on the street where you live : : in our nature

So we can't all just pack up and take a hike in the mountains - get back to nature, as they say. But, oh, it would be so good to be able to. 

What is nature anyway? It would seem that we are programmed with this odd belief that nature packed its own bags and exited the city area, now residing somewhere near dirt roads, densely treed and ferned areas or on an elevated mountainous rocky outcrop. But we can't forget what has become part of our very own day to day nature.

Today, an ode to the nature in which we find ourselves. But sometimes it all feels a little un-natural doesn't it?

It's okay if the rolling hills feel a little bit more like nature than staring at the wall of another building through your bedroom window. But how do you think the moss that grows on your window sill feels? Thinking-fodder, that is!

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your still-life on the lawn

A few years back our television screens were accosted by a half hour show called, ‘Your Life on the Lawn.’ I shudder in merely mentioning it. 

I’m assuming that those reading this from continents afar would have probably viewed a similar show in their respective countries of residence, because, let’s be honest, Australian reality television isn’t exactly scoring high marks in the originality category (or any other category for that matter).

Anyhow, I digress. This show saw cluttered, junked-to-the-ceiling homes dredged of their contents, leaving the owner to discard ‘the stuff of their life’ from the rubbishy-mound on their back lawn.

This post in no way sees me dragging the contents of my apartment down the stairs and onto the ground, although I did do another big cull in my wardrobe (fighting the hoarder within).

Nay, this post was inspired by an image I put together for my sister’s 21^st bday invitation almost two years ago. Composed of bits and pieces that signify who she is - if you haven’t quite put two and two together (I’m not saying you’re dumb) – this is, in fact, her ‘life on the lawn’ TA-DAH.

I want to do a post like this every now and then, so if you want to get involved in a ‘this-is-your-life’ come ‘still-life’ installation, let me know. Locals only, unless you want to fly me somewhere – I’d be ready in a flash.

p.s. There’s a book called ‘My House’ by Delphine Durand in that image and it is the most hilarious and beautifully illustrated book to behold. Find a copy and get lost in it… I absolutely insist. Her blog is also very cute, although I can't understand it - transport [here].

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three corners & coloured enamel

I love triangles. No, I'm not in a love triangle - I just love them (triangles - that is!).

You can be cornered three times by these beauties from minoux jewellery. I remember making enamel key-tags in year seven but these are a far sight better - I know, you are as surprised as I am!

Shipping to our Great South Land (Australia, for those playing at home) may prove to be a little more difficult than to our northern counterparts but I think it would be worth it, don't you?

triangular neck lovelies [here]

You can buy me one or five of any of these as a special pressie if you want to? Don't all put your hands up at once!

Anyway, if you want to stop going in circles - get into triangles!

Lame? Yes, I thought so too. (oh well - smile anyway.)

e.

doilies & a blue striped jug

An era, a lifestyle, a nationality can be marked by the most mundane items and yet these pieces of junk encapsulate every element of the very thing they signify.


To promise you I'm not leading you up the garden path, think of a doily. What does it make you think of? Maybe it's different for everyone but for me a doily sums up everything about a nineteen-fifties home and the subsequent baby-boomer generation. A lacy-lovely to pretty up inconsequential collectables on timber veneer side tables or glass-doored china cabinets.


I had the pleasure of watching a short film, 'Tulip' last week in one of my tutorials. Directed by Rachel Griffiths, it is a beautiful insight into an elderly man's loss of his much-loved spouse and the despair that follows. The heartache of the forlorn husband, played by Bud Tingwell, was moving - but the scenes that captured me were due the simplest of things.

image source [here]

The milk the two drank at breakfast was served in a blue and white striped jug - just as above. My grandma had one of the very same jugs, she passed away over a year ago. My grandparents are from a small rural town and after my grandma's funeral, morning tea featured tables, elaborately-spread with homemade goodies set atop paper doilies and disposable plates - the same kind of spread I saw on this short film. I almost shed a tear - glad I didn't because it was the middle of a class.


The blue and white stripe jug and the doily are some of the most evocative images of this generation and way of life - it gives me the warm fuzzies on the inside and makes me smile on the outside. 


I fear we are losing this sense of community, the kind of community that brings something homemade to share as opposed to a packet of Doritos. Perhaps the fact that I am living in suburbia doesn't help.
What will this generation be marked by? Ikea furniture, square basket storage or cheap, tip-filling, easy to replace appliances?


I leave you with this image from a little town near where my mother grew up. I think the occasion may have been a Lion's Club lunch.

Sums it all up, doesn't it?


If you can get your hands on it, watch 'Tulip'. Your local library might have it.


Embrace the doily and do your bit to keep the community spirit living - make a jelly-slice!


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out of scale

Our creepy, crawly, slimy, squirmy friends of the deep sea and desert are influencing more that just my gag-reflex at the moment. Accessories and other adornments are out to flaunt some scales in the name of sales… or perhaps just in the name of looking kinda awesome.

At the best of times I find anything reptilian or underwater-ish considerably revolting. They provoke what my sister would call: bum shivers, thus my aversion to swimming in cloudy waters and also the catalyst to a teary episode involving a dead fish and me at the wrong end of one of my father’s holiday pranks.

All of this being said, when I spied a friend’s newest handbag acquisition, in spite of the initial moderate aforementioned reaction, I found myself quite taken with it. (Let it be known that I have similar feelings about bags as I do about shoes.)

I soon discovered I would only ever be able to admire such a piece from afar as the bag was Hugo Boss, but there are plenty more lamellose lovelies to behold. 

[one] [two] [three] [four] [five]

Will you scale the heights of fashion and get your cold-blood on?

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stories about us

A good story burrows beneath an anecdotal façade to capture some kind of truth about our humanity. That’s why we can’t get enough of stories. We live them, we learn from them and we carry them around with us like a name-tag. Some are true; others are creations from imaginative ventures. Stories help us define and understand ourselves.

Shaun Tan, now an Academy Award winner, is one of my favourite author/illustrators. His tales, a stunning combination of narrative and art, are the kind of ones that make me wonder if he may have peered into my head while I was sleeping, picked out my emotions, fears and dormant hopes then furiously created a heart-breakingly beautiful masterpiece of a book. Read some of his books – do you feel the same thing?

I could be a lone soldier on this one – but even if I were, one of his books, now short-film, The Lost Thing, would make me feel okay about that. (See, this guy is freaky-good!)

The illustrations below come from a little book called ‘Eric’, a brief account of an exchange student who finds himself in an alien place.

This tale reminds me that even when new things seem overwhelming and completely foreign, we still have the adeptness to create or offer something that is just as individual as we are.

images sourced here

So try new things, I say. Just do it. Give negative nelly a stern talking to and step out.

Go and experience a ‘metaphorical’ life exchange and leave a fan-flippin-tastic footprint. Dare ya!

(note to self: take my own advice.)

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on the street where you live [ part one ]

To dearest blog-world and those craving of a red letter day,

I am still here - I promise.

From now on, I plan to post one, two or three times a week (if you are super-lucky). I have just headed back to Uni and am finding my creative juices ceasing to flow due to the ever-increasing vice grip of educative demands.

Nevertheless, busy times still call for beautiful things and I often spy a smile-worthy sight in the mundane of my everyday suburbia. 

Here's a few from my weekend:

• Thought one: I was perplexed to see a beach ball roaming through a Richmond service station, quite of its own accord. What was it doing?
• Thought two: what do you suppose happened to this poor man's hand? And why does he have a white patch around his eye?
• Thought three: Which real estate company knows which way is the right way to go? I'm confused!

Have you got any thoughts on the matter?
P.S. I plan to make 'on the street where you live' a regular post and in honour of it’s first appearance who could go past Willie Nelson covering a song from one of my favourite musicals. Let's be honest though, I would probably find it a smidge creepy to have a guy wandering up and down my street singing when I have made it clear that I don't much fancy him (reference to My Fair Lady, not personal experience - ahem). 

Anyway, enjoy - I hope it smacks a smile on your face in the gentlest and sweetest possible way!


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oh, for the love of lavender!

Let's banish the old lady connotations first up. Lavender, while smelling of old fogies, should never be forgotten when it comes to the colour. I've been in love with it lately, almost as much as cows love grass. It makes me think of lollies, pretty things and cups of tea (not in the grandma sense, but in the 'I'm so relaxed to be sitting here with my feet up sipping at licorice tea' kinda sense.) You know?

Check out this collection of lavender-ly lovelies.

teapot [click] pretty flowers [click] amazing art [click] bowl [click]
my kitchen [rug from kmart] onesie [click] Dior eyeshadow [click]

Do you love it now too?

I'm going to go and have a cup of tea.

e.

thrifty & fancy-free

Today I have put my finger on it - there is more than one centre of gravity in my world. Besides the earth's fiery core, there are Op Shops. All of which drag me to themselves without so much as a 'pleased-to-meet-chya'. I can't fight the niggling possibility that I will find the world's greatest treasure through those doors of opportunity (and no, sir, I will not pardon the pun!).

I like my op-shops cluttered - none of this open, fresh and shiny business. 
Dingy, crowded and old ladies are the billboards of an 'x-marks-the-spot' treasure hunt.

Normally I am a clothes girl but the fact that my wardrobe looks like a fat child who has just over indulged at a Sunday picnic has pushed me into bric-a-brac land. I have never purchased neither bric nor brac but today I did unearth a few cute bits. (Check out the miniature grey filing cabinet thing!)

Then, in those times when tumbleweeds are the only thing rolling around in your wallet, head to the streets and keep your eyes peeled. I spied the suitcase and old esky, now umbrella stand, on the nature strips of suburbia. One man's trash...etc...etc...

Bring on second, fourth and fifteenth hand stuff - let the treasure hunt continue!

e.

tick-tock

One thing always leads to another - it seems to be the way life works. So when a I descended into a cycle of clicking through link after link stepping back and forward in time, in my 'delorean' web browsing style, I happened upon this clock from the clever people at Studio Ve.

Now no-one wants to be reminded that the sand is perpetually falling through the hour-glass that is one's life (a little metaphor that I may have borrowed) but I can't say I would at all mind if I got to gaze at this little wonder while it happens.


One: it looks pretty. Two: I'm not really sure that I would be able to tell what the time actually is - thus making it a perfect distraction from the fact that it is indeed passing by at an horrendous rate.


You must check out the video that shows this little time-teller in action - quite mesmerising!


Studio Ve, is based in Tel Aviv and if this and Liebling shoes are anything to go by, there is a lot of fun stuff coming out of Israel at the moment. I might just squish in my parent's suitcase when they head back again.


נהנה
(nehenah - 'enjoy' in hebrew according to wiki)


e.

in a beautiful pea green boat

I am emerging from the growing cloud of Alice in Wonderland references today - but my emergence is no more than a turtle poking its nose out of his shell. I am still well and truly tucked in the realm of children's literature. It's a favourite domain - one within which I frequent a stroll.


I happened upon a customer today who, without rhyme or reason, asked me what a 'runcible spoon' is. Now, silly me, thinking she was asking because she actually wanted one, was soon to discover the customer waving a double-end spoon in my face - declaring that this was the very thing! "You know from the Owl and the Pussycat?" she insisted. "They dined on mince, and slices of quince, which they ate with a RUNCIBLE spoon."


I believe my face merged through several expressions of sheer dumfound-ation (new word) before I came to realise how hilarious and lovely it was that someone would share such a bizarre tid-bit of information.

It then got me thinking about the good old owl and pussycat. I had to look it up as soon as I came home. It sounds marvelous read out loud - give it a go!


This tale of an unlikely furry/feathered couple with enough forward thinking to pack honey and money before setting sail in a green boat only to decide on the way to an unspecified destination, to get hitched, does not make a great deal of sense to me. But I have a sneaking suspicion that this quirky tale and its many companions, including our dear pal Alice, are the very stuff that prevents severe stunting of our interminable imaginations. And on a day like today when the sky is a dreary, frowning grey - I know I would prefer to imagine chatting to a pig who would sell me a ring from his nose for a shilling!


While I was looking for the classic little illustration you spied at the top, I came across a collection of artworks that 're-illustrated' classic childrens' books. Worth a look, I say.

beautiful owl & pussycat papercut collage!
don't you think?

I leave you with this final musing: how is it, that an owl can serenade his cat companion on a small guitar with nothing but his feathers and I can not even manage to do a bar chord on my childhood acoustic!? Snide little owl!


food for thought.


e.

a very very un-birthday

This little clip pretty much says it all. I intend to celebrate my birthday this year like it is not actually happening. Full Stop.


I don't know what it is about twenty-five that has me spooked but the very thought of it makes me want to lay on the floor sobbing. Yes, a drama queen perhaps, but even to me this behaviour seems quite illogical. Just let me have a whinge then I'll be A-okay! Okay?


My celebration is merely organised as a distraction and a distraction it shall be.


But just so my guests don't catch my boo-hoo bug, they get to take home a pressie too. After all everyone has '364 UN-birthdays!'


Apparently we're too old for lolly-bags so I had some badges made in 'red letter day' style. They came in the mail today and I think they are cute as buttons...well they are buttons, kind of...

By the way, I didn't intend for everything in this blog to be about moustaches and Alice in Wonderland, but nevertheless, here we are. 


PS another moustache spotto - has anyone seen the Women's Equal Rights ad that has just started to air in Melbourne? Moustaches: they are following me.


A very Un-Birthday to you, pretty/handsome reader!


e.

cloudy with a chance of hope

Have you ever had one of those days when it feels like a cloud is following you around with the soul aim of making you miserable?

pic by Michael Casker via FFFFOUND!

pic by Michael Casker via FFFFOUND!

On these kind of days, I dare you to look up. 

No, stop looking at your cloud, you ninny! 

Look for everyone else's. They'll be there. You're not alone.

It's all about perspective (something I'm learning slowly).

e.

P.S. If things have been cloudy or consistently overcast in your life or a friend's, there are places that can offer you an umbrella. Never be afraid to ask for one.

souped up

So here we are, it is Autumn, my favourite season of all. I’ll tell you why. 
As far as median seasons go it can be hard to separate the old leaves-are-falling autumn from the blossoming-bright spring. But I have two reasons that sends spring home from the Australia’s Next Top Season’s house and they are magpies and hayfever.

Bah! Take that Spring and step on up Autumn! Warm days and crisp evenings, yellow, orange and red hues dripping all about the streets and a whisper of the wind saying ‘time to don those doonas and get those soups soupin’. (The wind isn’t too good with verbs, poor sod, he gets a bad wrap.)

this pic from 'eat make read'. can't wait to try this recipe.

Ahh the wonderful world of soup! I welcome you into soup world on this very day as I feel that those of you who are not so partial to the cooler months need a bit of a pick me up. This marvelous Minestrone continues to do it for me.

The following recipe is a special one so sit back, relax – I will tell you a story:

To earn some moula while I study I work in a home wares shop that sells many a kitchen gadget and knick-knack, not to mention; pots, pans, plates and pastry brushes.

As with any retail job, it would not be the same without the many characters who walk through the door.

On a day, almost two years ago, I was bailed up by a lovely old woman who was intent on sharing her life story with me. Did you know that it was never safe for women to wander around at night on their own? And were you aware that it’s not as easy to get around in taxis as it used to be?

This woman also told me of her minestrone soup that she makes at the start of each week throughout the middle of the year. The soup stash supplies lunch to her and her husband for a whole week. She went on to describe the soup, every so often the husband would wander back into the conversation to offer his two-bob of information. Needless to say, I was salivating at the thought of this delicious, hearty, home-made meal. At the conclusion of her description, the woman looked at her watch and realised the two were late for another engagement and off they went.

Aside from a slight craving for soup, which is not terribly out of the ordinary, I thought ‘what a nice lady’ and that was that.

Not so! A week later when I arrived for my shift, the manager pulls a handwritten note from the cupboard, advising that a customer had brought it in for the ‘lovely girl with the dark hair’ (lovely girl is me! Shucks!).

It was the minestrone recipe, handwritten by the woman’s husband as her hand shakes too much when she grabs a pen. I wanted to cry!

After my shift I grabbed the necessary items and made the soup that night. Delicious. 

Thank you to you, dear lady, wherever you are. Your legacy lives on in my pot and in the stomachs of many.

Slurp up this soup, my friends!

e.

shell-shocked

I regressed back to childhood whilst splashing across a beautiful sand-bar on the weekend. Remember when you used to collect shells and take them home and then do absolutely nothing with them except leave them in a bag or a jar? We used to pick up cuttlefish for our aforementioned budgie to gnaw on (clearly that is not required anymore).

Well this weekend, rather than dragging an entire suitcase of shells home, I found this one and I love it. It's texture and the little hole in it. 

Imagine my surprise when I found a little man in there, emerging from his miniature rock cave after discovering something fascinating.

Can you see him!?

What a trooper - or am I crazy!?

e.