Happy Birthday To ME!

Elaborate Procrastination

I do this. I have hit a snag in my painting and so have found all sorts of other things to do. On Wednesday I cleaned the house and mowed the lawn. Yesterday I found some old fabric I had printed a while back and made these little embroidery hoop pieces. The teeny tiny LED lights did fit, however the guy at the shop said the battery would only last about 12 hours and that is just not good enough. The only other way of making them light up is to have a cable hanging down from the piece. I don't want that so they are going to have to stay as little art works until wireless electricity is common place (Darren says that it is not long now).

I Heart Collectors

I don't know what it is about diminutive, larger than life and MANY that attracts humans so, but these three things always inspire joy in me. I have a board on Pinterest on which I pin others collections. Here are but a few.

Please Let Them Fit

I made this little embroidery hoop piece using some of my bleach printed fabric. I really want to make it into a teeny tiny light box by putting strip LEDs inside the ring. I just hope they fit. Imagine how nice it will look with the yellow glowing in the night?

Page 8

We feel very honoured to now have ONCE products in Page 8. As far as I am concerned it is the most charming, independent gift and bookshop on the Mornington Peninsula . It is run by the fabulous Rosie who has impeccable taste in the books and other items she selects for her shop. If you are ever in need of a gift this is the place to go, I bet you will come out with a few items to spoil yourself with too. Here are just some of the goodies featured on the online shop.

Set of 32 beautiful silk screen printed gift tags with 8 designs repeated twice on off-white card and twice on brown kraft card. Perfect for all gift occasions! All in a beautiful keepsake box.

These gorgeous, unique and whimsical animal bookends will make a wonderful addition to any child's sanctuary! It's not easy to find a bookend that feels at home in a nursery or child's room, but with its' adorable shape and soft construction, these bookends is just are a great fit!

One Sunday Morning wall art and a few of the hundreds of beautiful books in the shop.

In addition to cushions, brooches, swan planters and other items, Rosie chose some of my framed artist's prints for her shop. Yay!

When buying gifts please remember to support the independents like Page 8. They in turn support the artists and crafts people and without them the world will turn into one large super-store with every item made in China.

Sweetwater Creek

The winter weather here has been marvelous. Sunny and nippy I can do. On Saturday morning we packed up a picnic and went over to my mum and dad's place. At the end of their street is one of the entrances to the Sweetwater Creek Nature Reserve. It is a wonderful series of boardwalks that run alongside the river to the sea. It is about a 2km walk to the sea, so we set off. My mum was a little worried that Kian would get tired - ha ha he ran ahead and then back to us and up and down and around about. I think he must have covered 6 kms to our 2 and was still keen to go to the playground when we reached the beach. Grandpa Bob who is 76 and Kian who is 4 are definitely the fittest of us all. Leith and Grandpa Bob did the return journey too, the rest of us drove home thanks to Darren's foresight to park one car at the beach end. What a great little outing it was.

The start and the end

The middle.

The Jealous Curator...

is jealous of ME! I am so happy and flattered to have been featured on one of my all time favourite blogs in the whole world. The Jealous Curator is this amazing woman. This is from the about section of her blog:

The Jealous Curator launched in February 2009, as a place for me to show artwork that “made me jealous”… in a bad, toxic way. I literally was getting stopped in my tracks every time I saw work that I loved, but now that “jealousy” has turned magically, wonderfully, and thankfully into inspiration and admiration {what a relief!}. Years later, as I move forward with the site, I've realized that where my interests truly lie are, of course with gorgeous contemporary art, but I am also absolutely fascinated with the self-doubt part – the insecurities, inner-critics, and blocks that so many creative people endure. This lead to GIRL CRUSH, a series of workshops that I launched in 2012, all across the USA, and I have a few new projects in the works on this subject – I am so excited to share them with you… stay tuned!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Bio {and other bits}:

I have a BFA in Visual Arts {painting, printmaking, and art history}, and a post-grad in Design. I’ve worked as a designer and Creative Director for 14 years, but have never stopped loving and creating art. After decades of looking at beautiful contemporary art and thinking “Damn, I wish I thought of that”, I decided to say it out loud, and The Jealous Curator was born. I write daily posts showcasing artwork from around the world, and I’m currently writing two books that will be published by Chronicle Books in 2014. I have curated shows in Washington DC, Vancouver Canada, Chattanooga TN, with an upcoming project in LA. I have also had the pleasure of speaking at Alt Summit for the past three years, and recently gave a guest lecture at the University of Tennessee. I am a contributor to sfgirlbybay and Style by Emily Henderson, and have also written posts for West Elm, Etsy, Design Crush, Yellowtrace, Move Lifestyle, eBay, Escape Into Life, EcoFabulous, and several others.

The Jealous Curator has been featured by Sunset Magazine, Frankie Magazine, The Vancouver Sun, Apartment Therapy, and Glamour Paris.

  

Winter Sun & Sea

Yesterday afternoon Darren and I went down to the beach to take reference pics for my paintings. It was a beautiful afternoon albeit a bit nippy. Darren is a wonder with his camera, these were the un-posed shots he took of me and a dog.

I Believe in Birthday Months

Unfortunately, Darren is stricter and believes only in birthDAYS so I have to wait to open these little treasures my wonderful friend Penny parceled up for me. Thanks Pen, the package arrived safely.

Lovelies

My birthday is coming up soon and I have been asked what I would like. I really don't need anything to tell the truth. I have all I want. However I remembered MOD CLOTH had some lovely goodies so I went to browse. These are the items I would buy in a heart beat.

for the kitchen

for the boy's rooms

because they rock!

Liquid Kisses

Isn't this sculpture by Johnson Tsang just lovely?

Workshopped

The gallery I am exhibiting at later this year forwarded this article to me, is it not marvellous?
"Congratulations to VAIDAS ZVIRBLIS, who's design object Mobile Kitchen Bench was selected for Workshopped 13 Design Exhibition in Sydney 15-25 August."

OFF TO MARKET!

It is going to be a very exciting weekend for us, as we have our first market this Sunday at the Abbotsford Convent. The market opens at 10 am and will run through till 4.00 pm. ONCE will will look like this and will be selling goodies of all sorts, from cushions to children's lucky packets. If you are in Melbourne and don't have anything planned for Sunday please come along and say hi. The Maker's Market is held indoors, so even if it is raining it is worth the trip.

The Queen's Birthday

Isn't it weird that Australia still has a public holiday to celebrate the queen's birthday? Well they do, and it was yesterday. The whole weekend was a delight of sunny skies, friends and family.

Our little queen

We had my marvelous cousin Cindy-Lee and her family over for lunch on Sunday, and we took the boys to the Boneo Maze yesterday. What a lovely place! The many mazes are set in a gorgeous wetland park with large scale board games, great picnic spots and a lovely little miniature golf range. I would love winter here if the skies were always this blue.

Kian shouted  "Brudder" all the way through this maze, not the peaceful spiritual journey that a maze is supposed to be at all

Best Blog

I love this blog - The Relentless Laundry. I love it for its straight up, bald face honesty and because it is really funny!

"I live in London with my lovely patient husband, our "big-boy" son (he told me to say that. He's 4. These things are important to him) and toddler and baby daughters. I spend most of my day racing around like a demented cat, wiping (surfaces, bums and noses), weeping, and laundering. I plan to have reclaimed my life by 2017 although my plans are generally laughed at by the Gods (who generally manifest themselves at their most malevolent when it comes to me)"

Blue Caravan

I bought a copy of Peppermint Magazine the other day - great read with a large focus on eco friendly issues and sustainable production. Blue Caravan (which is an online market place) had a front cover ad and I went to check out their goodies. Beautiful items from accessories to home-ware and back. I loved CHERISH one of the accessory stalls. They use handmade pieces and combine them with vintage belt buckles and found haberdashery. I would so love the black and green, rose cameo brooch.

The Veils

This little band is is the most under-rated band I know.

I Wrote A Letter To My Love

Because I have moved country, I am finding myself sending and receiving more post - good old fashioned mail. I love it, we say such different things in letters / postcards than we do in emails. Look at these lovely letters - wouldn't it totally make your day getting something like this in your mail box?

Letters From The Girl With Tattoos

I got a lovely little parcel today. It was from my wonderful friend Sam and it contained washi tape with birds on a wire. When I left SA Sam got a "birds on a wire" tattoo (couldn't find the picture she sent me, but it was beautiful). It got me thinking about inking. I have started a pinterest board "If I Got A Tattoo". Here are some tattoos I love.

My morning surprise

I love these two, particularly the subtlety of the one on the left  

These are great although I might run the risk of looking like one of my paintings

How pretty is the one on the right? And Mr Vonnegut's words are my favourite. This is what Wanda June said when she was run over by an ice-cream truck on her birthday!

Love the brown and the placement. I am thinking of "be kind" something I forget so often in the daily rush of things. 

Cabin Fever

Yesterday we were all driving each other mad - just too much time doing puzzles, baking and playing chess with the boys. The sun peeked out and we mounted an excursion, a pick-a-direction-and-drive kind of thing. We took the Mornington-Tyabb Road with a view to heading across the peninsula to the other coast. We stopped at a great little spot called The Vintage Shed, which had some beauties (the yellow chair and red, teeny-tiny kitchen set being my most favourite).

Then off to Hastings which was a little Smith's lyrical ("the coastal town they forgot to bomb"), but nice enough. I did particularly like the mini mangrove (the picture doesn't do justice to the bonsai-like character of it). Then a quick run around the local playground and home again, home again jiggity jig.