Snail mail - thank you + Tuesday links

Some beautiful surprises have been arriving in the mail and on my doorstep in recent weeks. I feel so lucky to be on the receiving end of so much thoughtfulness and generosity.

:: Lovely cards and notes and ephemera from beautiful friends met via this blog :: Precious cherries in the middle of winter, from my wonderful husband :: An adorable, polka-dotted parcel of goodies, from the lovely Louise of Jubilee Road :: The most extravagant, glorious floral postcard I've ever seen, from mail artist Dean Grey :: Stunning pink roses from Tillda Flowers, with little watermelon sweets from Suga Muma :: And this crocheted bunting from Sandra, which is so perfect I don't even know where to start

Each of these absolutely brightened my day, and I'm so incredibly thankful to everyone who has taken the time to write to me and send these things. WOW, you guys are so generous!

It's not exactly the same, but I thought I'd try to pay it forward a little bit by sharing some lovely bits and pieces with you all that I've collected from around the Internet of late. I hope you enjoy them.

1. To test any creative idea, ask yourself: what comes next?

2. These people have transformed something from the everyday (a school bus) into something wonderful (a stylish holiday home)!

3. More giant knitting. Snuggle up!

4. This made me laugh. My ideal wedding at any age

5. LOVE the look of these DIY 'watercolour' mugs

6. When was the last time you wrote a thank-you note?

7. Cats like food trucks too!

8. Valley of the Kings. I want to go here.

9. Fantastic list of books for creative people

10. I lost way too much time exploring The Nostalgia Machine. All the memories!

11. Don't try this at home: railroad street art

12. Healthy nachos? Don't mind if I do!

13. This makes me want to create my own urban jungle

14. In my job and my creative pursuits, I often still draw or write things out by hand before flipping open the laptop. Seems I've been doing something right.

Have you written someone a letter later? Just a little note in the mail to say "Hi, I'm thinking of you"? Let's all send someone a lovely surprise in the mail this week. I can tell you from personal experience: it will make their day!

Celebrate

How is it possibly even Monday again? I mean I know it's a cliche to talk about the weekend going by so fast but I HONESTLY think I blinked and missed it.

Approximately two hours ago (in my head) it was midday on Friday and one of my best friends in the world, Cara, was due to arrive any minute on a visit from Sydney. Then she DID arrive and I couldn't even go to the tram stop let alone the airport to meet her, because a) I didn't have a car and b) Harry was sleeping upstairs in his cot. Poor Cara made it to our place in between showers and hailstorms and... we think that was SLEET. What? How cold was it in Melbourne this weekend!?! I kept seeing friends' feeds on Facebook of frolics in the snow basically just outside town and it was all so beautiful.

Cara and a bunch of our other friends joined us at the Epworth Gala Ball on Saturday night, which was organised by Mr B and his team. Just us and more than 1300 other people, raising money for medical research. (Cara was adorable because she's from Sydney and the cold weather was killing her so she wore thermals under her dress. She is a stunner so she could get away with it, but I still thought it was pretty funny). And permit me a little boast but I am so incredibly proud of Mr B and the people who work with and for him because that night they raised $5.6 million to go to medical research. That is INSANE. There were two people on our table who pledged a million and 1.2 million each to this cause. When the first woman announced her gift - a lovely lady in her 80s - you could literally feel 1300 people hold their breath. We were all thinking, "Did she actually say what I think she said?" and then the whole room erupted in applause.

The ball had a "Rio Carnival" theme and later we were all up and dancing to cheesy Latin music, including the 80-something-year-old lady. I want to be like her when I'm old. Not just rich and generous (although that would be nice), but also fun and cheeky and celebratory and go-get-em fun-loving. She has lost her husband, and battled cancer more than once. She and her late husband made their money by sheer hard work. They weren't tycoons or heirs, they were hard-working, careful-saving, and smart. And now she gives and gives and gives again to charity, because she genuinely cares. Then she laughs and cracks a slightly-blue joke, and tears it up on the dance floor.

Another highlight of the evening was when, during the Latin-style dancing, they announced a conga line. I said to Mr B "Let's sneak away," because there is NOTHING WORSE than a conga line. And he agreed. So I started to walk back to our table and he had his hand on my waist and the next minute we looked behind us and there were six or more people all holding onto us and it turned out WE HAD STARTED THE CONGA LINE. Which was horrifying and hilarious in the same moment.

We stayed in a hotel that night and Mr B didn't get in until almost 4am and I didn't sleep much before that because babies and hotel rooms don't always go well together, and we all four of us ended up in the bed together. Thank goodness for luxurious, king-sized hotel beds! When we woke the next morning, bleary and tired but on massive highs from the night's success, it was so beautiful. Everybody smiled at each other all at once. Madeleine threw herself across my body to kiss Harry, and Harry exploded into giggles. Then we ordered a big breakfast and ate it in our room overlooking the city.

I strapped Harry to me in the Ergo and walked out into Melbourne's coldest morning in 16 years. Cara texted me. "It is 1 degree!" and I said "Isn't it great?" and she simply responded "ONE DEGREE." I guess she was glad of those thermals. Harry and I were each others' hot water bottles so he quickly fell asleep and we were fine as we walked from Crown Casino to Gertrude Street where we met Cara, and Madeleine and Mr B caught up with us. By this time the day had warmed up to one of those perfect sunny winter's days that are like peering at the world through the finest layer of ice and nothing is more clean.

Madeleine was a trooper despite the night of broken sleep and no nap, and only had one meltdown all day. So we all rocked up to yum cha before heading home, where Madeleine and I picked and washed lemons to make preserves while Mr B and Harry had a nanna-nap together.

And the next minute the kids were both asleep in bed and Mr B and I were watching something cheesy on the TV and the weekend was over just like that and I SWEAR everything I've just written only happened a couple of hours ago, and the weekend is about to begin.

Party printable: ice-cream + circus elephant

When I was planning the invitations for my friend Pip's ice-cream baby-shower last weekend, I asked her for some ideas as to what she would like me to use as a theme. One of the thoughts she had was something to do with elephants. Trying to mix elephants with ice-cream wasn't what I'd call a natural visual pairing, but I am nothing if not ambitious. In the end, I decided to paint a cute circus elephant balancing on a big, round scoop of ice-cream. A couple of people have asked me if they could use this picture, which is super flattering as I don't imagine there is a LOT of demand for blue-and-purple circus elephants balancing on top of blue ice-cream. But yes of course I'm happy for the picture to be used!

If this is you, you can download the invitation here, or download just the picture here. I hope your party is super fun!

Instagram crush - Nectar and Stone

Recently I discovered the Instagram account of dessert designer Donna-Caroline Khoo of Nectar & Stone. I don't think I've seen desserts so beautiful in a long time, if ever! Those pastel-hued Mayan pyramids of chocolate, topped with gold leaf? Stunning! One day when I'm rich I will send a block of those to all of the friends I love, just because.

Whose photos are making you drool lately?

All images are from the Nectar & Stone website, used with permission

Treasure Island

Treasure Island,

X marks the spot.

DAGGER IN THE BACK!

Blood running up,

Blood running down.

Blood running up,

Blood running down.

Crack of an egg!

(Spiders and bees).

Cool breeze?

[Whisper]: Tight squeeze.

{From my bloodthirsty childhood, to theirs. What was your favourite game?}

The easiest party you will ever throw

One word (or is it two?): ice-cream. On a big table, stack up a few tubs of the most delicious ice-cream you can find. Mine was my very own bespoke flavour from Harry's Ice Cream Co, just around the corner in Brunswick: cinnamon doughnut and maple syrup (I know!!). More about that later.

Fill vintage tea-cups with a whole lot of toppings. Anything you like. I used hundreds and thousands, crushed Oreos and crushed Flakes, broken waffle cones, marshmallows, maple syrup, caramel sauce and chocolate sauce. Plonk some cute disposable ice-cream cups and spoons on the table. Invite your friends over, switch on the music, pop a bottle of champagne, and you're at a party!

Did you know that July is the International Ice Cream Month? This started in the US circa 1984, apparently at the behest of President Ronald Reagan, who called on all citizens to observe ice cream events with "appropriate ceremonies and activities." Fast forward 30 years and Harry's Ice Cream Co contacted me a little while ago to see if I'd like a few tubs of my very own flavour, to help celebrate a tradition of eating frozen confectionaries during the coldest month of the year. Darn tootin' I did!

In the name of responsible research I turned to Facebook, asking my friends to help me come up with winter-friendly flavours. A "vegemite toast" joke from my brother-in-law led to thoughts of honey crumpets, then French toast or cinnamon toast which, in discussions with Harry's Ice Cream Co, eventually became cinnamon doughnut. And maple syrup swirl for good (really good) measure. Folks, there were actual chunks of doughnut in this ice-cream. It was SO tasty. Harry's delivered the ice-cream a few weeks ago but in a supreme act of self-control, I held onto it until the Saturday just gone, to use it in a baby shower for my friend Pip.

Like me, Pip has a little girl, and baby number two is a boy. Pip wasn't planning a baby shower, "because I feel a bit silly doing it for the second one, you know?" And I did know, because that's how I felt too. But I regretted it. Harry is worth celebrating every bit as much as Madeleine, and I really felt that in the chaos of life surrounding my own second pregnancy, I didn't get to mark his progress or his arrival with the kind of weight I'd have liked to have given it. I wrote a bit about that here and here. So we decided to at least do something for Pip. She wanted to keep it low-key, so we just invited a few of her friends over to my place to indulge in ice-cream and brainstorm boy's names (what are your favourites?), and generally celebrate that beautiful bump.

So, back to the world's most easy party. To make it just a bit more fancy for Pip and her friends, I added a few little extras. A stack of cinnamon doughnuts, a hot fruit salad to serve with cream, and some simple bowls of snacks like dried apricots and pistachio nuts. The decorations were kept very simple too. Pip wanted "something to do with elephants" so I painted up a circus elephant balancing on an ice-cream cone to use in the invitations I sent out to her friends, then replicated it in little details around the table. My only other decorative task was a big balloon wall to provide a back-drop to the party (positioned higher than I'd have liked it to to put the balloons out of reach of Madeleine).

Pip's friends were lovely, the whole party was incredibly easy, and the clean-up took less than half an hour. Have you ever tried an ice-cream party? I'm absolutely a convert. Last week I linked to this ice-cream crawl which I think is a great idea. I've also bookmarked this giant banana split as a fantastic idea for a kids' summer party. And these ridiculously decadent candy-vanilla milkshakes look much too good to pass up. What are your best ice-cream party ideas?

Thank you so much Harry's Ice Cream Co for giving us this amazing taste experience. They also sent me a gift voucher to cover the cost of some of the toppings. I'm sorry to say my cinnamon doughnut and maple syrup ice-cream was a one-time-only affair, but three of the flavours (pavlova, sticky date pudding and lamington) are available at Woolworths stores across Australia if you'd like to try them. I can attest to the fact that they are GOOD. So good that "I don't like ice-cream" Mr B had two helpings of the sticky-date pudding ice-cream for dessert the other night, and I had a bowl of the pavlova ice-cream (pieces of meringue included!) after dinner on Saturday, despite having spent the better part of the afternoon already consuming ice-cream!

ps. Please to be noticing my very own logo on those tubs of my 'bespoke' flavour in the photo near the top. So special!

Make Admire Join Splurge Plan Plant Mix Eat Start

What adventures do you have planned for the weekend? I am hosting an ice-cream baby shower tomorrow, and the mama-to-be and her baby-bump will have their very own bespoke ice-cream flavour, created by Harry's Ice Cream Co to celebrate International Ice Cream Month (I know right?). The Finders Keepers markets are on again and we always try to get up there if we can. And I need to go shopping for a nice dress to wear to the Epworth Gala Ball next weekend. Tra la la! There'll be some work in there too, because I'm miles behind on my deadlines, and some cleaning of the house, and hopefully in there somewhere some fun family time! Here are some other ideas I had for a fun weekend.

Make: these lovely beaded plant hangers

Admire: these stunning bird patterns

Join: a book club or a gym, or this fun combination of the two

Splurge: on new bedding that makes you want to dream beautiful dreams

Plan: 24 hours in Paris. What would you do?

Plant: a tree. Plant enough and you'll create a forest

Mix: music and munchies, with this fabulous vinyl + recipe subscription box

Eat: lots of ice cream! I love the idea of this ice cream crawl, bookmarking for summer

Start: doing that thing!

Do you want to play along? Let me know if you create a similar list on your blog.

Image is from here, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons

Snail mail - illustration inspiration

More mail art has been going out to say thank you to people for subscribing to this blog. People have been asking me how I decide what to draw and paint on the mail. Here's an idea of my thinking behind this batch.

∧∧ Clare wrote in her blog about finding a figurine of Krishna in the creek near her house

∧∧ This had something to do with Liesl's email address

∧∧ Adrienne has a blog called Tough City Writer

∧∧ Louise wrote in her comments to me, "I like rabbits"

∧∧ I had an aunt and uncle who used to live in Willoughby and they always gave me books, so I drew some for Bridie

∧∧ Relates to something Laura shared in her message to me

∧∧ Relates to something Sandra shared in her message to me

∧∧ Emily has a blog called Thimble Cat

∧∧ I wanted to make something a bit fairy-story-ish for Kwan-Yu

The end. More soon!

Stuff and simplicity

At any given moment, if you were to pop around to our house unannounced, there would probably be piles of washing waiting to be folded and put away, overflowing the green chairs in our hallway. As you stepped over the plastic toys and pushed passed the jolly-jumper hanging from the door frame and waded through the various baby-bibs cultivating dribble and milk and browning banana and finally made it to the playroom, your feet would probably crunch over a thick layer of dry Weetbix crumbs. Madeleine likes to crush her own Weetbix each morning before the milk goes on and, as much as I'd like you to think otherwise, I do not vacuum every day.

If you looked inside my handbag on any given day you might find, nestled in with the purse and keys, a couple of broken crayons, a half-empty container of bubble liquid, a sippy cup, yesterday's gummed-up rusk in a zip-lock bag, and about a thousand used tissues.

The sheer amount of stuff involved in modern parenting staggers me, and accepting at least some of that stuff into my life and home was one of the most difficult transitions I had to make as a parent. (When I lived alone, I would actually take pleasure in adjusting a book on a table until the seemingly 'casually-put-down' angle was just right. Yes, I am that person.) As someone who likes everything to have a purpose and a place, and as someone whose home is also her workplace, cumulative kid-detritus can quickly feel overwhelming.

While I was pregnant with Madeleine I had plenty of noble ideas about children in "the olden days" not needing all the STUFF that our consumer society deemed necessary today, and that I would make up in interactive play for what we limited in toys and things. But as any parent could have told me, stuff creeps in. And some of it, while not strictly necessary, does actually make your life easier. Parenting two small children while working, and on extremely limited sleep, is tough. It is tempting to take the easy way, to let the stuff in because it saves five minutes here or buys 10 minutes of peace there. I'm not going to feel guilty about that.

But not all stuff makes life easier. Some stuff just gets in the way. In the way of creativity, of clear-thinking, of mental health, of the path to the kitchen. And some stuff might be good stuff but when combined with about a billion other small pieces of "good stuff" it becomes bad stuff. Claustrophobic, messy, over-crowding, unwelcome stuff.

Last week was not a good week around our place. For various reasons were were all stretched, capacity-wise, and tempers began to fray. By Friday afternoon, my subconscious had somehow centred the entirety of my own unravelling temper on all the stuff in our house. It was driving me crazy. WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF I CAN'T BREATHE IN THIS HOUSE. And so I started on a paring-back rampage.

It was cathartic in a way that probably should have been predictable. I worked until late that night on the playroom, sorting out toys to give away or throw away, putting some in a cupboard out of rotation, and bringing others out. At the end of it I'd removed two giant garbage-bags worth of toys and other bits and pieces from the room, and Madeleine's previously overflowing toy-box was only one third full. When she came down in the morning, she was thrilled. There were her favourite toys, easy to find. Here were some "new" toys she'd never discovered because they'd been buried under all that stuff. Harry had his own little cart in which to store his toys, and Madeleine quickly cottoned on to putting Harry's toys away whenever they were dropped.

That afternoon, Madeleine lined up her two dolls in chairs next to Harry, pulled a collection of books from the shelves, and proceeded to "read" to all three babies. I hid in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea while leaning on the bench, and listened to the stories. Later we pulled out the paints, one of Madeleine's favourite activities, and it was approximately 78 percent less stressful than usual for me because with the room so much cleaner and more organised, the combination of two-year-old and brightly coloured paints didn't seem anywhere near as chaotic.

Not once did she ask where all her stuff had gone.

Camouflage

I have not been able to stop looking at these lovely photographs of "camouflaged" birds, ever since I saw them on Honestly WTF. They are part of a series called "Birds of a Feather" by artist Claire Rosen and each of the birds - some of them common and others exotic - has been posed in front of vintage wallpaper. I think the idea of 'wild' birds in such a domestic setting and so consciously posed is incredibly fun and playful. It's like a children's storybook. Like the Big Bad Wolf all dressed up in Grandma's bonnet.

Browsing through the rest of Claire's portfolio is like taking a tumble down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass all at once. I asked her where she found inspiration, and she pointed me to a beautiful, interactive board she created on "A Creative Life." What you see below is just a screen-shot of a small portion of the board. Take a look at the entire board here (tip: I couldn't open this in Firefox. If you are having trouble, try with a different browser) and click on the various boxes to uncover the inspiration behind them.

Claire says, "Everyone has the capacity to be creative and it starts by creating a safe space to be creative in. Creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised and fed with inspiration." Would you agree with her?

Credits:

As mentioned, the image above is a screen-grab of a much larger board created by Claire Rosen. The original is found on fusings.com. All Birds of a Feather images are used here with kind permission from Claire Rosen. Credits are as follows.

WEBSITE : www.clairerosenphoto.com INSTAGRAM : @clairerosenphoto BOOK: http://www.blurb.com/b/4708660-birds-of-a-feather

LIMITED EDITION ARCHIVAL PIGMENT PRINTS on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper signed and numbered on front 40 x 60 inches    (edition of 05)      25.5 x 17 inches (edition of 10)             11 x 16.5 inches (edition of 15)              6 x  4 inches (edition of 150)    

The Birds of a Feather series will be in an exhibit in September at the Hagedorn Foundation Gallery (http://www.hfgallery.org) in Atlanta, GA with an artist reception on Thursday Oct. 16th.