Sshh, enjoy the quiet

Scrolling through the gorgeous blogs by Pia Jane Bijkerk - expat Aussie based in Amsterdam and Paris, I realised I was jealous. Jealous is not a word that I use often. Whilst sitting on her houseboat in Amsterdam, she recorded the sound of rain falling on the water with an intermittent sound of a duck quacking in the background.
Living in Melbourne, it's so rare we get decent rains and when there is a smattering of rain, I'm often sitting in an office building looking out the window wishing I could hear the rain or smell the rain.
For all you drought dwellers, enjoy: http://tinyurl.com/nv6lko

Angelic voices

Listening to the gorgeous voices of the Webb sisters. English-born Charley and Hattie are singers as well as musicians and have recorded two albums. Currently on tour with Leonard Cohen.

The ABC of wallpaper

In preparation for the birth of our second child, we need to move from occupying the middle bedroom in our house to the front bedroom/study/storage room and hired a painter to paint the rooms. For the baby's room, we wanted to wallpaper one wall but as I soon discovered, the choice of wallpaper is quite limited: it's either Winnie the Pooh or saccharin-style wall decals. 

Before I resigned myself to painting the wall, I found Australian costume/production designer and Oscar award winner, Catherine Martin, has designed a simple yet stylish collection of wallpaper. Our pre-requisite for the wallpaper was that it had to be able to transition from the room of a baby to toddler to young child and not be too cutesy yet still display a sense of whimsy. 

Martin's wallpaper is stocked at Porters Paints and after viewing her designs including "circus silhouettes" in red, we ordered "alphabet city" in green which ticked all of the boxes 

When we we asked our painter if he could hang the wallpaper, he smiled and said he hadn't hung wallpaper since the 1970s and gave us tips on how to hang it. Talking to my mum she said it had been more than 30 years since she'd hung wallpaper and were people still using it. Besides in restaurants and boutiques, have you hung wallpaper at home? 

Come September

I've just watched the trailer to "The September Issue" the new documentary about Vogue editor in chief, Anna Wintour, which is showing at the Melbourne International Film & Festival. Wintour is most famous for always being photograhed behind dark glasses and producing what is still considered a fashion bible to many. On the trailer, she comes across as quick witted and sharp of tongue and clearly knows her market. Is it worth seeing?

Warming to Winter

It's been a long time between posts and I've been burrowing down over these past few winter months. I'm on holiday this week - at home - and doing all of those pesky things I've meant to do this year - and lucky for me, the weather is gorgeous.

What I love about winter is steaming hot chocolate. On a sunny yet cold afternoon yesterday, I was on a mission to find a hot chocolate and came upon a small store in Smith Street, Collingwood. I wandered in looking for hot chocolate and discovered Thibault Fregoni - French-born, Melbourne based, chocolatier known as Monsieur Truffe and his glorious chocolate store.

His chocolate is lovingly made on site mostly using dark chocolate but includes a range of milk chocolate. Whilst I waited for my hot chocolate to be made - which was delicious - I eyed the 70% dark chocolate range of bars that included roasted almonds, orange peel and pistachio nuts. I ended up buying the 70% couverture chocolate with specks of dark caramel - I'm definitely going to savour this with a cup of hot chocolate. http://monsieurtruffe.wordpress.com/

Marvellous Mildura

I spent my Easter break and a few days extra in Mildura, a town about 1hour flight from Melbourne or a seven hours drive. It's known for orange orchards, grapevines and the Murray River - one of the longest river's in Australia. The weather during this time of the year is always gorgeous - it even got to 29C.
The very famous Italian-Australian, Stefano De Pieri , has a renowned restaurant, Stefano's, located in the cellar of the Grand Hotel. We had an intimate dinner in a very rustic setting and were served a seven-course degustation. His food is simple Italian with a focus on fresh local ingredients. Melburnians fly to Mildura for the weekend just to dine at his restaurant - it truly is that good. He also has a Cafe/Bakery and adjoining gallery as well as his own range of food products and Italian-style wines. http://www.stefano.com.au/
We saw a great exhibition in Stefano's gallery by Philip Hunter which were studies for his paintings. The colours are very earthy and the imagery at first looks like landscapes but they twist and mould into different shapes that sometimes look like marine life. http://tiny.cc/03nUz

Autumn leaves

Autumn has set in. The leaves have turned from green to yellow to deep red. It's my favourite time of the year - maybe because I was born in May, married in April and had my daughter in May. Crisp mornings with clean air that when you breathe it in, it fills your lungs with a sense of purity and feeling truly alive. Then we're blessed with early evenings with the scent of wood burning fires and beautiful pink skies that I never tire of.

Knitted niceties

On the weekend I went along to the Malvern Town Hall for the Magnolia Square craft market http://www.magnoliasquare.blogspot.com/ I picked up a gorgeous ecru-coloured cotton pram blanket for a girlfriend's newborn, Lola. The cotton is non-dyed and hand knitted by women in Zimbabwe. The label, Grasshoppers, is run by twin-sisters who are Zimbabwe-born and now Sydney based.

Profits are directed back into the business to grow and develop it for the women working in Zimbabwe, along with it providing an income for some of the poorest in the world. http://www.grasshoppersjumpers.com.au/about.html

Hand drawn handbags

I'm still listening to the lovely sounds of Shrift and currently tuned into their luscious version of the Beach Boys "God only knows". http://www.myspace.com/shriftspace
I'm also very fond of Marimekko and just perused their website to find gorgeous hand drawn pop-art graphics in their new range of bags. http://www.marisnewbags.com/

Lost in a moment

Gorgeous song set to sushi drifting along on a sushi train. Watch for a moment and close your eyes and dream. Film by Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean from Shrift, song "Lost in a moment".

Simply elegant

Last weekend on a partially drizzly Sunday, we visited Como House, a historic mansion - part Italianate and part Australian Regency style. It's less than 20mins from my house and I've lived most of my life in Melbourne and never visited it. My delight at the property heightened when I discovered that part of the five acres had a field of overgrown grass and weathered wooden fencing that looked like it hadn't been touched since the house was built in the 1850s.
The reason for our visit was a fashion exhibition that is part of the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival titled Shaping Elegance - Robert Fritzlaff - 12 March-14 June 2009. The way his clothing draped the models was superb, his use of tweed delightfully modern and the room that had a complete splash of red dresses and suits - a gorgeous surprise. Fritzlaff started working in the 1950s in Melbourne and worked full-time up until the 1980s. He continues to work with a small group of clients. http://www.comohouse.com.au/about_como

Labour of Love

A public holiday today to celebrate Labour Day and we got out of the city and headed to the country. We drove to the town of Healesville about 1hour 15mins away and an area near the recent Victorian bushfires. Luckily the town was saved but the roads north of the town are still closed. Tourists flocked the footpaths of the town, enjoying the good food and sunshine. The sky was a gorgeous blue with the most calming yet scrawling cirrus clouds.
We visited Healesville Sanctuary for my daughter's first ever visit to a zoo. She loved it and I loved hearing her giggle, the sound of bellbirds and the air smelling fresh with the scent of eucalyptus.

Outdoor bliss

After debating for the past 10 years about the square brown patch of grass in our backyard that is "ripe for a makeover", we're finally going to create a garden that can become an outdoor oasis where we can read and play. We found a great garden designer to work with us who is about to begin drawing up the design. She doesn't use CAD as she likes the creative freedom using pen and paper. Her drawings are incredibled detail and it doesn't require alot of imagination to visualise how our garden will be transformed.
Similarly artist John Pastoriza-Piñol brings that same level of detail to his paintings of rare and unusual plants. Most of us will never see these plants in the wild but he captures their beauty and elegance and brings them magically to life. Watercolour "Arisaema griffithii" http://www.botanique-art.com/index.php

Stamp of approval

Yesterday one of my colleagues loaned me a book "Groundswell" and she handwrote her name on the inside. There was something charming about it. I recalled as a child using a rubber stamp with my name printed on it and proudly stamping it inside all my books. Lettergirl creates handmade personalised stamps with the most realistic handwriting.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20627646

Keeping calm

Anya Hindmarch raised the "Keep Calm and Carry On" slogan to new heights with her shopping bag. Littlebrownpen on Etsy has created a great reinterpretation of the slogan on a calendar you can print yourself. There's a cute version for women and men.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21120640

Freshly baked goods

I love on the weekends when I take my little girl out in the pram for a morning stroll and pick-up a fresh almond croissant and cup of hot mocha. I love the smell of crisp, freshly baked pastries. Thanks to Pattycake for creating this great t-shirt. http://skreened.com/patty/fresh-baked-goods

Divine dressing

This is the image the Bendigo Gallery used to promote this fabulous exhibition using it on gift bags, bookmarks and brochures. It exemplifies the simplicity of the gorgeous fashion of the period. http://www.bendigoartgallery.com.au/Page/Page.asp?Page_Id=42&h=0

Footloose and fancy free

Summer has finally arrived in Melbourne. I'm painting my toenails and kicking up my heels in style with these gorgeous Funkis Swedish clogs. http://www.funkis.com/online_shop_sandals_high.htm

Simply sublime

I recently travelled to Bendigo, a small town a couple of hours north of Melbourne, with my mum, husband and 20-month old toddler to attend a fashion exhibition titled: The Golden Age of Couture - Paris & London 1947-57. http://www.bendigoartgallery.com.au/Page/Page.asp?Page_Id=42&h=0 This is a collection from London's V & A of some of the best examples of haute couture from the period including suits, day dresses, evening dresses and accessories from Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy, Balmain, Hardy Amies.
The tailoring, fabrics and designs are sublime. I rarely wear an evening dress but as soon as I saw this dress it took my breath away. I could imagine myself draped in the chiffon and floating into an elegant soiree. Evening dress by Jean Desses, chiffon c. 1953.

Welcoming the year

For the past few years I've thought about growing my own vegetables. In my postbox I recently received a small postcard with an illustration of some carrots on the front and a pitch on the back from a young guy that comes to your house and will construct a little vegie patch for you, and if you really struggle, he'll also tend it for you. I've just finished reading "The 100-Mile Diet - a year of local eating" by Alisa Smith & J.B.MacKinnon. That's all I needed as well as my 2009 New Year's Theme "Getting Back to Basics" to call the guy and come build the vegetable garden.

Getting Back To Basics means:

• looking after mind, body and soul - I usually neglect all three
• growing vegetables that my family can partly subsist on
• more time reading and writing - I've also gone back to using a paper diary and writing with pencil
• living in the moment

I welcome 2009.