Why has it taken me so long to find this blog/site?

Indie Fixx.  I love it. Lots. 

I found it through another blog that was advertising their free online magazine - Joie. Which by the way, I loved so much that I paid for it (you have the option to pay $2 for it if you want to contribute - so I did - Ive paid a lot more than that for magazines that I didnt even like in the end. And I happily pay $10 odd for Pepermint or Frankie so $2 is nothing). I cant remember which blog it was (darn it) cause it was a random blog that didnt really hold my interest too much. But it led me to Joie which led me to Indie Fixx. Bless.

Seriously, this site is chock full of creative and arty goodness. Im in love and plan to spend quite a lot of time rambling around in its archives.  I suggest you go do the same!

Go Penguine Go!

This just made me laugh so I had to share. I suggest you turn the sound off - its naff.

A Rainbow Staircase!

Check this out - its a rainbow staircase in a super modern house in London.  I read about this house first on the blog Jeannie Jeannie.  I love the Jeannie Jeannie blog because it has the most gorgeous modern design posts. 

I love to dream that I can afford some of the items and houses she finds. And the art pieces she  shows are inspirational. Its design at its very modern best in my opinion. Not to mention the paper products - you all know Im addicted to stationary of all types.  I would highly recommend having a look at this blog.

But Back to the House. How seriously Cool is the staircase and the slide back down?! Though I agree with Jeannie I think - cushions are a must. 

And personally Im not sure I could deal with the kitchen floor when Im in need of my coffee first thing in the morning.  Looks like a fun house to visit though.

HEADACHE

Ive spent the last couple of days suffering with a massive headache. I think its the storms 'cause Ive had a massage and taken LOTS of tablets but it all just tones it all down not removes it. 

Unluckily my boss got a headache yesterday too so while Im really sorry for her pain, I was glad 'cause it meant I could stay in bed an extra day. So Im feeling much better than I was.

Though I am considering going out and yelling at my really 'considerate' neighbour who has decided to mow his lawn at 6.30am. WTF?! Seriously!

I hope y'all are good and all my flood affected friends are OK.

QLD - Perfect One Day, Under Water The Next

No Im not meaning to be a Smart-Arse.  Im sitting in the middle of it all. Just a quick note to all my friends and family - Hell, Thomas and I are OK. We are cut off - water all around our little estate turning us into an island. But we are not going to actually flood ourselves. 

We will lose power when it peaks because our substation is just down the road and in the place that is about to go totally under water. So anyone that is worried - we are fine. We might just be out of communication till it all goes down. 

We will be rationing the phones once power goes off cause we cant charge them so if one doesnt work, try the other.

I hope all out there are well and safe and for those of you who are not, my prayers are with you.

Its Sunday Im in Love....

Yeah I know. The real quote is "Friday" but I didnt find this site to love on Friday. I found it tonight - Sunday!

You HAVE to check out this gorgeous site -Upon a Fold and blog. I mean seriously how gorgeous are all those paper goods. Now if you know me at all you know I have a real weakness for stationary of all kinds. Yes even the mundane. I can spend an hour just wandering around in Officeworks and we all know that is not the most gorgeous place. I spend way too much money in Kikki-K and Typo. And now I have found another Australian paper goods site to spend my non existant money on (there goes New Years resolution number 5 - save more spend less). This site has so much that I want. Now. Oh man, I really do work to feed my shopping habit dont I?

I was particularly blown away by these paper rings. Now I would suggest that rather than wearing them they are art pieces. But how very clever and beautiful are they?

Im in Love with this site. Ive already ordered something (of course).

Another thing I want to do this year is get back into the long lost art of snail mail letter writing. I find it really satisfying recieving little bits and pieces of joy in them mail. Do you remember the thrill as a child to recieve a letter from someone unexpectedly?

So I am sending them out because I need to share that love.  Ive joined a postcard swapping site called postcrossing and regularly send off postcards to strangers. And recieve them.  Its such fun.  Im going to gather all the physical addresses of all my friends - even the ones that I havent spoken to in a long time, and reconnect with them via mail. Some will say WTF? and others will get the same sort of joy that I get from recieving some love in the mail.

So if youre out there and want a piece of mail love - just leave me a comment with an address or even safer - email me directly at leisa@moonshinedesign.com.au and I will send you something! I promise.

One last paper related thing - you really need to grab a copy of this free download of a Calender. It is SO COOL!

Ok. Ive had enough rain now thanks.

 Its still pouring up here in Queensland (Australia). So much so that my front lawn has turned into a fish pond. Literally. The first photo is my front path from the front door towards the road (ie getting in and out of the house). It has been routinely filling up with water when it pours because the water volume is just too much for the drainage in our front lawn. So we have to wade back and forth.

But thats not the worst. Its been a pond now more or less for 3 weeks. So of course the Cane Toads are LOVING IT. And so, my new pond is now full of Huge tadpoles. I kid you not. There are so many I can just reach in and capture them in my hand. And when the rain comes again the water raises over the pathway, and yes the Tadpoles go with it. Thus the second photo - thats the tadpoles hanging around outside my front door. Looks like gold fish or something doesnt it. Somewhat amusing when you have to walk through them.

Im not quite sure what to do about it yet. I cant let them live unfortunately (I hate to kill ANYTHING. Even spiders - I only get at them if they jump on me). Cane Toads are an absolute menace and they have no natural preditors here in QLD. They kill all the native frogs and lizards and if youre not careful your dog (they get poisoned by them if they try to chase them and get one in their mouth). So I will have to work out a way to kill them without killing my front lawn and without killing the rest of the environment.

I really hope all my green tree frogs are in the back yard.  I know none of these are my Green Tree frogs cause the tadpole is much larger than a baby tree frog - we see them regularly here. They are so cute. Around the size of my thumb nail (not that I pick them up of course). These tadpoles are already about the size of a 20c piece. Gotta be Toads. Sigh.

Pantone Colour of the Year - Honeysuckle

OK so this year Pantone has decided that their colour of the year is Honeysuckle.  Are you like me and thought a honeysuckle was a yellow colour? Nope, its pink. Methinks this colour of the year is not overtly original. But I guess in reality no colour is in the fashion industry so why not go with Pink again. At least it is popular right?!

Pink and I have a love/hate relationship. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. Fortunately for my skin, it always loves me. And in Pantone's favour, at least this is a strong pink and not some pastel baby pink (bleh - no offence to anyone intended).

I wonder how they come up with the colour of the year. I kind of understand how they end up a trend in clothing as far as style goes - one of the designers does something, puts it on a cat walk, the fashionistas go gaga over it (no pun intended), and then all the chain stores pick it up and run with it mass production style.  So it starts in the brain of someone going - lets try this.

But how do they pick a colour trend? Other than in a similar way to the above - that designer so and so has used it in their collection.

Maybe its based on ink levels. "Hey Mr Pantone, its Dougs Dyes here. We have a serious overstock of pink right now. Think you can shift it for us?"

Chuckle Chuckle.Yes I AM overtired.

Happy New Year! Welcome 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Welcome to 2011!

I will hopefully start to blog again this year and keep you up to date with all the things I find and do.  Hopefully it will be interesting for you. As part of that I will be reorganising this blog profile - sorting out the gazillion blog links I have into something more manageable (there are SO many fabulous blogs to read out there).

I will also be writing more and updating my other blog - Prismatoria. So if you are interested in an amateur fantasy story land, then please hop on over there and see whats happening.

I hope that you all have had a great holiday season and I will 'speak' with you all during the year!

Do you Zentangle?

Upon my wanderings around the web I have come across Zentangle. From what they say on their web site its a form of meditative drawing. Created by Maria Thomas and Rick Roberts they have this to say:

"One day, Maria told Rick what she experienced as she drew background patterns on a manuscript she was creating. She described her feelings of timelessness, freedom and well-being and complete focus on what she was doing with no thought or worry about anything else.  "You're describing meditation," Rick said.
Rick and Maria wondered if they could create a simple system so others might enjoy a similar experience. And so began the journey towards discovering this simple and elegant system called Zentangle."

All I know is that its fun to do, and you cant do it wrong. There is no wrong. You just kinda draw and whatever you do is fine. Its like when you're drawing you can just focus on the lines and your brain doesn't have to worry about anything else. Its quite relaxing.  Ive done a couple myself but Im without a camera at the moment so Ive included one of the ones from the Zentangle web site so you can see what I mean. Flickr has a huge pool of them.

I found this squidoo about Zentangles that explain in simple terms how to zentangle. For someone like me that is enough to work out what Im doing. But if you want to use their specific patterns and ideas and learn how, you can either buy a DIY pack or they also have seminars and stuff. They even accredit their teachers. I find that a little bizarre - that its so very structured when in actual fact its such a simple process. But hey, I guess some people need to be taught an official way. Maybe there is more to it than I know?

Me personally, Im just finding it fun. And I can see some zentangled shrinky dinks coming my way in the future...

More Owls

OK so Im obsessed.  But you just have to see these guys.  First up is this amazing little guy who changes dramatically when he thinks hes in trouble.  Im not sure what the japanese show is saying so I muted the sound. But it doesnt actually need the sound.  Try looking around 1 minute and then again for a different transformation at around 1min 40.




And of course then we have THIS owl. I really wish I had one like this living near me. SO darling! And dont you just love his eye makeup?



OK Im off to bed. Hope you like those guys.

Of interest to Brisbane-ites, and anyone who really loves fashion and magazines...

OK so that was a really long title from me. And this is going to be a very short blog entry.

Whilst wandering through the fabulous website of Lauren Carney - a super talented artist from Brisbane whom I found at the Finders Keepers market on Saturday - she alerted me to a new fashion/style/indie magazine called Charlie.  Its an online magazine so its easy to download and read, and best of all, its free.

OMG Im in love. Its an online magazine published here in Brisbane Australia and I love love love it.  So I wanted to let ya'll know so that you can love it too!  Go check it out.

Thank you Ms Carney! Much appreciated!

Im not dead just floating.....

Contrary to the popular belief amongst my friends and family, I am not actually dead dear reader. I am exceedingly busy doing...stuff and things, things and stuff. Very little of it actually worth writing about. Just basic iving type things.

Last week I made myself a new handbag using an Amy Butler pattern. It went well but I have no photos as yet so I will post again about it another time. I will say I enjoyed the process and her pattern was very easy to follow. So if you  are eyeing a pattern off, go for it I say. Im planning to make an iphone cover next by using an Amy Butler laptop/ipod cover pattern.

I  dont get a lot of time to do crafty stuff at the moment. With 2 teengers and a 6 month old in the house there are always too many things to do. (Just cause the teenagers are the parents doesnt seem to stop them being typical teenagers in a lot of ways). Seriously, those ladies out there who have families and businesses AND craft, I totally take my hat off to you! I just dont know how you do it. Im having enough trouble keeping on top of the housework when the baby is not mine!

Enough from me for the moment. I have ghost in my keyboard who is making typing very annoyingg, so Im leaving before I smash somehing. (Its missing some letters, adding othersn randomly and I have to pound the space baar to make it work).

"toodles"

BEE STING!

Helping Helen around the house today I have managed to be stung by a bee about a half hour ago on my leg just below the knee.

It HURTS.  
A LOT!

Good thing Im not allergic!  Did I mention it hurts.....

OWL!

If you know me a little you will know that I LOVE Owls. I think they are the most beautiful creatures and I have a number of pictures and toys of owls around.  

Well, on Thursday night on the way home we happened to see a live Owl. He startled me by flying in front of the car as we were driving into our estate. There was no way I was going to hit him because I was only going about 10k coming up to a roundabout. He flew from the side of the road, across my nose and up into the Big tree in the middle of the roudabout and then sat there looking at me indignantly. I was entranced. He was SO beautiful. He looked like the one in the photo above so Im guessing from that, that he is a Powerful Owl.

In another Owl related sighting, there is a gorgeous post from Mod Kid about her brush with an Owl, complete with photos of the darling creature. You need to go have a look. A different kind of owl but still just as beautiful. Amazing that we have both had owl sightings on the total oposite sides of the world. I hope to see mine again sometime soon.

I would love to own an owl as a pet but I could never bear to subject one to captivity. Same with an Eagle. I kinda wish we could have owls as companions like in Harry Potter. Ones that had their own minds and freedom to come and go etc. Id love that. And on an upside, maybe my mail wouldnt go astray so often then too.

Hope youre enjoying your Easter Break.

Its been a hard days night....

Wow. Youd think that once I was no longer 'employed' Id have plenty of time.  Ive been so damn busy that I feel like Ive been on a treadmill constantly.  And of course, no time to blog or even barely read blogs.

I did manage to go to the Craft Expo last week with my cousin which was fun. Managed to get a fat quarter of my Lila Tueller fabric Ive been waiting and waiting for. Seems like noone is getting it in over here. Dissapointing. And they didnt have more than fat quarters so I couldnt buy a couple of metres like I wanted to. Seems like Im going to have order it in from overseas. Thank goodness for Etsy sellers.  In the mean time Im going to frame the pieces I have and put them on my wall. My 'office' is kinda part of the lunge at the moment so I have to be careful what I do but those should look nice on the wall. If not, they will go into my sewing room.  Yeah, I know, bizarre. An office in a corner and a whole room for a sewing room. I guess 'cause in theory the sewing room gets more messy....anyway.

The other thing that I picked up was a fantastic pattern making system called Lutterloh - The Golden Rule.  Its essentially a tape measure and set of patterns that allow you to create patterns that are totally fitted to your size.  Its the most bizarre looking way of doing things until you see how its done. Then its so very logical and so fantastic that youll just want to sew this way too!  Im going to spend some time sewing from it so I will blog about it going forwards. Im very excited.

Oh and other great news is my cousin is having a baby girl in a couple of weeks.  So I will finally have a little girl to sew for instead of the plethora of boys.  I love all the boys but boys clothing is not as fun is it?  

Little M here at home is growing up fast. Hes only 3.5 months old but hes already cutting teeth, trying to stand up, and man he has the loudest demanding voice of any baby Ive heard in a while. A real little personality. We find the demanding amusing at the moment. Remains to be seen how amused we are when he is 2....I think hes gonna give us hell.  Ah but he is such a little darling. All your worries fall away when you look at him and he smiles at you.  Yep Im totally wrapped around his finger arent I?

The only other thing I seem to be doing is becoming very domesticated. OMG how does anyone have a child, keep up with the housework, cook, clean, AND manage to have any sort of life of their own? I feel like all Im doing is cleaning. Ive barely managed to spend any time on the new business Im trying to set up. And I really need to get onto that!

But for today my cousin Kyrya is coming up to spend the day and we are going to play. Maybe even a little crafting.  I will worry about the business after Easter.

Happy Easter everyone!

A new take on virtual shopping - what fun!

Have a look at this video. I think shopping like this would be much fun for just about anything other than clothes. I still feel the need to get up close and personal with my clothes - not being a perfect size small you see....

Pantone Colour of the Year - Turquoise

Aparently Pantone's colour of the year is Turquoise.  Now this excites me in one way - because I love Turquoise. But it annoys me in another. Because Ive been looking for Turquoise things for the last year or so.  

I seem to do this regularly. I must be smack bang in the middle of their 'typical demographic' because for years now I go looking for colours, shade, patterns or icons (like owls, and mushrooms), that arent around and then turn up 'in fashion' either the next year or the year after when Ive moved on to something else. Its so damn frustrating. 

Ask Helen - I used to like doing the Christmas decorations in specific colour themes, but Ive given up because the colours I want dont actually become available until the following year or the year after. True story. And I havent worked out how to make my own tinsel and baubles etc.  Though saying that I think last year I can across a whole lot of make your own articles and blogs on just that subject - but I found them too late for me to have the time to do them. 

Anyway it looks like I should be able to cover myself in my turquoise this year if the predictions are correct. Yay. One day Im going to work out exactly how this Pantone thing works....and I think Im gonna start making my own stuff and using the colours I want when I want them, and let the rest of the world just catch up to me (heh).

Here comes the sun do do do do

We finally have some sun again after weeks of rain.  Everything is soggy still but its lovely to see blue skies and sun again.  Ive no idea how long it will last and of course its now Autumn so it will all go away soon anyway. But right now, Im enjoying the gentle warmth, the beauty in my garden, and the friends that all the water has brought out (see friend below).

Waters rising and crochet dreams

This morning we woke to find that the river was coming up to meet us.  You can see from the photo on my last post that there is a fair bit of land between the back fence and the edge of the water. What you cant really tell is that there is also about a 4-5 foot drop.  Well, the picture to the left is what we were greeted with this morning. Rain and a rising swell of water.  I think it will take a while for the water to raise up to us, but Im sure other people on the Gold Coast will be flooding at the moment.  We are keeping an eye on it.

In my world of crafting however its the perfect weather for sitting around learning new things. And of course crochet is one of my new things to learn. Ive decided that I really love the idea of a granny square a day as per Pip from "Meet Me at Mikes". She has fantastic beginner videos that are really helping.  I also worked out that I have the total wrong thread for crochet. I should have read the very first lesson post properly. So tomorrow I will go in search of the correct threat/yarn.

A wonderful colour comination I love is something that I saw on the Grand Revival Blog - Purple, Turquoise, Lime and Blue. Yum. I dont want to post any more of her photos here in case she gets upset with me so if you would like to see what she has made of the yarn the post is here. So beautiful. I will show you my own yarns when I get them.

Until then, I hope you are all safe and if you are in the Brisbane/Gold Coast area at the moment, I hope you are enjoying the rain.