Winter shoot for Pulp Noir

Spent all day yesterday in studio to work on the lifestyle shoot for Pulp Noir for Winter 2011. A tiny, crappy-quality sneak peek here. Will upload the final images when they're released, about mid-Feb.

Basketcase

As Christmas hampers from suppliers arrive at offices across the country, they are usually distributed amongst staff; this occurred last week at Ton's work, where he lucky-dipped one of the baskets all the goodies came in. (Sadly, no goodies, but I digress) At first I was at a loss about what to do with this new acquisition, but I think it will come in very handy as an additional magazine 'rack', as our existing rack is full and all bookshelves overflowing. Sadly the colour is completely wrong, so this will be one of the DIY projects to tackle over the break; I'm planning on white-washing this and have been furiously googling the easiest, least time-consuming way to do this. (Why yes, I am lazy.)

I dub thee

We only have a couple of pot plants on the balcony, but I couldn't resist these adorable little chalkboards from Blake & Taylor to label them anyway. Something that we didn't plant has started growing in one of the pots, so I have dubbed it the Mystery Plant for now, and we are very interested to see what that will turn into.

Minimalist Christmas

I wasn't planning on putting out any Christmas decorations this year, but I finally got into the spirit this weekend and put up a few baubles on my twisted willow branches in the living room.

Just the right length

What a fabulous length for a wedding frock!! Long enough to be formal, but short enough to show off the shoes. Beautiful! Found at Once Wed.
Photography by Our Labor of Love by Heidi

More Hush Puppies stuff

The Global Hush Puppies images for winter are so beautiful, they did a really nice job on the shoot and styling. Simple, quirky, effective. Sorry about the terrible photography, I couldn't find them anywhere online.

 

Cooking a whole beast

I really enjoy cooking, but after cooking night after night I feel that I've fallen into a bit of a rut, and I tend to keep making the same meals over and over. While Masterchef was on I'd sometimes break out and cook something really random and out-there (mince-stuffed squid, for instance) but I've been back to playing it safe for a while now. To remedy this I bought a whole (frozen) spatchcock last time I went to the butcher. Since I'd never cooked a whole spatchcock before I trawled the net for some inspiration - I didn't find a recipe that grabbed me straight away, but a great technique on how to cook it. This involved using scissors to cut along the spine and take that out and flatten the spatchcock down and pin the bird across the body with wooden stakes through the wing and thigh to keep it flat. It looked a little like a murder victim so I will spare the photos. I had a bit of a vegetarian moment as I was holding the bird about to cut out its spine but I pulled myself together ;)
Anyhow, since it's a made-up-on-the-spot recipe I don't have quantities, but I marinated the spatchcock in the following ingredients and it tasted delicious!
Oil, loads of honey, loads more garlic (from Toowoomba, yum!), a couple of table spoons of sweet & sour lime pickle by The Bramble Patch (Stanthorpe) and a good splash of soy. This was teemed with honey-roasted potato and sweet potato. I will make this again, it was super-tasty. (although this might mean I'm back to my original problem of always cooking the same thing - drat!)

More watercolour

While I had the colours out I decided to do some more doodles. I was watching Big Love (brilliant show!) and just painted features of whatever female character was on-screen at the time I was painting. So this is kind of a weird hybrid of everyone on the shoe, as seen through my eyes. With my hair cut, as Ton just kindly pointed out. That just slipped in without me noticing.
She looks a bit angry I think.

Watercolour shoes

Trying to get my watercolour mojo back, starting with colouring some pencil doodles I did at work.

 

The Seedling Mark II - Week 2

Recovered nicely.

DVD masquerading as vinyl

We got a promo today from Hush Puppies advertising their new 1958 Collection; they included a video about the collection on a DVD printed to look like vinyl - how neat!

"Those hipsters sure know how to make coffee"

Quote attributed to Ton. We did some grocery shopping at the Coorparoo Markets today and there's a cool little coffee stand inside where we got a tasty cuppa; but I love their menu/bogan menu best:

Nice logo, too.

The Seedling Mark II - Week 1

Now that the evil caterpillars have vanquished the plant seems to be growing quite fast again.

The Evil Choko

Julie gave me this choko in the morning - he used to have hair but I lost it. Do you think that's why he looks so angry?

Another thing I learnt today

When a chicken lays an egg the shell is soft when it comes out. It quickly gets hard once it hits the outside world though.
I feel like such a city girl, not knowing that until today.

What I learnt at Muse on Monday night

If there is a massive crowd of people clapping to the beat, ONE person who is off-beat will ruin the rhythm and everyone will stop clapping.

On a more positive note...

this little guy visited us again. It must be to do with the weather; the last time he perched on our railing was when there was a torrential downpour, same as today. I'm happy he likes to use our balcony as shelter, I just wish he turn the other way to do a poo. Anyone know what kind of bird this is?

Weekly seed photos - 11 weeks on

Well, I finally figured out what's been eating my plant. These caterpillars have made my plant their home and deposited their offspring. The little bastards..

So I decided to cut it all back and start again. Weekly plant photo mark II.

Inspiration

Keri Smith titled this post "Secrets Shared", but I think these are great thoughts for anyone in a creative industry, maybe even outside of. Please have a read through her 15 secrets for a successful working life.

Water colour Inspiration

Stumbled upon this amazing NY-based artist Marion Bolognesi, who works predominantly/only (?) in water colour. Water colours has always been my favourite medium, but I haven't painted in such a long time, I think I may have forgotten how to. So I'm putting this up to remind me to get back into some painting; hopefully I'll have time over the break to get a little bit of painting done.

Maison Des Papillons - a quick e-invite

A little freelance thing I did for a friend a few weeks ago; 3 fashion/accessories labels put on a show at Oriel Gallery in Ascot. Sadly I couldn't go to the show as I had our grading on the same day.

Brisbane Dusk Sky

First chili of the season

This one went into the marinade for a yummy steak tonight.

Weekly seed photos - 10 weeks on

Philly Jays Gig at the HiFi

We'd gotten to know Philadelphia Grand Jury's songs through spin class (Going to the Casino) and Triple J, and downloaded (from iTunes, of course) a few of their songs without realising they were all the same band until going through our play list one day. How embarrassing.
We hadn't been to a live music gig in ages, so we were very excited to hear that they were coming to Brisbane, although I was slightly worried I might start a Pavlovian sweat when they played Casino. This, luckily, did not occur.
We started the night off with a Greek dinner, then proceeded to the Lychee Lounge for cocktails to kill time before the first opening act started playing at 9.
The Philly Jays finally came on about 11 (I am SUCH a nanna, I was about ready to go to sleep by that time), and they immediately got the tightly packed in crowd pumped. Sadly their set was a bit short, but the approx. 45 minutes they were on were amazing. Such great energy! We'll definitely be back next time they're in Brisbane, and you guys should all come along!! It was a great night out for us oldies.
I'm also very keen to see some more live gigs at the HiFi, that venue is great - you feel THISCLOSE to the band!

A 1 minute compilation of crappy footage I took on my phone. Since my phone doesn't record music very well I put a track under the whole thing, The Good News, by Philadelphia Grand Jury, of course.



Also, some terribly pixelated, blurry and low-res photos...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green & Hot

Our chili tree is back in business - about 5 green chilies are hanging in there at the moment. I think it'll only be a couple of weeks until they turn that lovely dark shade of yellow that this variety produces.

Weekly seed photos - 9 weeks on

I'm starting to wonder when this will actually start flowering.

Hand-made in Byron

 

How beautiful are these scarves! The light-weight muslin is dyed with indigo, and each scarf is unique. I imagine these would be perfect for travel in more conservative, yet hot countries to cover shoulders, head etc.
More info here.

How nifty is this sofa!

Designed by Daisuke Motogi, this sofa ensures a safe place to store your bits and bobs whilst you slump down for a night of TV. Found via @designsponge