Girls weekend away

Last weekend I went away for my first girls weekend away since having kids. It was a short distance away, the beautiful (but cold!) NSW Southern Highlands but it felt like worlds away - no little people asking for snacks every second, fighting with their siblings, complaining of phantom tummy aches etc. You know, just ordinary stuff but the stuff that means you can't enjoy a quiet coffee, go to the bathroom alone or have a full conversation. Well, there were plenty of long conversations on our girls weekend, some while relaxing in the hotel's huge spa, ahh!!

We enjoyed the beautiful weather, drank lots of coffees...

Talked books and more books (I started this one, recommended by this enthusiastic reader and fellow weekend goer ;-) ...

Went to a great retro shop that, in their own words, "Sells really cool stuff"...

Visited a fantastic local gallery and fell in love with the chicken and rooster portraits in the Birds of a Feather exhibition...


Wandered around a small town market and bought this beautiful skein of wool, with a view to making a little boy's beanie. I can feel a winter addiction coming on ;-) ...

 And lastly, on my way home, I stopped in at a handmade shop called Made by Others. Wow, I thought we were spoiled for this type of thing in Sydney, but this has the best collection I've seen. I couldn't resist buying an amazing pair of hand screen printed tights (how do you screen print tights??). It was very inspirational to meet the 2 owners and chat about the business. Whilst I'm sure there are stresses to the business I would love to have something like this - to be surrounded by all that creativity all the time would be amazing. I left inspired and vowed I'd go back.

Sadly there won't be much crafting going on here this week - having a night away from home has made me realise how bad the quality of our sleep has become with a 2 year old and a four year old in our bed night after night (not our choice, their habits). So if I am to try to change the habits and convince them to stay in their own beds I must go to bed early myself and be prepared for the possibility of wakeful nights returning them to their beds. Wishing you a restful week!

Coffee sack art

Inspired by all the coffee sack craft I've noticed around the blogs lately, like this lovely footstool from Kootoyou, I thought I'd show you something I made with them a while ago.

When we renovated our kitchen a few years ago we had a wall that could do with some decoration and I wanted to make something to hang on it. I decided to do a homage to coffee. As the Mr works with coffee, we both like drinking it and a sizable proportion of the new bench space would be taken up with the machine and accessories, I thought this was a fair call!



So I came up with the idea of painting on coffee sacks. I bought them for about $2 each from a great local place called Reverse Garbage who take in donations of packaging and materials from local businesses that are no longer needed and sell them to the public as art materials of whatever. Then I bought a couple of cheap canvases from a local $2 shop, stretched a single layer of coffee sack material ('hessian' or 'burlap') over the front surface and used a staple gun to secure it at the back.



Next I used acrylic paints in shades of green, beige and white (to work in with the kitchen colours) and with a small foam roller I rolled out random geometric shapes until I was happy with the design. The hessian turned out to be a nice surface to paint on, though it's so coarse that I don't think I'd try and intricate design as it would be hard to get much detail in.



I left some of the bare coffee sack showing so that you could still tell what it was, and mounted the canvases side by side. It was a fun project to do and I've enjoyed them, but 3 years on I'm a bit tired of the design so I think I'll paint something over the top, maybe trying some different colours this time.

Nature as art

The very beautiful and detailed sea urchin shell, a marvel of pattern and form.

Have you seen the beautiful Geninne's Art Blog? She is an amazing artist, has a lovely sense of style and a house to die for! I think I just want to be her :-)

Inspired by this post and also this one from Soulemama I thought I'd show you some of my favourite pieces of nature used as art around our home.


A mobile made from finds from a trip to the beach: driftwood, broken shells, seaweed, leaves and pussy tails


One in my collection of seed pods


And another - the lotus seed pod

The protea flower with its beautiful architectural form


Mixing wood, glass and flora. Is there a better combination of elements?

Weekend inspiration no. 1

While away for the weekend we took the kids to the Australian National Museum in Canberra. The girls loved trying the interactive exhibits and also playing on the wave sculpture outside. They couldn't believe their luck that they were allowed to run up it, and tried to get as far up as they could!

But what I loved was stumbling upon the temporary exhibition Tayenebe - Tasmanian Aboriginal women's fibre work, travelling Australia from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.


Eva Richardson, Water Carrier, 2005, bull kelp , tea tree, river reed Photographer Simon Cuthbert

Tayenebe is a project involving Tasmanian Aboriginal women who journeyed together across the island to research and revive this ancient craft. The exhibition is the resulting work of the women and also some historical pieces.


L to R Unknown maker date 1800s Colleen Mundy Basket 2008 white flag iris Photographer Simon Cuthbert

These baskets made in natural materials were lovely in a raw, earthy way. Some were very simple designs and others incorporated other natural materials (I'm guessing found) including feathers, seaweed and shells. Some I found the most interesting were made using bent pieces of that really thick, almost leather-like kelp that you find on the beach. When it dries it goes rigid but of course is organic and I guess comes to life again when it gets wet.


Eva Richardson, Water Carrier, 2005, bull kelp , tea tree, river reed Photographer Simon Cuthbert


Bull kelp in its natural state Photographer George Serras
If, like me, you are inspired by this beautiful craft, have a look at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery website and click on "tayenebe education resource". This illustrates some basic techniques. Also, Craft Australia has a review of the exhibition.


A basket is woven into shape White flag iris Photographer Lucia Rossi

I've always loved playing around with willow and sticks and making them into little shapes, wall hangings etc, and looking around my house I have several versions of woven baskets. But it suddenly surprised me that I'd never considered trying basket weaving before. And seeing the exhibition I was so inspired that I came away desperate to learn about it.

If anyone has tried basket weaving please let me know about your experience.