this neck of the woods

June 23rd, 2010

Seedy

As some of you may recall, a few months ago I made some seed packets for my wonderful friend Aude’s birthday – well, the seed packets are now officially available in the shop.. wee! (meanwhile Australia just scored their second goal in the world cup against Serbia and Dave’s yelling at the tv!). So anyway, they’re available in two sets – one is a variety of edible veges/herbs, and the other has a mixture of veges/herbs and flowers. Go check them out!

Seed PacketsSeed PacketsSeed PacketsSeed Packets

June 17th, 2010

Australia v Deutschland

As we all know, Australia played Germany in the World Cup on Sunday. If you followed it (or even if you didn’t) you’ll know that we lost to the Germans.. preeeeety badly.

Luckily, earlier on Sunday we were blissfully unaware of our impending embarrassment. We proudly donned our (freshly purchased) Australian flags and tattoos, and with lamingtons under one arm and XXXX beer under the other, we headed to our friend’s place for a true-blue Aussie/Deutsch BBQ. It was a great day, building up to the match with tug-of-war, volleyball and goal-kicking games, German sausages,  Kangaroo steaks, and Black Forest Cake. The match was played at about 8.30pm our (German) time, and would have been great game if we’d actually scored. Unfortunately by the end of it, even the kids who’d – only hours before – professed their love of Australia, wanted out.

Oh well, better luck this weekend Australia! Thanks for giving us an excuse to have a big BBQ anyway :)

Kids tug-of-warKids tug-of-warAdults tug-of-warAdults tug-of-warOne Aussie and One pretendingVincentValentin the Aussie supporterValentin the Aussie supporterLamingtons and PavSchwarzwalderkirschtorteThe great Grill-offRepresenting the German sidewaiting for the match to startdevistated.

June 16th, 2010

Peonies

A week or so ago I snapped up some of these beauties from the flower field down the road for €1 per stalk. They are my favourite flower, so I’m glad I got some while I could – because one week on and there isn’t a single bud left on the bushes. I guess they’re just that popular! These ones are pretty much all dead now, but I thought I’d post the photos I took of them because the weather has been so miserable (something new!), and I need to look at something bright and cheery.

My apologies for always posting flower photos! I like photographing them because they sit still and don’t complain when I take 10 photos of the same thing :)

PeoniesPeoniesPeoniesPeonies

June 15th, 2010

New!

Just added this one to the shop.

Rainbow Ball GarlandRainbow Ball Garland

June 10th, 2010

fail.

This is a photo of something I’ve been working on recently, but it just doesn’t want to cooperate. I was trying to make passport type wallets out of my screen printed papers, but was worried the paper just wouldn’t be durable enough when put to use, and in that case not really sell-able. So I tried using clear contact on the inside of the wallet, which worked quite well, except it still left the outside exposed and therefore useless. I then tried spraying the outside with a clear Lacquer, but that just made it smell and didn’t make it any stronger. I tried sewing some plastic onto the outside of the wallet, but that didn’t look very nice, and then tried contact on the outside. It also didn’t look that nice, and also started to peel off. Poo.

So now I’m not really sure what to do. They look lovely without any contact on the outside, but I’m just not sure how practical they would be. Oh well.. keep thinking!

passport wallet stage 1

June 9th, 2010

Paris in June

We headed to Paris over the weekend to (among other things) check out a large photography market being held just out of town. Dave had a lovely time trawling through all the stalls on the hunt for some bargain photography bits and pieces, and came away with a small box full of some pretty cool loot. I, on the other hand, got pretty excited when we headed out the other side of town to find an old permanent antique/flea market called Marché Vernaison. Yes, I do actually get deliriously happy at the sight of antique and flea markets, I’m a grandma. I too came away with some pretty cool loot, but I’ll share that at another time :)

Camera marketCamera marketcamera marketMarche VernaisonMarche VernaisonMarche Vernaison

May 29th, 2010

decor8

Decor8I woke up this morning (about 2 hours ago actually), to find that my etsy site has been featured on one of the coolest blogs around.. decor8! I then realised that that was why my shop views had gone from 63 views in the last day, to 789 – and not thanks to my totally awesome marketing skills ;)

Thanks Holly – I’m sure you’ll never read this, but thanks!.. you’ve made my day!

May 23rd, 2010

Surprise package

We found a wonderful surprise in our mail box yesterday! It was from our good friend Emily who sent us our favourite block of Aussie chocolate (coincidentally named ‘Black Forest’) .. and also a little note from our favourite 3.5 year old, Harry. He drew us a chef with a mustache, who now resides on our fridge :)

Thanks Em and Harry.. you guys made our day :)

Black Forest ChocolateChef with a moustache

Also, Dave baked a cake!Lemon Cake

May 22nd, 2010

Featured

This neck of the woods was featured on the blog Oh So Beautiful Paper the other day!!

I didn’t even know until I stumbled across it in my google reader.. haha! Thanks to Nole for such kind words :)

May 22nd, 2010

This week

Phew – what a week! I’ve been madly making garlands all week long and have managed to send out the first few orders.. exciting! My routine this week has been something like this:
- get up
- stop by post office on way to work
- have 20 minute lesson in the art of communication with post office lady (much hand-actioning included)
- work
- come home and start garland
- eat dinner (which Dave cooked)
- continue garland
- wrap finished garland, write card, find buyer address
- put everything at front door so I can grab it on the way out next day
- fall into bed.

So it’s been busy.. but fun! I’ve glued my fingers together far too many times to count – not to mention gluing ribbon to pants and losing a gazillion little beads all over the house :D

This photo is in no way related, but I thought it was lovely. It was one of the flowers we picked a couple of weeks ago (same as the last flower post), but this one had a double centre.. pretty!