Cherry Blossoms

I think I'd like to start wearing cufflinks.
But that would mean I'd have to dress like an adult, instead of the op-shopping art school slob that I am.

Insanity Plea

Here's a little sneak peak, some 'technical' sketches for a couple of lockets I'm making. With hinges and rivets and bits that move and hidden surprises. I must be crazy, someone shoot me now.

Gosh, I don't know what to say.

What's that, Blog? You heard it was my 30th birthday in a couple of weeks and you got me this tahitian pearl ring? Wow, that was so generous- I love it.

(Okay, this ring isn't really for me... it's been commissioned as a surprise 50th birthday present, for someone who deserves it twenty years more than I do. But I do. Love it, that is. Want want want.)

And a matching pendant, too? Oh Blog... you are too kind. 

Housewatch!

Two dodgy photos of kitchen in progress- with special emphasis on ridiculously expensive, long awaited, custom order, pain in the ass benchtop-of-dreams. Keep an eye out for splashback-of-compromise, coming soon. 

Still waiting to move in, waiting for the last little details that will make the house livable and legal. Like running water. Locking it up at night and leaving feels so wrong now- our little house needs us. And boy, do we need it. 

Still- that is a totally hot benchtop. 

Fancy shmancy buttons.

click on image for more detail

I spent this morning at the Paddington Antique Centre in Brisbane, installing a few new pieces of jewellery for an exhibition that's opening tonight. It's called "Fancy!" and features homewares, bags, jewellery and accessories made out of buttons.

It's the brainchild of the Centre's owner Suzy, a true buttonaholic... buttonphile... you know what I mean. She suggested I go 'shopping' through the centre before opening hours for props to use with the jewellery display. Aaah- bliss. It was like my childhood fantasy of being locked in a toy store overnight. Hmmm, I'll take this jug, and I like this hat, and this old glass bottle... it was like Christmas.

The show opens tonight and continues until 3rd December. Lots of pretty things to check out- in that end of Paddo in general.

Here's one of mine- sterling silver and mother-of-pearl button brooch (from Suzy's vaaaast collection).

Slow start this morning

The other night we started on the mega clean-up that's going to be necessary to move all the crap we've accumulated in the last couple of years. I've been storing a box of unfired pots from my failed experiment with wheel-spun pottery, thinking- oh yeah, I might get those fired one day. Well, that's never gonna happen so I asked Mark to throw them into the garden so they could break down in the rain.
When I got up the next morning I saw that instead he'd arranged them in this cute little still-life- I had to pretend to be a photographer and capture it:


I have tonnes of work to do this morning, but I'm sitting here in front of the computer. I'm pretending it's because I'm waiting for the invasion of ants on my temporarily outdoors workbench to subside. (Who left those chocolate chip cookies there??) But really I'm just trawling through my favourite wedding blogs- here and here and here and here. In reality, there's no way I'll have enough time to bake my own cake and arrange all the flowers and create five hundred decorative puffballs out of pink tissue paper, but I'm still dreaming.

It's snowing!

That's a blatant lie, I'm in the Southern Hemisphere and it's 33 degrees and I've spent the day under the fan tatting these lacey snowflakes, which will become silver and gold rings, earrings and necklaces.

Some of these bad boys are going to a trade fair in Milan. Yes, the Italian one. Wish I was chaperoning them.

I've spent most of my life learning Italian- I can't speak that much, but I do have a fabulously fruity accent when ordering things like 'tiramisu'.