Rainy day perks No. 1

One thing I don't mind putting up with rain for :)

View from the verandah at home today. 

All work and no play makes Alfie super cute!

I’ve been working a lot lately and as a result have been in my study for multiple hours at a time. Alfie has taken a liking to the window seat so he can keep an eye on me as well as the neighbourhood. Today he got cosy with the sheep and used him as a headrest. It’s super freezing in Sydney at the moment. I’m really looking forward to cuddling up to a warm G in my bed tonight!

Sydney Tropfest 09.

Tropfest NY 2008 winner: Mankind Is No Island by Jason van Genderen.

On a beautiful summer's night earlier this year we went to the Domain to watch Tropfest 09, a short film festival that takes place in Sydney annually. In 2008 New York started a Tropfest of its own and the winner was played in Sydney this year. Sitting on the grass with Alfie beneath a big tree and watching this film was a really lovely experience. I thought the film was beautiful so decided to share it with you.

Hope you like it.

xxx

Strength in Sunshine.

On Monday the skies in Sydney were grey and threatening. 

The whole day felt tense, cold and acted as a little memo that winter was rapidly approaching. 

As a definite fan of Summer and a girl who last winter wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there forever, I felt anxious.

I wondered if this winter I'd feel the same, if my brain would override my body and refuse to let me feel intense happiness without sunlight to direct it.

On Tuesday the grey line on the horizon broke and water cascaded from the sky for hours. I was reminded of the day my eldest sister left home. Entering her room after returning home from school and seeing empty cupboards, missing objects and marks on walls that pictures had once covered. I remembered sitting on a mattress, looking through the large glass window, out to the falling rain. 

When the skies hold up, it is easy to feel anxious. 

When the rain begins to fall we are no longer anticipating it's beginning. 

We can stay inside and watch out our little window until we see the raindrops falling less frequently. 

It's a matter of patience and not of strength once the rain has started to fall. 

We have the ability to conquer it by taking shelter, by taking out our drawing pad and drawing pictures of the magic sun.

Eventually our drawings become so realistic that we begin to find it difficult to differentiate between them and reality.

Perhaps that is what is meant when the highly esteemed "they" talk about 'creating your own happiness'.

I'll draw some sun for you.

For Elks.

Eggcellent!

We made some patterned eggs using small cuttings of silk this year. The egg is wrapped in silk, then in calico and then sits in boiling water with some white vinegar for 40 minutes. Everyone huddled round in the sewing room for the unwrapping which was the best part. We were totally chuffed at how they turned out. Next easter we may go silk-egg crazy :)

These beautifully delicate eggs by Franc Grom are so incredible I couldn't help but include them. He uses an electric drill to carve the details!! 

Flying undies.

Surrealism.

In looking through a bunch of artworks by Mark Ryden recently, I came across one that had a tree that looked almost identical to one I took a photo of in Mexico. I absolutely love his paintings!  

Rainbow Styling.

I wear a serious amount of black clothing but have a definite appreciation for crazy colour. Went to Mexico at the start of the year and got a colour fix like no other. This floor was a temporary installation piece made using neon tape. I started contemplating wether this would work on the floors of a kitchen in a little apartment. By the time I move into a place of my own I'm hoping I will have lost this picture because it will be sorely tempting to create something similar. 

Vintage Kimono skirt.

I'm in the process of making a skirt out of pieced-together Japanese kimono silks. Here are all the beautiful vintage squares laid out before I sewed them together. The skirt is a project for rainy days and even though there have been multiple since I started, I am still a bit hectic time-wise and haven't finished it yet. Can't wait to get into sewing in the coming holidays! I'm going to add a thick black sash and wear it to an arty party, oOoh lala ;)

Gingerbread yumminess!

A wild turkey flew up onto our verandah just before Christmas last year. He was about as random as this post shall be...

My extremely Jewish friend decided to embrace Christmas last year, so in the spirit of one's first Christmas I bought him a ginger bread house kit and we decorated it together. This was the first one I'd ever made myself and it was awesomely fun! We consumed more icing than the house itself and by the end were on incredible sugar highs. The amount of icing sugar used in that icing is ridiculous! We didn't put nearly enough, so our piping was not as good as it should have been. 100% yumminess! 

A dark and stormy night...

Hard work can pay off it seems. I was a bit of a frantic chicken before (and a little during) the party but it turned out just as I'd imagined. We lit hundreds of candles. We hung hundreds of spiders on spooky webs and set up a projector to run horror films throughout the night. I made coffin cakes, cookies in the shape of witches fingers, brain cupcakes and lots more appetising delicacies. G made a fantastic horror music playlist. Nix cut out amazing bats while recovering from shoulder reconstruction. Friends arrived in brilliant costumes. Everyone lent a hand on something and eventually after a day of tired tidying up there was miraculously no more work to be done. This felt eerie in itself. So glad I did it. Looking forward to doing nothing next halloween ;)

The day of no return.

The day one starts glittering miniature skeletons for a party is the day most people would consider the end of sane behaviour. Today I thrived at insanity! 

Location.

This was the venue for the party pre-chaos of decorating. Mum, Alf and Thea came with for the inspection :) 

The earliest/latest halloween post.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to have an extravagant Halloween party. The image in my head was of an overly large evil feast. Last year it grew to incorporate the take over of a large room in a Lavender Bay terrace house which was transformed into an ominously dark gathering place for things that went bump in the night. The event surpassed my expectations but not without a serious amount of work and planning ahead of time. Here is a tombstone in progress and a hardworking G.