I covet

image via design inc.

I have been yearning to put a tree on the wall in Lily's room for ages now. The problem is, of course, that we rent. In Australia this means that we have extremely limited rights to do anything at all to our home (i.e you need permission to put up a picture hook!) and we only have a 12 month lease, so anything we do do may have a pretty limited lifespan...

image via home sweet home

Despite all this, I thought that I would share some of my recent finds with you. Maybe you'll be able to use them? Or, maybe they'll still be available next century when we can afford to buy our own house...

First up there is this gorgeous fabric wall sticker from I love my messy room.

I particularly like it with the addition of animals and the fact that it is fabric is pretty cool too. Apparently it can be re-used and will come off the wall without damaging it...

Next up is a wall sticker from the wall sticker company. This one is made of vinyl, but it is a Lara Cameron pattern that I have always loved...

It's also available in wallpaper, which would be very cool (but would really really need to go on the wall of a house that you weren't renting...)

A little goodness

How nice is it to receive a package in the mail? Especially when it is full of goodness.

I have been drooling over most of the stuff in Leslie's Etsy shop for months and months now and when she announced a 30% sale I decided that my time had come. First I got a little packet of stamps for Lily (& I) to play with and then I selected a modest little selection of cute fabric.

When it all arrived (this morning! Who knew they delivered on a Saturday?) I was so happy with what I had chosen. I just love the feel of the linen blends and those elephants are just so incredibly cute.

The only trouble that I face now is in deciding what to do with it...

P.S. Leslie is closing up her shop (to move home to Canada) and is now having a 40% off sale on most of her products. So pop over there for a look around if you like lovely fabric. (She also has a lovely blog).

Happy New Year

I hope that you all had a lovely NYE.

We spent yesterday morning at the zoo and the afternoon at the beach. It was such a lovely sunny day. Lily ran around like a 'mad fool' (as she now calls herself) and paddled about in the water, while we ate yummy hot chips and drank soy lattes. I love Balmoral.

In the evening, Lily shocked us all by staying awake for the 9pm fireworks (she had had an early sleep and a huge day) and so we wandered down to the harbour to watch them. She enjoyed the lights in the sky at first (although she kept asking to see the bangs), but quickly got very tired and told us "I don't want to see them anymore. They're a bit scary." So we wandered home to bed.

I heard the midnight fireworks, but couldn't even be bothered lifting my head to watch them out the window (my Dad's guest bedroom actually had a pretty good view of them - as I have found out in year's past by making a habit of watching them from bed... oh I am so lazy). Cuddles with Lily was quite celebratory enough for me.

This morning P and I wandered up to Milson's Point in search of coffee and found a gorgeous little french cafe that we had never noticed before. It lead us back to our ongoing reverie about running our own little cafe somewhere and then on to other (possibly more realistic) schemes about what we might do when we grow up. I love those mornings when the world seems so full of delicious possibilities...

This is also why I love New Year's Day. The new year is such a clean slate and life feels full of delicious possibilities. What are your schemes and dreams for 2009?

I think that I might...

• Start baking pastries and new kinds of bread
• Do more walking (maybe in the evenings with our little night owl)
• Stop buying juice from the supermarket
• Sew myself a new wrap around skirt (or two...)
• Take more photos & video
• Send more handwritten letters and cards
• Come ridiculously close to finish off my annoying PhD and move on with my life
• Start handmaking Christmas presents a little earlier in the year

I'd add that I plan to do more yoga, but that one is getting a little repetitive these days and so I'd better just leave it off...

Journaling

I recently finished reading "Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art" and got all inspired about starting a new journal. I have kept a journal for most of my life, but they have always been the wordy, angsty kind of journal that doesn't serve me very well as a source of inspiration. After reading this book I am very keen to try something completely different.
I had just bought Lily a big spiral bound sketchbook to draw in and so I stole it (yes, I am bad - I'll get her another one though) and made it my own. Then I set out a bunch of lovely coloured pencils, a sharp lead pencil and gave myself permission to paste in stuff and generally collect bits of daily life that might serve to inspire me in the future or remind me of moments in time that I found particularly significant. I am really quite excited about it.

Another inspiring pathway that this book opened up for me was its mention of the 1000 Journals Project. I had never heard of it before, although it has been around since 2000. Essentially Brian Singer (or Someguy, as he calls himself on his website) spent a few years sending 1000 journals out into the world with the following instructions pasted on the inside front page:

"Take this journal and add something to it. Stories, photographs, drawings, opinions. Anything goes."

They are then supposed to be passed on to someone else to continue their journey. People have scanned pages of the journals and posted them on the 1000journals site and the location of each journal is also tracked on this site whenever it is spotted. At least one completed journal has made it back to Brian Singer and two have gone completely missing in action.

A documentary film has been made about the project and there is a touring art show of some of the pages that have been contributed. A book has also been published.


How cool is that?

Naturally I wanted to join in the fun, but it is nigh-on impossible to get a hold of one of the original 1000 journals and so I signed up to the 1001 journals site. I'll let you know if I ever receive one of the journals to contribute to - or if I get up the motivation to send one out into the world myself.

The first page of my new journal is covered in toadstools and birds. I'm not very deep.

How about you - do you keep a journal? Do you consider your blog to be your journal?