - http://artist.to/wiccked

Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiccked/

Etsy - http://www.etsy.com/shop/wiccked

Blog - http://www.the-onion.net/

Zazzle - http://www.zazzle.com/wiccked*

Tarot - http://www.antipodeantarot.com/gp

wiccked - http://www.wiccked.com

photos/art(ish) - http://www.melaniejcook.com