^ One of my favourite artists and zinesters, Mel Stringer, launched her new website today.

Song of the day: Now, Now - St. Vincent.
Word of the day: Cyclopean - of or suggestive of cyclops; one-eyed.
Quote of the day: "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do" - Edgar Degas.

I've been reading over old Livejournal posts from when I was 15. They make me laugh and cringe and they all begin with my 'of the day's so I thought I'd try it out for old times' sake.

My friend Doug came to deliver his latest mail-tag letter this evening and then kindly drove C to work. We live less than one minute away from one another so our correspondence is usually hand delivered and not posted. Funnily enough we both grew up in Stroud, both had the same surname through school (Allen) and then both moved to Islington this year. He responds to my mail within about two days of receiving it and it's always filled with his dark humour and fluorescent pens. I also requested "5 redskins" and he sent me a crunchie bar both of which I am now devouring and feeling ill. Here is the awesome envelope he made me;





Here is a Postcrossing postcard I received today from Germany. I think it's gorgeous;


Meanwhile, I'm awing over rubber stamps on Etsy;



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Yesterday for the first time in a long time I got absolutely no mail! I think I've been taking it all for granted. I have a big pile of addressed postcards ready to be stamped and sent, so I should get them in the mail tomorrow and perhaps then the mail fairies will return.

I read this article today titled; "5 Uses For Chalkboard Paint You Haven't Considered" and it has got me thinking about all of the things I could turn into chalkboards (my mailbox perhaps?) and I'm thinking of testing this how-to recipe for making your own chalkboard paint.

I also discovered the wonderful world of regrETSY today.

Today we got our massively inflated phone/internet bill and C started trying to write one of his politics essays for uni and kept saying "we're doomed..." and going off on emotional political rants and looking like he was going to cry. So he suggested that we forget about all of that and catch a bus across town to see 500 Days Of Summer. Eventually we realised there was only one screening on, there are no buses back to Islington after 11pm, cabs are too expensive, hitching is too risky and walking 8.3km in the cold, windy and potentially rainy weather in the middle of the night didn't sound fun. There are lots of reasons why not having a car is awesome, but sometimes, it could make things slightly easier. Then C's work called and he begrudgingly said yes and then we both felt worse and lay on the couch for half an hour throwing scrunched receipts from my wallet at one of our cats. She seemed to have as much fun as we did. In other news, I will find out if I have diabetes on Monday. Woo. I think I'm just letting my hypochondria fly, but peace of mind doesn't cost much.

Saturday we're having a house re-warming (since our housemate moved out a few months ago) and C is making a big curry and I'm making sweets. It should be fun, just a couple of friends. Tomorrow my sister is coming to visit and it should be real nice then in the evening I shall vacuum and tidy and bake!

My hair is dirty and I'm going to wash it. Bonne nuit!

^ Another uncredited Tumblr find. Uncredited images, video and text on the internet is as annoying to me as bad spelling and grammar! Argh!

I'm glad the time stamp of my blogs sits at the bottom of each post so you don't obviously see that I usually write blogs at 4am. It's daylight savings' fault really...

I've recently introduced C to one of my all time favourite TV shows, a little 2-season Canadian show called 'Our Hero', about a teenage girl called Kale who makes zines (you can tell why I like it already). I actually bought the box set about 4 years ago with some money that my grandma gave me that was officially my 'inheritance' from my dad. It cost eighty dollars to buy and ship over here and when I emailed the official dvd release website to confirm overseas shipping, the person on the other end emailing me was actually one of the show's creators. Of course I was all like 'Omg, you made lyke the best sh0w of all tiiiime' at him. I've never met anybody who has seen this show before, so if you have you should definitely tell me. I tried to find some footage on Youtube, but I guess it was just too underground and too long ago, all I get is Heroes footage, which I'm not so interested in. They do, however, have a very cute website for Our Hero here. I can't help but make fun of the main character's gorgeous Canadian accent, all "oot" instead of out and "hoose" instead of house. Here are some really awful stills I took from the first episode that don't do the show justice at all;

















Of course, in the vein of all things ziney, today I went to the annual TINA zine fair, which was held on the second highest covered floor of the David Jones carpark. I decided to discard my initial feelings of anxiety and claustrophobia of being in a very small space with a low roof, hundreds of people, loud music and zines blowing everywhere and have a good time. I got some lovely goodies and helped save a whole table of zines (Bird In The Hand distro's zine desk infact) from being totally annihilated by wind. I was hoping the lady over counter would give me half price off the badge I was buying for my assistance but no luck! Ha. I saw this aaaaaaamazing purse for $22 by the awesome folk at Trashbags at one stall and considered spending my entire 'zine allowance' on it, but I just couldn't. Sadly they don't have any similar on their website. C offered, as he always does, to purchase it for me, but I said no. I also saw these aaaaaaaaamazing little purses made out of cassette tapes with zippers. So retro and shit! They were cute. I'm going to attempt to make one, and probably fail miserably :) I swear next year I'll have a stall (hopefully in conjunction with Paige?).

I acquired;

• I Am A Camera #11 by Vanessa Berry;
  
  
  
  
• A very cute lucky dip full of paper ephemera in an airmail envelope from a zinester I can't recall;
  
  
  
  
• A colour zine called Pioneering Mediocrity by Rhys McDonald
• A free zine by Nanoworks
• Two copies of this cute lobster postcard by these girls;
  
  
  
  
• A pack of amazing print cards for only $5 by Racket, they're all amazing but here are some I randomly selected. I think I might use some as mix cd covers or turn them into postcards;
  
  
• A cute badge made out of a page from a vintage book.
• The latest lovely edition of Epitaph For My Heart by Amanda;
  
  
  
• A cute little zine called 'I ♡ Poor Spelling and Bad Grammar" because I really don't and I could afford to learn to build up some tolerance;
  
  
  
  
• A tiny zine called 'Four Eyes For Life' by Tiny Paper Hearts which I think is gorgeous. I want to post pages of it, but I think it's probably disrespectful to the creator;
  
  
  
  
• These lovely envelopes for a dollar each;
  
  
  
  
• And a whole lot of other miscellanea I am too tired to scan.

I got a nice call from my sister tonight, although I had just woken up from a four-hour nap and I now can't really remember anything that was said.

Anyway. C insists on staying up while I stay up and deliriously write blogs, so I should let him rest.

Sadly my experience of the TINA festival this year has been limited due to the weather. Tomorrow is the zine fair, which I have been hanging out for for aaaaaaages and have saved a little bit to spend on lovely paper things, so hopefully the rain and wind doesn't wreak havoc there. I will report back on my findings. Since Thursday we've had our friend Ash stay, and another friend, Mel arrived last night. I'd forgotten how lovely it is to have company. Cam went to work last night, so Ash made us a huge, delicious curry and we looked at a whole lot of funny blogs, then he went off to be a dancer for a band (I asked him what his dance was and he did a Molly Ringwald dance impersonation) and DJ and then Mel got in from Sydney and distracted me while I cleaned the kitchen. Even though I haven't done much TINA related having guests has been lovely. Today I went out to find zine related things and wandered around the mall, but wet and windy weather doesn't seem to draw crowds, so the workshop I was going to appeared to be missing. Staple Manor did look quite cool though.

C is totally obsessed with Lamebook at the moment.Very addictive stuff. I submitted a status that a girl in my friends' list (who I went to high school with) wrote a few weeks ago. Her status updates are often pretty interesting and usually describe her attendance at 'B'N'S Balls' (definition here which leaves out all of the gory details) and sexcapades and this one isn't the worst and I don't doubt that it's true (there were some supportive and some negative responses, but too many to fit in);





Here's some mail I've sent recently (I spent $15 on stamps yesterday. Cameron keeps telling me jokingly "you've got a problem" as if I'm an addict or something. We decided there are much worse things I could spend $15 on);



^ After receiving a lovely handmade envelope from Chandlerguera a few weeks ago I've been thinking of all types of paper paraphernalia that could be repurposed into envelopes. This is made from a record cover. Please send my friend Doug lots of hate mail :)


^ A postcard I made for a Swap-bot Doodle Swap.


^ In his recent mail-tag letter my friend Doug requested a drawing of him that he could put as his Myspace display picture. I don't think this looks much like him, but he said whatever it looked like he'd put it as his dp. Ps. He looks kind of like a girl in real life, hence the girlishness.


^ I ♡ Wonder Woman stationery.








^ I hosted my first Swap-bot swap last week which required participants to make postcards out of old record covers, these are all from a record called 'Colours' by "The Resurrection Band". I didn't listen to the record, but I did put it in the oven and turn into a nice wonky book end.


^ I love the rubber border stamps that C bought me.


^Fake & foreign stamp overkill.

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Today I am feeling pessimistic and grumpy, and sometimes you need to force yourself to appreciate stuff and not to take things for granted, so I thought I'd give this another go...

+ Lovely blog comments when I wake up.
+ Receiving lovely mail from strangers (not Postcrossing mail).
+ Overusing the world 'lovely'.
+ Sending mail to strangers, and putting in as much effort as if I were sending something to my best friend.
+ C coming home from Tasmania.
+ David Horvitz;



+ Receiving 18 postcards, two packages, a stationery set and rubber stamps from C while he was in Tasmania.
+ Sooshi, wtf?
+ Smiling at babies in the waiting room at the doctors'.
+ Visiting my friend Alisha in Dungog and the decadent food platter she made us.
+ Optimism about health issues.
+ Enjoying the Spring warmth (but not today as it's 30°+)
+ An aching hand after writing a really long letter.
+ Bat For Lashes;



+ The 50% off stationery closing down sale at the newsagents not far from my house.
+ Carnivale.
+ My very talented friend Ben.
+ TINA!
+ Yayoi Kusama. Paige, Michael and I saw her exhibition at the MCA at the start of the year and I haven't stopped thinking about it;



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+ New albums by your favourite band, in the same week they announce they're touring near you.
+ Homemade melting moments, that really melt.
+ Dreams featuring characters from your favourite TV show.
+ Green & Blacks organic butterscotch milk chocolate.
+ Planning a house rewarming.
+ Shit My Dad Says.
+ The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell - Marilyn Manson.
+ Playing with Photobooth with lots of people to make a monster at my parents' house;



+ Going away to my parents for two days and coming back to see my Tumblr's 'tumblarity' has gone from 20 to 940 just because I posted a single picture which people reposted hundreds of times. Furthermore, being in the top 100 Australian Tumblrs for a week.
+ Wonder Woman stationery.
+ Clean sheets.
+ This gif, I just can't stop watching it, so fascinating... How A Sewing Machine Works (via swissmiss)


+ Even though I don't speak German, I really enjoy this blog. Lol @ the German prime minister;