Wow! - Magical Scenes Sculpted with Chicken Wire

Wow! These sculptures are so insanely beautiful, and whimsical, and nostalgic, and just simply gorgeous!  I keep going back over and over again to look at these photos, so I thought I would share them with you.

Made by London based artist Benedetta Ubaldini - they are made from chicken wire of all things!  Who knew that it had the potential to look so stunning!


You can see more of her work here - thanks to My Modern Met for this fab discovery!

Enjoy!

And the winner is.........

Congrats Dianne!  You have won your very own custom painted vintage plate - and your idea was such a lovely one too (if not a bit challenging for me! ;)

"I would want one with a picture of the 8 cell embryo that became my beautiful IVF baby, Monty, and a wee tiny note that says 'miracles do happen' :)"

Finally another giveaway!

I really can't believe I have got to the point where I can have a 1000 Facebook liker giveaway!  Thank you so much everyone :)

So as requested I am going to be giving away a custom designed, hand-painted vintage plate! Wahoo!

Now this can be anything from adding your name to one of my existing designs like the "love birds banner", a favorite image or character or even something out of your wildest dreams like this fab Bacteria plate below. 

For more ideas check out my custom album on Facebook and get thinking!

 

DETAILS..............  

I would love to know what you would all like your very own custom plate to look like............. so to go into the draw just email me at oddoneout@xtra.co.nz or leave a comment below letting me know your idea.  Be as detailed as you would like, you can even specify a style or colour of plate and I will see what I can do!

I will draw a winner randomly on Wednesday 20th June at 7pm-ish and let them - and then you all know!

To be fair of course - as this is celebrating my Facebook fans you must also have liked my page :)

I'm sorry but I will only be able to send this plate within NZ so this draw is open to NZ residents only - or those of you living overseas with a lovely NZ friend that can pass it on :)

So get those thinking caps on - I cant wait to see what you all come up with!

Relax & Unwind - Dominique Falla

There is just something about beautiful words, illustrated in a beautiful font in a beautiful way.  Gets me every time!

Australian typographer Dominique Falla has created this HUGE typographical piece titled "Relax and Unwind" with thousands of pins and hundreds of meters of coloured string.  Lordy - I can't imagine it would be too relaxing - unwinding all of that though!

 

Isn't it gorgeous! Trying to figure out how I can make one in my house - not sure about all those nails in the wall though :)  Found via Design Taxi

Odd One Out vs Picasso

I have this picture of a painted plate in my studio on my inspiration board - it was painted by Picasso in 1957.  I knew Picasso had produced ceramic pieces and I thought this was one of those - but just recently I found out that this is actually an upcycled plate - I knew there was a reason I was drawn to it! Ok so maybe it was a bit about the dog too - and possibly more about the fact his name is Lump! too cute ;)

Anyway - it's kind of nice to know that (in a somewhat removed way!) I am following in the footsteps of an artist I admire so much.  A link to the cute story behind that plate here.  

All inspired to do a bit of research now - I've been checking out his other pieces.  It seems we both share a love of painting animals and silhouettes on to plates, loving the matador and bull silhouettes.... maybe I might be lucky enough to add one to my collection  - a girl can dream!

(other pics from Ro Gallery, Taglialatalla Galleries & Christies)

 

  

My Vintage Week

Just a few little goodies I have picked up recently - you might say I've been quite restrained of late.  Not so much vintage buying - which is a great thing for the wallet and for the (bursting at the seams) house - but not so great for the soul.  Yes vintage is good for the soul!

Horsey Pic - Isn't she cute! I actually bought this to sell originally,  It sat all of 15 minutes at the Mr's stall at Love Vintage and Retro market before I hid it under the table, I just couldn't sell her.  Yet to hang it up but I love that it is behind glass because I am finding it fun to write little comments in speech bubbles coming from Mr horse or Daphne (I thought she looked like a Daphne for some reason?)


Dear deers - Yes I'm somewhat obsessed with Deers but these ones were kissing and I just couldn't help myself!

Teacup - I'm so excited that my friends Lisa and Dan have just opened up their new vintage shop!  It's called Love Vintage and Retro and this cute cup and saucer had my name on it - along with half of the rest of the shop!  I was so hoping to be their first buyer but scraped in a close second :)

Rice - Well obviously I had to have this because the colour, the pattern and the font are awesome and I guess it could potentially be useful to hold something? - probably not rice though!

Life is Beautiful

I love contradiction in art and this installation by Farhad Moshiri is brilliant!  Making something beautiful from the mundane is something that I like to explore in my own work.

I love how the gorgeous flowing font and the phrase "Life is Beautiful" is formed with 1242 knives of different sizes and colours stabbed directly into the gallery wall.  You can just imagine how manic and brutal the act of stabbing all of those knives would have looked to an observer - but look at the stunning result!

these are a few of my favourite things.....

In the Odd One Out house, of course it is natural that we have some odd wee things lying around.  I think that this glass gun filled with 100s & 1000s would have to be up there as one of the oddest though! 

We found the gun at a vintage shop and I fell in love with it instantly.  I am really drawn to objects that are contradictory or made from unexpected materials - and what could be more so than a glass gun!

I have no idea what it was in a past life - perhaps someone out there knows? If you do please leave a comment, I would so love to know what use a glass gun would have had.  Perhaps it was just made to be pretty & pretty it is!

It didn't come with the sprinkles inside - that genius idea came when we decided to display it inside this vintage glass dome (another of my favourite things).  The glass behind glass idea didn't really work visually - so being the sweet toothed girl that I am, I thought 100s & 1000s would be a perfect way to make the gun stand out.  I love the bright colours and that it adds another unusual element to the gun motif.  Best of all the colours look awesome next to my vintage Tretchikoff!

(you can put anything in a dome and it looks fantastic and designy don't you think?  I love them!) 

I am always being inspired by the stuff around my house - so it wasn't long before I started to make some jewellery pieces using this idea.  These vintage glass vials were from the estate of a watchmaker and used to hold all the teeny tiny watch parts - I think they look so cute with the sprinkles inside!  A perfect gift for a girl with a sweet tooth like me!  I have been making these since I launched Odd One Out and they are one of my most popular items.  Like them?  Buy them here.

Oh my! Dalton M. Ghetti's 'sharpened' pencils

I absolutely adore miniature things and you know that I am quite obsessed with up-cycling mundane and every day objects.  Well I think I may have found my favourite sculptor EVER!

Dalton M. Ghetti must have the steadiest, most brain surgeony exact hands - he carves the most exquisite miniature sculptures out of the ends of lead pencils.  They are amazingly worn and battered pencils at that, so happy they are not new :)  I am still finding it so hard to get my head around the scale of it all - they are tiny!  How on earth does he get them so perfect and so exact - it is completely mind bending for someone who breaks my pencils just about every time I go to sharpen one!

Here are some of my favourites but you absolutely must go and check out his page here to read all about this guy. 
 

............and the entire alphabet is just simply amazing!

oooh doesn't it just make you happy looking at them - love artwork that does that!

these are a few of my favourite things.....

I just love accidental artwork.  The kind of things that weren't originally intended to be art but 'discovered' and displayed as art anyway.  We have had this piece for about 6 years now, we always get lots of comments on it.   You definitely can't miss it in our house - it's pretty huge and so heavy we have always just displayed it sitting on the floor or on a sideboard leaning against the wall.  To me it looks like a really intentional and planned piece of artwork but I love that it actually started off life as something pretty mundane and practical.

The Mr and I bought this when he joined me on a work trip to Paris.  Although I was working most days we had some time together just wandering the streets, getting lost frequently but stumbling across so many lovely little shops and courtyards.  

We found this little place somewhere in the back streets of St Germain. it was definitely a junky kind of junk shop not carefully selected pieces at all.  But in that ramshakle French way it looked so perfect - junk piled high to the roof, spilling out of cane baskets and wooden cabinets.  Wheelbarrows full of jars, piles and piles of linen.  The shop was full to the brim and stock spilled out into the footpath and even the street!  Of course we had to go in - and we found amongst other things, this set of old number stencils.  

We have some of the smaller sets already but what I loved about these is that they were so huge and that they had been used and had a really cool patina.  We even managed to bargain the price down with the little old shopkeeper in my broken French - which was a bit of a woohoo moment in itself!

So back home we mounted the numbers on a piece of MDF and voila instant artwork.  I love the patina of the metal and the way most of the numbers are white but just a couple are red - perfect.  Now this is my kind of souvenir.  It reminds me of Paris everytime I look at it and I love thinking of the amazing doors around that city and how maybe my stencils painted some of those house numbers long ago.

My Vintage Week (by Mr Odd One Out)

I haven't been having much luck at all with my vintage shopping this year, although to be fair I've not been looking that much - with it being Kindy holidays a vintage shop is not really the best place to take an almost 3 year old.  I am so feeling withdrawals though, it really must be an addiction!

Mr Odd One Out however has done quite well for himself this week so I thought I would show you what he's been up to!

- A super cute (and just a little mad) cross stitch clock.  I love that it has been kept in the embroidery hoop and I double love that it says chicken feed.  Random words on things is something I just adore!

- A collection of little glass bottles that came complete with their little black Bakelite caps.  They are all identical and are now sitting in my entryway - I try to remember to pick roses for them most days.

- One super cool vintage biscuit tin.  With just the perfect amount of distress, I love the graphics on old food packaging!

- Some very old school intercoms - there is actually 3 of them.  Maybe it's just a guy thing but the Mr is so addicted to buying old technology stuff and tinkering away trying to get them to work.  These ones I don't actually mind though - I love the industrial styling of them and the wee atomic emblem at the bottom.  I can totally picture having one in the house and one in my garden studio (which doesn't actually exist by the way - but a girl can dream right!) We can communicate vintage styles.... "excuse me - could I please have a cuppa and some biscuits in here stat!"

So he does quite well Mr Odd One Out - don't you think?  He is also expert in hunting out vintage plates for me - I just love that he is totally comfortable buying a cross stitch clock or some lovely flowery plates and not think it's some kind of threat to his manhood :)  Unlike some other guys I know......

I see a red door and I want to paint it....Orange!

Well I think I have accidentally stumbled across a new, New Year tradition.  Right at the very start of this year we decided to repaint our front door.  We were in the middle of repainting our whole house but suddenly it seemed important to get this done first - and what a difference it makes!  Now I smile EVERY time I get home, it's more of a grin actually accompanied by an excited little shiver.  I think this is definitely having a flow on effect in my happiness level this year - smiling as I enter my home, having that warm "love where I am right now" feeling - all from a door!  I kid you not.

Colour is something I take quite seriously,  I have pretty strong opinions on it and I know Mr Odd One Out finds it extremely painful to watch me with piles of paint charts and test pots (of what he considers to be the same colour!) trying to get it just right.  I just had a feeling that a dark tangerine / orange was where we should go with the door and what do you know, it turns out to be Pantone colour of the year too - awesome!  I couldn't leave gorgeous blank canvas like that alone so a couple of days later I painted on a little design from my sketchbook - it was supposed to go on a plate but I think it looks pretty cute on the door too!

After it was all finished I thought I would have a little research into the symbolism of all of this - I think we pretty much hit the nail on head.  Now I am really loving the idea that you can change your front door each year to attract your goals and dreams for the year ahead.  What do you think?

Here's what I found out............

In Feng Shui they believe that your front door is where you set intention about yourself and about what you want; your entrance is a message to the world about who you are.  It is thought to be the mouth of the home, the entry point where energy, abundance and opportunities may find us.

ORANGE......... 

Our door faces south west and apparently Orange is the perfect colour being a fire colour.  Wicked!  In Feng Shui the colour orange promotes lively conversation and good times.  It is also the colour associated with fertility... hmmm not sure on that one!

Universally Orange is a colour that symbolises hope and a new start.   It holds that energy and warmth from the sun, nice!  It is a spiritual and often sacred colour, connected to creativity and overcoming depression.  So far so good!  Orange brings about creative energy, playfulness, exploration on a practical level, relief from boredom and equilibrium.  I'm sold :)

I love this quote from Wassily Kandinsky........  "Orange is red brought nearer to humanity by yellow"

HOT AIR BALLOONS........

I wanted to have a little picture on the door that would make people smile, with a little hello to make them feel welcome.

The symbolism of these is interesting too.  They also signify overcoming depression and are associated with the rising sun that starts the new day.  They can represent the process of  individuation and a quest to fulfill spiritual needs.

An ascending balloon signifies frustrating conditions in your life in which you are seeking to rise above. It expresses a desire to escape and the need to acknowledge your inner child.

So it sounds like by joining the two elements of Orange and my hot air balloon I was in fact subconsciously reaching for the same symbolism they bring. 

Already thinking about next years door!