Oh the light!

I couldn't help myself, went snap crazy on these little guys.

Oh the pain, too much beauty... too much

Spectacular ceilings

 

I'm a big fan of looking up ;-)

On of the things I love about my job is that I get to see inside buildings that I normally wouldn't even know existed. Some of them are quite pretty!

Theatrical settings

 

Venue of the year?
More over at Mel's.

Brushes and paint

I got all artsy for a bit there and enjoyed myself immensely. After failing to find anything I liked to gift to my gorgeous sister to decorate her house with; I decided to have a go with some paint myself.

Now, just because one is a creative character, it does not necessarily follow that they're any good at drawing & painting. I'm a good example of this phenomenon. Put a blank piece of paper or a canvas in from of me and say "There you go, create something" and I freak out. Big time. So this little project has been quite a learning curve for me. I basically created my own paint by numbers. I took some motifs from antique Suzani fabrics and scribbled them on the canvas. Then lined up my paints and started mixing. Once I had a palette of about 10 colors, I numbered the canvas to correspond  and voila, no more thinking or "creating" required. Phew, with the pressure off, all that was left was to do was meditatively paint in the shapes. Fun. What a revelation!

Now I'm thinking I might do an even bigger one for our house ...

Flowering Shows

 

It just goes to show, I am a weaver at heart. Anytime I see multiples of anything, I start seeing patterns and potential. That would explain why I still have brimming boxes labelled "Dried Magnolia Stamens; 2009" and "Banksia leaves; 2010" stashed away in my Mum's garage (please don't tell her)! This was a pile of leftover passes from the Melbourne International Flower Show. I couldn't help myself with the wacky, Pop art paper weaving. This one also goes up in honor of the fact that I've thoroughly enjoyed all the coverage from the Chelsea Flower show this year. Go BBC specials every night of the week, for the duration! I am so inspired, now I just need to find a garden and a wealth of funds so that all I have to do for the rest of my life is create the most magical garden the world has ever seen. Hmmm

I'm working up to it

I thought if I put some pictures up of me getting crafty last month, it might spur me on to get my paints out again over here. Hmmm, we'll see.

Fruit in the gutters

Look down

Zinnia, Zinnia, won't you be my zinnia?

Made this, mailed this:

Inspired by Leslie's paper patchworks over at my new favorite blog: A Creative Mint.

I also did some painting

Not that any of it was worth showing you proper, just some little watercolour doodles. Spot my new Staedtler fine liner set? I'm loving them.

This is penelope waits

images by penelope waits

You know how sometimes you meet a person just briefly but know that if you sat down for a cuppa together you'd find you had heaps in common? Well here is one such lady: Esther of penelopewaits.com. I have been serving her in our shop for years, this week she told me about her blog. You must take a look, especially if you are crafty, this girl is stitch-crazy!

More styling beauties

Again from the wonderful Deb McLean.

... or just green:

The images below are from Melbourne's own Dosewell & McLean for the amazingly awesome BLOOM magazine!!! Those of you who know of BLOOM will totally condone my use of superlatives. To those who haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing the work of Li Edelkort: I hope that changes soon.  Deb Mclean is a local stylist whose work I keep an eye on via her blog: Busy Being Fabulous.

People do eat odd things

Isle of Man, September:

Farm Day 2: Colours

Farm Day 1: Food

Thank you Brunswick

I am continually fascinated by the beautiful array of natives we see these days. It's so fantastic to see people  embracing the simple aesthetic of our own flora; here's just a few that I saw in my burb the other day.

Olaf Hajek

Mother Nature, 2010; Flowerhead, 2010; Welcome, 2010; Natureman 2, 2010.

It appears that I have been somewhat slow on the uptake with this one but I just discovered Olaf Hajek. Flicking through the recent "OBJECTS" journal, which my housemate kindly brought back with her from Berlin, I was mesmerised by these beautiful images. Follow the links for a magical illustrative voyage of your own while I go and pull out my painting gear ...

Wednesday's Winter Whimsy

Look what I found on my walk today.

Retour Organique, 2010 by Sara Nothrop & Claudia Gleave.

Installation discovered in the window of my local, The Edinburgh Castle, as I strolled past this misty grey afternoon. A miniture paper wonderland inviting all sorts of imaginings. Thank you to all the artists in the world.