^ Andrea Joseph Illustration.

My friend Sophie asked me to take a photo of my bag and its contents, so I thought I'd share;


^ My bag is tiny and I have to cram these few items in! What's in your bag?

While in Tree of Life the other day I spotted these rainbow bracelets and grabbed a bundle to put in letters. I've used a few of them already. Want one?


I visited my friend Doug the other day and he showed me how to make felt. I had no idea how it was made, and I watched on in amazement as Doug used a sheet of bubblewrap, a bottle of dishwashing liquid and water and some fluffy wool to create a beautiful piece of felt. I'm totally going to try this out;

^ The laptop cover Doug is working on. Soon after this picture was taken I stood up and hit my head really hard on the above bunk and fell down and blacked out for a moment. Good times.

Incomingggggg;


^ I had been forewarned about the awesome contents of this package; a lovely birthday gift from Min. I am particularly fond of her photocopied stationery, last week it was pineapple head man, today it is nutella head man.


^ This would have to be one of my favourite envelopes ever, and the phone charm with my name on it is awesome! I can never find anything with my name on it. Thanks Malu!


^ An always sweet postcard from with postess with the mostest.


^ I really love the label on this letter from Passion, it is almost as good as the letter inside.


^ A beautiful birthday card from Lauren. A beautiful glittering lady in green and blue, now hanging on my mantle.


^ A fabulous little envelope from Cari. I like that the strange woman is saying my name and address while holding a cat.


^ A grand letter from Patty, with fantastic hand decorated stationery.


^ This little envelope is the second I have received from a lovely lady named Rebecca, who I met very briefly a few months ago at a party of a mutual friend. Bizarrely, I was sitting in the Student Services building at university the other day and saw a familiar face, though it was obvious we were both struggling to remember how we knew one another, eventually we remembered and she sat down and had a chat with me for a bit. I just found that idea so odd - that most of the people I write to could walk write past me in the street and I would never recognise them.


^ Faiza delivered me some sparkly Care Bears. Hoping she had great fun in London!


^ Oh man, so good! Jenny sent me a little bundle of great pens and red ink and wrote about finding red in her life. Red is very good to have around. Isn't her stationery fantastic? I am in awe of it. I must know where it came from! I also had a giggle when I noticed she'd sent me a little red badge that said "Good" on it and realised it was also her surname! I almost missed seeing the back of envelope she included, where her address is fantastically embossed;


^ Want!

Well, that's the mail I've received in the last two days (Fri&Mon), and this is all I've sent out in the last week! Bad, bad, bad;


^ A collaged envelope for Min. Those eyes are looking at you.

^ Girls snoozing on a zebra, for Lauren.

I found this collection (via Letter Writers Alliance) a few days ago and I have no words;

1. Coin Purse 2. Travel Pass Holder 3. Make up bag 4. Travel Set 5. Wash bag 6. Overnight bag All here.

Today it rained and I finally got to wear my coat out and use my new umbrella. It was fun. So much red.

Listening to: So Frenchy So Chic 2009
Consuming: C's amazing vegan cheesecake - see;

^ Theresa Thompson.

Some of my favourite free downloadable printable stationery from around the interwebs;


^ CD envelopes designed by Tomoko Suzuki for Canon, music theme here and travel theme here.


^ Mini greeting card and letter-writing set from Eat Drink Chic, here.


^ Thank you note cards and envelope template from Cottage Industrialist, here.


^ Bookplates by Emily Martin of Inside A Black Apple on CraftSanity, here.


^ Happy Valentines Day postcards with tutorial from Alana K Davis, here.


^ Floral stationery sheet and envelope from 365 Days of Vee, here.


^ Nonpariel mag bunting invitations, here.


^ Tags and labels by Renne Garner, here.


^ Labels from Miss Cutie Pie Goes 80's, here.


^ Mushroom labels and to-do lists from A Print A Day, here.

I'll try to post more of my favourites every day or so during the week!

I spent the whole day agonising over that stupid assignment I mentioned a few posts down and ended up just making up something totally ridiculous and writing about it. I'm probably going to get no marks for it, but I've always been taught you've just got to hand something in. WHAT DOES INTELLIGENCE FEEL LIKE TO YOU, IN A SENSORY WAY? Smooth, soft, cold, hard, rough, metallic!? Eh, I'm done, no more thinking about it (until tomorrow when I get assigned another two words to turn into sensory objects! Argh!) Tonight C and I rode our bikes around parts of Newcastle I'd never seen - through Islington park bike track, along side Throsby Creek, the backs of the coal yards at Carrington and the pretty streets of Tighes Hill. Then I rewatched Gattaca with C and Manneh. I scrunched up a whole lot of paper to use when I was brainstorming for the aforementioned assignment and C keeps throwing it into the overhead fan and laughing as it ricochets off the walls.

Hope you had a lovely weekend :)

I'm quite fascinated by 'weird' shoes. Not so much wearing them, but collecting them. Shoes reminiscent of a bizarre sculpture, worthy of presenting on a shelf. I have a pair of cherry-patterned velcro ultra-high platform sneakers that my mum bought me for $2 on Ebay when I was fifteen that I have worn once (because they're horribly uncomfortable) and I could never throw away because they're just too good to look at. I stumbled across Irregular Choice (via Agent Lover), ogled their collection of sculptures shoes and I couldn't look away. Here are some of my favourites (Though admittedly I'd probably only actually wear about a third of them);


Great names too: 1. Magic Sparkle Torch 2. Can Can 3. Bambino 4. Dance The Night Away 5. Hello Govener 6. Jazz Baby 7. Trinklettina 8. Possibly Maybe 9. Longlashes 10. Making Moves 11. Nolita HoneyMerry Melody 13. Chica 14. Kim Oh No 15. Rosepea 16. Brooklyn Beauty 17. What An Angel18. Trixxie 19. Electrokill 20. Kill Nemesis 21. Popper Pops 22. Hot To Trot 23. Nougat 24. National Vacation 25. Shimmy 26. Parrot Talk

Any you'd actually wear? I wish pounds were dollars!

^ (via)

Lately I've run out of good writing paper, but I do have a full cartridge of printer ink, so I've been printing out some sweet stationery, like these;

^ From Print A Day.

I bought some A4 sticker paper, so I've been trying out printing labels onto it;

^ From A Print A Day & Wolfie & Sneak.

I played around in Photoshop for a bit last night while C snoozed on the couch and used some brushes to make some sticker designs. Once I'd cut them out I realised that I have ridiculously stubby bitten fingernails and couldn't peel off the backing. Yet another reason why I should stop biting them. I'm gonna stick them all over everything! Perhaps another item for the Etsy shop?;


I made up an envelope out of a collage of air mail stickers I found on Flickr (I'm angry I can't find the link right now). Ideally I'd like to make my own air mail collage to use instead. I'll have to go through all my old letters and peel them off!;


Next post I'll have to link you to some of my favourite free downloadable printable stationery, there's a treasure trove of it!

I spent a great deal of today swapping my huge desk for C's little desk (he has a much bigger computer), and rearranging furniture to my liking. This is how the room turned out (I should've taken a before shot!);


C and I had our friend Kim over for dinner tonight and it was great fun. I am beginning to feel frustrated at meeting so many lovely new people and really enjoying uni at the moment, when I know I'm going to be packing up to leave in 4 months. The university in Launceston doesn't offer my course specifically, so I have three options - choose something else to study there (not ideal) - studying something in the same vein at TAFE (very informal) - or studying through another university by distance (meaning I won't get to actually go to university and meet people). Hmpf!

I have a project due for a class on Monday that involves creating two 'tangible items' that symbolise two particular contrasting words, they will then be placed into pillow cases and somebody else in the class will reach into the cases, touch the items inside (without looking) and it should evoke those words, though without using any obvious symbolism (eg. if your word was 'fast' you can't use a matchbox car, you have to create something that actually gives the feeling of it being 'fast') My words are 'intelligent' and 'dumb'. I have NO IDEA what I am going to do. I only work in visuals! This project feels umpossible! After I've made them I have to do a write up about the process. Argh! Wish me luck!

Happy weekend folks!