today i love: lauren carney's art


Buck Teef

Today I love Lauren Carney's Art.


Bunnysuits & Bicycles

She loves Bunnies, uses bright colours, and draws the cutest little things ever. Lauren's doing a drawing every day at the moment, so be sure to pop by her blog to check it all out!



And she did the artwork for the upcoming Finders Keepers Melbourne promotion - nice poster, huh?

Lauren Carney Blog
Lauren Carney Facebook
Lauren Carney Shop - cute!

hoot! and mathilda's.

New gift tags! For sale now! I like these ones :)

Just a couple of photos from Mathilda's Market yesterday.

I've never been able to take nice photos in that hall. It's a pretty hall though.

xx

the election and the arts

So. The election is tomorrow. Whilst my vote has been secured by the lovely Bob Brown, I thought it would be interesting to take a peek at the Greens, Labor & Liberal election policies on The Arts.


The Greens

Their election policy is quite extensive and can be seen here:
http://greens.org.au/policies/media-arts-science/arts-

Some points of relevance to me:

16. support and adequately resource the Australia Council as the principal independent body for policy development and administration of arts grants programs.
19. support the expansion of the Commonwealth Art Bank – Art Rental program with a focus on emerging artists.
24. introduce a fixed term income support scheme for emerging artists.
25. enable emerging artists to access small business start-up grants and schemes.

Lovely.



Labor

The Labor Arts policy is slightly vague but is very extensive, it can be viewed:
http://www.alp.org.au/agenda/more---policies/valuing-our-arts,-culture-and-heritage/

Points resonating with me were -

# Federal Labor believes there is great potential for increased and broader support for the arts, particularly through boosting philanthropy and private sector support.

# Labor will continue to build on the Australia Council's efforts to streamline the delivery of arts funding and identify and advance the next stage of evolution of our funding models, reframing how we view the role of the arts and the artists who produce work.



Liberal

The Liberal Arts policy made me amused and annoyed. It can be viewed:
http://www.liberal.org.au/~/media/Files/Policies%20and%20Media/Community/_The%20Arts%20Policy.ashx

Their entire policy revolves around -

1. Promote the development of the arts in regional areas
2. Support local film production
3. Introduce a musical instrument loan scheme

That's it.

my creative space

Mathilda's Market is this Sunday! Hooray!

I haven't done a market for awhile, so everything I need for my setup is scattered around, and my to-do list is rather long.

I felt like it was time for some new things - new gift tags! I'll list some in the shop when they're ready.

Still sewing purses - there will always be purses to sell. These are Beetle pencilcases and Flower pencilcases.

Stickers! These are just something little I use to make people's purchases look pretty (and to bribe small children to like me). They're not for sale!

And finally, cleaning and rearranging has been done! My parents were getting rid of this gorgeous dressing table, and I love it! It live in the loungeroom now.


For more creative spaces, take a peek at the list on Kootoyoo!

chocolate oat cookies from the weekend

Cookie Army! So good - I made some of these cookies last weekend too, but the recipe needed a little tweaking - here is the tweaked version - they're vegan and fairly healthy!

Ingredients
1/2 cup oil (I use olive)
2/3 cup soy milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract

2 & 1/2 cup plain flour (feel free to wholemeal or degluten it)
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn baking soda
1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

3/4 cup oats
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 cup dried coconut
3/4 cup raisins/sultanas


Directions
Mix together the first 4 ingredients.
Add in the next 5 ingredients and mix together - it should be pretty thick and pastey.
Add in the final 4 ingredients (feel free to experiment!).
Roll the dough into little balls (about 3.5cm or 1.5inches across).
Put them on your baking tray which has baking paper on it, and bake for around 12 minutes at 180 degrees C. They'll be soft when you take them out, okay?

I think the recipe should make around 30 cookies?

Oh, you can also put a piece of chocolate in the middle!

Also - guacamole! The avocadoes have been good lately.

today i love...

This gorgeous illustration by Laura Callaghan, &

This gorgeous illustration by Thrasher & Wren!


Both are from the latest issues of Babiekins Magazine, which you can read free here.

my creative space: studio shots

Just some photos - I got some bookshelves recently so everything is a lot more organised - one wall of my studio is now just shelves, which I love!

I've been trying to build up my stockpile of purses - it's much easier this way, I love having everything ready so when I receive an order it's all ready to go!

These are little fabric squares - I love the colours! They're a combination of new fabrics (some of my organic cottons, and some from fabric stores), recycled cottons, and vintage fabric.

And the result! I've wanted to make bunting for awhile, and am happy that I went with squares! I usually create designs based around the idea that a purse or pencilcase is rectangular, so the image needs to be 'framed' in the middle of the purse. Think this is naturally continuing to influence my design style, so I am happy to work with it!

Once I have photographed the bunting properly, I'll have a few for sale (hopefully today).

There will be many one-of-a-kind bunting for sale at Mathilda's Market in Hawthorn on August 22nd too!


For more creative spaces, visit Kootoyoo!


Edited to add: more photos!

My old sketchbook was filled right up, so I had to buy a new one. I actually bought two - the first one was rejected because the pages were scratchy. And a card to send to someone special :D

I finally bought more bobbins! Now every thread has a matching bobbin - this is exciting to me, no more doubling up of colours!

And a plant - I rescued this plant from my kitchen where it was having issues, mostly due to sitting next to the rice cooker. More bunting, awaiting pinning and sewing! I am not a pin-user, normally, but it's somewhat necessary for bunting.

garden lust

Today I love Lynn-Anne's beautiful garden (photos from Flickr, found via Apartment Therapy).

I just got the Alice in Wonderland dvd (and have watched it several times in the last week!), so if this were my garden I'd be impatiently waiting for the Mad Hatter & the March Hare so arrive so we could take tea.

I adore the bright yellow / duck egg blue combination!

stockist: giftboxology

I always love visiting my stockists and seeing what happens after I deliver Pocket Carnival goodies. So I was so happy to see that some of my purses made their way into these lovely Giftboxology gift boxes!

Jenny and her lovely team at Giftboxology choose an awesome range of items for their gift boxes - all made in Australia. There are even Macadamia Nut Brownies! Yum!

Giftboxology Shop
Giftboxology Blog

from the weekend...

Daffodils from the St Kilda Farmer's Market - beautiful!

This weekend has been a combination of relaxing in a bake-y / flowers-y style, and sitting at my computer editing css and html and trying to fix my shop. I love hosting my own online store, yes I do, but this week I broke the fundamental rule of editing stuff online - understand what you're doing before you do it. I really like experimenting and not following instructions - you can get away with this when you're baking a cake or assembling some Ikea, but sometimes not so much with websites.

Fortunately, all of the data in my shop is safe & backed up. Unfortunately, the shop is now in a semi-online, moved state, and will take a few days to get back!

To make myself feel better (and also to create gifts) I made a batch of oatmeal chocolate raisin coconut cookies. Yesterday at the Farmer's Market, lovely Phillippa's Bakery was selling a delicious chocolate oatmeal slice. Delicious, but very buttery & sugary.

I found a recipe in my beloved Veganomicon cookbook and adapted away to make my own yummy, healthier & vegan cookies - I'll post the recipe next time I make them!

This recipe made a large amount of little cookies - thankfully I have lots of people to give them to!

More little fabric squares! But it's not a quilt.

Hope you're all having lovely weekends!

my creative space


Working on a new product - am battling some electricians who are working on the house NEXT DOOR and somehow managed to turn off our power - geez thanks. Matching fabrics in calming blues is helping a little bit... hopefully this new product will be ready in a couple of days!

Also been tinkering with design of my website (fun!) and uploading the newest software for my shop (not fun!)

For more creative spaces (hopefully from people less grumpy than me) visit Kootoyoo.

pika package!


I was super lucky enough to win a Pika Package from lovely Amy at Pikaland - big hooray!

If you haven't already visited Pikaland then do - it's a gorgeous blog highlighting the work of fabulous illustrators - it's very fun!

A Pika Package is a little bundle of goodies from some of my favourite artists, so I was so excited when it was recently delivered - you can get your own Pika Package here. Hooray!

window shopping: little lulu

I always love the window displays at Little Lulu in Balaclava.

They're constantly changing, always something fun & new to look at! And it's super close to delicious Glicks... definitely a win! And I get a little happiness seeing my purses in the window too.

Images from the Lulu blog.

delicious: monk bodhi dharma

Photo from The Weekly Review

I'm always excited when a new cafe opening on my side of town gets rave reviews, especially if it's a vegetarian cafe with a great atmosphere, vegan cupcakes & cute decor! Hooray for Monk Bodhi Dharma. I went there with Debbie & Chris a couple of days ago...

Monk Bodhi Dharma makes yummy vegetarian food (no eggs!), and always have lots of specials to choose from. I got a Mexican Tortilla Soup - it was just a little bowl of good things - rice, soupy stew, avocado, corn chips & chili salsa. Mmm.

Hot chocolate - pretty.

Monk Bodhi Dharma
Behind Safeway
Carlisle St, Balaclava (Vic)

(Visit Lulu while you're there!)


Monk Bodhi Dharma on Urbanspoon