JOURNAL
documenting
&
discovering joyful things
9 Valentine's Day projects to try
Is it love? Or is it just like? Does it matter? Why not use the notorious Jour de V as an excuse to make something for someone you love/like/admire, just to make them happy? Here are some last-minute ideas to get you thinking and inspired:
* I'm nuts about you * Biscuits that look like matchsticks? This is so much better than my matchbox art * So cute! Valentine animal envelopes * Homemade bath bombs to luxuriate your lover * Bad puns on printable gift-tags (for food-related gifts) * "You have a pizza my heart" (get it?). Seven printable Valentines * Pencil-flag Valentine notes. These would make great party favours or gift tags too * Paper fortune cookies * The most romantic ice-cream you've ever seen
Photo credit: Jenelle Ball, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons
Aaaargh! Heathcliff!
This is actually happening! In Melbourne! And I can't even begin to tell you how happy it makes me.
What is "this," you ask? Why, only a gigantic, public group-dance to Kate Bush's classic Wuthering Heights, that's what. There is so much silly joy right here, it's palpable. These screen-shots are from the first dance, in Brighton in the UK, in 2013 (watch it here - I laughed out loud).
Since then, ladies and lads in red dresses and bad wigs have been dancing to Wuthering Heights all over the world and finally, finally this event is coming to Melbourne, on 15 July. There's an event page on Facebook if you want to follow along.
Flash mobs are so 2000s.
UPDATE: I just learned that this will be a world-wide simultaneous event. Eek!
Mail art - a lot of cat stamps and other lessons in mail-art
A lesson I learned over the New Year* was that when making mail, measure each package up before wrapping it in kraft paper... because if it is even a just couple of millimetres over the standard size, the price goes up. A LOT. Thankfully I had several sheets of 70c cat stamps left over from when I purchased stamps for my father's birthday invitation mail-art (because I am not the brightest and purchased enough for every person invited rather than every household. Duh).
You can't see them in these pictures, but the backs of these parcels are literally covered in cat stamps. Here is a picture that Elaine shared on her Instagram, of all the cat stamps on the back.
For only the second time ever, I had a couple of the parcels in this set returned. The castle above came back, with notes from the postie written on the left to the tune of "ADDRESS UNCLEAR. WHAT COUNTRY?" This made me groan slightly, since, if you live in Australia, an address in North Gosford, NSW, is quite evidently also in Australia. But then to be fair, I had run out of Airmail stickers when I photographed these, and later put all the stickers on at the post office. Because this was the only local letter, I also accidentally put an Airmail sticker on it too, so I guess that could have caused some confusion.
Look how pretty and clean the letter looked (above) when I first sent it to Melina! And this is what it looked like when I popped it back into the mail last week...
Then a few days later the letter to Ashley also came back. There were no marks on the envelope and the stamps hadn't been cancelled, so I don't know what was going on there. I thought maybe they didn't see the country so I drew a box around "United States" to draw attention to it, and slipped it back into the box. Time will tell if Ashley gets her mail!
Meanwhile, when I ran out of cat stamps, I busted out all the other leftover stamps I could find and made the "building blocks" mail-art below, which I think is one of my favourites, ever.
*Actually I think I might have "learned" that lesson before, and even shared it on here, but clearly nothing much sinks in. Is there a moratorium on how long you can blame "baby brain" for just being really absent-minded?
ps. have you heard about my new letter-writing and mail-art e-course?
Over four weeks, I will guide you through multiple methods of making beautiful mail-art and creative, handmade stationery; teach you the art of writing and storytelling; help you forge personal connections in your letters and find pen-pals if you want them; and share time-management tips so even the busiest people can enjoy sending and receiving letters. Register your place or find out more information right here.
Dispatch from Victoria: Maldon
I had intended to share this post on the evening of Australia Day. That was two weeks ago, and I am only just getting to it now. Ugh so busy!
We don't really "celebrate" Australia Day in our family, only in as much as it is a day off which means we get some additional family time together, and family time is always worth celebrating... but actually celebrating Australia? Well, a date that commemorates the invasion of one peoples by another peoples probably isn't the best one to choose. I wish we had a different one. But that's another conversation.
Australia Day fell on a Tuesday this year, which was already a non-daycare day, and Mr B had a public holiday, and this meant we all had time off together. So in a completely random decision that morning, we decided to pack everyone up and head out to the country.
We ended up in Maldon, a picturesque gold-rush town in Victoria.
It was a pretty day, but it very soon got very hot. And maybe this is just me but whenever we visit country towns in Australia, especially in summer, I can't help thinking about all the clothes they used to wear, and life without air conditioning or refrigeration or even proper running water, and, no matter how lovely the town is to look at, I just think it must have been unbearably tough. They must have been made of sterner stuff, back then.
Not that Maldon is exactly outback or anything. The weather is relatively mild and it's not like you'd die of heat exhaustion or anything. (Once I visited a town in the outback where a new bride had come over in the boat from England but her husband was away mustering cattle or something. She lived there alone for several months and, when the husband returned, she had gone blind from the glare off the salt plains. When I was in that town listening to that story, it was 48 degrees. THAT's extreme.)
But even so, I'm just saying that even in picturesque Maldon - or picturesque Melbourne for that matter - things must have been pretty uncomfortable in the summer.
And then along we come in our air-conditioned cars and wander from shady porch to breezy garden, sip chilled wine in the old, old pub, buy gelato, and try to imagine ourselves stepping into the footprints left behind by 19th Century families.
Match-box conversation hearts
Oh hello! *waves in enthusiastic and dorky manner* Remember me? I am so busy finishing my book that sometimes I don't get time for writing in this blog, but I have so many posts in the wings that I can't wait to share with you. Hopefully I'll get my time-management act together and can revisit this tiny and lovely community that is You Folks a lot more often. I really love this space. I love how comfortable it feels, how like-minded we all feel, even when actually we are quite different and diverse and opinionated and creative and quirky (because how boring would things be if we weren't), but on the MAIN THINGS (kindness, openness, encouragement, friendship) we are all on the same page, I think.
NEWS ALERT. Oh my goodness HOW EXCITING are the updates on the Serial podcast lately? If you listened to Season 1 but then kind of dropped back off, drop back in!! After almost 16 years, a new hearing on Adnan Syed's case is happening in Baltimore RIGHT NOW and you can follow what is going on each day on Serial. It is crazily compelling.
In the meantime, I have been having some fun lately jumping on the "decorate old matchboxes" bandwagon, creating decorated little boxes for homemade "conversation heart" lollies (from a lolly shop in Maldon, more on that soon to come), to send to folks all over the world. If you'd like to replicate this idea for Valentine's Day, it's super easy. Just wrap some paper around a matchbox to get the size right, trace the outline, then unwind it and draw/paint/paste whatever image you like before pasting it properly back onto your matchbox. I lined my boxes with paper doilies but you could also use tissue paper, cloth, foil or anything else that inspires you.
On another matter, conversation hearts! How great are they? So much vintage fun.
What’s up doc?
Have you heard? Our garden is heaven! One of these days I will share some before and after photos of this tiny garden, which was a miserable, grubby, slimy courtyard until August, after which it became… heaven.
I am sitting in the garden as I type this, leaning up against the cubby house with my legs stretched out before me and noticing I’m somewhat overdue for a pedicure. Scout and Ralph have declared themselves to be the “chef-police,” which profession apparently involves something along the lines of being restaurant-owners who get to be extremely bossy. Also they keep throwing toy food out of the window and onto my head.
On Saturday I finally got a new phone, which was very exciting and then necessitated the expenditure of the entire afternoon in figuring out how to set it all up. The best part was avoiding the whole contacts syncing thing by typing each person in by hand, which took aggggges but I passed the time watching Freaks & Geeks for free on youtube. It felt phenomenally good to clear my phone at last of the numbers of people I might have interviewed once or twice in about 2006, which had resided in my phone ever since thanks to the syncing thingy I couldn't figure out how to turn off, therefore remaining a constant undercurrent of anxiety in case one of my children would accidentally call them one day...
We switched contracts from Telstra to Vodafone, giving me triple the data plus the iPhone 6S for a couple of dollars less than I was previously paying. I foresee some Instagram spam action in my future. Sorry Testra, it’s been real.
Also included for that price was the world’s ugliest iPhone case, made out of rubber and semi-opaque, in a kind of pale acid green which, when fitted over my gold phone, looks the precise colour of booger. Ergo I am now in the market for a new iPhone case. Any suggestions as to where to look for some nice ones? I do love the gold of these phones and kind of like the idea of a clear case so for once I can see my pretty phone, but then there are so many fabulous designs around. I saw some on Etsy that were clear but also had real flowers or leaves pressed inside them. Your thoughts on this? Lovely, or tacky? I can’t decide!
My dad has to have an operation on his back. It's not life-and-death but it's kind of a major deal and I'm a bit worried about him. Also, he and my mum have a big holiday booked for April, to which they've been looking forward for more than a year, and he's cutting it fine with the recovery time. This has been on my mind all weekend.
I finished painting and posted 10 more snail-mail parcels last week, which are now (hopefully, if I put on enough stamps - because I literally COVERED the backs withs stamps) winging their way to folks around the world. Photos coming up in the next couple of days. If I get my act together quickly, the next round of mail parcels will be all about love (oh hello, Valentine's Day).
And in other news, it turns out I need reading glasses. Which is not overly surprising given that a) I stare at books and computers all day, b) lately things have been a bit on the blurry side and I’ve been getting sleepy when I read, and c) let’s be honest, I am getting old.
Yesterday I went in to the shops to choose some frames and it is SO STRANGE to see yourself in glasses when you’ve never worn them before. They all gave me extreme monobrows and made me look severely cross-eyed. Why is it that the rest of the world looks smart and sexy in glasses, and I look like a Picasso? The only glasses I even marginally liked were $460 for just the frames, and I wasn’t willing to spend $460 on something I only marginally liked. Also, as Mr B pointed out, “You work by yourself all day, who’s going to see you?” Which is logical but I guess I’m still vain, because I really wanted to look “marginally ok” while alone in my office, rather than “marginally not a Picasso,” which is what I settled for in the end.
The bubble machine is out of mixture and the children are now watering the garden with their Minions / Frozen drink bottles. Time to head inside and make their dinner. We are out of fish fingers. I need to hunt for another lazy-Sunday-don’t-feel-like-actual-cooking meal to make.
What’s up with you, doc?
Update: it was tinned tuna with broccoli, beans and pasta for the win!
Secret worlds
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”
Credits:
* Beautiful, inspiring quote that is motivating me today, by Neil Gaiman (from The Sandman Vol 5: 'A Game of You').
* Moment in time captured at Grand Central Station, New York, by Thomas Lefebvre, licensed for unlimited use under Creative Commons.
Some people are just too creative and too kind and too generous for words
Oh my gosh it has been way too long since I've showcased some of the incoming mail I've been lucky enough to receive.* Sometimes I truly marvel at the generosity and creativity of you folks. I'm humbled and so grateful that you take the time to write to me, and put so much thought into your words and so much effort and beauty into the mail you create.
ΔΔ The dancing mice at the top of this post were hand-painted by Australian children's book illustrator Rebecca Berrett. When this mail arrived, I very nearly squealed with delight to hold one of her beautiful paintings in my own hands.
ΔΔ Joanne's letter was such a snail-mail treat, filled with beautiful stationery and ephemera from her life, and even a little paint-sample card I had sent her in previous mail, which she had adorably illustrated
ΔΔ Postcards, postcards, postcards. So many fun postcards!
ΔΔ I loved the happy, neon New Year's pop of this card created by Kate from Thank You Love Cake
ΔΔ Glitter and gemstones and a little note from Mary to tell me all about her latest course on self-love
ΔΔ I sent Gay some paint-sample cards with a challenge: "This is a blank canvas. What will you do with it?" Now feast your eyes on these ah-ma-zing "sending you sunshine" cards she created. Incredible!
ΔΔ The stamps on this mail from Jami were so special. First, a wonderful collection of vintage Christmas stamps, AND... would you take a look at those ridiculously adorable Peanuts stamps on the envelope? Philatelic heaven!
ΔΔ The sweetest hand-made card and hand-painted Christmas envelope, from the lovely Yam
ΔΔ Another letter from Jami, and this one was so incredibly special, bursting with handmade envelopes created from important works of art, port-red wax seals, gifts of stationery ephemera, and a letter that made me cry in a good way
ΔΔ Sandra decorated this sweet-as-pie Christmas mail for me, and then I spent all afternoon repeatedly rescuing it from Scout's covetous clutches
ΔΔ This mail was also from Sandra, a few months earlier. She hand-made the envelope as well as the smaller envelope inside, and then carved the little snail-mail stamp just for me, so look for it on any mail coming your way!
ΔΔ Meaghan from Polaroids and Snailmail is so lovely, and so creative. She stitched this gorgeous paper garland for me from the pages of a book, and shared her recipe for bircher muesli (fyi I LOVE bircher muesli)
That's all I have to share for today. Pretty amazing, huh?
* I always try to showcase the beautiful mail I receive on this blog, but sometimes it slips under the radar, even when I love it. Like...
I open your mail and gasp with delight and read it and love it and then Scout yells "Mummy, Ralph's nappy is smelly!" and so I put your letter down and then I change the nappy and then I supervise them while they play outside and then it's time to make their dinner and then it's bath-story-bed time, then I come downstairs and clean up after the carnage that is an afternoon with toddlers, and start preparing the dinner for us grown-ups. Eat dinner, wash up, feed the cat, water the garden, have a shower, maybe write in my blog a bit. Then in the morning I see your letter and think, "I'd better get that off the kitchen bench, I don't want it to get stained," so I take it into my office and tuck it away with the other beautiful letters and think to myself, "I'll just hurry up and write those 30 other letters that I owe people because I should really write back to this person," so then I get out some materials to hurry up and write the 30 letters, but before I can get much written, the children wake up and call out "Mummy! Mummy!" so I run upstairs to get them and change nappies and get them dressed and make their breakfast and clean their teeth and send them off to daycare, and then I need to start a full day of work, after which I pick the children up and do the afternoon chaos all over again... And maybe in all that I forget to take your letter back out and photograph it.
Still, on the blog or not, your mail is beautiful, and it makes my day. (Also, I'm saving your letters to photograph for my book, which is also pretty special). Thank you!
Strange magic
It was just a simple, one-block walk to get coffee. But today, with the sun searing the back of my neck and the light a strange kind of summer thickness, and me the only person in the whole street, it felt eerie. Hot, still, silent, and eerie. That first summer at the beginning of The Virgin Suicides kind of eerie. I walked on, past the grass and the houses and the oak trees and old wrought-iron fences and one sleeping cat, to buy my coffee.
My footsteps, the only sound on the street.
A dry wind flirted with the oak leaves on the grass median strip, and stung my eyes until I felt the tears pool. Hot and golden and quiet, this day, and it should have been beautiful but it felt like somebody was about to discover Cecelia in the bath.
This is the point where Strange Magic by ELO starts playing in your head.
