HUBBY and I are planning a trip to Melbourne in the next week to see Mumford & Sons and Stephen Fry.  We’re both really excited, but I suspect I’m more so then he is because I’m also planning a little blog inspired voyeurism.  You see there’s a few blogs who I love that are located near Melbourne and have stores attached to their blogs.  Or should that be blogs attached to their stores?  Either way there’s shopping involved.

One of the blogs that I’m planning on visiting is The Lark.  The Lark store is located in Daylesford, which HUBBY informs me is a mere hour or so from where we’ll be staying in Melbourne.  I’m so excited at the prospect of being able to wonder through the store and see all the handmade goodness up close and personal.

I love reading The Lark because it provides an insight into living in a small community, what it takes to keep a successful business afloat and how to juggle work with family.  A lot of the time I use The Lark as a starting point for all of the fantasies I have about moving to the country and living a simpler life.

Image source: The Lark

If you’d like a little slice of Australian heaven then check out The Lark. You can even shop online with The Lark Online Shop so if you can’t make it to Daylesford you can bring a little bit of Daylesford to you!

Last weekend I had the immense pleasure of attending the Handmade Market with Miss Alivicwil.  I did a little bit of browsing and a little bit of splurging.  It was lovely.  There were so many wonderful things that I wanted to get, but I was on a limited budget so I had to behave.

I did however manage to squeeze in a little purchase from the wonderful Michelle at Poppy, Bean and Bloss. I purchased a fabric covered button hair tie.  Not the most practical purchase given my hair is still trying to recover from the post surgery hair-loss cutback, but I just couldn’t say no to the cut little ducky!

So for the past few days I’ve had the little duck sitting on my desk while I ponder what to do with her, then it hit me.  Yo-yo!  I could use the yo-yo skills I learnt at Brown Owls and make a cute little brooch.  So that’s what I did!

I’m rather chuffed with my made brooch skills.  I feel like Michelle and I have collaborated on our first ever project with great success.  It’s rather cute and is currently dressing up the lapel on my red winter coat.  I just love it!

I had another little success this week with the arrival of a coffee table book that I made using Apple’s iPhoto application.  Using the photo’s from our recent camping trip I put together a little thank you present for my folks.  I’m really happy with how it’s turned out.

Now if I can just get my butt into gear and get it into the post for my parents I’ll be even happier.   The photo on the front of the book is one my Dad took and I think it looks stunning.  He’s got such a great eye.  He was the whole reason I got into taking photos and it’s great now to be able to talk to him about the photos he’s taking and the little tricks that I’ve learnt.  I just hope he gets a little thrill from seeing his images in print.

I’m so happy with how they’ve come out that I’m going to go back and make books of our trips overseas and some family based books.  It was so easy to do and really quite cost effective.  The only downside was that it took three weeks to get here from New Zealand.

♥♥♥♥♥

Want to peek in to other peoples amazing and wonderful creative spaces, then head on over to Kootoyoo!

We’re home sweet home from two whole weeks in the wild west of western north Queensland.  We had an absolute blast!  If you ever get the opportunity to travel in that country – take it with both hands.  It’s absolutely stunning.  Stunning in a way that is ever changing.  We were lucky enough to see it after the Easter floods.

But like all good things the fun had to come to an end and reality beckoned, so we headed home on a jet plane.  Hence today’s music Monday.  We listened to John Denver in the car and sang along loudly.  Well I did anyway.  I hope you sing it loud and proud…

Normanton – Queensland

We’re still in the wilds of Western Queensland.  Our camping adventure came to an end on Monday.  We’re in Mount Isa still and spending time seeing the sights before heading home again on Friday.  It’s been an interesting time filled with laughter and wrong turns.

When I get back to the Capital I’m planning to post some more pictures and highlights, but until then you’re just going to have to make do with this image from Karumba of the sun setting over the Gulf of Carpenteria.

1. Storm brewing, Central Queensland, 2. Karumba beach flower, 3. Termite Mounds, 4. Prairie Horizon, 5. Day7: Normanton -> Karumba (78km), 6. Sunset at Karumba, Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, Australia., 7. Queensland Bottle Tree, 8. Tattersall Hotel, 9. Mount Isa, 10. Mount Isa Sunset 4, 11. Australie, Mount Isa to Longreach, 12. Mount Isa Lightning Storm, 13. Mount Isa Mine 14. Not available 15. Not available16. Not available

This week we’re on holiday, in fact as you read this I’m probably some where on the highway in Outback Queensland.  We flew to Mount Isa on the weekend and now we’re headed to Karumba on a week long camping and fishing adventure.  In fact, I won’t even have a laptop with me so I cleverly prepared this Flickr Fave in advance as I didn’t want to miss out on playing while on holidays.  So if you’d like to see more Flickr Faves head on over to Artmind.  While you do that I’m going back to using the CB radio in Ma and Pa’s 4wd inappropriately. *over and out*

I am in some serious travel lust right now.  I happened to wonder on to From The Right Bank where I was shown the most amazing images of homes and interiors.  I was happily ohhing and ahhing when my breath was taken away by Hotel Endsleigh.

I’m not going to show you all the amazing images of this Hotel that are available because I want you to go to their website and see for yourself, but let me just say this:

• The interiors have been lovingly restored and furnished in Victorian Era stylings.
• The wallpapers alone are worth visiting for.
• It’s lavish and sumptuous and all things wonderful.
• The grounds are magnificent and the natural beauty breath taking.

I want to go there and stroll the grounds in my Victorian Era dress and parasol.  It’s just too charming for words!  Oh the life I would live here…

Don’t you just wish you could go and sit outside looking at this marvelous view while eating and drinking on some wonderfully crafted menu?  I’m drooling just thinking about it!

A few weeks ago we finally took delivery of the shelving we ordered from Ikea and had delivered by Bring It Home.  The lads from Bring It Home were awesome.  Kept us in the loop about delivery times, moved all of the packages into the house for us and were just really lovely lads.  When they delivered the shelving they laugh and said “That’ll keep you busy for the next few weeks.”  To which I cavalierly replied “Not likely, they’ll be up by the end of the day!”  It was 4:00pm.

I was true to my word though, by 9pm that night we had everything built, installed and stacked with our stuff bar the one Billy that wouldn’t fit.  (My measurements were out by 6cm.  Whoops!)

I’ve been waiting for a sunny day to take some pictures of the completed project for posting, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the lounge will never be flooded with sunshine so I’d best just take the photos and be done with it.  (Plus I was inspired by the topic post at Meet Me at Mikes) So today I took some happy snaps.  I apologise for the quality, I really need to invest in a tripod because the natural light would have been good enough but I’m too shaky.  So here they are.

This is the view from our front door.   This is the view that I love to come home to.  That brown blur is George.  If you’re wondering why we have the bottom couple of shelves empty, do you see that brown blur – that’s George, she likes to chew and she especially loves to chew books.  The side with the board games is non-fiction.  All the “boring” books.  The picture beside the court jester rabbit is the 100+ year old map of Cambridge that I purchased while I was in London last year.  If you look closely you can see the first soft toy I’ve ever made adorning the Lonely Planet and Dictionary shelf.

HUBBY’s massive television has pride of place.  I’m ashamed to say it but we only ordered four of the Benno DVD shelves and they’re completely full.  We could probably do with two more and then we could probably do with stopping buying DVDs.    The two framed prints above the television are from Yumi Yumi – they are this and this.  Both are stunning and they never fail to get noticed.  I also have two Zukzuk prints, this and this, off to the side of the games shelf.  They greet guests as they come in and bring a smile to my face every time I see them.   (And they’re made by an Aussie!!! Ok, she’s a Kiwi, but in the true spirit of ANZAC I shall claim her just like we did Russell Crowe and Crowded House!)

On the other side of the television is “fiction”.

These shelves hold some of my favourite treasures.  There’s my rubber duck collection.  One day the shall go all the way across the top.  There’s my little sock monkey from Maribel Made, Ali Star.  There’s the gnome my Mum gave me when I was in Mount Isa – he’s hand made and he’s a miner!  There’s my Andrea Joseph print which I adore.  There’s my gnome from Brooklyn Rehab.  All the books I love to read and have read as part of my yearly reading challenge.  There’s my collection of vintage purple bottles.  My Belle and Boo print which makes my heart swell.  The little Bambi figurine that I found on a trip to Braidwood.  My tie died piggy bank.  There’s a photo with HUBBY and his mother who passed away last year.  There’s a photo of us together from our wedding.  HEAPS of things.  It gives me so much pleasure to have them all out on display.  Just little bits and pieces of our lives together.

There’s also this….

IT’S A MOOSE!!! Miss Alivicwil brought him back from Canada for me.  I love him!  He makes me giggle on the inside every time I see him.  Did I mention, IT’S A MOOSE!!!

So that’s the shelving situation in our house.  One of these days I’ll take better photos of all the little collections of things that we have going on.  It’ll have to be once I get a tripod though…

When things aren’t going well I can always count on my teddy bear to be there for me.  So this week I thought I’d give you my top five teddy bears.

1. Gund – HUBBY’s nickname at high school used to be Schlep – I don’t know why… it’s a boy thing… I think.  One day we were out shopping and I made him stop into one of my favourite stores The Teddy Bear Shop.  Inside we saw Schlep.  It was love at first sight for me, but I left him in the store because I couldn’t justify spending the money on a teddy bear.  (I’m supposed to be a grown up, remember?)  On our first Valentine’s Day together HUBBY surprised me with Schlep.  I’ve cherished him ever since.  Whenever I need hugs I know I can rely on both of my Schleps.

2. Nici – When I was diagnosed with PCOS four years ago and there was talking that I was going to have to have a laparoscopy I splurged on this little guy to help cheer me up.  He has his own little belly button just ripe for the insertion of a laparoscope.

3. Me to You – Everyone loves a tatty teddy.  The colour scheme wouldn’t be a traditional choice for teddy bears which is why they’re so great.  I love their little blue noses.

4. Keel Toys – While I was in Cambridge last year I was a little bit home sick for my HUBBY and puppies so one day while I was out perusing the local stores I came across Toby, the American Beagle.  Cue massive homesickness and Toby came to live with me.  Toby is much less maintenance than George!

5.  Big Ted – The first bear in my life.  Big Ted stars on Play School, an Australian children program on the ABC.  Big Ted isn’t the only bear on the show, there’s also Little Ted.  I can’t remember properly, but I think a few years ago Big Ted turned 40.  Forty years in teddy bear is a long time, especially to have not lost an ear or worn a hole in your stitching.  Hopefully Big Ted and Little Ted will be entertaining children for another 40 years to come.

Let me start by saying that I put my love of Britney Spears in the same closet as my love for the British Monarchy.  I don’t know why I love them so, but I can’t help it.  It’s fundamental to my existence.  Therefore it made perfect sense to go and see Britney when she toured Australia.

HUBBY and I attended the show on Wednesday 11 November at Rod Laver Arena.   A few days prior to the concert the papers were going nuts with opinions about her miming her show.  My personal belief, you charge for people to see you ‘live’ you sing live.  If you’re dance routines are going to be so hectic that you need to use backing tracks than I expect to see a damn good show and it would be expected that this information be put in the ticket details.

It’s hard to be objective about the show as I’d been fortunate enough to see Pink in concert a few months before hand.  For starters the ticket to Pink was a quarter of the price to see Britney and the seats were three times better.  Now, Pink and Britney are two completely different performing animals, but you can’t help but draw parallels between the shows.

Pink was engaging, full of energy, animated and physically dominate.  Britney seemed to be going through the motions.  She address the audience twice, both times the audio was hard to understand and it was short lived.  As a member of the audience I left the Pink concert feeling like I’d gotten a glimpse of Pink the person and the artist.  I left Britney’s show feeling like I’d just paid to see the Dolphin Show at Seaworld.

There were claims leaking from the Perth show that she spent a lot of time with her back to the audience.  Well, it’s true she did, but lets be fair the stage was large and they were trying to perform to every seat in the house.  The choreographers definitely tried to give all people a view of the show.  However this meant that there was a lot of time spent moving from one stage mark to another.

There were also claims that you didn’t see much of her on the big screen.  I don’t think this claim is founded in reality.  The use of the big screens was great.  A real mix of the live performance and pre-recorded videos.  It’s a shame that Britney’s performance on stage flagged in comparison between the pre-recorded moves and the live show.  The inclusion of Perez Hilton made me chuckle, and the use of the big countdown clock worked really well to get the audience excited.

The dance routines had moments of brilliance which were rewarded with much love from the audience.  I really enjoyed the routine for “Piece of Me” (which is included below).  However at times it felt like Britney was dancing around her handbag in a nightclub; just marking time before she moved on to the next set piece.  She seemed lost somehow. When you see some of the footage of the show from other concerts it may be easier to speculate that she was just having a bad night.  Obviously dealing with jet lag, her boys turning up, the bad press from Perth and life in general; and you can forgive someone a little for that.

There were sparks of Britney.  Sparks of the performer that you saw early on in her career and in the entertainment media.  When she’d smile her face was like  a beacon.  It was easy to understand why people feel so drawn to her.  But those moments were few and far between. I think I would have been more forgiving if she’d interacted with the audience more.  Showed some of the southern belle sweetness she’s known for.

The costuming at times left something to be desired.  If I was Britney I’d be asking questions of the designers – do they hate her?  They were not flattering to a body that’s had two children in quick succession and enjoyed it’s far share of Starbucks and Drive-Thru meals.  She’s skinny, but she’s not toned.  Pink was ripped.  When she did the belly moves nothing moved, it was tight.  Unfortunately there were times when Britney could have been mistaken for doing the truffle shuffle.  Costuming that made advantage of nude lycra and supportive construction would have made a world of difference.  Even something that was flattering to her body shape would have made a world of difference.  She’s not Beyonce so she’s not going to be able to pull off the current one piece fashion trend like Beyonce can.  Sometimes less really is more.

It’s hard to separate Britney the paparazzi version and the entertainment version.  I don’t know how she manages to get out of bed everyday in a world that is constantly hounding her.  How can she step back and prepare for her tours when she can’t get a moments peace.  As much as I love hearing about Britney, I think there should be legislation passed globally that puts restraints around what the paparazzi can and cannot do while stalking a star.  It’s mental and it’s a vicious circle.  Everyone’s looking to say how she’s failing at life, and I’ll admit that the perception of her show suffers for this.  However, I think for me it boils down to ticket price.  I don’t feel like I got value for money. (Especially when there was no encore… who doesn’t do an encore?  People expect an encore.  People don’t expect to have the house lights turned on and everything come to a holt!)

I can’t stress enough – I really wanted this show to rock.  I wanted to be Dazzled just like Edward did to Bella.  But I wasn’t.  I did find that I wanted to rush the stage and give her a big hug and tell her that everything will work out and not to listen to the critics.  I’ve got the pound puppy rescue mentality something shocking when it comes to Britney.  In my head she’s this sweet person that’s just trying to make it in a crazy world.  Even if a fifth of what you read or hear about her is true, no one should have to deal with that sort of scrutiny or invasion.  But no amount of personal wishing and hoping for her to have a better time of it makes up for the fact that I traveled interstate to  see an average show.

Britney would benefit from seeing Bette Middler in show.  I paid marginally more per ticket to see the Divine Miss M in concert a few years ago and I left that show feeling like I’d been dazzled.  She interacted with the audience.  She could belt out a tune.  The costuming and choreography was amazing.   The stage wasn’t massive for an arena show, but they made such good use of it.  Even the cheap seats (which weren’t that cheap!) felt like they got a diamond class performance.  That’s what my ticket price for Britney had me expecting and it fell short of that.

Don’t get me wrong, overall the show was good.  I always enjoy hearing her music and it was great to see her in the flesh.  The support performers were amazing and breath taking.  The sets had some interesting concepts for moving around, making the transition between themes and utilizing the space.  Would I rank it in my top ten concerts of all time?  Unfortunately not.  I can’t help but feel like I paid just to be able to say I saw Britney Spears, when I really wanted to be able to say I saw Britney Spears kick ass, take names and prove her critics wrong!

It’s been awhile since I posted a Friday Fancy, so I thought I would do a weekend inspired Fancy.  I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed my weekend!

1. Bermagui Beacon – This is the holiday rental we stayed in.  It’s amazing!  Brand new, massive, townhouse.  It has the best views over the Bermagui River and out to the beach and bay.  We spent Saturday morning whale watching from the balcony.  It was amazing.  The townhouse is stylishly decorated with a beach theme.  It has all the modern conveniences including Austar and a saltwater pool.  Everything a girl needs on her weekend away with her Husband and friends.  If you’re looking for a place to escape to you couldn’t find much better than this.

2. Beramugi Bait and Tackle – Kayak Hire – On Saturday afternoon we hired a double sea kayak and a three man canoe.  COUSIN and LEE LEE took the double sea kayak and HUBBY and I took the three man canoe.  HUBBY and I took all the towels and things we wanted to keep dry in with us.  When we started out we had no control over our canoe.  LEE LEE and COUSIN where wiping the floor with us.  It was awesome fun.  The Bermagui River is so clean.  The water is crystal clear.  Amazing.  We stopped for a swim and then continued on down the river.  At one stage the girls suggested we hold on to the back of their canoe and they’d tow us to the beach.

Shame I was the one holding on to the back of the boat.  I’m also the one that is the clumsiest amongst us.  One thing lead to another and our five foot canoe tipped over.  All our towels, shoes, water bottles, paddles, wallet and keys went in the drink.  Luckily for us we’d put our wallet and keys in a clip-seal bag.  It was also in a string bag with the water bottles which meant that it floated.

We managed to right the boat, collect what we could and swim the canoe to the shore.  We were laughing so hard.  It made our afternoon trip some what more memorable.  We were really lucky that nothing serious happened, especially given we had no life-jackets.  I’d do it again in a heart beat!

3. Havaianas – The footwear of choice.  By now those of you that are regular readers should know about my undying love for my Converse Chuck Taylors.  However, when on holiday I choose to wear Havaianas.  I lived in my pink pair all weekend.  It was awesome.  It’s as close to not wearing shoes in public that I will ever go.  Only one snag – it really highlighted that I need to get a pedicure!

4. Maxi Dress – I’m not normally a girl that likes to wear dresses or skirts, but lately I’m in love with these maxi dresses.  So much so that I purchased two of them while I was shopping in Bega.  They’re great for holidaying as you can dress them up or down depending on the occasion.  I tended to wear mine with my Havaianas – so clearly I went the dress down option.  I’m going to see if I can find a pattern and make my own.  Should be interesting!

5. Canberra Pet Care - We wouldn’t be able to go away and have a fun and relaxing weekend if it wasn’t for the wonderful staff at Canberra Pet Care.  George and Tyson are our family and so we can’t relax, or go away without them, if we don’t have somewhere to take care of them.  Canberra Pet Care are awesome.  They look after our babies like they were their babies.  Our dogs are actually excited to be there when we drop them off.  They get great walks and playtime.  They get pampered and bathed.  They get to share accommodation so it’s just like they were at home together.  It’s amazing.  The other great thing – it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.  The rates are really affordable so it doesn’t add a mountain of expense to your weekend away.  There’s also nothing quite like getting home and picking up the kids; I love puppy cuddles.