In love with ... Thomas Allen

I think Thomas Allen's artwork is amazing, don't you!? I particularly love his photographs of sculptures made from vintage books. I was introduced to him a few years back by Chip Kidd when he came to wee little Hobart, as the international speaker for AGDA.

I hope you've had a lovely weekend so far. If you are a football fan in Australia, it was probably a bit of a stressful and disappointing today (the teams drew the grand final!!). Our household was barracking for The Saints, but I think (as my real team is Adelaide anyway) I would have prefered we lost. Sad but true, so see you next week Sports Fans (Scrubs reference for those of you playing at home), I'll be the one in the black, white and red.

PS. Did anyone see the Julia Gillard totally jinxed them at the Grand Final breakfast!? I can't believe she said, I don't know who to barrack for, just as long as it isn't a draw!

Images from here

First pass - faux pas

Here are the first attempts at stencilling my designs onto t-shirts. Somewhat more precision was needed then stencilling I have done previously (in my delinquent days on the wild streets of Hobart). I also did the pea image, but, well, I don't want to talk about that (insert sad face). I think the first pass was a success and totally spruces up some plain tees ready for the balmy days of spring.

Goodbye ol' gal

An era has passed and a new one has begun. My wonderful husbeast bought me a fabulous new laptop. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled, but I loved my (now seemingly little) 15" Macbook Pro, she was lovely. Alas she will be heading off to a new home soon, where no doubt she will be just as loved as she was here. It seems wrong to identify so well with a piece of machinery, but seeing as I spent time with her most days of the last 2.5 years and had my 'life' stored on her, I do feel a bit sad about deleting everything and returning her to factory settings. If you are ever thinking about buying a mac, I couldn't recommend them more. I know many people say it's all marketing, but the proof is in the pudding right? I never had any problems at all and she stills runs as fast today as she was bought (battery time is a bit worst and theres a little bit of electrical tape on the power-cord, but apart from that... she's apples)

So hello newbie, I'm looking forward to what we will create together.

I hope you've all had a fabulous weekend, I don't know about you, but I could totally go another weekend right now! Love to you and yours xx

The computer is mightier than the pen (& sword)

Hand-eye coordination has never been one of my strong points. Yes, I was the little girl crying in the corner after getting hit in the face playing king-ball in primary school (which my teacher made us play everyday) I actually recall a sports teacher saying to me after one such incident *sarcastically* "does that hurt?" to which I replied * rudely* "what do you think?" and then she slapped me across the face - bet they don't get away with that these days!... anyway, I digress.

I have however mastered a few sports such as beach cricket and Pooh sticks, which is nothing to be sneezed at. Sadly when it comes to illustration my hand-eye coordination gets lost in translation. My mind has a perfect image but my hands are like lead and try as I might I am generally disappointed. I do love, love to illustrate on the computer though!

I made these little peas and telephone to be stenciled onto some baby t-shirts along with the fox.

Fox

I drew this little fox a while ago for a screen-printing workshop. Sadly I wasn't able to go in the end and so my poor little fox has been locked away on my computer, but not for much longer! I've decided to stencil him on to a t-shirt for The Boy, fun on a bun!

The book is dead - long live the book

I've been told that books and magazines will die out, but I'm not sure I believe it to be true. People (more then one person, not that I can remember who) have told me everything will become digitized and it's already happening. Technology - I'm a fan, but books? books are somethings else. They are beautiful objects within themselves. The printed and written word is humbling and powerful. I would miss them dearly. Before they die out I've been enjoying some bookshelf porn. Time for me to get off the computer and get up-close-and-personal with some pages, hope you are all having a wonderful weekend xx

Images from here and here

What's in a name

I always thought picking a name for a child would be the funnest part of having a baby, that was of course until I fell pregnant. Wonderful opportunity - yes, huge responsibly - yes, fun... not-so-much.

We were still toying with about ten names right up until The Boy was delivered, but when we first saw him, we both knew instantly his name was Roman.

This time round it seems the stakes are even higher, not only do we want to pick a name we both love, one that reflects our heritage and personalities, one that doesn't compete with our epic-ly long (Polish) surname and one that I can scream across the playground without embarrassing myself or my child, but also one which fits with our growing identity as a family.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it all, but I think that our names are so much a part of us and possibly effect our growing and developing personalities. My maiden name was Rebecca Wilson, Rebecca was the most popular name in the year of my birth and so 'we' were everywhere, in college I was actually in a class with another Rebecca Wilson! Blair (my husband) on the other-hand had an unusual name for the time. I think we had very different experiences as a result of our names.

Here are a few name sites I have been perusing:

What a lovely name

Name berry

Nymbler

I suppose we can always go with 'Moon Unit' if all else fails...

Unisex - to colour or not to colour

On my to-do-list of about '99 crafty projects I want to complete before baby arrives' are three of these cardigans. One for Baba ghanoush (our little one on the way) and 2 for friends with bundles so imminent I barely have time to pick up my hook and say 'cross your legs!'. Above is the colour combo I picked for baby Poppet, who turned out to be a lovely little girl, not that I knew that when I made it, but I still think the colours a quite fitting for either a girl or boy.

What do you think about unisex colours? Traditional lemon yellow? Pasels? Brights? Naturals?

Tomorrow

The Tomorrow when the war began series first came out when I was in primary school and had a huge influence on how my reading preferences developed over the years (I still love to read books set in war time). Sadly by the time the last few in the series were released, I had lost momentum/interest (reading wise, they are aimed at a young teenage audience). I decided last week to re-read the series including the last 2 which I had never read (I can't believe I waited 15 years from reading the first book to finding out what happened in the end!) I really loved the series as a kid, as I mentioned they are aimed at younger readers, however, I still enjoyed the series at this age (although I wouldn't recommend reading them all in one go! 7 in 6 days! Phew!). The movie of the first book comes out tomorrow (here is the trailer) I'm generally in the camp of - books are better then the movies made of them - but I must admit I'm looking forward to seeing it!