Today Holly and I went for a little opshop trip and picked up a couple of goodies each. I tend to get a bit entranced by patterns and colours and let that override whether or not something is practical/worth the price, but I am getting better! I especially have a big soft spot for vintage textiles. Below are some of the goodies I picked up today and on the weekend while at the markets. I also bought a couple of miscellaneous baby things, but they're far less interesting to photograph. I'm sure Holly will share some of her fun bits and bobs on her blog shortly too.


A retro knitting holder (my friend Sara taught me how to knit over the weekend!) and a framed tea towel (?) of a cafe scene.


I just liked the title of this little book and thought it might be good for collage, likewise with the old postcard.


I picked up this mountainous print at the markets and it fits nicely on the mantle in our bedroom. I like to collect prints of scenes of mountains with rivers, I'm not sure why, there's just something interesting and mysterious about them to me. Sometimes they remind me a little of Twin Peaks.


A retro patterned quilt cover (which Holly was originally going to get, but decided against and I thought it was too fun to not be taken home), a cute retro patterned baby sleeping bag (top), a Sesame Street cot sheet and a cute swaddle.


A cute crocheted lap blanket and a retro tablecloth that still had its tags on.


While on the topic of opshops, I remembered this photo I took last week at the opshop of a painting of a man that looks a bit like my uncle. I found another painting of the same man in another part of the shop later. I thought they were quite good, but decided I probably didn't really need kitsch paintings by a stranger of a man who looks a bit like my uncle.


Holly was so sweet and gave me a little package of goodies for my birthday, including some of her gorgeous Pannikin wares. I shall have to collect some fun bits to gift to her in thanks (our birthdays are five days apart).

Have you had any fun thrifting finds lately?

My friends Tim and Racheal got married in January and I flew back to my hometown for the occasion. Like us, they had traveled back home to get married, after spending a few years living in Western Australia, and they had a lovely simple reception at a local venue. I definitely related to that feeling of wanting to return home to get married - when you grow up in a beautiful country town and have a lot of memories attached to it and a lot of friends and family still close by.



Tim and I have been friends since my first year of high school and he has always been someone who is ridiculously dependable and supportive for me. He's one of those friends that when you think about them being so far away your chest feels a bit tight and you wish so much for less distance. He has a great sense of humour, is often inappropriate to comedic effect and is obsessed with cars; last time I checked he was studying to become a race car mechanic. Racheal is the perfect foil to his craziness.

At the wedding Tim asked if he could commission me to write up their vows for them in an interesting way and when I requested more of an idea of what he was after he left it totally up to me - I hate that! Ha. I had a some fun with it and played around with colour and text - I wanted something playful and messy. It is so challenging to migrate from drawing exclusively in Photoshop (with my beloved ctrl + Z) to drawing by hand where every mistake you make is permanent. I drew the image on paper that was too large for my local Officeworks to make a flatbed scan of, otherwise I would have enjoyed playing around with the digital copy in Photoshop for a bit and printing out a copy.







In the nicest possible way, Tim and Racheal are kind of like beauty and the beast. Racheal is so sweet and kind and lovely and Tim is silly and loud and obnoxious (in the best way). I hope a little of that dynamic comes through in the drawing.

I love the little bursts of inspiration and motivation that come with the purchase of new art supplies. This week I bought a new set of pencils and gouache paints and a tiny paintbrush and they're pretty much all I want to play with right now.

Some friends of mine got married at the start of the year and asked me to write out their vows for them and turn them into something fun (obviously the brief for this project was very broad!) and I thought I'd treat myself to some new materials for the occasion. I'm not far from finishing it and then posting it off to them - I might share some pictures of the final product.



It has been really lovely to work with a fun, messy, tactile, sensory medium. Even the smell of the paint and pencils makes me want to make things. Creating exclusively on my computer isn't always very inspiring, albeit less messy.



The pencils I bought are Koh-I-Noor Progressos (a brand I'd never heard of) which are woodless. I tried them out at my local bookshop (it has an upstairs section dedicated to art supplies) and the pigments were so bright and applied really well. I have an old set of Derwents that look really dull on paper and the texture is kind of waxy. I asked the lady at the store if she knew whether or not pencils could fade with age or if the conditions they're kept in affected them and she looked at me like "lady, you have had way too much time to think about your pencils".



The paints are just a cheap Reeves gouache set. Gouaches have such great pigment and coverage and a little goes a long way. I eyed off the fancy $7 a tube gouache paints, but decided that a whole set for just under double that price was a lot more reasonable.


+ A page from the baby journal I've been working on.

Have you acquired any fun new materials of late?

...in March


C and I took a drive (we're trying to visit some of the outlying towns nearby every few weeks) to Devonport to go to the beach and noticed these cute/creepy giant straw people on the side of the road.



Atticus spent a lot of time curled up looking cute and hanging out in the nursery.


I bought some cute baby clothes from Etsy.


I bought a lot of pretty coloured wool for felt making.



I added some pages to the baby journal I've been working on including some mix cds - I hope he doesn't think our music taste is lame!


The slightly cooler weather meant snugglier kitties.


Element Eden sent me a little knitting pack for their Knit Off - now I just need to learn how to knit!

Watching... Twin Peaks, though I've kind of petered out halfway through the second season. I'm just not feeling it, though I loved the first season. I need to see it out though for the closure, although I've heard there's a big cliff hanger ending - definitely going on the 'to do before baby' list. Also; Please Like Me, The Checkout & Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell (all Australian ABC shows). So looking forward to the return of Game of Thrones after this weekend.
Listening... Elliot Smith, Feist, The Head and the Heart & The Mountain Goats. Really craving some new music - will have to check up on some of the recommendations from this post.
Reading... Some cute (new to me) blogs: Bret & Nancye and Coos & Ahhs.
Making... messes with new paints and pencils, felt balls, collages, cookies.
Looking forward to... all of the pregnancy classes that will occupy my time in April.

In April I'd like to: Relax, learn to knit, be creative, go opshopping and read a book or two (oh, maternity leave I love thee!).