snowflake

I was listening to another fantastic episode of This American Life the other day. As always it made me think I had spent the day talking with so many interesting people before I remembered it was me at midnight surrounded by chaos in my office/pram bay trying to crank out Christmas cheer. Any how there was a story about a Mormon town in Arizona called Snowflake. Great name made even greater by the fact it is named after the two men who founded it, Mr Snow and Mr Flake!! Can you believe it? To this day most of the people in the town are either Snows or Flakes. I just finished my batch of Christmas, Panforte. Sounds fancy, looks fancy, tastes fancy, easy as mixing a bowl with a wooden spoon to make but this year made even more fancy by rice paper snowflakes I punched out with a hole puncher. So easy so so fancy.

Balloon pilot

I feel a bit torn in two about Christmas. Half of me wants to sit and make things with the children.Bake gingerbread and put tinsel everywhere but then I wonder how I ended up in Office works with two wiggling kids, almost crying, me not the children, as my fourth attempt to get Christmas cards printed bites the dust.
You win some you lose some and this morning we won big time as a gust of wind made five hot air balloons land at the end of our street. We went down in bare feet and pajamas and watched them land and be folded away. It was really beautiful, we got to touch one it felt like a giant jelly fish as it heaved around on the ground. I didn't take my camera but maybe that is nice.
I had a fleeting idea that maybe I should be a hot air balloon pilot until I over heard the handsome Italian balloonist say how he used to be a mountain climber and sailor. Maybe a bit much knot tying for me. Ill stick to tinsel wrangling for now.

Ink and Spindle

My boyfriend works in a beautiful old warehouse with many other people doing interesting things. One of his neighbors is Ink and Spindle who make beautiful natural screen printed fabric and now have a new line of very lovely children's clothes. I think they are just beautiful and it is tying in with my new obsession with the colour mustard which has taken me by surprise as it used to be right up there with lime green as my most hated. Pretty excited about my new mustard cardigan that arrived yesterday in the post, woo hoo

Reading

Hello everyone who may be reading this after seeing the lovely article posted on the Readings website. How nice.

Lift off

The book launch was really fun. I worked like a beaver all week making big cut outs of the animals and hand stitching and packaging all the books and posters. I made tiny letter shaped gingerbread and lemon cordial and so many of my friends and family came along it was really lovely. So the little book is launched and now available at Readings in Carlton as well which I am excited about. I feel like there is a lot to do it is exciting and fun and hard to fit in around the normal jam packed days we seem to have. There are raspberries to pick, chickie's to chase, sand to throw, crawling to learn, sleeps to be had, avocado to fling but we will get there slowly slowly.

Book launch

I am having a book and poster launch next Sunday the 4th of December at Smiley Mcslidey studio corner of Blyth and Nicholson st East Brunswick in Melbourne from 3pm- 5pm if anyone is in the neighbourhood, if your not you can get your very own copy at my little etsy shop

http://www.etsy.com/shop/gentlearts

A woooo

Well it sure has been awhile between drinks of water but here I am, another baby boy and a new project finally almost finished after what feels like an eternity of chipping away at it. Small steps, small steps, here we go boys.

Consumed

I am involved in an art event happening all week at Smiley McSlidey Rehearsal room in East Brunswick Melbourne. It should be really interesting with a wide variety of artists making work on location and installing it and taking it down in 24hour cycles. I’ll be there tomorrow, Tuesday the 4th and anyone can come and be a part of my project if they are passing by. The final work won’t be in display until the evening but it can be viewed from the street all night long.

Folk Ladies

I have just bought two excellent cd’s that are on high rotation in our house at the moment. One is First Aid Kit, two teenage sisters from Sweden who did a live to air concert last week at our local, and excellent public radio station, if you find the recording you will hear me clapping and the baby having a squawk in a quiet but between songs. The second band, also female and folky, is by Mountain Man which is just beautiful especially the song animal tracks which you can hear here. Hooray for music.

Daffodil

The winning flower

My friend comes from a long line of champion daffodil breeders and this last Saturday was the town show in Kyneton when she is from. I have wanted to go each year for the last ten and each time something has come up so a 12 year flood wasn’t going to stop me this time. It was wonderful. A tin shed with the rain pelting down on the roof and rows of perfect blooms created from rare breeding stock and secret pollen deals, battling it out for the various prizes. The winning daffodil was spectacular and was won by someone who swept up many of the prizes. There was also a children’s section where local school children made sculptures out of fruit and vegetables that were particularly wonderful. My friends father also won two prizes to continue carrying the family mantle.