Elle Decoration!!

The tea towel queen herself Skinny Laminx aka Heather Moore was wonderful enough to mention me in this post on Elle Decoration! Thank you Heather :-)

Another bright spot when I returned home was my Filigree print making the front page of Etsy overnight in this exquisite treasury.

away

Apologies for my absence. My beautiful father is very sick and I have flown up here to be with him and my family. I'm going to be missing for a while.

flower press at oak!

Oak in Boston is a really wonderful little shop full of One-of-a-kind items (hence the name). I was really thrilled when Keara contacted me a few weeks ago wanting to stock my tea towels. So if you are in Boston (don't I wish!) please pop in and say hello, the shop is at 31 Gloucester Street. I've borrowed these pics from her neighbour Johnny Cupcakes' blog.

clarice beckett

Clarice Beckett is an Australian landscape painter who died in 1935. I love the mood and magic in her paintings. Like many woman painters she fitted her work around her domestic life, she never left home and spent her last years nursing sick parents before dying young herself of pneumonia.

mint

What a beautiful layout Ellie from Mint blog has made of my things. I love the way they look - so cool and clean. And such a lovely rap she gave my wares :-) Lots more to read and look at on Mint too. She points the way to this blog Inchmark, by former Martha Stewart art director Brooke Reynolds, just beautiful. It's new too, so go and say hi :-) Love this idea of hers for a memory jar.

Thanks Ellie!

euphorbia

Euphorbias are the wildest looking plants, nature's pattern designer obviously had a great time making the flowers! I love these fresh lime greens too.

website

Its been a few weeks since I took the plunge and signed up for my own website! It felt like quite a big plunge at the time, very sensible and businesslike. And psychologically like a big commitment to future plans.
It was great to finally get a dedicated email address, I love that I can now keep all my flower press communication in one place. Makes life much simpler.
Oh, and my email is susie[at]flowerpress[dot]com[dot]au if you want to say hello :-).

My web address is http://www.flowerpress.com.au
You might wonder why I haven't mentioned it before but, well, there hasn't actually been anything there!! Just a sign saying 'website coming'.

This has really been bugging me and today I've rushed around and at last put something up, its temporary, some images I've been working on for a fabric design and some links to flower press on the 'net. But now you can find all my links in one place and flower press has an official home.
So anyway, its a bit like a caravan parked in a field (actually that's a great image, I see one of those great chrome 50s numbers). Plans are being drawn up though and one day soon I'll start building. Please bookmark me and come back regularly to see if I've done anything!

more paper cutting

I didn't want to post these images which I saved months ago till I could track them down and credit them properly. I just adore these installation pieces by Catherine Bertola. Follow the link to see more of the ethereal beauty of her installation.


And aren't these lamps wonderful, you can buy them at the Jordy Fu website.

Finally, from the wonderful Design Sponge (love this blog!), artist Amy Marcella's installation at Urban Outfitters.

I love - paper cuts

Just lately I've come across some beautiful examples of paper cutting. What amazing skill and patience it must take. I've had one small go at cutting and it is as hard as it looks. If you want to have a try you should definitely check out Skinny Laminx's wonderful papercut tutorial which is really well explained.
Here is one of the amazing series Elsa Mora has made for a new exhibition. I love the image as much as the technique. She is a wonderfully talented artist and her blog is full of inspiration.

Kirigami is a new term to me which I discovered when I followed a link to Kanako Yaguchi's site. We did some in the guise of snowflake cutting in my sons' art class a few weeks ago :-) but who knew it could be so beautiful. This is definitely something I'm going to try again. Below are some of the images from her work.


Oh and I love this wallpaper which reminds me of papercutting:

plover

You have to admire this expectant plover mother for holding her ground. Here she is nesting in the middle of a busy university. I love the witches hats/cones around her and there were signs on the trees advising people that she was nesting :-)

weaving

My sister in law and her sisters have been down from Arnhem Land this week launching a book on their traditional Yolgnu weaving and doing workshops (and a tiny bit of shopping :-). I had a lovely day out at Macquarie Uni yesterday trying to absorb some of their amazing skills.

plant package in the post

Look what arrived on my doorstep this morning! I have been daydreaming over this nursery's mail order site for at least a year and the other day I took the plunge and made a big order, nineteen plants :-)
I love the way they came tucked in straw, which will go straight into the garden as mulch.
As you can I've put them here on a garden bench and watered them with seaweed emulsion to recover from their trip and so I can think about where I'm going to plant them. We made this bench a few years ago from old fence palings, copying a design we'd seen in someone else's garden. I have been meaning to make a matching Adirondack chair sometime to match. On the To Do list.


There are a few things I've been dying for like Sedum Matrona and a Sanguisorba. Now I just have to find (make) some gaps in the garden beds to tuck these new finds into.
There are also a couple of new Penstemons, a Delphinium, some Dicentras... well see the list for yourself :-)

first day of spring