Daylesford

Last weekend the girls and I skipped town and went to stay at Dana's mum's house in Daylesford. It was peaceful, relaxing, cosy... full of craft and treasure hunting and yummy food and chatter and a spa & massage at Hepburn to top it all off. A cliche Daylesford experience you might say.

Here's some pics from the weekend...

Sass makes Dandelion tea, bunches of Daphne all around the house

The house. Very D'ford. Amazing garden out the back. Crazy colour scheme inside though!

My bargain from the Daylesford Trash & Treasure. It pays to get there at 7am. I got these T.H. Brown (?) chairs for an absolute steal. The seller said "yeah this stick furniture is all the rage right now"

Flowers from a roadside stall, and Dana's bargain retro desk chair from the Trash & Treasure

I got inspired by some pics I saw over at the Harvest blog and spent time making this little vessel from fabric scraps (I had no instructions or idea what I was doing but got there in the end after a few false starts)

So many more treasures and crafty goodness to show you but as usual I forgot to take photos ;)

xx

Open Studio this Saturday!

Photo by Luka Kauzlaric

More details over at the Ink & Spindle blog. Hope to see you there!

xx

Wellington!

I'm so excited to be visiting Wellington again in a couple of weeks! And this amazing hand-stitched stop motion animation ad makes me even more excited:


Wellington Tourism stop-motion ad by Yukfoo

The last time I was in Wellington was about 8 years ago and I still remember it as one of the few cities where I could imagine myself living. Which is a big call considering how much I love Melbourne. That said I happened to be there during a decidedly non-windy weekend. Ha! Let's see what late August brings ;)

xx

Mac.Robertson

Just finished reading this - Macrobertsonland by Arcade Publications

If you live in Melbourne and you don't know who Macpherson Robertson is you really should.

Mac.Robertson was the founder of Australia's biggest chocolate factory in the late 1800's. He turned working class Fitzroy into the chocolate capital of Australia. He went from making sweets in the bathroom of a tiny Argyle St house to owning acres of factories in the back streets of Fitzroy which still stand today (as apartments of course).

He was much loved by his workers and was a huge philanthropist. I know of Mac.Robertson because he believed in education for women and funded my school.

Macrobertsonland by Arcade Publications

He also invented the Cherry Ripe, Freddo Frog and Old Gold chocolate!

I picked up Macrobertsonland last week from the Nicholas Building open studios and it's been such a great read. I loved reading about our city in it's early years, during a time when things were still made locally and globalisation was yet to change everything. Made me feel very nostalgic.

xx