Thursday 20 June 2013

Tirohia atu nei ka wheturangitia Matariki, te whetu o te tau!

"Look above beyond the horizon and there you shall witness Pleiades, sign of the New Year Happy New Year!"

Wow - I can't quite believe Matariki is upon us again - the excitement of a new year, and the fun of trying to spot Matariki on the horizon - which is usually done sitting on our rooftop huddled under blankets...Although we are not quite brave enough to venture up to the rooftop tonight, for fear of being blown off!
It is also an excuse to get crafty with nga whetu (stars).  Gracie had lots of fun designing these stars to use as a Matariki table setting.




Matariki is slowly gaining attention in Aotearoa – nowhere else in the world has this unique celebration, so we need to embrace us, and celebrate our uniqueness as Pakeha and Maori living together in Aotearoa.

So tomorrow night’s celebrations will involve gathering with my sisters whanau, having hot soup and bread, decorating more stars, and tucking into a Matariki themed chocolate cake for dessert (which I have yet to create!)  So to you and yours this wintry new year - 

mihi o te Matariki, nga mihi o te Tau Hou

Happy Matariki, happy New Year…



Monday 17 June 2013

A much needed breath of fresh creative air

I finally got to run a workshop - and it was an upcycling workshop - my favourite type!

It was sooooo much fun - partly because it has been such a long process to finally run a workshop.  My first few contacts for running workshops sounded promising, but fell through - which was quite hard to recover from - hence the gap in my posts of late.  Suffice to say its been a really tough month of soul searching, general confusion and angst...
However Saturday's workshop was a breath of fresh, creative air.  My brief was to help people find op shop clothes and transform them into costumes for the Lyttelton Projects Festival of Lights Parade next week.
A perfect situation of the op shop being down stairs and the workshop room upstairs.  After a few trips we were ready to start.
Check out the lovely Sacha - she has always wanted her own tutu, so we set to work.  One girls raincoat, two woman's dresses,  a cosmetic bag and soft toy later, and she was all set to rock the parade in her tutu.  And if it rains her tutu is waterproof, so she won't get wet legs!
isn't the wee softie cute!

some ties attach the cosmetic bag around her waist for a hand pocket

awwww!

my trusty elna supermatic finally getting some action!
So that was one of the lovely outfits upcycled from opshop treasures. It was such a privilege to be part of Sacha's exciting upcycling learning curve -and so cool to see someone so happy with their creation!