Photographer of the week... Kylie Grinham

I told you my friends are talented!

Mother and Son by Kylie Grinham

How could I regularly post a photographer of the week and not mention my friend Kylie Grinham? She's just completed a series of images that re-interpret the work of Melbourne Painter John Brack. The image above is one of them, the rest can be seen on her website.

What's Hot + What's Not

What will my flight path be?

What's Hot:

Feeling uplifted and inspired! I feel so supported by so many people right now it makes me feel like I could do anything - and that is an incredible feeling! I'm thinking a lot about the future and what direction I might like to take work-wise. I'm ready to do some further study to skill-up and I've started talking to people about where I might head.

My kids are ace, my husband is amazing, my mother-in-law is worth her weight in gold, my friends are talented, blogland is inspiring, and my boot camp trainer hasn't killed me yet.

What's not:

'Losing' my nearly four year old at a shopping centre this morning was definitely not hot. One minute he was walking around me in circles, next minute it was around the whole fruit and veg stand where I'd see his blond head bobbing between shelves, and the next he was gone. It turned out he was sitting inside one of the shelves, not even realising that he was hiding or that I was frantically looking for him. A customer coming down an escalator spotted the whole scene and told me where he was - thank you mystery shopper!

Pop over to Loobylu to see who else is playing What's Hot + What's Not.

Photographer of the week... John Gollings

image from here

Whilst looking for a link to the Seaford LSC for my What's Hot + What's Not post last week I found some great photos of it that happened to be by John Gollings and I was instantly reminded of how fantastic his photography is.

image from here

I first came across his work when I was studying photography many years ago. His images are arresting in their perfection and are just gorgeous to take a long look at. And he is a Melbournian!

image from here

It's worth taking a look at his website where there is a wide variety of his work that is much better presented than here. And this is a good article about him.

My Place & Yours... My Collection

I know that most of my posts these days are joining in with other people's memes but I'm having fun and it's keeping me blogging at this busy time of year. So this week I'm joining in with Pip's My Place & Yours and this week's theme, thanks to Kate from Fox's Lane, is My Collection.

I have to admit I hoard more than collect. I love collections and I watch Collectors every week! But I haven't really found my calling as a collector yet. When I was little, an aunt decided that I collected miniature shoes and a collection was quickly born, but I never felt very attached to them.

None of mine were as cool as these, from here

In my teens I collected vintage suitcases and had a lovely stack of them that conveniently stored many of my hoarded objects, but after many years and many moves they eventually felt too reminiscent of the student-days-share-house existence I had moved on from. I was ready to stop moving around (cases at the ready), put down roots, and set up some nice shelves for a change.

image from here

I still have a few of the old cases tucked away storing some treasures but they're no longer a collection.

Recently I've started collecting pictures from magazines to use for crafting with my kids.


I have huge stacks of magazines that have been passed on to me from my cousin. They hang around for ages in piles on the loungeroom floor and in bookshelves. And when they're several years old and not at the height of fashion any more I flick through and cut out cute pictures for future pasting sessions such as when we made these personalised lunch bags...

Note: Daddy added the iphone to his lunch bag - he wishes!

I'm looking forward to seeing all the collections popping up at Pip's place through the week.

What's Hot + What's Not

What's Hot:

Picking up on the fact that my toddler was 'telling' me he was ready to toilet train and him getting it straight away. I'm not saying we're going places out of nappies yet but for nearly a week he's been without a nappy as much as possible during the day at home and hasn't had a single accident! The hot weather has helped. I used undies as an incentive when training my first boy but the difference between undies and nappies was not clear enough for him. This time around we're just going nude below the waist and it's working so much better!

The beach. We spent a glorious morning at Seaford beach on Sunday: brunch at the LSC cafe followed by a paddle in the shallows before it got too hot. We were all done and had retreated from the burning sun by noon. I was annoyed I hadn't packed my swimmers, it would have been nice to go in with the boys.

What's Not:

Aching muscles from boot camp. That in itself is OK, it's kind of good pain, but hobbling around after the children, wincing when I need to squat down to get to the back of cupboards, and not being able to pick the kids up because it just hurts too much, is not so hot. I don't mean to whinge about boot camp though - I am absolutely loving it so it definitely belongs in the hot category.

Haven't started Christmas gift making, haven't written any Christmas cards, haven't even written my Christmas list!!! But three out of four of us in this house have a birthday between now and Christmas so I am a bit preoccupied with all of that right now.

Pop over to Loobylu to see who else is playing What's Hot + What's Not.

Exhausted

image from here

Today was day two of boot camp.
I thought I was sore already.
When I thought I couldn't run anymore he gave me a tyre to carry.
The pain has just begun.

What's Hot + What's Not

image from here

What's Hot:

Signing up for boot camp (I think that's hot) two mornings a week for six weeks.

Tav agreeing to do everything involved behind the scenes to make that happen (taking the boys to creche etc).

Getting some enthusiasm back for cooking, I've been a lazy cook all winter but I suddenly have the urge to make salads and rice paper rolls and mini quiches and bread (not all at once).

What's Not:

It was day one of boot camp yesterday, and today every muscle is aching from the fitness test. Guess what? I'm not fit.

The cost of postgrad education from the perspective of a part-time-worker-with-a-mortgage-and-mother-of-two-small-children. I know it's an investment in the future but ouch, it's a bit daunting to contemplate. We've worked so hard over the last six years, budgeted well and done everything we can to reduce our debt - I don't know if I can increase it by a lazy $10k for a course.

I abandoned my plan to do 12 months of new things somewhere around the middle of the year and haven't got back on track. Does boot camp count?

Thanks Loobylu, I'm enjoying What's Hot + What's Not.

Eye Spy... my favourite gadget

Of course it is!

Thanks Kellie of 74 Lime Lane for a great theme this week, I suspect her camera might be her favourite gadget too? Thanks also to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy.

My Creative Space

This week I finally got around to making some little sand/bean/rice throw bag type things for a little fella whose birthday was now a few weeks back.


I've been meaning to make them for some time but I got a bit bogged down by the question of the content - what's best to put in these things? Sand - too fine and leaky, rice - susceptible to pests, beans - expensive, potentially too lumpy, and a bit wasteful.


I ended up with rice with some lavender thrown in to deter pests. Fingers crossed. They were wonderfully easy and a joy to make of course. Satisfying sewing.

More Creative Spaces over at Kootoyoo.

What's Hot + What's Not

Hot:

I am playing along with Loobylu's What's Hot + What's Not this week!

Bendigo was sweltering when we visited the other day. Picking up Tav's new to us vintage BMW motorbike from my uncle was totally hot, but driving there and back with two sweaty and over-it kids was definitely not hot. And is not to be repeated with only one adult in the car to adjudicate.


Our garden, which is looking super hot after we've spent some time recently giving it a much needed weed, prune, tidy and mulch. Phew - hard and very enjoyable work that makes a massive difference to how I feel about the place. The garden is just exploding with new growth right now and it is a joy to mooch about in it doing a bit of maintenance.

Not hot:

Feeling like I've been too busy lately, neglecting my blog, visiting my favourite blogs much less and barely commenting of late. Boo.

Some much needed mending

Rohan has been going through the knees of a pair of jeans a week the last few weeks - I was up to four pairs in the mending pile and I finally got around to doing some! Just as well - he was down to his last pair!


I went for the open-the-side-seams-and-sew-in-a-strip-of-fabric-all-the-way-across method. They're not perfect but it's nearly summer and he's already in shorts half the time. By the time he's in jeans every day again he'll probably have gone up a size!

My Creative Space

Courtesy of some creative kiddies...


Just muckin' around as they do.

None of us has been very seriously creative lately, although Rohan's drawings are getting pretty good, I may have to gather a few for showing off...

I've even invited someone else in to muck around in my creative space recently - to make some curtains for me (wish I was clever enough to do it myself!). Pics to follow soon...

Itching to do some sewing, hopefully will find the time soon.

More Creative Spaces over at Kootoyoo.

My Creative Space

Some simple and satisfying sewing: a cot size doona cover for Angus. It was surprisingly hard to buy one and oh so simple to make that I feel slightly chastened that I looked around for one for so long!


The fabric is nothing to rave about but it is free from licensed characters and lurid colours, and it's 100% cotton. Besides, it was reduced to $4 per metre, and I can't argue with that when he could be in a big bed in a year or so!

Pop over to Kootoyoo to see more creative spaces!

Photographer of the week... Irving Penn

I'm a bit late hearing the news from here that Irving Penn died last week. Hats off to one of the greats (pardon the pun)!




All images by Irving Penn from Artnet. More info from Wikipedia and another very good report about his life and his passing here.

Break... in transmission

We've been having a lovely break at home in the last week, in lieu of the break we should have been having in Mildura (which was canceled at the eleventh hour).


Once we got over the gastro that kept us home the first couple of days we embraced holiday mode, including...

Fitzroy gardens...
Ikea (not at the weekend - luxury!)...
Dinner out with the smalls at a family pizza restaurant...
The zoo...
Long day sleeps (even one for big peeps!)...
Gardening (including desperately needed weeding)...
A visit to the crafting superstore ALONE...
Some simple but satisfying sewing (a doona cover for Angus's cot)...
More weeding (oh the luxury of time!)...
Hot dogs...
Baking...
Tidying...
Throwing out some junk...
More tidying...
DVDs...
Washing, vacuuming, cleaning, sweeping...
Cooking (laksa = yuuuuuuuuuum)...
A bit too much sun...
Browsing and shopping (yippee - so long since I bought any clothes for myself)...


And now it's back to work...
And that's good too...
Otherwise it wouldn't be a holiday, would it?

Photographer of the week... Mary Ellen Mark

PJ Harvey

Melanie from Kimono Reincarnate reminded me about the awesomeness of Mary Ellen Mark. Coincidentally she has photographed many of the same celebrities David LaChapelle has (my photographer of the week last week) but in a totally and completely different way. And in a way I relate to her photography more in the sense that it's is much more like the way I compose photographs and relate to the subject (don't think for a second I'm comparing myself - I'm not).

Miranda Richardson

Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica-Parker

She has a very human/humane approach.

All images from www.maryellenmark.com.

NQR

Angus has been feeling a bit off all week, a bit NQR (not quite right).
And last night he vomited three times.
Three times I changed his sheets.
Three times I changed his sleep-suit.

Today is a new day and everything is drying brightly on the line...
but I'm feeling a bit queasy myself - oh no!

My Creative Space

I have started to get organised and have been cutting a lot of lavender. All the vases in the house are full of it and when it starts to fade I'll set it aside to dry for making lavender bags for Christmas.
The bees have been buzzing around me wildly while I cut but there's plenty left for them - we have so many lavender bushes!

Check out all the other Creative Spaces over at Kootoyoo!

Just a minute... in September

Up image from here

Watching... Up, we took our nearly-four-year-old to see it - his first cinema experience (besides one memorable cry baby session that he handled brilliantly but I did not). He loved everything about it, the screen, the noise, the darkness, the story... everything! I thought he might get scared but he was happy as Larry.

Also started watching Mad Men after borrowing season 1 from my cousin - I'm not going to get through it before season 2 starts though - what to do?!?!?

Reading... actually 'no longer reading' Jung's biography. I renewed it at the library twice and that's the limit. I was only half-way through but I had to return it. Boo.

Listening... and dancing around the kitchen to Don't stop 'til you get enough - not alone mind you, the boys were totally into it! Follow the link and crank it up I say!

Spring-cleaning... like a madwoman. On Sunday I cleaned 50 panes of glass, sure they were small but it wasn't the glass so much as the built up dirt/dust on each sill that was arduous.

Window sill image from here

Enjoying... the beautiful Spring weather and spending as much time outside as possible. Or at least I was until a week ago - we've had five days in a row of dreary rainy weather here in Melbourne, which my garden is eternally grateful for, but my two small boys have been going stir crazy with all the indoor activity and have had to be physically separated MANY times. Mama needs a break - turn on the sun, please!

Rainbow image from here

Thanks Jenaveve at August Street for hosting Just a Minute...

Photographer of the week... David LaChapelle

He's fun, decadent, frothy and frivolous. He's tongue-in-cheek and sometimes satirical but also thoughtful, insightful, and sometimes political.

Marilyn Manson (image from here)

David LaChapelle has his finger on the pulse of celebrity-dom, photographing just about every major celebrity at their zenith and in doing so he indulges our voyeuristic desire to consume them.

Britney Spears (image from here) and Lady Ga Ga (image from here)

The photo below of fashion designer Alexander McQueen, and Isabella Blow the famous magazine editor who discovered him, is my favourite I think.

Alexander McQueen (image from here)

I love it. I went to his show at the Barbican a few years back and it was an absolute visual delight. He is one very very talented man (well one very very talented man leading a team of talented people really) and I can't wait to see what (and who) he does next.

You have to visit his website to see the gorgeousness, and you might also be interested in the Wiki entry.

Eye Spy... my favourite food(s)

What a delicious theme this week!

1. A Whole Plateful, 2. seafood laksa @ chefs choice, wollongong, 3. MUSSELS WITH PESTO CREAM SAUCE,
4. marinara, 5. Artichoke Pizza, 6. Tartest Lemon Tart

I am a real foodie so when it comes to favourite foods there is no way I could choose just one! I've limited it to six and they are: sushi, seafood laksa, mussels, spaghetti marinara, pizza (especially with artichokes and/or anchovies), and lemon tart. I generally favour savoury over sweet so I just popped one dessert in at the end there. I hope I haven't forgotten another favourite! This week's theme definitely had me drooling, thanks Jennifer Rose! And of course thanks to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy every week.

My Creative Space

Thanks for your wonderful comments on my creative space from last week! I hadn't expected you to say I should keep the parachute silk but it got me thinking and I'm not going to rush into anything.

I think I was in such a hurry because I had forgotten it existed so I had less attachment to it than I had previously.

Anyway for now its next assignment is as a prop for a photo shoot a friend of mine is doing. Lovely, ethereal, floaty curtains as a background to some lovely female forms.

Sorry for the pictureless post - my creative space has been the stuff between my ears this week as I've taken a mini blogging break!

More visual Creative Spaces over at Kootoyoo.

My Creative Space

Help please?


This is some beautiful parachute silk that I have had practically all my life: my Grandfather was a bit of a collector, bit of a hoarder, bit of a salesman who opened a shop selling Army surplus, hardware and the like after the war. Family legend has it that there was a whole bolt of parachute silk that my Aunt said no-one was allowed to touch because it was for my wedding dress!?!? Sure enough the (somewhat reduced*) bolt eventually made its way to me and although it would have been very romantic to use it for my wedding dress I felt more romantic in Luci Di Bella.


However I am a rather sentimental person and wanted to incorporate the silk into my wedding somehow, so I cut two 10 metre lengths of it and it formed the aisle. It was beautiful!


The following year (2002) I lent it to friends for the same purpose then promptly forgot about it. They went to Peru for their honeymoon, we went to live in England for a couple of years, and nobody thought of the silk again until they stumbled across it last week and returned it to me.

Now this is where I need your help, what do you think I should with two 10 metre lengths of this stuff? It's quite sheer and slippery and it's 92cm wide.


I was thinking of dieing some to make children's play silks and giving them as Christmas gifts (spoiler alert to my friends with kids), and using some to wrap presents instead of using paper. Wait - at a metre each that makes only 20 silks, I think I just answered my own question!

Oh well, I do have the rest of the bolt so please tell me, what are your ideas?

*my grandmother used it to make her own underwear, ooh la la!

More Creative Spaces via Kootoyoo.

Serendipitous sewing

While the boys napped for too long the other day I got carried away at the sewing machine. I admit that I am an impulsive crafter, I don't plan projects and brew over the best fabrics and approaches. If I am grabbed by an idea I want to do it immediately and I will compromise everything about it rather than plan it properly.

Am I the only person who sews this way?

So it was that I stumbled across a link via Meet Me At Mike's for this lunch bag cutlery roll tutorial from BurdaStyle.

image from the BurdaStyle website

I had recently made something similar, a pocket for remote controls that hangs over the arm of the couch, as my tongue-in-cheek crafty contribution to Tavis's fathers' day present. I am proud to say I made that one up as I went along (are you starting to get the picture of the haphazard way I craft yet?) and the instructions for the cutlery roll were very similiar so I was able to start straight away...

ready to get started

...except I only had one ribbon and it was red so this limited the choice of fabric from my stash.

first attempt - I thought I didn't need a pocket for a napkin but the pattern doesn't really work without it

Substitute the stipulated batting for purple felt in the first attempt and iron on interfacing in the second (because the purple felt was too dark for the light-weight gingham fabric), and a couple of hours later I had made two of these things and was quite pleased with the second attempt. I think these are great for anyone who works in an office where forks (and teaspoons!!!) are somewhat of an enigma.

second attempt - much more successful

But best of all, the next day I thrifted the matching cutlery from an op shop I hadn't been to in ages. Complete coincidence! How serendipitous is that?

see the yellow gingham handles on the cutlery?