If all else fails...

...revert to black and white:

Late night shopping

I'm still enjoying the concept of having a little spare money. Possibly a little too much.

This evening after work I headed for Woden in search of wool felt and vacuum cleaner bags. Both very worthy and justifiable quests, I thought.

Addicted to Fabric didn't have the felt I was after but did have a a scrap bag of my favorite Free Spirit Prints Charming fabric, which I snapped up.

At the mall, on the way back to the car with my vacuum cleaner bags tucked safely under my arm, I popped into Riot Art and Crafts and picked up matchboxes (which I've wanted for ages and have new plans for after last week's Photoaccess opening of the exhibition Canberra in a matchbox) and acrylic felt (for more mini rug making). Next door I accidentally bought a giant peg and a new (and very fitting) tea towel for the collection.

Then I remembered that I needed to find more black rubber gloves (as IKEA seem to have discontinued their black Plastis gloves) and wandered into Homebase to see if they could help. I left bearing 5 pairs of cream ones (close enough to keep me happy) plus 5 glue stick pens.

And then, finally, I headed home.

Stripy shirts sorted on Sunday

Because what else would I be marking today?

Although it worries me that this is the second time in 4 days that I've cut into a piece of my clothing* in the name of art...

(*Don't worry, this one was heading for the rag bag anyway)

High five!

A trip to Trash and Treasure didn't net much (brand new pinhole camera, still in shrinkwrap for $5 and this cute cardboard domino set for $1: bought from a woman who was sewing a zombie stuffie) but the decision to pop past Kmart on the way home to peruse their calculator selection (my old one died) did. Black and white stripy T shirts! On sale! For $5 each!

I bought all five they had in stock to replace my very old, very tired and very past it motley collection (which really should have been turned into rags years ago)

Now the question is: do I do the hike to the Tuggeranong store to empty out their stock for my top cupboard?

A good mail day

There's nothing better than a good mail day, don't you agree?

Especially when there are unexpected packages from friends.

And super especially when those packages include a new black and white tea towel for the collection!

A flop

A stack of new cupcake wrappers from New Zealand. Morning tea with a friend. The perfect time to whip up some black and white polka dot cupcakes.

Not.

I think it'll be ginger kisses (bought) for morning tea. And trifle for pudding.

And an annotation on the recipe in question to make 12 cupcakes, not 10 as stated...

Sibilng rivalry (of the electronic sort)

My new cameras have lovely soft cases to keep them safe when we're out and about.

But my poor new laptop was feeling quite naked. Until last night, when I whipped this up out of some some of the wool I used for the camera case (Salvos, $5 for the piece). a table cloth from Kmart I also had in stash (was I going to make a skirt or a bag with it? I can't remember...), an ancient piece of foam I discovered in the back of the mini supplies cupboard and the largest dome I had in the dome box: We're all happy now.

To market to market

With Rooruu in town for the Quilt Show (and pretend grumbling about the fact we hadn't arranged the exhibition opening to coincide) there was a mini bloggy meet up this morning.

This time I introduced her to Trash and Treasure, where I accidentally spent this week's grocery money on a number of treasures (with much encouragement from beside me) including the find of the year: a vintage laminate top table. In grey. For $20.

But wait! It gets better...It folds up!

So it's perfect as an extra work surface in my studio when needed, and able to be tucked away when not...Other treasures that followed me home: (Doll's hutch dresser: $5, doll's size sewing basket: $2, giant metal nut container: $5, 2 vintage rulers: $3, vintage snakes and ladders board: 30 cents (that was actually from Ys Buys), sewing machine accessories box: $2, record cabinet: $7 (from a blog reader! *waves*), Dover books, reading and writing clip art book: $2, vintage music case: $10)

(I'm feeling all very Fresh Vintage, being able to take a shot like this)

And here's a picture of the top of the sewing machine accessories box:Love that lettering!

After our Trash and Treasure adventures we recovered with the best brunch deal in town (without the champagne, alas...), where Rooruu gave me this:a giant bag of black and white goodness. I felt very very spoilt (and particularly excited to see a book I talked myself out of buying a couple of weeks ago...)

Anyone fancy buying me this for Christmas?

Magpie cottage: a black and white house for sale in Bowral.

I couldn't resist...

I was invited to the opening of Shop Handmade last night. The invite said dress "After 5". I was tempted to wear PJs but finally decided the only thing to do was pull out the tails and shirt I bought for the Sturt Summer School party (which I never went to).So, feeling very Yves St Laurent circa the 60s (but the thrifted version) I trotted off to drink bubbles, eat gorgeous colour coordinated desserts and beautifully branded biscuits and spend this week's grocery budget on a fabulous yardage design tea towel to add to my collection:Black and white? Destination roll design? Featuring dessert and chocolate? How could I resist?!

(For photos of the event, check out the Shop Handmade blog)

Calling any Japanese speakers/ dwellers!

Working on my presentation on Terence Conran reminded me that I've been meaning to track down a Satoria ashtray:It's been discontinued in the UK but I stumbled across this page on the Conran Japan site. I can't understand a word of it (and Google won't translate it for me).

Can you help at all?

The most important thing

And I forgot to mention it!

My new push mower (courtesy of Taph and Vinnies Phillip)?It's black and white (of course)...

Busy (and buying)

Four jobs (well, three jobs and one internship but really, does it make any difference if you do or don't get paid for the work you do in terms of time involved?), one course (with the practice run for our final project due in a couple of weeks), one micro business (with added end of financial year-ness), two blogs and one exhibition proposal.

Add a week long case of buy-itis and you get this:(L to R: Happy tape goodies, new frame ($6.99 from Hot Dollar so inducing the Greenie Guilts) for my pear print which was strangling in its original frame, beautiful craft-related lanyard for my government tags ($2: also, alas, Hot Dollar) plus (not shown) launch issue of Uppercase (thanks to three buttons) and $6 CD of the Othello soundtrack spotted this morning at Flipside CDs....)

How could I resist?

Black and white spotty scissors? Especially when I've just broken a pair of boring black ones...

Bowls of cereal for dinner at 9pm: 1 New PJ pants worn to bed: 1

It remains to be seen if the top is ever produced. For now I'm wearing an old worn-out long sleeve T shirt as is my wont. I'm holding off appliqueing it for now though...

New PJs: 0 New hankies: 6

I can get a tad obsessed sometimes...

I just got the most beautiful PJs in the whole world

There's just one problem.I haven't sewn them yet...

(Flannelette spotted in this week's Scablight catalogue for $3.99 a metre. I couldn't not buy it.)

In all the excitement of the beginning of this month

I may have forgotten to mention there's another Black and White Swap happening over here which closes very very soon...

Probably not the best choice of movie for someone wanting to explore colour drawings more...

J & I joined the ANU Film Group for the year last night and saw Persepolis, a movie which I've been wanting to see for about a year.

It was beautiful.I was entranced by the drawingsand all the different effects that were produced using only black and white.I wanted to run home immediately and experiment with using white conte crayon on black paper.Oh dear. Perhaps I should have watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory instead?(Perhaps not...)

Oh, and for those who keep tally of such things, there was knitting:

Modern Miniatures on Monday: Black and White bliss

I spotted these settings on MY MINI PLAYGROUND and even though it's not my usual scale I had to share. I mean black and white? Jonathan Adler? What's not to love?
On his FLICKR set page (where these images came from) Michael Williams says:

"This presentation gets its name from my September 2007 HAUTE DOLL Magazine feature on diorama dollhouse furnishings, and it serves as a laudatory hommage to Bravo TOP DESIGN guru Jonathan Adler (age 41), who first fell in love with ceramics at age 12 in summer camp, but took a brief detour in the movie business before launching his initial line of pottery at Barney's in 1994. The line was an instant success, and in 1998 he opened his first store in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, which has since been followed by several boutiques across the country, as he expanded his line into a glamorous new furniture collection, along with bedding, towels, and pillows (some of which are licensed and carried by Bed, Bath and Beyond and department stores). He even redesigned the Le Parker Meridien Hotel in Palm Springs, now a hot resort vacation destination."