Christmas 09

I decorated an old bird cage, and put tea lights inside, this was christmas eve night, with all the candles lit.

The table decorations.

The tree! You can also see the pretty bunting I made hanging up behind the tree.

merry christmas

photo by nephele

Wishing you all a wonderful, fun and relaxing holiday :)
If you get a chance, check out my little illustration for the forth thread advent blog here.

tempted to make...

This just looks scrumptious! recipe from sweet paul
I am tempted to make this as a little pre- Christmas treat, yum :)

Christmas decoration inspiration

Buntings from Lobster and Swan



Table styling by Sweet Paul found via Style files


Image by Tine k via Style files


Image from VT Wonen



Images from Decor8

A little collection of some of the best Christmas decoration inspiration I have seen this year.

Christmas baking

At last the Christmas baking has begun :)

Forth Thread now for sale

The much anticipated Forth Thread zine, that I have been working on with Stuart Smythe, is now available for purchase!
It is an A5 zine, full colour, 48 pages full of great art, and each zine is individually numbered, as there are a limited number.
Featuring art and interviews from Neil Krug, David Thompson, Kareem Rizk, Betca, and many more.
It'll make a great little Christmas gift for any art/design lover.

Christmas tree 09

This year for our Christmas tree, we wanted to have a stick tree again like last year, but this time we wanted a more natural looking one, rather than white. Not sure how we would go about creating such a tree, one day my mum discovered willow branches at the supermarket of all place, which happened to be the perfect thing. More pics on flickr.

Holiday shopping

Photo by Anasantos

If when you look out the window you see something white and cold, or anticipate its soon arrival, you are most likey fortunate enough to be enjoying the holiday season in the Northern hemisphere, (unless you have purchased fake snow or work at a Santa photo cave) and you ought to note that if you wish to purchase Christmas gifts from sellers like myself in the hot, sweltering southern hemisphere, then you best get in quick, as the cut off for guaranteed international shipping arrival before Christmas is December 4th.
So before it is too late have a quick look at what the land down under has to offer.

Christmas table decorations

This year I decorated the table and made some nice biscuits and petite fours. I went for a bird theme this year, as each year we like to have a theme.

Below: the cake I made. Its bird nest inspired. A fruit cake with chocolate fondant icing and chocolate decorations.

Below: Bird shape gingerbread biscuits, almond and chocolate petite fours.

My serviette/ place holder design. Including little seed pods from the garden, which make great decorations.

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 24

(tabitha emma)

It's the big one today! number 24, usually the larger chocolate on an advent calendar, but in this case the large visual delight of 5 versions of the number 24. Enjoy..

(veroque)

(Matou en Peluche)

(finali)

(Cafe Baudelaire)

Thank you to all the amazing contributors.
Merry Christmas all, be good and eat lots of pudding :)

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 23

Today's number was illustrated by Karina of Picklehead. This is such a cute illustration. I especially love all the little characters, they are so adorable :) (please click the image to zoom in)

I have chosen to feature Karina's map envelopes, as I have a great love for paper goods. And I believe an envelope is just as if not more important than the card. In high school I used to really go to town on the envelopes I put my friends cards in, I would decorate their name of pretty with different papers. Some of my friends liked it so much they kept the envelope.

Karina has a variety of these envelopes featuring various maps from around the world. I think they are wonderful :) plus they are only $5 for 15!!

oh christmas tree (part 2)

If you cast your mind back to November, to this post. About my Christmas tree idea. Well.. here's the story and how it turned out.

You see, it all started when I had some spare bird cage decorations that I had made, and I wanted a way to display them. I remembered seeing in a shop, they used sticks/twigs to display jewelery, and I thought, hey! that could look good to hang my decorations on. But... Where would one buy a stick tree??
Then... an Ikea cataloge arrived one day, and on the front cover they had a bunch of white sticks hanging from the ceiling with Christmas baubles hanging on it. I ran about the house pointing at it to everyone, trying to convince them it was a cool idea.
Suddenly, these stick trees start popping up all over the place, it was like I had predicted a trend.
Perhaps its a common subconscious trend due to the financial crisis, we are going for an economical tree. Or maybe its environmental, rather than chopping down a poor tree, just pick up sticks off the ground. Whatever it is, its popular.

Well enough explanation, here is my tree:
I bought one twig from a gift store, the rest I made myself by painting sticks white.

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 22

Only 3 days to Christmas now. I went to the post office this morning and people were frantically wrapping gifts and sending them off express. Today's gorgeous advent illustration is by the lovely Sam of Matou en Peluche. She's also a local Sydney girl :) I love how she has cleverly used a goose, which happens to be the shape of a 2.


I have chosen to feature her cute little robin print. Mostly because I am addicted to birds, but also because robins are rather christmassy birds, with their adorable little red bellies.
Sam is currently running a BOGO sale on her prints. Which means if you buy one, you get another print of your choice free. So it's a great time to pick up some of her lovely charcoal and pastel illustrations.

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 21

Today's number has been crocheted by Katie of Green Meanies. I love the effort she has put into this, it's just amazing and so original. Green Meanies, is fairly new to etsy and they haven't made any sales yet. So please take a look.



I chose to feature her lovely wool cable scarf. A perfect winter warmer, pity its summer here in Australia. I keep hearing all this talk of snow and winter from those in the northern hemisphere, hopefully one year I can go overseas and have a white Christmas.

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 20

Lots of bright colours today!

Today's advent number was designed by Michelle of MaruMaru. Michelle wanted to make her advent number seem like an eye color test where it's pixelated. Pretty trippy!

I chose to feature her sweet little Vintage rocking horse charm necklace, as it reminds me of the little rocking horse decoration we had, that we used to put on the fireplace at Christmas time.
I love the old fashioned whimsy of rocking horses.


Thanks again to Michelle, for creating number 20 for the the advent calendar blog :)

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 19

Today's advent number was created by the lovely Scottish, Katy of Girl Industries. Katy made her number out of an old handbag that had broken. An amazing example of upcycling. Which is a really cool, growing trend.

I chose to feature these adorable lavender cat sachets. They are so adorable and made with beautiful floral Marks and Spencer cotton.



Katy also made some matching Christmas (or for any occasion) decorations from her old handbag, and is selling them in her store .


She is also having some special offers;

'In honour of featuring on your blog, I'm going to do free shipping to Australia from tomorrow to Christmas as I've never had a customer (or a blog reader) in the Southern Hemisphere yet and want to get that sorted out.
I'll also be doing a two for one deal from Boxing Day to the end of the year to clear out old stock and replace with new stock.'

So its worth a look :)

ADVENT CALENDAR BLOG- DAY 18

Today's advent number was created by Siiri. whom as I was searching through her shop and only just discovered, is a fellow Sydney girl.

I chose to feature her cute bird cage necklace, because I had no excuse not to, I just adore bird cages. 'A free birdie' is a super cute one of a kind necklace.
Thank you Siiri, for participating and creating a wonderful handmade 18.