Letters and Ink...

Today my little desk is filled with letters, postcards and paper to be stained in ink. I'm spending the afternoon writing to some beautiful old friends and delightful new ones. I'm also beginning my second moleskine of the year. Ruby red for the month of love, I'm looking forward to exploring a new month of thoughts, ramblings and stories.

Happy Tuesday
Much Love
xxx

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Ideas and Dressing Tables..

I love these final days of the year, with Christmas behind us, the new year around the corner, the sun high in the sky and the world almost in slow motion, still in holiday mode... and I'm right there with them, deep in the beauty and delight of the holiday season.

My holidays have been filled with ideas, plans, measurements and making friends with the people at the local hardware store. Magazines and clippings fill the dining table whilst my journal brims with beautiful images of homes, paint colours, homewares and my little cottage moment by moment becomes our home..

The current state of my dining table.. full of inspiration.

My moleskine journal has become the ultimate place for all my grand ideas, the biggest of which is a plan for a delightful little conservatory, inspired by Susan Southam's Bramasole, nestled in the backyard under the Maple Tree..

Pages of thoughts and notes, an inspiring bedroom, lovely bedside table and quilt.

I find myself spending the mornings sipping tea and pouring though images, making notes over toast and tea before taking to streets, journal and tape measure in hand, ready to find that perfect colour and piece of furniture.. and yesterday I did just that.

As my hubby and I braved the heat to search the local refuse shop for some old tea chests and crates, I stumbled across this gorgeous little old dressing table. Tomorrow the transformation begins, with a few coats of white paint, I hope to give this lovely dressing table a 'French Provincial' feel.

Wishing you a delightful final day of 2009, a time to reflect and look to the future, to make wonderful plans for the coming year.

Much Love
xxx

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Journal love and destruction...

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." Oscar Wilde

For the last ten years, my handbag has always contained at least one product in which to write in. If I leave the house without my journal, I feel I am missing a little part of myself. I have tested many a diary, notebook and journal and I am currently hooked on the daily moleskine, which is perfect as it gives me a friendly little reminder of how many days I haven't written for. My journal has a little set of rules, all pictures must be securely stuck down with 'good' glue, only artline pens are allowed and there must be an image, photograph or collage every two pages. I'm not sure why this is, but it is the strange little agreement my journal and I have come to.

2009 moleskine...

Reading Three Buttons fabulous blog recently I noticed she also had a journal, but this wasn't any ordinary journal, she was spilling things on it, sticking stationary in it and even collecting fruit stickers for it. I was hooked! What was she thinking, how could she ruin a beautiful journal. It was of course 'Wreck this Journal' by Keri Smith, an amazing opportunity to lose oneself in the art of journal deconstruction.

I was so intrigued and determined to change my controlling journal habits, I just had to buy a copy and thanks to the lovely people at Readings, my 'Wreck this Journal' arrived in the mail this afternoon.

Flicking through the pages I was both delighted a terrified. How can I do some of these things to a journal! I sorted carefully through each page to determine what would be a nice easy task to begin with....

This was never going to work, I don't drink coffee and I didn't want to give up a nice hot cup of tea to saturate my new journal! (You can see I was having control issues already).

So I came to another page, that I thought might work a little better.. I mustered up the courage to pull the tea bag out of my cup and...

Tea art was created!

One page down and I'm only a tiny bit concerned that half the journal smells like tea and is totally warped but I am quickly realising this is the point of this wild ride. I'm really looking forward to documenting my 'Wreck this Journal' adventure and now just have to find the courage to wreck another page!

Hope you are having a delightful Wednesday. I'm off to crochet, read, journal and catch up on some silly reality TV.

Much love and journal wrecking!

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Writing, sewing and loving Sunday..

At last a cool change has come to Mildura after ten days straight of over 40 degree temperatures. I've spent the day enjoying the cool change, sewing some new brooches and pendants for my little shop and enjoying the afternoon at our monthly Poetic Justice Publishing writing workshop. We had to cancel it yesterday after it got up to 47 degrees so it was lovely to be able to catch up today and prepare for the local Big Screen Film Festival that we are a part of next month. Words and images always seem to flow freely on a Sunday and we are embracing the themes of Baz Lurmann's Australia and creating poetry and prose that resonates old world Australia.

A writer's stash

Notes and inspiration..

An afternoon with the Remington..

I briefly braved the heat yesterday to take a quick trip find some new fabrics and ribbon. I came home with a lovely little collection and have been busy making a new collection of brooches and working on a few special pendants too. I had anticipated getting a little more achieved over the weekend but the heat slowed me down quite a bit, so I'm looking forward to more creating in my spare moments during the week. Here a just a few of my creations which you can find in my Etsy shop now.

Lovely new fabric and ribbon..

'For the Soul' Terrarium Pendant

I heart Glue and Scissors (the perfect pair)

I heart Sketchbooks
I heart Philosophy..

I've also got a special little offer on in my shop at the moment, if your purchase is my 50th (I'm at 48 at the moment) you will receive a little extra gift with your order. Keep an eye out for more cute and crazy brooches during the week.

Well I'm off to cook dinner with my lovely hubby and get ready for another evening of the ever fun and frivolous 'So you think you can dance'. Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend.

PS. My heart goes out to all the families affected by the horrific bush fires in Victoria. We are so blessed to have not been affected up here in the north west corner, I just hope that the cool change will help to ease the fires and brings some relief to the people of Victoria.

Much love and Sunday dreams
xxx

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A beautiful New Year...

Happy New Year!

These delightful notecards are by Tamar, perfect to celebrate New Years Day with.

I hope everyone had a wonderful night seeing in the New Year wherever you are around the world and made lots of fabulous new years wishes. I always found the first day of the year so exciting as a child, a new beginning, an adventure and I would already thinking about buying new books for school (stationary obsessed from a young age). I woke up this morning with the same sense of adventure and excitement about the coming year. I am so inspired after my holiday I can't wait to share my ideas and creations with you in 2009.

I have already been busy in my little studio making some very sweet fabric 'I heart' brooches inspired by my favourite things. I have introduced eight new designs to the collection with a variety of themes including: lomography, knitting and art history. These eight designs can be found in my shop now. There will be plenty more to come as I have so many favourite things and they are just so much fun to create. Here are just a few in the collection...

I heart Vintage Fabric Brooch

I heart Journals Fabric Brooch

I heart to Knit Fabric Brooch

I heart Art History Fabric Brooch

I had a lovely surprise yesterday afternoon, the mailman arrived with an unexpected parcel. A few days before Christmas I was delighted to win a giveaway draw held by the very talented Shariyah Garner. This incredible artist has recently relocated to New Zealand where she is creating some beautiful artworks. I was very fortunate to win a beautiful art block print 'Mother Earth' which is now taking pride of place in my lounge room.

'Mother Earth' my beautiful prize.

Please go and check out Shariyah's work, she has some wonderful paintings for sale and has recently added some beautiful and intriguing jewellery to her fabulous shop.

I have also completed one of my most ambitious challenges of 2008, filling a page a day in my moleskine journal. I was writing until 11:56 last night to complete the last page and was filled by so many emotions when i was able to tie a bow around my whole year of work. I will be featuring some of my favourite pages from my year in my next post.

Moleskine '2008'

After completing such a vivid documentation of my year I am now beginning a new moleskine with a whole new year of adventures. I love the idea of writing your life, keeping it safe for a rainy day in many years time when it is discovered in second hand store or in a dusty attic box and the cycle of collection begins again.

As the beautiful Joyce Carol Oates once said, 'Write your heart out'.

Wishing everyone a fabulous New Years Day, bask in the sunshine, drink copious cups of tea, find a piece of paper and a pen and write a letter to yourself outlining your extrodinary year to come.

Much love
xxx

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Spring is in the air...

My second post for the day, I told you I had plenty of photos, I feel like I have been sitting at the computer for hours! When we got home after nearly two weeks away the first thing I noticed was how beautiful the garden looked. It is as if Spring hit over night. I just had to get my camera out and take some photos of these beautiful blooms.

The stunning native bottle brush is in full bloom filling our front yard with stunning red blossoms.

Our roses are also back in full force. I just love the morning dew still on the rose petal.

Our amazing tulips that appeared out of no where continue to flower. Very special!


Another mysterious and fabulous surprise were these Irises that have these stunning lavender flowers.

And at last our strawberry plants are are flowering and will soon have some yummy strawberries on them!

I have some lovely purchases and gifts that I received on my holiday that I just have to share. I adore shopping at markets and interesting little places and I had so much fun shopping in Cairns.

My sweet buys (and a few pressies from my Dad) including the very cute Nooz top featuring scissors, buttons, wool and keys (all my favourite things!) and stunning Urban Originals wallet. Also a pair of ballet flats for $5 and a very cute little hippy wrap around skirt from Kuranda markets.

A close up of my new wallet and fab new book The Scandal of the Season by Sophie Gee

This beautiful address book and book mark were lovely gifts from Tara for doing her wedding photos. So sweet. I'm tempted to use the book mark in my hair.

Since I have been back I have been full of inspiration! I have so many ideas for creative pieces I want to make. I finally invested in a big A3 journal and some watercolour pencils so I could sketch out my ideas.

I've been playing around with some sketches today for a little project all about Tea.

Tea sketches -lots more to come

And here two of my favourite Moleskine pages..

Artist Adventures (a collection from the streets of Brisbane)

Little Birds and Parasols

Well I think I'm just about blogged out for the day, I will post again tomorrow with some of my favourite things for the week. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekends and has a fabulous Saturday night.

ttfn xx

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Beauty in the garden...

What a lovely weekend it has been. It is the first time in months that it's been over 15 degrees during the day so we made the most of it and had a great weekend in the garden. I love a beautiful garden although my one flaw is that I am very impatient and want all the flowers to come out straight away. Failing that I often use inspiration from the garden in my creation as I have done with my latest beret.

First off I must show you the lovely strawberry plants we bought today. I was really inspired last week after seeing amazing strawberries growing at Pleasantrees. I felt I had to have some of my own. We bought a really lovely variety that have pretty pink flowers. Now I just have to wait patiently until spring.

I also spent some time working on extending my hat range to include berets with detachable fabric flowers. I have been wanting to try it for a while and after my gardening was very inspired to create a little secret garden beret. I like so much I want to keep it, but it will most likely go in the shop and find a lovely new home. There will be more to come and I would also like to work on some little headbands for Spring.

The wool is a beautiful rich pale green and reminds me of the colour of rose bush leaves.

As modeled by Molly it can be worn as a beanie or a beret.

Close up of the detachable fabric flower with vintage button

Other than gardening, crocheting and making cute flowers I have spent much of the week writing. I have just become involved with a local writers organisation Poetic Justice Publishing and we met on Saturday to talk all things writing and make journals of poetry and prose. It was a lovely afternoon and inspired me a great deal to put pen to paper. Can't wait for our meeting on Tuesday night where everyone reads their work. Just have to decide what to read. Speaking of all things writing, after a year of scribbling ideas down for a novel I have finally taken a leap of faith and dedicated a moleskine to my very exciting project.

Now that all my ideas have a home they seem to be flowing very freely and I am finally beginning to write my very first novel. Will keep you updated and may even post little sections every now and then. I am really beginning to like the characters and the tale of love, sisterhood and secrets is slowly coming together.

The rest of my ramblings find their way into my moleskine and it to is taking on a life of its own. Here are some of my most recent favourite pages...

A collage inspired by Florence Broadhurst and Amy Butler

I am really loving this mix of black and white for a bookshelf

One of my most loved pages.. I collect film quotes (often as I am watching the film) and this is my little collection.

So here are my favourite things for the week...

My new lovelinks bead I got with from my grandmother Mary for my birthday. Finally my bracelet has some colour!

The cupcakes I made this afternoon (gluten free orange and poppyseed) YUM!

I finally saw Paris Jet' Aime! It is one of the most beautiful films I have seen this year. A must!

And finally this little droplet of water I found when I was weeding the garden today. It reminded my to watch out for the beautiful little things in life.

I'm so excited about the release of Breaking Dawn tomorrow! If you need me this week, you will find me somewhere in Forks with Bella and Edward...

Happy Sunday and much love to everyone

xxx

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And some days I journal..

As my little moleskine journal creeps closer to its eight month celebration I thought I would share some photos with you of some of my favourite pages. My journal is such an important part of my life, it travels with me everywhere, even to work. So when the kids are working in class I secretly pull it out and get my daily fix.

Slowly filling the pages...

Some beautiful images from Design for Mankind

Ticket for the Picasso exhibition and an ACEO card I made inspired by the roof tops of Paris.

Some lovely cut outs from Vogue Living and a little article about notebooks and journals..

And finally my little homage to the Twilight Saga, with a great photograph from Entertainment Weekly and words from an 18th century poem that I thought was quite fitting..


Here's to all the journal and diary keepers of the world,may we continue to create intimate beauty.. x

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