beach weekend

This weekend my friend and I set off for the beach. (Photos courtesy of Sue II. It's sooo good to be able to take photos again, I realise now how much I love to document my experiences this way. During the week I decided to buy a camera post-haste, even if I.can't.really afford.it.)


We decided thast we needed to get away and feel some sand between our toes, so we caught the train South on Friday afternoon, for two nights in a bungalow by the beach.


The brochure failed to mention that we would be metres away from a cemetery. We decided it was life-affirming.


In the morning a team of arborists cut down 3 trees behind our bungalor with chainsaws. Then put them through a giant chipper. We were up anyway.


Still, we lazed in our bunks and drank cups of tea inbetween running to the amenities block between light rain.


It cleared up and we wandered down for a swim and cooked a Breakfast of Champions.


with a great view.

Walking to the local town I picked flowers and found a sweet craft store and awesome organic store too.

We read the weekend paper in a cafe,

found a little thai massage place, and indulged (AWESOME).

On the way back, I looked in the cemetery. I find them fascinating, I really do,

and found this cemetery bunny.

Then it was back to the beach

before a delicious dinner.

In the morning we saw a one-legged seagull

and made french toast with leftover bread, with fruit and yoghurt. Then it was packing time to catch the train home again.

I hope your weekend was lovely too!

ps. with Sue II ready to go, I'll post soon about crafty-goings-on!

Keep Calm

These have gone ape over the past year or so, I'm sure you've seen them around, the amusing variations to the classic 'Keep Calm and Carry On' (I have one above my desk at work. Very soothing.) Etsy is full of lovely prints and necklaces and mugs and all kinds of nice things with the theme. These are some of my favourites.

See more via Punky & me or choose your own favourites from this flickr group.

hugs

Design, via Kind Over Matter

Pancakes are Delicious

I have said this before. Recently. Lately, I can't get enough. A while ago, I couldn't get enough burgers. Big handmade ones with pickles and mustard. Before that, I had major sushi cravings. All.the.time.

I have endearing food cravings that may last a day or a month. Pecan pie. Wonton soup. And I've talked about bacon and banana sandwiches before. I'm not sure where they come from. On a craving my (then) boyfriend and I went to the shops and bought 8 types of cereal. Then spent a day eating them in different combinations. Yummo.

I am though a believer in honouring food cravings. If you want it, darn have it. (You can have anything you want, but not everything you want). So I do. I had pancakes (again) last night. I may have them today. Or I may feel like something else.
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Do you crave?

It's still a New Year

“ For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning. ”

~T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

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I hope your voice for 2010 is everything you hope for. (Is it too late for sentimental new year stuff? I THINK NOT!)

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x

it's okay

credit loveyourchaos via whimsicalities

Hope for Haiti

My golly goodness, isn't what is going on in Haiti just heart-wrenchingly well, heart wrenching? (I wanted to use stronger expletives there. but this is (mostly) a G-rated blog).. It is disturbing and devastating and we all have to do something, really. really really.

There's a bunch of ways crafty people are helping out ('cause we're a darn helpful lot), and not-so-crafty, and you can too.

Donate your craftiness to a fundraiser

- Donate something to Craft Hope, it will be sold on etsy to raise money (and you can put a very cute Craft Hope Haiti button on your blog, you caring person you!)

- Indiefixx is taking donations for silent auctions with donated goods to raise money for the Red Cross International Relief Fund to provide essential items including food, water and blankets.

- Join the Help Haiti Blogger Challenge on this blog

Go shopping! Go on, it's for a cause!

-Buy something from the Craft Hope etsy store, all proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders.

-If you're in the US of A, check out this blog to see if there is a Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti near you! Cupcakes!

-Bid on an item each day at Indiefixx

Donate your dough

- Hear the call of the 'knit signal' (like batman, right?) and join in over at Yarn Harlot or Knitters Without Borders

- Donate online to Red Cross; Doctors without Borders; The Apparent Project; UNICEF; Habitat for Humanity; The International Rescue Committee; Stand with Haiti; Architecture for Humanity (CNN has another helpful list over here)

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I've started by buying this and these. My friend and I also have plans to raise money at a festival coming up. Will tell you more then. I hope we all do a little bit. It can add up to a lot.

Oh deer

Love love love this deer, made by Nicole at astulabee. You can see her pretty shop.

giveaway

If you go to the Australian Etsy Blog you can win this ace laser cut geek necklace. In black or white.

True.

the struggle for space

(apologies for not-so-good photos. Sue is still M.I.A. and this is Max, a pleasant but not very bright fellow who's filling in. In the interest of making his blurry images a little more palatable, they're all polaroids. 'Cause everything looks better in a polaroid. Even Max.)

Sometimes I wonder why I had to go and love a (past time/ interest/ does anyone say 'hobby' anymore?) that takes up so.much.darn.space.

What if I loved, say, collecting matchboxes? playing the violin? drawing portraits? all of these would undoubtedly take up less space then the menagerie of fabrics, buttons, pins, felts, wools, stuffing, beads, tools, papers and books that I have managed to amass in an offhand accidental way.

I have never taken sewing very seriously, so it has always been regaled to a chance corner or spare space, but now it is starting.to.bug.me. It bugs me when I reach backwards while sewing a quilt and bruise my elbow on the edge of the bed. It bugs me when I have to uncover the bottom suitcase to get the matching fabric, and toy with drawers that only-just-come-out to find tools that must be put straight back to save the tiny workspace available on a 70's kitchen table. It bugs me that I slow down so much pulling out things for each stage of a process. It bugs me so, that I have stopped sewing, and started eying off studio spaces in the area. Hrmm.. Floorboards you say? Natural light? How many square metres? So if I stop eating, on say, Tuesday and Wednesday I can afford it?

In the meantime, part of my 'I'm a grown-up darn it and I can do what I want' that seems to be going on this year, I have rearranged the space I have. Plus I was ultra inspired by all the amazing craft studio spaces in the 'Make Space for Craft' series here at Craftzine. Go check it out, but not if you want to prevent drool in your keyboard.

I have added a large desk (my computer now perches on a small cabinet) in front of the window and a small bookcase, and have rearranged, tidied and have a BIG space to work, with a LAMP.

And another space set up for cutting out patterns, and ironing ANYTIME I LIKE. All my buttons, ribbons and fasteners are in neat little boxes, and some of my fabric is easy to reach (the rest is still in suitcases, but you can't have everything).

I made a new thread holder from an old noticeboard and some spare nails (I should have known that small one would.never.do) Wonky, but functional.

A small change, really, but already it's making a big difference, just being able to reach things, move around and work without interuppting the flow to clear space. I have read lots of posts about people's craft work spaces, and what it means to them. What it means though is that my bedroom is now more about craft and sewing and inspiration than it is about sleeping and relaxing. Hrmm.

I would like to know how do you find space? Does it bug you? What space have you given up to feed your craftiness?

And do you say 'hobby' or 'interest'?

everything I have

SIMON EVANS
Everything I Have, 2008
Pen, paper, scotch tape, white out
60 1/4 X 40 1/8 inches

(via swissmiss)

I like keys

sugarandfig
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lakewaycandles
.portemone
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rockscissorspaper
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benfloeter
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maryink

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what's hot and what's not (the week that was)

What's Hot
- pancakes. for any meal.
- cutting off my dreads after 6 years and feeling lighter, brighter and the ability to wash and dry my hair in much less than 2 days rocks also
- riding through dried up leaves
- cute men taking fingerprints from my front door
- children playing with paperclips
- reading a book that is so good you read a page every chance you have
- chicken soup
- long awaited deliveries

What's Not
- having a blocked nose so you have to breath through your mouth but then your tongue gets all dried out
- coughing. a lot.
- boiled cauliflower
-having someone come into your house while you're in it and steal a bag from your bedroom and dump it in a bin around the corner
-losing your money, cards, ipod and beautiful camera in said bag
- working on the weekend
- dreaming of loved ones hit by trains, stabbing Brad Pitt or auditioning on Australian Idol. Or all three
- dirt under your toenails that won't.get.out.
- white fur bought online that turns out looking like balding plastic wizard bum

Hope your week was wonderful.

Please excuse the upcoming photo drought, unless Sue comes home safely.
(borrowed title from Meet me at Mike's)

on/off

Next to this house
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I found a switch on the ground.

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I like to keep it in my pocket, and imagine that when I flick it on and off something goes on or off someplace in the world.

A light bulb

A compliment

A lift button

An idea

A blink

A wink

A traffic light

A butterfly's wings

A glance

A tv screen

it makes me smile and wonder.

festival love

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Peats Ridge Festival 2009

Awesome.