One World One Heart Winners

OK, That was hard to choose, counting backwards , forwards, with the RGN and my own favourite numbers and then finally my best friend 'Intuition'

Here we go .......................the winners are..............................

Ist drawn............. Hege-Anne Simonsen , Norway 'Hege-Annies Paper {He}Art'


A packet of Rainbow Chai Tent Chai and a small sample of Yarns and beads, plus a few bits of possibly interesting 'stuff' about Australia or my local region.



2nd drawn............. 'Digital Misfit' of 'My Hiding Place In Cyber Space'

A small Sampler bag of Chai and a snuggly Neck Cosy, some cushy foot pads, and some Hopefully interesting 'stuff 'about Australia,



3rd drawn............. Danielle Barlow from 'Notes From The Rookery'

A gold bag full of small samples of yarn , in shades of earthy colours, to make something cosy with, a small Sampler bag of Chai, plus some extra goodies and interesting 'stuff' about Australia and where I live.


If anyone is sad they missed out on the Chai, check out Rainbow Chai Tent.com
you can order some from Michael thru the links there, also have a look at our new blog here
The Rainbow Chai Tent Blog

Black Saturday 'Mega Fire Storm' 7th February 2009

Well my 7x7th birthday has gone done in history as a 'Black Day' in Australia, So many people caught out in an horrific, devastating, unbelievably fast Mega Fire Storm of an unprecedented Bush Fire.

In another life I may have settled in the region of Kinglake and St Andrews, as so many of my friends have done.

I still don't know how many have survived, and how many are now 'Gone' ! I have heard a few stories of amazing survival, seen a few on the news coverage, and learnt of the death of two dear artist friends, actor Reg Evans, and his beautiful artist partner Angela, who I used to enjoy chatting with at St Andrews market, where I began my Living Rainbows Stall and began selling my Gumnut Pixie Hats.

I fear for Murray and Oku and their beautiful daughter Mahli, in Kinglake, I fear for Martin Carter and his family in Dixon's Creek, I 've heard Hannah Sky is safe, having lost her house in Steels Creek, Bob Brewster and his lovely wife , survived in the concrete cellar, beneath their 3 storey house above in Kinglake West, I saw fellow stall holders, jewllers Michael and Megan amongst those left standing in Kinglake Central, but there are so many others who I know nothing about as yet.

How did my dear friend Deborah Woods and her son Jarrah fare, do they still live along the Toolangi Rd ?
And all those friends, customers, and acquaintances, that I know from St Andrews Market yet have know idea in which valley, or ridge they live in, or lived in, past tense!

Tonight there is an Telethon Appeal Concert in progress and in the first 47 minutes, the Red Cross donation tally has jumped by 1. 7 something Million Dollars ! How amazing is that !

In 4 or 5 days the amount has just been incredible 56 Million

Now it's $60,235,888.00 at 20:53 pm !!!!

And now at the end of the night the Telethon total has reached a staggering $19 Million.
Not sure what the grand total is, yet, but how amazing is that


Our Etsy Down Under Street Team DUST,
has created a special on line sale shop OzBushfire Appeal
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6902734
created on Sunday 8th Feb and it already has had 208 sales, and raised over $35oo as of earlier today,I don't know what the actual tally is at present.

Here is a link to some survivors stories, just out, http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/survivorsstories.htm just to give a fragment of the picture.

One World One Heart Giveaway

This Giveaway is now closed, I just need to learn how to 'actually 'close' it
.......aah worked it out
I will be choosing 3 random numbers out of 166 comments.
Good Luck to all who visited and entered !


Click this logo to find out more and to find all the other people taking part, with links to their blogs in the Gypsy caravan

It started on 19 January and ends on the 11th February at 6pm when a winner will be chosen at random. I will announce the winner on the 12th February ASAP.

HOW TO ENTER TO WIN:
All you need to do is leave me a comment ON THIS POST and be sure to include your name and email so I have a way to get a hold of you if you are the winner! It's that easy!

My Giveaway will start with this, a Packet of our Handmade Masala Chai Mix, seeing as I have recently begun a Blog for the Rainbow Chai Tent, as well as my own ArtNomadix Blog, and making comments on your blogs tonight, my Username keeps displaying as Rainbow Chai Tent. I will add some other items to this and add them into this post when I have got them together and taken a photo of them in a group, ( Some eclectic yarns, beads and surprises I can only imagine at the moment) but I must post this now and send the email to Lisa.

To learn more about The Rainbow Chai Tent or to order more Chai go to our Main Website

OK here's an Update with more photos of my extra giveaways. My laptop has been playing up these last few days since I joined this OWOH, and so I haven't been able to load the new photos let alone post them here,.....so .... here they are,

No 1 is A full packet of Chai plus a small selection of little extra selected items, from these next photos

No 2 is a small sample bag of chai, (in one of our soon to be 'Collectors Item, Bags', as the packaging will change to a box,.... sometime in the future.....) plus a larger selection of wool and beads, and extra stuff ( things I have kept for some reason or other, and have decided might be of interest to folks who live in totally different types of countries.

No 3 is a small sample bag of Cha,i (Like above), and the blue Neck cosy to keep someone warm somewhere, plus some of the extra paraphenalia abpout Australia, seen in these coming photos .

I will email the selected winners giving the first drawn the first option etc thru to the 3rd drawn lucky blogger.










I'll be closing these comments very soon,..... after dinner, .......seeing as it's most probably the end of 11th Feb over there now too. It's actually 18:43 of the 12th Feb here now ! Lol.

But first it's time for dinner Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

DUST Down Under Street Team

I am a proud member of DUST ,
it's a wonderfully supportive group of Australian Etsy sellers of beautiful handmade creations.
Etsy is an American based International On line Site for sellers of Handmade, Vintage and Supplies.
At Dust, we have a wonderful forum, with friendly people always ready to help out those new to the on-line world, and selling on-line.
We have a monthly Themed Sale that we can take part in if we want, with sale items appearing on our front page, click banner above to go to the Front page.
We also have a Gift Guide http://www.dustteam.com/admin/gift_guide.php
And the Dust Team Blog http://dustteam.com/blog/

The Dust front Page is an excellent way to find some truly amazing Australian Artisans and see some of their stunning work http://dustteam.com/

Other Studio Work

Last Friday I was fortunate to attend a local Chillingham Community Centre, art class with a visiting guest Water Colour Painter Lorraine Rogers, http://www.sidewalk-gallery.com.au/ it was great to learn from her skill, and simple tricks of the trade.

Much easier, than from the 'How to' collection of newsagent lessons I inherited from a woman living in an Alice Springs Caravan park a few years ago,along with two sets of water colours and a bag to carry it all in, that doubles as an excellent travelling 'Beanie Making Bag'.

I have been using wax water soluble crayons for about 25 years and have often felt that a watercolour wash for the first few layers would make life easier. And it is ! Now I just need to practice my new skills.......Here are my first two attempts...


But first, a deadline........ Monday 19th,........ must have the 'Old Chai Tent Table Curtain' spruced up somehow,????......for the Rainbow Chai Tent's 4th visit, to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in the Gardens in front of Old Parliament House, Canberra, for Sovereignty Day 26th January 2009, and the Action for Climate Change at New Parliament House on 3rd February.

I have made a new table curtain for the regular market set up, but for longer set ups, with extra marques and preparation and servery counters, we always need more table curtains to screen off and hide the under bench area for storage etc.

This old one I originally painted back in the late 80's or early 90's, and is looking quite seedy, especially when wet. It's old and faded, and has some bad areas of mold spotting. But at 6 metres long it is still redeemable with some more paint and I did think for a while, I might sew a backing layer and do the revamp with some applicque-ing! Maybe that'll be the go the next time round.
When I was making the new one I did a tiny bit of over painting to try and keep it going and disguise the worst spots,( see the first 5 pictures )







Decided to just add some more fabric paint (Silver, gold and light silvery blue, with a pink red heart that darkened to more red than pink). That done I nearly finished there, late Sunday afternoon. Then at 4pm Geradus suggests it needs some words ! So we set about working out what words describe the Chai Tent, we came up with quite a few, and I had just enough time to paint thru 3 DVD's til late night, and till 1pm Monday to get 47 words painted in, before Liffy, my Very Active 78 year old mother, headed off to rendezvous with my brother, for the long 2 week trip south.

Geradus kindly cooks the dinner while I work !
I used my wax water soluble crayons to write the words and colour in , then used Fabric Medium to make it colourfast, Much easier, than trying to paint letters with fabric paint, and achieving clear straight edges
And the colours are super bright
Unity, Clarity, Hope, Service, Community, Freedom, All One, Harmony, Equality, Communication, Creation, Acceptance, Music, Friendship, Happiness, No War, Caring, Sharing,
Dance, Wisdom, Listen, Communal, Culture, Sing, One Mob, Tolerance, Inclusion, Education, Integrity, Peace, Love, Charity, No Nukes, Joy, Justice, Serenity, Loyalty, Family, Truth, Growth, Fun,Honesty, Awareness, Heal, Birth, Flow,
Such a change from a tired old curtain, it is earning it's status as a Chai Tent Heirloom!
There's still room for more, that I'm sure folks down there will come up with some, when they read all of these.
That will be for painting on in the next round of revamp, when I'll probably start on the applicqueing and strengthening with a backing cloth.

A Bit About Etsy.com

Found this and thought what a good thing for people who don't live in the US, to see. To learn a bit about Etsy.

Nimbin's Hippyfest'08'09

Old Years Day '08, a very hot humid day, became a beautiful balmy evening, without a hint of thunderstorms, of the preceding and following nights ! The main street of Nimbin was very quiet, the young had gone elsewhere for excitement, the older folk stayed out of town, except for a perfect quantity of happy smiling people, gathered in the Mingle Park behind The Nimbin Museum.



The Rainbow Chai Tent was set up by Michael, and created the colourful atmosphere to brighten up the area and cleanse the area of a brutal attack in the lane two nights earlier.


The evening began with a didge welcome by Robert Corowa and friend

followed by two young men from Tuntable Community, with a clever rap,


Next up were Al and Nerida the Patriarch and Matriarch of 'Earth Reggae',
currently without a band behind them, (Correction :"Tonight without a band behind/beside them", They actually have their three eldest kids as members of the band along with Ren Waterfall on Brass), as they have been and are, extremely busy with their seven kids, and all the extras, (friends of kids) , that like to call Al and Nerries place 'Home' too ! Nerida says they're thinking of offering workshops and music jams and events at their home, centrally located in the village of Nimbin , beside the community centres market stage.
See http://www.earthreggae.com for purchasing wonderful CD's of 'Earth Reggae's excellent Australian Reggae
They got up and did an acoustic version of 'Aboriginal Land' and other Earth Reggae songs,with their youngest kids, plus friends eager to join in. After their set finished, Nerida told me that the music playing during the space between sets was actually their older kids, now playing the accompaniment !

Won't be long til we see the 'Earth Reggae Family Band' , playing alongside the 'Perch Creek Family Jug Band' another local family with seven kids, plus partners of the older ones. The tribe starts to grow bigger!

See http://www.earthreggae.com for purchasing wonderful CD's of 'Earth Reggae's excellent Australian Reggae, with songs about caring, and conserving our precious planet and sovereignty for Indigenous Australians !

Next up were the inspiring duo Marcella and Chris, from 'Monkey and The Fish',

with their exceptional songs, that I just love to dance out the stories of, in mime. They nearly had some 'guest singers', until 'stagefright' over took one, instead they played some percussion, and changed places with two others mid way thru the song 'For the Children'
The evening carried on with a new band ' New', who got all the others up for a good dance

All, ably mixed by Bo Kaan, in the Kombi sound van, he worked all thru the heat of the humid day getting everything set up and ready for the evening
The New Year was heralded in by a small drumming circle, a few fireworks in the main street and a guided meditation, and we all drank lots of chai both hot and iced, and iced Turkish mint drink, and ate luscious cakes, made by Michael, the gluten free Chocolate Hazelnut Meal, and the Orange Almond Meal, and the vegan Orange Poppyseed and the Decadent Chocolate with Everything !

A wonderfully Good night was had by all with donations gathered, to pay the musicians and Sound man and contribute to the Chai set up. Even the local Police Woman came down to congratulate organisers, on such a Peaceful, and Good Event !!