Sand Magic by Aiyanna

12/03/2026

Anyone else awake the last 3 mornings at 4.44am?

Been some wild drawings and downloads.

Exciting!!! 🔥🐎

11/03/2026

This dream of mine to acknowledge Peter Donnelly and his incredible gift of his sand art and him walking this earth as his creative soul began in June 2025.

I made a pitch at the Soup night run by the Driftwood Council of Brighton. Its an evening run to gather people and ideas together for the betterment of New Brighton. I won the money on the night to start the project and have been supported by others to complete the project.

My pitch was to make up some story boards telling the story of sand art here in New Brighton. With Wayne and I following in the footsteps of Peter Donnelly the original Sand Man, there have also been other sand artists creating here... a whole lineage. I don't know anywhere else in the world like that.

And so the project began. I was blessed to have a connection with Peter already through Wayne and so i got to speak with him about what was his message. He spoke about the promise of a plaque by the Council to explain the patterns he created/sandblasted in the concrete around the children's playground in 2017 that was never fulfilled.

I was able to connect to the correct people in the Christchurch City Council and have this wish fulfilled for him. The plaque was unveiled on 6th December 2025.
It's situated on the wall in front of the big tree by the children's playground.

The two story boards are now complete and in place at 'Sand Art Alley' next to Big Brothers Souvlaki, 207 Marine Parade.

Come have a read about this amazing New Brighton legend.

❤️

11/03/2026

08/03/2026

06/03/2026

Happy birthday Peter Donnelly.

Your story boards are complete.
Celebrating yo🧙‍♂️⏳️🧹📷🌊🌏

This dream of mine to acknowledge Peter Donnelly and his incredible gift of his sand art and him walking this earth as his creative soul began in June 2025.

I made a pitch at the Soup night run by the Driftwood Council of Brighton. Its an evening run to gather people and ideas together for the betterment of New Brighton.

My pitch was to make up some story boards telling the story of sand art here in New Brighton. With Wayne and I following in the footsteps of Peter Donnelly the original Sand Man, there have also been other sand artists creating here... a whole lineage. I don't know anywhere else in the world like that.

And so the project began. I was blessed to have a connection with Peter already through Wayne and so i got to speak with him about what was his message. He spoke about the promise of a plaque by the Council to explain the patterns he created/sandblasted in the concrete around the children's playground in 2017 that was never fulfilled.

I was able to connect to the correct people in the Christchurch City Council and have this wish fulfilled for him.

Working closely with Peter's sister Linda Thomas we curated two beautiful A1 size boards with a total of 18 images of his iconic sand art and 4 photos of Peter helped by graphic designer Gemma from Frame and Copy.

The frames were hand made with love by Wayne Allan Webb , made of sturdy construction to weather the elements here by the sea in New Brighton.

They are on display at Sand Art Alley , 207 Marine Parade next to Big Brothers Souvlaki. Thank you Brian Donovan for allowing them to be situated here on this land.

The plaque is situated on the wall by the big tree next to the children's playground.

You are remembered for your uniqueness and your greatness Peter
❤️❤️❤️❤️

Much love Aiyanna

02/03/2026

Transmuting old timelines and closing karmic loops

Sand magic today
I was playing a connecting/ supporting role between my friend Donna Stichbury - The Relationship Facilitator and Wayne to bring this beautiful portrait of Donna's Dad through today.

To give Donna this moment with her Dad she never had, not having had a funeral for him.

A very private time sitting on the pier watching him/Ron come to life one more time, at the same time 100s of Mums/Dads/Grandparents With their children /grandchildren ran past on the pier doing the first obstacle of a 3 legged race as part of the X race.

It was surreal. So many witnesses. I loved how many people still stopped to look and take photos.

What really spoke to me was the unity I heard between the family members, figuring out how to do the three legged bit!! Lots of different phrases being used, gestures, beats, discussion. Not being told one way and leaving it at that to try and figure it out. I often have to ask someone to repeat something a different way as I don't understand it they way they say it. It doesn't land in my body.

Seeing the generational change happen in real time made my heart so happy.

Thank you Donna for your courage and strength to sit openly with your grief and between you,Sam,Wayne and I we saw how powerful that was for others to feel held and be able to speak about their grief. A big thank you to the french NASA man who gave us all a gift. 💜💜💜💜

I'm sure I could write 4 posts about what happened today in those 3 hours and it still wouldn't cover it.

Happy birthday to Wayne's Dad George W Webb who's 86th birthday was today. Wayne created a piece for him too and the crowd watching clapped at the end.

So powerful for it all to end with a storm on my Mayan dreamspell birthday today, Kin 82 , white self existing wind in the storm cycle!!! Ending a cycle from 2018 creating with a beautiful dyslexic soul sister on the sand at Maukatia/Maori bay, Muriwai and helping her transmute all those old stories /patterns about her creativity and of not being good enough. It ended that day with a storm as well ♾️🌧⛈️⚡️🌨♾️

24/02/2026

Creating an expanded space for love to land❤️❤️ .... and grow 🌱

Created at Maukatia/Maori bay, Muriwai 2023

So grateful to all those sand angels who came and helped create this ripple effect of peace and love.....it's still rippling❤️💚💚❤️

02/02/2026

A beautiful community gathering of like minded souls gathering in presence sharing love, music, dance, creativity, sand magic, play, bubbles, kai, sacredness, prayer, connection and friendship



So magical

02/02/2026

Happy Lughnasadth/Lammas from New Zealand.

The festival of harvest, gratitude and abundance.
These are photos of my sand magic book I have created from 2019- 2023 that is now for sale. This photo of me and my 'sand angels' standing in the sand cornucopia we created on 30/1/2022 celebrating Lughnasadth resulted in this magical bubble moment.... 🫧🦄🐎💧

Accompanying the 13 sand magic pieces are the stories of creation of each of them. Each piece has its own life in 4 stages I find...
⏳️When the design is being thought about/talked about by myself or cocreating with others
🌊The actual creation on the day on the sand
⏳️What happens next as there's always a magical connection with people on the sand or who connect with it
🌊The ripple effect....where the image and stories travels to afterwards....

The book is $60 plus postage.
I will sign it personally for you if you would like me too.
Please send me a message and let's connect.

Thanks so much for your support 🙏
Much love Aiyanna

30/01/2026

I got myself up on the pier this morning. The first time in many months to meet Brendon the man Wayne is creating this sand magic piece for.

He has terminal bowel cancer and is taking part in Februarys Bowel cancer fundraiser 'Move your Butt for bowel cancer'. What an inspiring man. Your message matters.

100 people a month are dying in New Zealand of bowel cancer. I had no idea the Stats were that high.

I'm so glad I came out this morning to meet Brendon. If you would like to sponsor him or learn more about this fundraiser here's the link

https://www.moveyourbutt.org.nz/fundraisers/brendonvere/move-your-butt

10/11/2025

So tonight I spoke at the Soup night organised by the Driftwood Council of Brighton
I got to share about my project 6 months on that I won $500 for. Where the story boards about the sand artists from New Brighton were at.
We had just picked up two finished ones about Peter Donnelly from the printers a few days ago.
I have worked closely with Peter's sister Linda Thomas over the last 5 months to bring the story of Peter's creations together.

When I told my story I spoke about my why..... why I wanted to make the story boards

My why starting this project was I didn't see Peter's sand art and contribution to New Brighton anywhere and I thought how sad it was. I wanted to acknowledge his wonderful creative talent while he was still here. Having travelled internationaly with my sand art I know how rare and special us sand artists are. There's too many stories in our history of artists becoming famous or getting credit for their art after they passed and I didn't want that for Peter.

I wanted him to know how much he was loved and how his sand art touched peoples hearts. So much so that people would ask us or share every week on the pier something about Peter. ❤️❤️
He had a huge ripple effect.
... Not knowing of course the path this whole project would take over thenext 6 months and Peter's health journey...

Peter sadly passed on 13th October 2025.

I don't feel sad he hasn't seen the story boards or plaque because I know he knew about it while he was still alive......and that meant the world to me. When we were privelaged to visit him in hospital and as we were leaving, Wayne and him had a hug and he just reached out his hand to me and looked me in the eyes... that said everything to me about how he felt about what I had been working on.

I feel so blessed to have been able to help tell Peter's story to a much bigger audience.

🧙‍♂️⏳️🧹🌏🌊💙

Thanks Wayne Allan Webb for all your help and support

Never give up on your dreams

04/11/2025

Something very special and very dear to my heart is going to be revealed in New Brighton very soon. I'm going to be talking about it at soup night on 10th November. Through this amazing event I was lucky enough to get the most votes to win the cash so I could make my wish come true. Two of the Sand Art story boards are nearly completed and will be revealed on Monday night. Whoop whoop!!!

Would you like to get your neighbours together for a summer BBQ? Strengthening neighbourly connections?

Would you like to plant some additional trees in your neighbourhood?

Would you like to organise a beach clean-up in the lead up to summer?

Do you have another idea, that could benefit from a $500 cash injection? We all know how hard it is to get funding at the minute ... could $500 help?

We are hosting our next 'SOUP event' on the 10th November - we are currently on the hunt for local people / groups who want to do something in New Brighton over the summer and are keen to pitch their idea at our event.

The criteria for pitching at our SOUP event is as follows:
* Must be cool.
* Must do 'good' for New Brighton and/or be a person/group that comes from New Brighton.
* Concept must be (at least partially) realised by our next SOUP event (Autumn 2026)
[Note, established groups including small businesses are welcome to apply, if their project meets the above criteria and they have a fresh idea they need help funding that supports New Brighton]

How do you win the $500?
* Each person who attends the SOUP event pays a $10 entry fee which goes into the prize pool.
* This gets them a bowl of soup (hence the name of the event) plus a voting token.
* After everyone has pitched their ideas on the night, the attendees then vote for their favourite pitch.
* The favourite pitch wins the $500 prize pool.

Even if you don't win on the night, this is a great way of getting word out about your project to audience of people who genuinely care about improving New Brighton.

Plus, you might just make a few new friends too!