This is ... my favourite travel memory

My favourite travel memory (thanks to Hila for trip down memory lane and for the theme for this weeks This is theme), is living in this beautiful valley in Northen India.

It is Parvati Valley and we rented a one room wooden house with no water or power and lived there for about a month. We lived a days walk up the valley from Manikaran amongst the pine forest, the valley was surrounded by the highest snow top peaks, it was summertime but still a little chilly in the mornings. The hut was warmed by two cows that lived underneath us in the stable, we nicknamed them Freedom.

In those days there was only access by foot along a windy track, but our peaceful sabbatical was often interupted by the sound of explosions in the distance. They were building a dam on the other side of the valley.

I learned how to cook on a wood fire and drank chai and make chapatis. The water in the nearby stream was freezing, so washing was a very quick affair. Towards the end of the stay we walked another half day further up the valley to bathe in the hot springs at Khirganga which was the place Shiva was supposed to have meditated for 3,000 years. It was bliss, I think I soaked in the hot hot water for what must have been an hour. The women's bathhouse was empty so I had the spring all to myself.

When we finally left the valley we walked back to the main town and rode on the roof of the bus through the winding roads and green forests back to civilisation. I remember feeling totally free, it was an amazing feeling and a wonderful month in the valley of the gods. I was 22.

The Mosaic Me

Ok, so I am always ready to jump on the bandwagon and these mosaics seem to be the latest meme on the super highway. I used Jillian Beans suggested search terms, where basically you ask yourself a bunch of questions about yourself, put the answers into the Flickr search box and choose a picture from the first page of search results. So here is a pictorial representation of me (at least one version of millions of iterations), but I like it so I thought I'd share. It is fun so you should give it a go, JBeans has all the details on her blog.


1. Edwina Ashley before her marriage to Mountbatten, 1919, 2. Ginza Crossing, 3. Feasts of Our Lady Throughout the Year , 4. Our Christmas tree this year!, 5. Gael Garcia Bernal, 6. Good morning Mountain, 7. In the Neighborhood, 8. one.dress.finished, 9. chasing crows, 10. Caught in the Snow, 11. Little Snoring, 12. street style blogs | London Street Fashion

Market Day

Ok so here are some snaps from the Night Market, which is a Hobart Fringe Festival institution. It was a lot of fun and I got to sell a bunch of stuff, catch up with some old friends and chat to some new ones. The definate highlight was selling one of my bears to a good-looking 30-something guy who had no kids and no reason to buy a bear other than he had to have it. The two girls he was hanging with were kinda surprised, I think the bear was giving him the stare and he fell for it.



To my Tasmanian friends who kindly said they would look at for 'Little Snoring' at Salamanca I just wanted to give you the heads up on the stall. It is actually my friend Michelle's stall and it is always opposite the Vietnemese Kitchen. If you see Michelle please say hi, but it probably won't be me, so she may seem a little confused if you tell her you have been reading her blog. . .

Mi Madre and my toys

So I am late again for the 'This is' entry, but these remind me of my mother, well, becuase it actually is my mother. I just love these old photos, they are such a lost place in time. I think it is the fact they are black and white that really kills me.

I am using them as part of the packaging for my toys. It has taken a very long time for me to get it together and it is still in its infancy, but, ta da.... I have started selling my softies. I have also launched a website. I designed it myself so its a little limited, but please go over and have a look http://hushlittlesnoring.com

This is what I have discovered lately...

SteamPunk!

Just when I thought I was going to post a 'This is...' on time, I realise I am in fact one whole week late... whatever, nevermind.

Here it is .... Steampunk, and as usual I am a little late off the mark, it seems like it has been around for ages, but there is something quite inventive and cool about merging the modern with the mechanical (in a Victorian way)

Here is a Steampunk Tree House at last years Burning Man, from here


Steampunk specs, more here


And of course Steampunk Workshop
and, some very cool steam punk toys

6 degrees of separation

I was thinking the other day about my circle of friends and their friends and the lives of people and the circles of their lives and the circle of my life and how they intersect. Which got me onto 6 degrees of separation which I know was a movie but I think the general gist is that you can connect with people through other people or something.

And I, in my housewife-state, was pondering the meaning of life as I folded laundry or washed the dishes it occurred to me that in our house we are connected directly or through friends with .... the future queen of Denmark and the voice of Optimus Prime





Which at the end of the day makes no difference to the pile of laundry or the state of the kitchen, just thought it might make an interesting dinner party...

Week of Cute - Day 3

Ok, I am finding the week of Cute a little problematic. I mean take this print for example I bought a copy from here. But would you call it 'cute' I don't know. I remember when I was a teenager I was talking to a very cute boy, and he was quite offended at being called cute, I guess he really saw himself as slightly more manly. Now, I see his point. Cute can be a difficult thing to be.

Week of Cute - Day 2 : PRINTS

Brandon Reese

Ed Beals

Jaime Zollers


From Thumbtack Press

Week of Cute - Day 1

I am joining in with Three Buttons week of cute (better late than never).

Swing your cute-antenna this way... A bear made by Lynn at Molly Chicken.

This is ...

...my demon, not so demonic but merely a lustful addiction...

I love interior design magazines and blogs. I can drool and imagine and want and desire everything fabulous in these imaginary houses. The problem is there is so much gorgeousness (read desire) and my means just do not match.
Deep down I think it is really a over blown love of styling, because really, my stuff would look just as lovely, if some amazingly talented stylist popped by and fixed up my things and just well lit them properly and cleaned up a little. Made it shiny. Maybe?

ps. all these images are from Design Sponge..

This is...

My creation, better late than never... for the meme started by Three Buttons. He is a Waldorf inspired needle felted Gnome. You can't really see in the photo his coat is undyed black wool from our Bear.
My Steiner teacher buddy came over with her two girls for a craft morning and we made wee little gnomes. She also let me take a peek in this book for further wool created inspiration.


I especially love the trees....




p.s. You can get the book here.

Autumn Beach Day

Me in a bathing suit it not my ideal outfit. (Fortunately no pictures)



Made especially worse when I ran into 5 people I know. Really, you should be able to wobbly around in a half clothed state with a little more privacy. But, 38 degrees (100F) in Autumn in Hobart is a very unusual and I guess it was on everyone's mind to hit the sand with the kidlets.


I even swam.! (which if you know how cold the water is here even on a hot hot day you would appreciate my efforts)

This is....

My front door... you can see it is still Christmas at our place, nice, a dessicated wreath in March...


This the view from the front door...



All part of the This is meme started by Angela. Strange thing about blogging is that I feel like I am on first name basis with people I have never met and probably walk straight past in the street. But nevertheless, Brooke has some really cool graffiti outside her front door, and Alison has a wonderful verandah in Daylesford, which looks so inviting.

And, lastly Kitty who purchased my Love Bird heart from Meet me at Mikes, also has a very tasty apartment view of someone else's tennis court.

So another nice day in Hobart means we might just head down the hill to the beach, twice in two days, must be some sort of record.

Brodie Neill

Last night I was fortunate to hear a talk by Tasmanian designer, now based in London, Brodie Neill. It was wonderful to see his work and hear him talk about the process and his trajectory to date. He already has some fantastic designs in production with Italian furniture manufacturer Kundalini and more in the pipeline. I have become an overnight fan.

Hit the snooze button

I have tried to blog but I find the minutiae of my life quite frankly tedious and boring. I have mixed feelings about sharing my creativity and I fear endless posts about the kids is more like a photocopied Christmas letter agonisingly broken into incessant updates whenever I can be bothered (which is not very often).

So pointless without direction I am afraid this little digital flotsam is like many of my past efforts at things, unlikely to go the distance.

I am not calling quits yet, because, like space junk it is already in orbit and well you just never know I might find some momentum, direction, commitment, focus, any of the above, sometime soon.

Wall Hearts

I admire craft bloggers that are organised enough to make interesting things, take photos of them and post about them. I sometimes make things, nearly always give them away before photographing them and hardly ever post about much at all (family snaps aside).

Anyway I have been making some wall hearts in time for Valentine's Day, this one is the first one finished. Ta Da. Finished, photographed and posted. End.

* I ended up dropping this heart off to Meet me at Mikes when I was in Melbourne this week for their I heart Mirabel project. They will be selling all the hearts they collect for $10 each with money raised to go to the Mirabel Foundation. More Hearts here.

Let them eat cake

Yep it is a pretty lame-o cake. Tried to make the icing purple (what was I thinking), it came out pink, last minute raid on the dinosaur bucket, whack on a candle, a bit of ribbon, and Happy Birthday Mr One.

Long gone are the days of carrot cake and age appropriate food intake. Hello sugar and food colouring!

Socks or Stuffing?

This is a photo of Big R's Christmas Pressie. When I saw it I thought of him and well I kinda liked it myself a fair bit, so in the end I wasn't sure if it was one of those psuedo-presents that you buy for someone else that you are really buying for yourself. And well he did like it a lot and even though it was for him and not me, it didn't really work in his study, and well, look how great it looks in the Dining Room? Worked out for both of us, no?

Thanks to everyone who has requested some wool. I have been busy packaging up and posting the pillows. There is still some available so let me know if you would like some. It is quite cool to send it all over the place, who knows how it will be used but so fun to imagine Rosie and Bear ending up somewhere in Michigan or Melbourne? Socks or stuffing?

The Cupboard under the stairs

My horoscope this week said that I need accept that things are not going to return to "normal" and that I am in transition to the new "normal", which frankly is a relief.

The tumble of December made me think I was going to get a chance to relax through January and plan my future in a leisurely fashion, but that was not how things have turned out. I have been busier than before and trying to get all the plated spinning, which has strangely included cleaning out the cupboard under the stairs. Perhaps a physical manifestation of the tidying up of my brain including the bit of grey matter that is covered in cobwebs and mostly left in the dark.

And so the new "normal" is starting to look a little more organised and quite comfortable.

Office Crafting

It is a very bad photo, but I made these little drawing books for a couple of last minute kids birthday gifts. Whipped up using old postcards on the Office binding machine. It got me thinking about Office crafts... there has got to be a book in that, no?

Not sure what was going on in this game, dressed and ready for something... perhaps a little water tennis?