Friends with a sense of humour

I discovered this when I went to add pictures and lights to one of the Brio houses that finally got unpacked (courtesy of my friends) yesterday:It could have been worse...

They like to sort it sort it...

The Room of Shame is no more, thanks to the attentions of four fine friends who descended on me this afternoon and bossed me round wrought their magic.(Not only on this room but the rest of the house*. Plus they brought nibbles and bubbles for afternoon tea. I'm very lucky to have such supportive friends. Thanks guys!)

Nibbs didn't quite know what to make of it all...

(*Apart from a few things dumped into my workroom that I need to find places to hide. Including 5 cartons of fabric. I think I'll go with the boot of the car option for those.)

Lunch and dinner

Yesterday I had lunch with Adrian Franklin as research for next week: and last night, on the way to the theatre, a friend and I spotted this at the supermarket by the university:perhaps it's what you're supposed to eat when you've just failed your exams?

Not so much My creative space

but just space in general. Work has settled down. School's still out. Lunch hours and evenings have returned to my life.

I'm letting myself spend my evenings pottering. Sure, I know there is sorting and tidying to be done before next Thursday but it's so much more enjoyable when I throw my list away and just do what I feel like doing each evening in between endless cups of tea to try and keep warm (hello, I thought it was spring?!)

And I'm amazed at what I've achieved by the time I head to bed each night.

Tonight I pulled an old IKEA stationery drawer set out of the cupboard in The Room of Shame and re purposed it to store my bits and bobs for The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief, leaving lots of lovely clear space on my worktable to actually work:
(when I get around to it...)

A song for The Collectors

Who are coming to visit next Thursday:

(There will be a mini Working Bee this weekend chez TSS, as I don't have just one room to clean, but eighty one. And that's not counting my full sized house...)

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

Today at Craft ACT: envelope stuffing (invites to Re-Loved 2), visits from lovely people who coped with being dragged off to an Art in Miniature exhibition at Yarralumla and then to Chocolate Olive for lunch.

In the afternoon, we had a photo shoot to create the image which we'll use to promote The Call of the Small Exhibition (August 12 - September 25 2010, if you happen to have your calendar for next year already):After work: Off to the National Archives for a mentoring / careers night on studying and working in Heritage and the Arts. An excellent evening topped of by wonderful catering from Silo and chats with fascinating people doing interesting things.

Goulburn goodies

From the op shops: one wooden reel of cotton (50 cents).

From Convention: one wooden blackboard ($10), one cafe chair ($19.50 including a second chair and a table) and one delicate hand knitted cashmere silk shawl (free after I complained that the original price was far too low and I might just have to buy it myself in order to own such a wonderful work of art before she realised the true value of it and put the price up)

From Photoshop when I returned home: one (modified) Now panic and freak out poster.

Saturday report part three: One wedding

With last-minute pre-wedding organiser's madness setting in: But there was nothing to worry about: everything went smoothly and it was a lovely ceremony.

There was knitting at the reception (and many envious looks from those of us at the table who didn't think to bring any) and, as the evening progressed and the levels in the champagne glasses went down,it became clear that our table was that crazy table you have at every wedding reception (in the nicest possible way...) We solved the problem of not being allowed to knit on planes, sang along to Love Cats (very loudly) during the cake eating and generally had a ball.

And, as I slipped out into the night at around 9:30pm, the party really started:

Saturday report part two: Five (interstate) op shops

Which actually turned out to be three interstate op shops as I didn't have time to get down to the Father Riley's/ Salvos end of town.

I did discover a new-to-me op shop though:By Charlene Mirabella)

Saturday report part one: One miniature convention

Where I was given the use of an official one of a kind press pass by a lovely friend (that wasn't all I was given: details to follow)

bumped into a fellow I Op - ACT member, admired this mini art store by Jenny Balderson (see, I remembered to write down the creators this time!)told Rosemary Blake how great her miniature tea cosies wereand talked to Brindabella Miniatures about inclusion in Call of the Small next year.Then I had lunch with Diva (who's generously offered me the use of her studio and expertise in the designing and building the miniature craft gallery for the exhibition) before having to race off.

Today's plans:

One miniature convention (to check out potential inclusions for my Call of the Small* exhibition at Craft ACT next year)

Five (interstate) op shops (because I'll be there anyway)

One Wedding

And one pre-Christmas assessment of the contents of the gift drawer.

(Days off are so restful, aren't they?)

(*Thanks to Chris for letting me borrow her blog name)

When there's a thunderstorm, my cat likes to hide under the house...

Friday firsts

My first media release. And my first piece of In Design work. Finished*.

If you're a Frugalista and live locally you might want to join us at Craft ACT for Re-Loved 2 on Thursday October 22nd.

Alas this time I won't be in the front row as I'll be working behind the scenes...

(*And only one typo slipped through.)

My not-at-all creative non-space

Isn't so much empty (which would make a decent photo) but the result of having been a general dumping ground for random stuff over the past two weeks. Which is when my creativity gave a final gasp and fizzled out. (Oddly, also around the time I realised that doing two jobs simultaneously (plus an internship) while also running a small business is probably not the best idea in the world...)

Thank goodness for semester breaks, huh?

One of my mentors suggested I make a time to talk to my tutor about his reaction to my idea. I'm not sure they meant bailing him up in the 700* section of the library on a Saturday afternoon (sorry, Paul!)

Another mentor pointed out that Tutors get tired towards the end of the term too (you mean they're not superhuman?!)

Have I mentioned how much I love and appreciate my mentors' input?

Overall I'm enjoying having a break. Spending any spare time I have (after 12-14 hour days) reading rather than thinking (although finishing things like this and this isn't quite the break I should probably be having).

But today I felt the lumbering stirrings of the brief in the back of my brain. A good sign, I think. Except one of the things that set it off was this picture from pia jane bijkerk's blog of Manon Gignoux’s work:Which worries me as I don't think I want to be a textile artist as that would be too simple a solution (feel free to discuss).

(*Dewey classification for Arts)

Signs of the season

On Monday I got invited to my first Christmas party.

I spotted someone who had just bought a roll of Christmas paper in the Library yesterday.

The newsagents were busy wrapping things in green paper when I popped in last night.

And I sold my first two Lundby advent calenders for the year this week.

To make up for any anxiety this may cause in my readers (and myself!), here's a fabulous video I lifted from The Lark:

Heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens...

Sorry about the radio silence. To make for it here's a fave track at the moment, from a CD I picked up at Lifeline Bookfair for $4 (and which has been on my eBay watch list for a whole lot more). It pretty much covers my life this week:

You may remember it from back here.)

Tired now...

I think I need to go to bed for the rest of the afternoon to devour my pile of new treasures from this morning's trip to The Lifeline Bookfair...

What’s Hot + What’s Not Wednesday

Well hello there. I thought I'd better pop past before you all started checking to see if I was OK or possibly sprawled in a mangled heap halfway down the stairs, unable to call for help.

I figured the only way to catch up is to follow Loobylu's lead:

What’s Hot:

* Using In Design for the first time.

* Finishing answering the questions sent to me by The Collectors and finally getting them out of the way (It's rather handy having a blog: a lot of the answers consisted of a "see here" followed by a link)

* Lovely people coming up to me to introduce themselves and tell me the read (and enjoy) my blog. It happened again this morning at the petrol station and quite made my day.

* Getting through my very first Storytime. And getting nice feedback from both the other staff and the parents. It helped that I got to read one of my favorite books (with actions)

* Meeting a little girl with a patch over her eye and telling her how I used to have one just like it when I was little (except not as cool and colourful as hers) and making her smile.

* The arrival of my first Book Depository order (I couldn't resist, with an added 10% off their already low prices)

* Having the day after tomorrow off. It's a holy day of obligation: the first day of The Lifeline Bookfair.

* Two weeks' holiday from night classes. So I can catch up on everything. Hopefully.

What’s Not:

*Waking up in the middle of the night on Monday to find myself in the bedroom doorway. It took a couple of seconds to realise that a massive thunderstorm was pretty much directly overhead and the rolling thunder had caused the windows to rattle and the bed to shake. And my removed-from-New-Zealand-but-still-a-well-trained-Kiwi-body to have catapulted across the room and into the doorway as soon as I felt it. Even if it was asleep.

* Two night's broken sleep due to thunder and lightning.

* Dust rain.

* Finding myself tongue-tied when people say they read my blog. It always takes me by surprise. Which is odd as I check my stats regularly and know about how many of you there are.

* That I don't think my Tutor likes the direction I'm heading in with The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief. After a period of hand wringing and worrying I've decided I don't actually care very much.

* Miss Daisy getting her first parking ticket. The only other time I got a parking ticket I made page three of the paper*. This time wasn't quite so exciting...

* The price of parking in Civic (I had to take my car in yesterday as I had stuff to take to Craft ACT and needed a speedy relocation between there and the Library for an evening shift): $12. Which actually seems a bargain compared to the $78 the previous day had cost me.

* Having to learn a song in the twenty minutes before Storytime started so I could sing it in front of a crowd of small people and their parents...

* Having a job application due in tomorrow and only having the time to get to it (as usual) at 6am the morning it's due in.

(*No I was not naked at the time)

Drawing in public

September 1970:September 2009:

(photograph courtesy of Eleni Kypridis, National Gallery of Australia)

How I spent my day off (Part Two)

5. In the afternoon I went to pick up the display case I'd lent to Harriet Barry for her exhibition and got to have a nosey round her studio, ask her a million questionsand watch her work (is it just me that's fascinated at seeing other people's studios*?)

6. Then I went home and mowed the front lawn,

7. finished my framing (and banged 4 more illegal picture hooks into my walls)

8. Before celebrating by watching The Hollywood Librarian.

(*more photos here)