Squerls

Today, finally, the constantly grey and drab weather got to me. The tipping point was probably when I found myself in the middle of Hampstead Heath (masssive sprawling park) with no other people in view, tramping along muddy tracks in the wind and rain. I know it could sound very lovely and naturey but I was feeling kind of lonely and very far away from home.

So tonight I'm having a quiet night in, curled up on the couch eating toasted sandwiches and watching Animal Planet (I'm sooo not into cable TV, but how good is a channel completely dedicated to animal shows!?).

I've had a lot of fun recently feeding squirrels in the parks (video to come soon!) so here is my little tribute, also a means of easing my recent creative frustration:


('scuse the colours if they look a bit odd - my laptop monitor is shocking)

P.S. - have a happy easter everyone! I really wish I was home eating hot cross buns and doing an easter egg hunt!

Moo in London!

Oops, quite a long time between posts! I've been spending most of my free time in the evenings/mornings organising our last week trip, which is FINALLY sorted! 6 nights in Barcelona, 2 nights in Paris! The flights were expensive, but a couple of friends are going to be travelling with us which helps ease the cost of eveything else (and will make it much more fun). Thanks to everyone for their suggestions, they were great :)

Meanwhile, I've been keeping myself busy with lots of sight seeing, window shopping, walking, tube catching, bus catching and best of all, catching up with Moo for lunch!



It was so good to meet some of the Moo team in person and they were as lovely as I expected! They took me out for a yummy lunch, and showed me around their office and production area:


Bunches of mini cards all stacked and sorted


Colourful mini card boxes ready to be sent to loving homes

Other highlights have been catching up with Paola for afternoon tea and shopping, sampling some of the yummiest cheese ever at the Borough Market (and doing a complete 180 to go back and buy some), and looking at antiques/bric-a-brac at the markets.


Best cheese ever, by the Borough Cheese Company


A WHOLE STALL (at the Portobello market) dedicated to typecases, wooden type and wooden type artwork! Fantastic!


A little vintage fold out wooden ruler I bought when I stumbled across the gorgeous Camden Passage (quite by accident). I've always wanted one of these.

London shops

Today I spent the afternoon wandering around Covent Garden and Soho. I visited a whole bunch of the shops that you guys kindly recommended: Muji, Topshop, Liberty, Orla Keily, The Cloth House to name a few :)


Check out the crazy Tudor facade of the Liberty shop!


I love the front of the Cloth House shop - very linen-ey and Japanese-craft-book-esque :)

I would have loved to take photos of/in all of the places, but I felt too guilty. I managed to sneak in one photo of a wall of beautiful rolls of felt in The Cloth House before noticing the security camera!


Mmm, so much beautiful wool felt.

The Orla Keily shop was gorgeous, but I felt uncomfortable just walking through it, let alone taking a photo! The shop assistant followed me around the store with a hawk eye ;)

Something is stressing me out quite a bit at the moment - where to go for our last week here before we're scheduled to fly home. We realised too late that it's the Easter weekend when our acommodation expires, and as a result flights and everything are crazy expensive. Any suggestions of where we could go/stay in Europe/UK that's not going to cost the earth?

hello London

Well, one 24 hour flight and one 11 hour time difference later and we're here in London! I think we've more or less conquered our jet lag, settled into our little apartment, and Pete started work yesterday (getting absolutely saturated on the way there due to horrible, squally weather).

It's weird, it hasn't really sunk in yet that we're on the other side of the world. At the moment it just feels like an older, larger version of Melbourne, coupled with all the iconic London stuff you see on postcards. I feel like I'm still looking for something that really grabs me and shakes me and yells out "you're in LONDON!!". I blame Tokyo for the complete lack of culture shock ;)

Okay, time for some pics:


At the gates of Buckingham Palace...


... but I much preferred the gardens and lake nearby, with all the daffodils in full bloom...


... and the crazy 'wildfowl' that look similar to what we have at home but slightly different. Oh and there were squirrels!! I'd never seen a squirrel in person before, so cute!


While Pete worked his first day I took myself to some museums to escape the rain. Above is the Natural History Museum, which I went to see purely for the building....


I also went to the V&A, but curiously wasn't as blown away by it as I expected! I guess I'm not much of a museums girl, but I did love the whole room full of skeleton keys and elaborate locks (thanks to lupinbunny for the heads up!). How beautiful are the pieces above? Just two of like, 100+ pieces. I think I feel a pattern coming.



And last but not least, our little apartment! Light and bright, plenty of room, and completely free care of Pete's work. We are too lucky.

Afternoon Tea

Now, if anyone wants to join me for afternoon tea this Friday you're completely welcome! We're meeting at Costa Coffee in the big Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road at 3:00pm on Friday (14th). Hope to see you there :)

some last minute feedback

The other week I imported this really lovely, environmentally friendly hemp/cotton blend fabric. It's cream in colour with lots of texture and slub. Yumm.

Anyway I got some colour samples back from the printer today and am totally stumped as to which colours to print. The samples I got back were not what I expected, but still really nice:



I'm going to print two colours. I think I'm totally sold on the top one - a sort of dusty pink colour, but am unsure about the bottom two. They're a lot more vibrant in real life than they appear here. I'm not usually one for bright colours but maybe it's time for something like that. What do you think?

Friday Afternoon Tea

I would really love to be going to the craft drinks tonight but I have so much to organise before we leave I feel like I'm going to pop!

If anyone's interested in doing a Friday afternoon tea in London with me and Paola (another crafty type), please leave me a comment - we're thinking of meeting at Costa Coffee in the big Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road. Sounds like a good place to me! We might even do some sort of crafty swap (if I'm organise enough to get some fabric together).

Meanwhile, I managed to squeeze in a quick photo shoot yesterday with the infamous Marcel of hollabee (Bianca's boyfriend). He's working on a photography project about creative peeps and their workspaces, and I also needed some photos for a submission. So it worked out perfectly. Really nice shots too (considering the limitations of my space!):


Doorway to my little office/studio
© Marcel Lee - Bulb Studios


My fav prop - typecase & Jeremiah Ketner print :)
© Marcel Lee - Bulb Studios


Inside my little office/studio
© Marcel Lee - Bulb Studios


OMG it's a half decent picture of me!
© Marcel Lee - Bulb Studios

Okay better get back to it. Thanks again to everyone for the London tips - I will have to go thru them all on the plane :)

happenings

Thank you all so much for the London tips! I haven't had a chance to go through them all but there looks to be some fantastic material there (excuse the pun). I'm even more excited now.

This weekend after running around like crazy people buying some warm clothes for the trip, we went and visited our brand new niece Claire! (defacto niece for me, but whatever) . Born 8 weeks premature she was soooooooo tiny, and in a little capsule thing, but still very cute. It's actually good timing in one way - we live right near the hospital where she'll be staying for a little while so Pete's brother and wife will stay in our apartment whilst we're away. Handy!!

Anyway if you've bothered to read this far then good, because I've got some mix packs appearing in the shop tomorrow afternoon. Need to get them up and posted off before we go! So lets say 3:00pm tomorrow (Monday 3rd) Melbourne time?

Sorry, no pretty pics again today!