Big Dog

This is one spooky robot!

MadebyHannah

I've blogged about Hannah Kopacz' pretty, folksy screen-printed designs before, and now I think it might just be time to order a couple of skirts ...

~ this one reminds me of Alice in Wonderland:



I adore Hannah and her love of Alpine kitsch. Click here for a tour of her crazy little LA-German chalet, and here for her blog ...

Open is open!

Ahh, yes.
Miss Angela's lovely new blog, Open, provides snapshots of Melbourne's independent shops and cafes for the good people of blogland to peruse. Those of you who happen to live in this arty little city - get ready to feel super-inspired, jump on your bikes and go exploring too!


Looks rather nice so far, Miss A.!


(image from Open)

Bokeh love - found on Flickr

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Please click on the mosaic to enlarge these beautiful pictures. I can't work out how to make the mosaic bigger .... any hints? I use this mosaic maker. When I change the pixel size in the HTML coding in Blogger it loses clarity.

Photos found here:
1. One Brave Soul, 2. Winter Stress Bokeh, 3. Berries and Snow Bokeh, 4. Ice Bokeh! HBWH!, 5. Wild and Crazy Bokeh, 6. Cup of Bokeh (HBW!), 7. Down Among the Bluebells, 8. Untitled, 9. 140::365 HBW......(SOOC), 10. uNd umZinGeLT, 11. Perseverance, 12. Zenkeh, 13. Pine with Spider Web Bokeh, 14. Happy Bokeh Wednesday, 15. Bluebird Bokeh

G is for ginkgo

Oh ginkgo! How pretty you look in this beautiful autumn weather!







~ you're definitely one of my favourite trees.

Dollhouse

I never really got into playing with dolls as a child, but I like the life-sized dollhouse (created from an abandoned farmhouse) by Saskatchewan artist Heather Benning :




I found it on Janne's blog. Janne does have a dollhouse, with rather nice retro interior styling ideas:



Groovy man!

Sometimes happy people scare me

Thank you, LPCoverLover!

The Master of all she surveys

Graduation hoopla ....
Today my mum, sister and beloved husband celebrated with me at Burnley. I'm the inaugural (yup - the one and only!) person to be awarded the Master of Urban Horticulture at the University of Melbourne.

*yay!*



As you can see, I tend to take these things extremely seriously....


Wish my dad could have been here.

Choose your alphabet

Do you like these fonts?







I found them over here and I like them.

Rhett Dashwood works on a larger scale .... he finds letters in landscapes.

A little story about trees

Overheard on the tram this morning - a highly animated conversation between a very small child (VSC) and a young mum (YM):

VSC: Mummy, why is all everything all on the ground?

YM: Well, the trees lose their leaves in Autumn, so they fall on the ground.

VSC, wide-eyed: They lose their leaves?

YM: Yes - when it's sunny the trees get all their nutrients through their leaves, then when it gets cold, the leaves die and they fall off.....

VSC, completely crestfallen: .... oooohhhh ....

YM: .... and the trees have a rest during winter ...

VSC, devastatingly saddened: .... ooooohhhh ....

YM: .... and then in spring, they get a whole lot of new shoots and the leaves grow back.

VSC, squealing with delight: .... The leaves come back?! They get new leaves again!! Then they're pretty and they have leaves!!!

It's a simple process, but it makes me happy too.

Food from Finland

My friend (and boss!) organises regular craft afternoons at her home, and she always chooses a food theme so everyone brings food for a big dinner party in the evening. This weekend we will be cooking Finnish food. I've looked up some recipes on the internet, but was wondering if anyone has recommendations for a Finnish dish that is relatively easy to cook/prepare...?


(By the way, it's Autumn here in Melbourne at the moment - I thought this might help to guide the selection of seasonal ingredients .....)

Any suggestions will be very welcome!

Little robot + people = art

Oh wow! I absolutely love the Tweenbots experiment that Kacie Kinzer* has been working on for her thesis at ITP in New York. Please have a look - it's a cheerful little story.


It's sweet and simple, yet it creates a wonderful narrative about social interaction, place and intent. I'd love to try something similar in Melbourne.

*You might also like to take a peep at the other works in Kacie's portfolio - they're lovely!

It's my birthday!

I'm 21 again, of course.

Wiggly

I know it's a bit dodgy to encourage commercial advertising, but I do like the Cadbury eyebrows ad (although I'm sure it could very quickly become annoying).


I also like the latest advert for lamb that's showing in Australia - quite a few local pop culture references in this one.

Bye-bye Sol .... don't you come back now!

Every time I see the evil (newly-ousted) Telstra boss Sol Trujillo on the telly, I think he must be the secret love child of Mr Potato Head and Ira Gobbler's Signor Sandwich....





... only he's not as cute.

Today's archi-fix - a bee haven!

A lovely beehive building, found on Inhabitat ....

I quote:

"University of Sheffield’s new £4.4 million Arthur Willis Environmental Centre will allow researchers to study future climate scenarios and their effects on local biology, including plants and social insects such as ants and bees .... The facility has been built to not only blend seamlessly into the surrounding woodlands and sit upon on WWII rubble infill, but also to allow bees to fly in and out!

With the bees traveling freely between the facility and the outdoors, scientists will be able to study their behavioral patterns as they travel to their nearby hives."

I love the building and I love bees!

Swamped!

Eeek! What happened to the illusion of being able to meet deadlines?!

Gus is helping me mark assignments this week.


He's double-checking the paperwork in case I go completely loopy.