Awaiting Inspiration

Ok so here's the thing, on my very first visit to Meet Me at Mikes I was so desperate to buy something because I had spent like an hour in there browsing that I finally decided on some old music sheets because they looked cool, where quite cheap, and I figured I could eventually use them for some kind of amazing crafty masterpiece. So I bought them.

When I got some gorgeous cards with my Frankie a few weeks back I selfishly thought to myself, these are destined for greater things than just the mail. They had such pretty designs on the front, and they were from Frankie, surely they were too good to throw in a mailbox. I considered putting them on my wall, with the other thousand things I have cut out and collected from Frankie's over the months (I'll have to show a photo one day, it really is quite ridiculous). But then I thought, no, they were even too good for that. So I kept them.

One lovely Saturday morning I went to the Maling Room in Canterbury with my boyfriend for a quiet Latte on the veranda. While walking back down Mailing Road to his house I discovered a gorgeous little shop that sold all kinds of stationary, including beautiful sheets of printed paper. I found a sheet with pink birds and trees and gold cages, I was in love, I had to have it. $8 later I had this fantastic piece of paper, but what would I use it for? It was too good to use as wrapping paper, and too magnificent to stick to my wall in my room. So I hung on to it.

Then only a few days ago I dared to visit The Works on Burwood Road, this store is too amazing for words and is my actual idea of homeware heaven. In a small fit of impulse buying I found a green tin sign with the Eiffel tower and a paris address on it, it was gorgeous. But I also found some more pretty wrapping paper, this time with hundreds of vintage european stamps covering it, so colourful, so pretty, I had to have it.

So now I have all these things, and I'm really not sure what to do with them. They all so pretty and random, and I've been contemplating making a kind of framed collage for my loungeroom wall. Something like this, but probably without the borders. I was also thinking of adding some framed photos, possibly in black and white, of me and my boyfriend, or my old dog Lady.



Anyway, that's just something I've been thinking about lately, and I had a look at frames at Ikea today so I have a bit of a better idea of prices etc. If anyone has any ideas feel free to comment, I'm more than happy to receive advice!

Shameless Spruiking

Here I am for post number 2, and as promised I'm going to give a big spruik for the Christmas room at Leo's Fine Food and Wine in Kew Junction, aka. my current job, aka. what is paying for a big chunk of my spending money in Europe. Although I'll admit, there is always a huge rush in the last week or so before Christmas when everyone panics and realises they haven't bought presents for their in laws and bosses and cousins and etc. So we go from having not a lot of hampers to make for the first 3 weeks, and suddenly we have 300 to make in 5 days. During this time I begin to hate the Christmas room, so it's a good thing it's so great for the first few weeks.

So anyway, to set the scene a little more pleasantly I'll show off some photos I took on Sunday. Hopefully Jason (store manager) doesn't mind me doing this. But I can't see any problem with some good publicity though!








Here are some of my very own hampers, I would love to show you every single one, but unfortunately I've only worked two days and I have already made about ten hampers, so I won't bore you with all those pictures!

The way the Christmas room works is basically we have a room in the mezzanine level of the Leo's Supermarket where we stock as much gourmet, imported and local, beautifully packaged, delicious and drool-worthy Christmas (and un-Christmas) related goodies. We stock everything from imported Italian Pandoro's and German gingerbread biscuits to cookies by Michel's and Phillipa's legendary brandy sauce. I'm starting to sound like an add here.. Anyway, it's basically a wonderland for the gourmet food lover, and even better you can put a selection of whatever you like into a basket, we wrap it and suddenly it becomes so much more than a basket full of expensive food, it's a masterpiece! (Yes I'm hamming it up, excuse the pun).

Sure it's stressful at times, frustrating a lot of the time (plastic wrap is not as forgiving as you might think), but it's such a beautiful environment that it's hard not to stay festive and cheery. Also, people are less likely to bug you when you're struggling with cellophane, stickytape and ribbons all at the same time. So if you live in the area, do pop in, but be warned you'll most likely leave with a handful of food that you will not regret spending the money on.

Edit* It seems I've managed to very stupidly stuff up the colours of the fonts etc, I had a play around and couldn't remember how it was before so I'm going with something different until I have time to sit down and think about it properly. Hope you like the "new look" for now!

Welcome!

Well here we are, a new blog and hopefully a new-found creative side. Well, we'll just have to wait and see how creative that creative side is. So here goes:

On Sunday I lost my stitching night virginity at Meet Me at Mikes, it was funny how nervous I was consdiering all I was doing was going to hang out with some cool chicks and eat cupcakes, but I was stressing out. Add to that the fact that I missed my tram by 2 minutes so had to wait 20 minutes for the next one, thus making me 10 minutes late and I also missed the right stop so had to walk back 100 metres to find the shop. By the time I walked in I was flustered, nervous and wishing I had stayed at home. But thankfully Pip welcomed me with open arms and her ever-present smile, and I quickly felt more at home. I met some nice girls, but being shy and a newbie I didn't really catch any names and I stuck to my stitching for most of the night.

I did however discover that the very talented girl from Kirin Notebook was present, although I didn't realise this until I came home and read her blog which I have on bloglines... so I had to save the gushing for a comment on her blog rather than in person, which was probably for the best. She also has some designs on Moo where you can make your cards or stickers etc. I'm still trying to justify buying something from there, although I don't usually send out Christmas cards so maybe I'll have to change that just for this occasion! Ok that's enough gushing, love your work Lara!

I also met the lovely Justine of 62 cherry and Mixtape magazine on Saturday morning at the Sine fair held in the Hawthorn town hall, it was a fantastic distraction from voting and I bored the hell out of my brother and boyfriend while I yacked to Justine for more than a few minutes! She was the inspiration for this blog, so I have to dedicate this to her! Thanks for talking me into it Justine, I'll do my best to be spontaneous and crafty and wonderful like everyone else in creative-blog-land.

Here are pics of my first creative attempt from stitching night at Mikes, they're really bad quality because I only just took them then and the light is really bad in my room. The big pear is my door prize which I think is awesome, I need a lot of pins to make that a pin cushion! The purple thing is a really cute note book type thing with a pen which I'm in love with and now carry it everywhere. The cones are what I half finished on the night, and the cake stand is from last night, although it still needs a tiny bit more, I just need to find the right colour.





Wow that was a big first post, I'll try to be more concise in future! I'll write about my work in the Leo's Christmas room on another day to save this becoming a mammoth post. Thanks for visiting my new blog!