Loving this sneakpeak

Sneak Peak on Design Sponge by Cathy Robin of Heath ceramics. These are the sort of colours I want to use in our home. I love green and I'm looking for that perfect cream for some dark rooms, to hopefully brighten them. We also have lots of nooks and cranny's in our home, so we plan to build in some shelving at some stage in the future.

Our weekend

My son has started walking in the last week. He is getting quite good at it but is walking with arms out front zombie style! He has also been riding his fire engine around a lot. Most notably while holding his balloon at the same time.

Sunday I visited the

Mathilda's Market

in Sydney. It was a great collection of craft products for children. As always the products for girls were over represented, however my Mum and I did purchase two very cute t-shirts for my son.

One was a cute pirate ship t-shirt from

Sandt.

It looks awesome with his navy pinstripe pants he was given for his first birthday!

and the owl tee from

The Raisin Did It.

I also bought a birthday gift for my sister from

Gifts Created.

Art Gallery visit

Today I went to the

Art Gallery

to check out the Archibald Prize, Art Express and other exhibitions on there at the moment. I was especially impressed with the Korean Dreams exhibit. It was all in the dark to protect the artwork, so I could hardly see the detail. I also managed to pick up three of

Flossy P's

beautiful greeting cards, which I will frame.

Picture by

Flossy P

Some more Perth beauties

I am happy here in Sydney, but... I really do miss the place.

Boy in the mirror

My son is growing up so fast!! He has put on a lot of weight all of a sudden and looks like a toddler now. Here are some pictures I took this week of him looking at himself in our bedroom mirror. On thursday I took him to the park for a swing.

fresh produce!

We spent the weekend with Steve's family in the country. I love to check out what is going on in the vegie patch. At the moment there are tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, zucchini, leeks, capsicum and lots of herbs. I didn't get a photo of the vegie patch itself. I wish I had because it is so pretty!


We also had some local peaches for breakfast. Ethan loves them and I think they might be the best peaches I have ever eaten! Unfortunately this particular crop of peaches won't get to the shops because they were damaged by a hailstorm (so they don't look pretty). I brought some home to stew and freeze for Ethan.

Today we went to the car races - Steve had some free tickets to the corporate box. It's not often we get babysitting for Ethan and do something as just a couple, so it was fun! We ended up having a few drinks, a yummy lunch and reading the papers and magazines with the sound of cars zooming around us! Hee. Oh and we watched the race a bit, but there is only so many times you can watch the cars zoom past.

First Birthday!!

My little man is one year old. On the weekend we had a party for him in the local park amongst the trees.



We wanted to make a cake based on a train, plane or spaceship but I didn't like any of the designs in my kids cake book. So I created this design loosely based on Ethan's toy aeroplane. I found this easy and very tasty chocolate cake recipe. My Mother made up a new buttercream icing recipe using buttermilk and a dash of vanilla. It tasted amazing! The licorice was pulled at by one of the eager young ones before we sang Happy Birthday, that's why that part of the plane is flapping in the breeze!

Even more amazing was the Medovnik (Russian Honey Cake) which my sister made (pictured in background). It consists of many layers of cake and creamy filling. She fell for the Medovnik when she was living in Prague and has been craving it since she arrived back in Australia. She tried to replicate the recipe. The entire Medovnik cake was devoured, it was so good.

Studio Inspiration

I haven't been able to post any artwork since last August, because I haven't had my scanner hooked up since we moved to our little apartment in Sydney. I don't have a studio space at present. This is very frustrating for me, but I find it is actually a good time to focus on sketches and ideas. I'm having a lot of fun!!

In the meantime I'm dreaming of what my future studio might look like. Here are some pictures of other artist studios that I am inspired by.

Photo by Kelly Rae Roberts.

I love how artist Kelly Rae has used this toolbox to store her paints. I'm going to try and find something similar.

Photo by Mati Rose McDonough.

I love how Mati Rose uses jewel like colours both in her artwork and her studio. I like the combination of green and pink.

Photo by Camilla Engman.

I would love some wide flat drawers like these for paper and art storage!

Photo by Lovely Design.

It's great how she is utilising such a small space. I should find a cotton holder like that one.

And some favourite sneak peaks from Design Sponge... Jill Bliss's Home and Beci Orpin's house.

Inspire Me Thursday - Breakfast

I had this yummy dish for breakfast last october. This mango was from a friend who has a family mango farm in the Northern Territory. She came back from mango picking with some delicious mangos! I had this for breakfast with banana, plain greek style yoghurt, sunflower seeds and shredded coconut. YUM!! The taste of summer.

Coffs Harbour

One of the highlights of the trip for me was a visit to the Butterfly house in Coffs Harbour. I think butterflies are so fascinating. I just love the tropical landscape on the north coast of New South Wales and Queensland.

The next day we visited the little artistic community of Bellingen. We had a delicious lunch at the Gallery Cafe. It is so beautiful in the hills around that area.