Ten Things

OK so I have been writing this blog for a few weeks and I felt it was time I told you a little bit about myself, well ten things to be precise!

~I have a law degree which I don't use, I spent five long years at university studying law and at the end of it decided that it wasn't quite me. Perhaps I
will at some later stage I am not sure, but for now I am still trying to decide.

~I only just got my drivers licence this year, yes after having my learners for 10 years I actually went for the test and passed. This is not because I am a particularly bad driver, really I have never needed to, I live 20 minutes walk from the centre of Hobart and 15 minutes walk from the uni so it wasn't really necessary. But now I have it I love the freedom!

~My favourites flavours are basil and lemon, and that would go scent wise also! They are so fresh and clean. I love cooking with these flavours!

~I bite my nails (very bad!) I go through stages though sometimes I do sometimes I don't. So I wear nail polish a lot!

~One of my favourite things is going to concerts and festivals, growing up my family is in the music industry (production, lights, sound that sort of thing) so it's in the blood. My first concert was some folk festival as a baby and the last one was a festival here with Gomez, Xavier Rudd, Ben Kweller and the Pixies among others.

~I don't really watch tv at all, I have it on but I rarely actually pay much attention to anything. Although Scrubs makes me laugh a lot.

~I am terrible at sewing but would love to know how to. My hand stitching has improved somewhat over the past year but I am yet to attempt a sewing machine. One day hopefully! (this goes for painting also)

~ I have a love/hate relationship with Hobart. Hate it because it is so small and isolated and parochial, terrible for shopping and jobs. But then whenever I come back from Melbourne (as it tends to be) or wherever I realise that it is a very beautiful place with fantastic wilderness and it's clean and safe and well home and my family and boyfriend are here.

~I am a bit of a night owl at the moment. I seem to be far more alert and creative at night and generally pretty late at night. I am not a huge one for sleeping in however, I like to be doing things.

~I love cooking and at the moment cooking new dishes with RD, it has been a lot of fun especially with a vodka or two!
Wow that was long!
Hope you enjoyed, I'd love for you to introduce yourself if you have been reading my blog!
Catherine xx

Rest Easy

Hi there,
Happy middle of the week! Tonight I am a little tired and sleepy, the past few months have been really busy we have had numerous birthdays and engagement partys and just generally things on, and and I think it's finally caught up with me. I have so many things I would love to be working on and creating right now, I feel really inspired and yet while my head is enthused my body is telling me to maybe relax and read my new book and just take it easy.
So instead here are a few of my favourite things right now including my current Flickr favourites, I am only recently new to Flickr and I think it is great I could spend so much time on there and I love the way one photo leads to another, rather like blogs! Love it!

I love this note pad
And I was excited to see this tea towel on Design*Sponge by Good Shape Design, I have the poster of this print in the orange colour and love it so much. (Yes I just need a frame for it! So sack!)

Hope you are having a lovely week.
Catherine xx

Winter Trees

Hi there,

Hope you had a great weekend. Mine involved engagement party's (with fantastic chocolate fountain fondues and flamingo dipping skewers, mmmm) and 5th birthday party's, and lots of laughs and crazy dancing to the Doors.
Tomorrow is my Dad's birthday so tonight I made him a yum-o black forest cake, with a simple chocolate cake recipe and big juicy cherries with some home made raspberry jam to hold it together, and of course chocolate on the top. I hope he will enjoy.

So along with the cake I made him a card, which then expanded into a set of gift tags. I am planning in the near future to open my own etsy store (exciting and nerve wracking at the same time) so I am trying to come up with some different designs. I based the card and gift tags on the winter trees we have right now, so the colours are muted and the leaves are transparant, more skeletal, but I think there is still some warmth in them from the earthy brown and rich brown ribbon.

Inspiration

A while ago i borrowed this Tricia Guild book from the library and thought it was such a great idea, I have read about other people having inspiration scrapbooks full of magazine cut outs and all sorts of bits and pieces. So this year I have started my own and thought I would share a few pages with you. I love pasting them in in groups to give each page a different feel, and it's good to look through when I'm in need of ideas for cards or presents or all sorts of things. The first page is all pinks and reds, I have to say I have always had a thing for pink and right now it's bright strong pink, and I think red and emerald green are fantastic together. There is also a copy of a Basquiat painting whose work i love and find quite complex.

This page is just a few different pictures of how frames could be arranged, I love the idea that is popular right now of sitting frames on the floor against the wall, it can look quite stunning, and i just love that colour blue the door is with the sandstone.


On this last page it's an article about a shop in Sydney called Papier D'Amour I am looking forward to visiting later this year and a few other images I felt worked well.
Really I just like being able to have a notebook I can open at any time and always feel happy and inspired by and it's always nice to have all these ideas together, without having to go hunting through past magazines, altho I do love doing that too!

Apparently it's good luck

Well today i have had one of those days were I think my brain stayed in bed when I got up this morning! I have forgotten things and muddled my way through the day, and I was so pleased when it was time to go home from work and raced to the bus. When I got there my coin purse had vanished in my bag as they do and I put it down on a wall to rumage through. Then finally got on the bus and sat down with my bag on my lap. About halfway through the trip i realised something was not right, my black skirt had white muck all over it. Bird droppings to be precise! I nearly died! I had obviously put my bag down in some on the wall. I was horrified!
So thankfully tonight rd and I went out for a lovely dinner with cousins and friends and redeemed my day and I retold my story and was told it's good luck. I am not so sure about this (perhaps if it gets you while it's flying in the air??) it's pretty yuk actaully! But at least I could laugh about it.
So now I am calm and returned to bed with my brain and listening to some lovely music on my ipod the new Ryan Adams single (can't wait for the album) some new and old school Flaming Lips and a song called Hearts a Mess by Australian band Gotye which I was really not so keen on to start with but it's kinda hypnotic and it's growing on me more and more, quite beautiful really.
The photo is the closest thing I have to a bird picture, I can't remember where it came from. Lovely though.

Hibernation

It's been a bit of a quiet week this week which is quite a nice thing, I think the cold winter has caused a bit of hibernation! Although this morning I did brave the (indoor) swimming pool, it was so chilly, the water was freezing, apparently the pool hasn't warmed to winter temps yet according to the man there. Not sure I wanted to know this piece of information before I jumped in! At least it wasn't like this, taken by a friend a while ago up at the lakes

I ordered some cards from etsy seller 12fifteen and they arrived today I think they are so fantastic I love the pale blue and orange and the title identity crisis deer. Very cool I think I will frame them.


On my wishlist right now this and this

Work In Progress

Well I have been thinking about some new ideas for cards for a little while now and tonight have finally put them together in my journal. I have been working with paper cut outs, something which I really enjoy.
I love the intricacy of cutting out the smaller pieces and layering them with different colours to produce something quite simple.
I guess to me cut outs are not dissimilar to collages, something I worked with a lot a few years ago, and I recently saw some of Henri Matisse's cut outs in this which are so amazing.
I love the way he could make somthing so beautiful with a simple piece of coloured paper.
Oh by the way please excuse the bad photographs, I might take some another time in better light to show you.

Chilly!

Wow! We are going through a serious cold snap here in Hobart, it is frostily cold, wet and windy. And so I was extremely pleased this evening when my first subscription issue of Domino magazine arrived in my letterbox! This weather is just calling for a quiet night to cosy up in my pink blanket with something new and different to read. In Australia we don't really have anything quite like Domino, it is contemporary and fresh and filled with beautiful photographs, and perhaps it is a good thing that not everything is easily available!
I should be working on some new card ideas which i have floating around in my head in pink and green collages but i think perhaps it can wait a night!

Bloomsday

Yesterday was Bloomsday, a day that commemorates James Joyce's Ulysses. The book is based on a stream of consciousness as the main character Leopold Bloom wanders Dublin on the 16th June 1904, so for the past three years my boyfriend rd and I have celebrated this day and the spirit of wandering in various ways.
This year involved a morning so cold and foggy which cleared into a beautiful winter blue sky, we strolled through the suburbs of Hobart to breakfast, browsing new music, a brief interlude at a slightly dodgy pub, the famous and very good Salamanca markets some lunch at a hidden little cafe and some galleries.
We saw Hobart's Affordable Art exhibition, which is largely amatuer artists and included some tempting works!
There is something special about taking the time to explore the place you live in through new eyes and in a way that is out of the ordinary.

Hi There!

Well my time has come to join in something i have been experiencing from the outside for a while. The world of blogging! I have found it so curious reading about things that inspire people and all the wonderful things they create that I felt I just had to give it a go.
I love art and craft in all it's forms and for me there's nothing more enjoyable that an afternoon or evening spent completely absorbed by a new project, whether it be card making, drawing, creating with felt, collage, book making, or my latest purchase the wonderful world of gocco.
So this space is for me to record my progess and creations and attempt to make what I love a bigger part of my life, I am sure along the way i will digress into many other aspects of my life here in Tasmania.
So i hope you will enjoy!

Catherine