Archive for the ‘at home’ Category
i’ve been meaning to do this post since i wrote about my bedroom makeover way back last august! i know that post and the picture of my bedroom were popular, so its about time i gave some credit to the artists who made my art wall look so great. its just about an even split of purchases from etsy and outré gallery.
these two cuties (‘carmen m’ and ‘ginger pops’) are from tsktsk on etsy. they are digital prints of an original painting.
isn’t this a fascinating piece? its a four layer paper sculpture by helen musselwhite, bought from etsy. and on top is a smokin’ labbit! well, he’s not smoking, but he is a kozik labbit, just a bubblegum one.
this is an original gouache on board by APAK, from their show at outré gallery, melbourne (just about my favorite place in the city! seriously, i had a crush on it in high school. what kind of geek crushes on a gallery? this geek!)
this isn’t actually art, per se.. its a piece of plastic you slip between the letter you’re writing, and your table – so the table doesn’t get marked. anyway its cute and its by my favorite japanese kawaii brand ‘swimmer’. i found it at the now defunct genki store: thought it was perfect colors, bought it, framed it, love it to bits. wall ‘art’ can be anything, my guidelines are simple: does it make me feel happy? yes? hang it on that wall!
these birdies are from sweetshorn vintage on etsy. they came painted that color and at first i considered repainting them but they add such a small shot of variety i really love them just the way they are. aww.
both of these beauties are by lab partners. the yellow and pink painting is an original from the hunt and gather show at outré. i really love this little painting, i desperately wanted a lady painting to go with it but alas – she’d sold! my son calls this guy ‘ukulele man’ and he says goodnight to it every night. i think he thinks its a painting of daddy (who plays guitar). the pink and blue one is a letterpress print, from etsy. its an homage to lab partner’s home: san francisco. it definitely reminds me of happy holiday times now, too.
and lastly, here’s a view of what i wake up to each morning. this print (from outré) hangs over our chest of drawers on the wall adjacent to all the other pieces. its called ‘this is how it always starts’ and is by heisuke kitazawa/PCP. i love how dreamy it is, and the little characters are so whimsical. its a nice piece to face first thing
i hope you’ve enjoyed the tour of art, i really love it. its so nice to have a bedroom filled with special treasures that make waking up such a sunny and aesthetically pleasing ordeal!
this weeks theme for my place & yours is about one special piece in your wardrobe. this weeks theme was devised by the very cool sandra eterovic, whose blog i found last week while i was trawling the responses to my chosen theme! she seems pretty clever and rather interesting, as soon as i saw this jumper she made, i had to add her to my reader!
anyway, about that wardrobe treasure! i choose my groovy vintage maxi dress. i like to think it represents me in dress form, but perhaps its more like ideal-me…
i have owned this dress for ten years now, and while other vintage frocks have come and gone this beauty remains. it came from a thrift store (hey remember when you could find vintage stuff like this in thrift stores, australians? alas everyone is very savvy these days and unless you like faded promotional t-shirts and dresses from seven years ago, the thrift store is not for us retro enthusiasts.) i bought it in the dying days of high school and i took it away with me to england where it was worn out to parties and clubs with my amazing (but alas, gone) faux fur coat which was the same sort of colors as in rainbow ice cream.
the dress has a label that reads “designed by young act”, and is 100% nylon. its quite flattering on me and is kinda sexy and clingy but very fun – which i prefer over vampy sexy any day! the landscape pattern of the fabric has always reminded me of a cross between yellow submarine and the pastoral symphony segment of fantasia.
recently it hasn’t been worn so much, mainly for lack of occasion but also because maxi dresses kind of confuse me. its too nylon/sweaty to wear in summer, but too sleeveless to wear in winter! also, being a lady of er, generous chest, its maybe a bit raunchy for day wear! i have to admit i’m tempted to hem it at knee length just so i can wear it with some bright tights and a cardigan in the day. would that be sacrilege? i feel like its bad enough to have a dress i love so dearly languishing in the back of the wardrobe.
your thoughts dearest readers?
hoorah! i’m the theme queen for pip’s ‘my place & yours’ this week. despite my boyfriend insisting on seeing peoples’ walk in humidors, or western wings, or orangerys, i have chosen the theme of ‘just five minutes peace.’
where do you retreat to for that sanity-regaining break? i am interested in what or where in your home your sanctuary is.
when i get those golden times of peace and quiet, i like to curl up on my ottoman with a delicious cup of tea of some variety. the beauty of the ottoman is there really is only room for one, which sounds selfish, but anyone with children will tell you personal space is at a premium. it’s in a light corner of the room, so its good to read or sew or crochet in and its just so colorful and happy it never fails to recharge me. did i mention the comfort factor? oh its comfortable. i’ve snoozed there, i’ve daydreamed, i’ve contemplated the ceiling. the restorative powers of this piece of furniture can not be underestimated.
edit: i can’t possibly thank ms sara enough for actually pointing out that i was indeed this week’s theme queen. seems i missed the post on ‘mikes and was very confused that there seemed to be no ‘my place and yours’ this last week. in conclusion: a-doy and three cheers for friends
when i was growing up i had to endure nearly half of december before we’d go and choose our christmas tree from the tree farm. my dad’s birthday was december 16th and it was insisted that we had to wait until the weekend after that birthday had passed before christmas could officially begin. what sweet, torturous anticipation that was! and finally, after a prickly, pine-needle filled ride home, jammed into the back of the station wagon with the tree, i could open the closest thing i had to a treasure trove, and study all those old decorations once again.
it was like an annual reunion for me and the box of decorations. each one has its story and i loved hearing them again and again. there were plays to be acted out with some, and some of the musically inclined angels had a band or orchestra. the tradition in our family was one new decoration per year (though i admit i’ve deviated recently and restocked the box a bit after a couple of cat related tree crashes knocked out a few glass baubles) and the tradition stretched back to my great grandparents. our tree is certainly not a perfectly styled, consistently decorated one. but its a patchwork, and a scavenger hunt, and a time machine.
here are a few of my favorite ornaments, they may be old and faded but their charm is in their history and the tradition they are a part of.
isn’t her face a scream!? she’s just so preppy it cracks me up. and i absolutely love candy canes, and stripy christmas candy.
this precious creature came from a close friend of my grandma rowie, whose tree was covered in these angels. her head is porcelain but her body/dress is made of nylon over a wire frame. she seems like the most pious of all our angels, possibly because she’s so delicate.
this little gent is so cute! look he has a toadstool! fun fact: my boyfriend prefers pronouncing pine cone “pie-neck-oh-knee” as a joke, of course!
this is the last remaining member of a trio of handmade bell/bauble/pipecleaner ornaments. there was a lady, and a clown to go with this santa and i believe they were made by my great grandmother’s neighbor. i really like the naive covering of the bell in simple aluminum foil.
this jazzy girl was always in my imaginary angel band games. i really like the color of her dress, and her gold glitter hair. she looks sort of jazz era with such short hair.
unfortunately this is one of the few survivors of the dreaded cat related tree felling that crushed a few of the fragile glass decorations (we had a very unstable base and a very unstable cat). i like the embossed trees and how its so sparsely colored.
poor father christmas is a bit faded now, but its pretty impressive he doesn’t look more moth eaten!
i love this angel’s hair and face, she looks a bit like a prim and proper mae west!
do you have favorite decorations you wait all year to see? do you have any special family decorations passed down? i would love to see!
here is my contribution for ‘my place & yours‘! this weeks theme is basically what quirky things does your house have. our house has a few funny little things, but i thought i’d take the opportunity to show you some of the neat features my house also has. technically it’s not my house, because we’re just renting it, but honestly i love it as though it were my own. as soon as we visited this house’s open inspection i was in love and ready to fight tooth and nail to make it ours (if only per 12 months)!
it was built along with a lot of other properties in this area, in the late 50′s, early 60′s. it’s a really nice floor plan, giving lots of space in the living areas, and really comfortable sized bedrooms. it has big windows that let in plenty of light and a garden just big enough to run around in. from what i understand, our owner grew up here, and her mother lived here before us. that being the case, hardly anything has changed and the features are original. the stove and the kitchen laminate are newer, and there appears to have been a partition of some kind in the lounge that was removed (i try not to think about having missed out on seeing an amazing room divider, no.. it must have just been a plain old boring wall haha.)
one of the first quirky things we saw was the bathroom. we have a nice sized bathroom, with a bath, and a basin and then next door to that there is a smaller bathroom with a shower and another basin. its certainly a peculiar use of space, what’s wrong with a shower over a bath?! why all the basins? why not just have a bigger bathroom with one less basin and shower cubicle!? its a mystery for sure. here’s is a diagram, just to make sure you really get the confusingness of it all…
our bedroom door appears to have originally been hung the ‘wrong’ way. it’s since been fixed, but the light switches are now behind the door. lucky i ain’t afraid of no ghosts! (on that note, i’d like to point out, having grown up in a house with kind of haunty bad ju-ju, this house welcomed me. it has such a nice vibe, i’ve never felt creeped out here. thank you, house).
speaking of switches, we have our fair share of switches that aren’t connected to anything. i like to imagine they control something in a neighbor’s house: i switch off the one in our kitchen and the people at no. 8 are plunged into darkness while i laugh maniacally, safely ensconsed in my kitchen/mastermind lair.
my favorite quirk is what is now my son’s room. obviously its always been the child’s bedroom, there are the faint dimples of pin marks on the re-painted walls, where once was probably a shrine to teen idols. inside the left hand wardrobe door is pinned a relic: a clipped advertisement for peter paul and mary’s fourth australian tour, 1968. i find it so touching, that its still there, 41 years later.
as mentioned, there are lots of original features, let’s take a look shall we? first off, our house is jewish, so in the majority of doorways there are mezuzah:
thankfully the house hasn’t minded having christmas trees in it, and nothing has fallen on me when i’m cooking bacon, so it’s either lapsed, or just a really forgiving house!
we have some really neat light fittings:
and our carpet has a pretty neat pattern:
i must admit the toilet wallpaper is what convinced me this house was my dream home:
hey look! our kitchen sink is a radient gem! … whatever that means!
… and our bathroom mirror is “a spamco product”! tee hee.. spam!
but my favorite quirky features of this house are my boyfriend and our son… its just a shame they’re camera shy!
once again i’m joining in for ‘my place & yours’. how could i resist this week’s theme of ‘my collection’! i love having collections of things. i blame my unfulfilled childhood dreams of being a librarian or a curator. i have my own little wunderkammer here in my lounge room, filled with trinkets and toys and objects that make me smile. sure its a pain to dust, but its the only way i can justify having quite so many useless things!
a consistent presence in these shelves and pigeon holes are apples. since the moment i laid eyes on a dick bruna apple illustration at the age of 1, the simple apple has won my heart. i don’t mind if its green, but honestly i’d prefer it to be red (unless i have to eat it, in which case the greener and tarter the better!) i really like my apples to be plastic (again, unless i have to eat them) or at least japanese or scandinavian. they seem to have a good hold on the basic apple design. maybe because its such a simple, graphic fruit? none of those frou-frou pineapples for the japanese and scandinavians! i really, really like it if my apple is some form of container: jug, mug, box, canister etc. now, that’s satisfaction: apple storage!
in the picture you’ll see an apple desktop trashcan, an apple bottle, an apple bento box, an apple suitcase (not quite full of japanese candy!! nom nom nom) an apple mug in an apple bowl, an apple patch, apple hair bobbles, an apple box, and a fisher price happy apple that makes the sweetest chimes. not pictured above are the BIG apples that hold my son’s toys in the lounge room. unfortunately thats as close as he’ll peacefully get to fruit.
thanks to an ambiguous bible translation from ancient greek, apples have had a bad wrap as being the sinful forbidden fruit. how could a beautiful simple little apple be responsible for all that drama? but maybe its their simple beauty that is precisely their problem, maybe my insatiable lust for anything apple will be my down fall? probably not. but if it is, i’ll happily be the world’s first crazy apple lady.
my bedside, pillow-view
this week i thought i would join in on the ‘my place and yours’ meme fun-times, as started by the unstoppable pip from meet me at mikes! so for your voyeuristic pleasure, here is what i wake up to each morning.
starting from the top left corner and going clockwise you can see:
my lovely vintage wallpaper lampshade, from drawflowers ✽ a little solar powered plant that, as much as i try, i just can’t kill ✽ a handy little green and pink mug that holds hairclips mostly ✽ a pink box to store my moisturizer and lip balm etc ✽ current bedtime book ‘the ten cent plague: the great comic book scare and how it changed america’ ✽ the fabulous yellow alarm clock ✽ and last but not least a sweet little plastic box made by swimmer with bunnies and toadstools and hula hoops and filled with earrings that i’m too lazy to put away ✽
