these days

Phew, life has hit the ground running since the holidays finished. Suddenly everything is happening at once, carnivals, assemblies, music lessons, sport teams, bills to pay, paperwork, meetings, camp...

In between the busyness though I've squeezed in some time to catch up with friends, so good for the brain! A week or two ago I had lunch with blog friend Lamina (doabit) and also got to meet Jo from Bubala at last too. It was so nice to talk 'shop' with these lovely, talented girls and we followed it up last Thursday with the abcd meetup at trade show Life InStyle at the Hordern Pavilion.

What an interesting night, the first part was free entry to the show and wandering the aisles of makers with their beautiful wares. Then at dinner afterwards we heard from crafty business owners who were attending the show about the wholesale thing, and the nuts and bolts of that.

It was my first abcd (Artists + Bloggers + Crafters + Designers) meetup, but definitely not my last. Many thanks to Steph and Lisa for organising these events. It is so nice to catch up with like minds and share ideas and it was such an interesting night. And thanks to Sophie from Scoops Design who was so generous with her knowledge in our little group.

I've had lunch out a couple more times since then, one a belated birthday yum cha where I scored this great Anna Laura brooch and then last Friday after the Mr and I watched our girl speak at the Sydney Town Hall at school presentation day (so proud!). I may have wiped away a tear or two, it was so great to see her up on stage in this amazing space. Afterwards we bought lunch and walked down to Circular Quay to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the MCA (which was wow!).

I have managed a small amount of making in between, I cooked these delicious sticky date cupcakes with salted caramel icing one day and I made a batch of homemade laundry liquid over the weekend. I've also been making quite a few batches of yoghurt - I think I've got the hang of it now.

There's been some good mail, I bought some of this great Julia Rothman print Type to make something with (must use stash!) and my Society6 tshirt print came, modelled here (under sufferance) by Miss A. I like it and the quality's great, must print some more of these.

So there, that's what I've been doing, what about you? What have you been doing? How is the new year treating you?

Hey and guess what!? I have a lovely surprise for you all (a surprise for me too!). Tomorrow I'm posting the first of this year's Show & Tell interviews, number 31 in fact!

To tell the truth I wasn't sure I'd keep the series going this year, its a bit of work on top of everything else and I was thinking maybe I needed a break. But when it came to it, I'm really proud of the series and I love all the wonderful bloggers I've featured, so I'm not quite ready to quit. So come back tomorrow and meet another inspiring blogger!

And if you have any ideas about other bloggers you'd like to see in this space, I'd love some suggestions, tell me and I'll see what I can do.