Goals for 2011

Now that I've told you how I went with my 2010 goals, it's time to reveal what's on the list for this year. Most of my goals from last year could be done with piecemeal investments of my time (such as a few hours devoted to sewing or painting), due to the fact that I study in addition to working full-time. But, my studies are coming to an end in about nine months, so I'll be able to tackle some larger projects.

So, here's the list for 2011.

Goal number 1: Get stuck into my interior decorating course
I enrolled in a correspondence certificate in interior design and decoration when I was on long-service leave last year, but haven't really done much of it yet. This year I need to get some of those little assignments done!

Goal number 2: Fix up my sewing table and chair
Some may remember the ladder chair I bought from The Old Boathouse, and the old dresser I found on the side of the road with gorgeous silky oak drawers. I haven't made any advancements towards turning it into a sewing table as yet, but once my studies are out of the way I'll be getting stuck into it!

Goal number 3: Start screenprinting

Ever since I did my course with Thea & Sami, I've been itching to print something. But, the sad reality is that screenprinting takes a decent investment of time, so I've not venturing there until I have some more of that up my sleeve. Hopefully from October onwards I'll be playing around with some little designs of my own in the garage.

Goal number 4: Save save save for a trip to the US
In 2012, we are planning to visit the US! We'll be spending a couple of weeks in Los Angeles with a good friend of John's, followed by a couple of weeks in New York with Shilo! In between, we'll also be stopping off In Louisville so John can go to Wonderfest.

Goal number 5: Post more on my other blog
You may or may not have noticed that I now have a second (and somewhat neglected) blog focusing on all matters of politics. The content is largely drawn from my education over the years in cultural studies and Australian history. Hopefully once I finish my formal studies I'll have more time to write content specifically for the blog, which I'm looking forward to.

Christmas presents!

Christmas this year was spent with John's family in Toowoomba, and unfortunately I spent Christmas eve with a stomach bug (which also meant I didn't really feel like indulging much on Christmas day). Nevertheless, we had a lovely time, despite the incessant rain.

After Christmas we made it to Coffs Harbour to visit my grandparents before many of the roads were cut (it's lucky we weren't going to visit my parents and sister in Bundaberg, as we wouldn't have made it!). In Coffs Harbour we had one full day of rain, and two full days of sun! We spent our time reading, walking on the beach, swimming (and getting a little sunburnt - oops) and visiting the Big Banana in order to eat frozen chocolate-and-nut-covered bananas.

Of course, with Christmas time also came present time! My family and friends sent some lovely and very thoughtful gifts my way, including a whole heap of books! Yay for Frankie Spaces!

In addition to the above, I also got Anh Do's The Happiest Refugee, which I read during the rainy periods in Coffs. I also got this super stylish Joseph Joseph colander, which will no doubt be used in conjunction with the recipe books. It hooks onto the side of the sink!

I also got myself some nice new jewellery items from Baba Ganoush, Limedrop and Polli.

These lovely trinkets were courtesy of some good friends - a plaster tree decoration cast from a seed pod from Kuber, an adorable jar of gift cards featuring deer and squirrels from O-Check, and a DIY butterfly art work kit from Paper Tree Design.

And, finally, I got this lovely watering can planter, which I'm going to put some tasty herbs in. There were a couple of World Vision Smiles charity cards inside the planter as well, which I was most grateful for.

So that's Christmas over! Over the coming days I'll be posting my 2011 goals, of which there are quite a few.

I hope that all of my Flying Ducks readers had a happy and safe Christmas and new year!

How I went with my 2010 goals

Some of you may remember that at the beginning of 2010 I wrote a list of six goals for the year. I thought I should revisit and see how I went with them.

Goal number 1: Learn how to sew
Success! This is the goal that I most wanted to conquer. I started off with a short course at a local school, as well as some help from my friend Shilo. I haven't yet tackled the cushions I want to make with my Florence Broadhurst fabric, but that's because I want to tackle more difficult things like clothes first. Then the cushions will seem super easy! Here are a couple of my creations from throughout the year.

Goal number 2: Get plantation shutters installed

Thanks to a very generous wedding gift from my parents, we got our plantation shutters in March. There were some slight problems with them (the mechanism on the living room ones was a little loose, and there was a large scratch on the bedroom ones). But, Cosmopolitan Shutters were kind enough to replace the whole lot for us, so now they're perfect!

Goal number three: Have some art works framed

Although this goal hasn't quite been completed, I took some steps towards achieving it! At work they were auctioning off some high-quality frames used for art works, so I picked up a couple of big ones for some of our prints. I'll just need to take them to the framer for correct mounting sometime in the new year.

Goal number four: Finish the bathroom

Again, this has been partially done. We repainted the week after our wedding, but haven't quite finished off the second coat of the edges. We didn't install towel rails, but instead got a much more aesthetically pleasing stand-alone rack. We've decided to have a bit more work done on the bathroom, such as replacing the vanity and shower curtain rail, and installing the shower head and tiles a bit higher (as with the height of the new bath the shower head is far too low for John!). Here's what we've done so far.

Goal number five: Paint the cupboard doors

Ok, we didn't do this one. Maybe next year.

Goal number six: Learn to take better photos

I think I did ok with this one. I didn't get myself a better camera, but just practised a lot more. I think my main success was photographing food, but I think I also did ok with photographing our home as well. How do you think I went?

I also achieved success with a couple of other goals that weren't listed in my original list. I got married, but I also learnt to drive, and in a manual car! I started taking lessons at the beginning of my long-service leave, and finally got my licence in early October. Now all I need to do is build up the confidence to drive alone!

I already have a pretty big list of goals for 2011, so I'll do a post about those in the coming weeks.

Back from Walsh Street House

As mentioned a little while ago, John and I managed to score tickets to an exclusive cocktail party at Robin Boyd's Walsh Street House, hosted by Outré Gallery to celebrate Shag's latest Australian exhibition. On Saturday night in Melbourne we attended said party, and it was fabulous! In addition to finally meeting Jenny Butler from Apartment Therapy, we also got to meet the artist himself and plaster our behinds all over the Featherston furniture. Here I am pondering what book I might choose to read on my Featherston chairs.

Guests were permitted to drink their mojitos whilst sitting on this furniture. Crazy, I know. Here are a couple of pieces other I admired during my three hours in the house.

Tony from the Robin Boyd Foundation took the time to explain the history of the house. It was apparently intended to be used as a party house, which means all the lovely guests dressed in their mid-century attire were indeed permitted to enjoy our surroundings (although drinks were not permitted in the upstairs living room, presumably due to the fact that the floor disappears at the room's edges and could result in some nasty drunken accidents).

Thank you to Gemma and Martin from Outré Gallery (and also Shag) for allowing us the rare opportunity to enjoy this wonderful house. Check out Shag's Dickie bird work inspired by the house. I'm strongly considering making a purchase. 

Image: Outré Gallery

For more images of the party, visit Gemma's Flickr page.

Giving something back...

Due to the exceptionally good luck that has been coming my way recently from the creative community across Australia (and, in a couple of cases, the world), I’ve decided I would like to give something back.

On behalf of all of the great crafters, Etsy store owners and bloggers around who have been very generous to me through their giveaways and competitions, I’ve made a donation to the International Women’s Development Agency. My donation contributes towards the costs of ten women attending a three-day workshop in Fiji on microenterprise, and how to access financing for small business development. For more information on this cause, please visit their website.

Image: Anna Stone, International Women's Development Agency

More birthday goodness: Jewellery and accessories

How lucky am I?! This year I got so many fabulous gifts, including some from people I totally did not expect one from. It certainly makes me feel very special and loved!

As many of you would know, up until my recent visit to Finders Keepers I was experiencing a total brooch drought. Then, I won some more brooches (amongst other lovely things) from REread. Then, my very special friend Shilo added another one that I adore more than all of the others put together: an acrylic shiny red feather brooch from That Vintage. Shilo shares my love of birds (she loves checking out the weird Australian species, while I love putting bird symbols all around my home), and she also knows how much I adore shiny red stuff.

Image: That Vintage

On the weekend I also received an extremely thoughtful gift from my friend Jeni, who knows all about my Ethical Clothing Pledge. Jeni bought me a chameleon clutch from Biddy Bags, which is a local social enterprise that connects socially isolated nannas who get together to make lovely little craft items to sell. The crafters also get to keep over half of the sale price of their items, which is just wonderful. My clutch also came with yet another brooch - a cute little crocheted flower with a button.

Image: Biddy Bags

Then, I received a lovely little surprise in the post courtesy of Irene. Irene is currently visiting Indonesia and was unable to come to my little gathering on the weekend, so she arranged for me to receive a big set of origami paper badges from Pannikin. The really funny thing is that I'd only just discovered Pannikin jewellery last week when I was at Bleeding Heart Gallery, so it was an amazing coincidence to receive a little package in the mail from Holly only a couple of days later.

Image: Pannikin

Finally in the jewellery and accessories department, I got a new Polli black canopy necklace from my husband John. He has quite a knack for choosing great, quirky pieces that suit my personality, for which I am very grateful. This pendant is my second Polli piece from John.

Image: Polli

I received my other present from John early this year when I was sent to a five-week hula hoop course. I had no idea that I was going there until we arrived at the door, and I was a little freaked out to say the least. However, it turned out to be great fun and something that I want to continue doing. Plus, I got to keep my shiny red hoop as well!

Image: Polka dots, side view (Flickr)

Tomorrow, I'll update on my final batch of presents from some equally special friends and family - all stuff I received for the home. Thanks again to all of the awesome people who helped to make my birthday week special!

Birthday week over, now for some books!

Now that my birthday week is officially over, I thought I'd share some of the lovely presents I got. There are too many great things to mention in one post so I'm going to spread them over a few this week. To start with, here are some books I got from my parents and parents-in-law.

I asked my parents months ago to get me the gigantic Taschen New York Interiors book. I already had the mini version, but having seen the giant coffee-table size in a book store I just had to have it! I'm yet to have a good flick through, but I don't think I'll be taking it to look at on the train to work!

Images: The Design Files

The second book I got was Tossed and Found from my in-laws, which is a great book full of great (and sometimes really weird) stuff made from discarded junk.

Images: Apartment Therapy

I'll be sharing more of the wonderful accessories and homewares I received over the coming days. I did have a great birthday week this year, and particularly enjoyed spending Saturday night with some special close friends.

Happy (belated) blogging birthday

Five days ago marked one year since I started my blogging adventures. How silly of me to overlook this anniversary! My first post stated that 'This blog will chronicle my continuing adventure of decorating the 1970s two-bedroom apartment owned by myself and fiance John'. Aside from the fact that John is now my husband, I think that opening statement is still largely accurate. In addition to my decorating exploits, in recent months I have also branched out to also include other topics of interest to me, including craft, cooking and ethical shopping.

Let's celebrate my belated blogging birthday with the lime and pistachio cake I made for John's birthday back in February...

100th blog post! Etsy news and a giveaway!

Happy 100th blog post to me! It's almost a year since I started this whole blogging game, and I only ever really expected that my friends and family would be interested (and even then only for a few weeks!). The support I've received from other bloggers around the world has been incredible, and I'm so grateful to have made it this far.

There have been a few highlights along the way, the biggest and best of which was my Apartment Therapy house call early this year. A big thanks to the lovely Jenny for arranging that for me! The other big highlight was writing the Brisbane city guide for Design*Sponge, and the even bigger highlight was the wonderful people I came into contact with as a result.

I've decided to celebrate my 100th post achievement with the announcement of the Flying Ducks Etsy store! Many of you may remember my crafty attempt last month, which involved printing leaves onto tote bags. I received some great feedback, so I decided I had nothing to lose and started an Etsy store. I may sell some, I may sell none - I'll never know if I don't give it a try! Please pop over and have a look at my store, and don't hesitate to give me feedback of any kind, as any comments are most welcome.

AND, to celebrate the launch of the Flying Ducks Etsy store, I have three of my 'prototype' bags to give away! To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment (and your email address if I can't contact you via a blog). If you mention this post on Facebook, Twitter, your own blog or somewhere else on the internet, leave another post letting me know for another entry. Hurrah!

Entries will close next Sunday night (13 June) at 7.00pm Brisbane time. Good luck!

Oh, and Emma from Sirens and Sailors, you do not need to enter - I still have your special bag waiting for you! I'll post it out with the others.

Back in the real world!

Well, now I’m back at work after eight lovely weeks off. And, while I did my fair share of lazing around the house not achieving much (ahem, three seasons of 30 Rock), I also managed to achieve some constructive stuff (including some things on my 2010 to do list!).

Aside from the big event of getting married to my lovely husband, the painting of our bathroom is now all but complete, aside from a few edges. I’ll expand on that hopefully this weekend once I’ve managed to take some decent photos. And, of course, our stunning planation shutters were installed in the living room and bedroom. That’s two things struck off the to-do list!

I also decided that my more formal ongoing studies (a Bachelor of Arts with a triple major in Literary and Cultural Studies, Film Studies and Australian History) were not enough, so I enrolled myself in an interior decoration course. I’m not really looking at following this as a career path, but simply looking to improve my skills in this area. I decided to go with the Brisbane-based Beaumont School of Interior Design and Decoration, run by Tracie Dunne. Even though I am enrolled as an external student, Tracie was kind enough to let me sit in on one of her classes during my time off.

If anything, my studies will certainly help my blogging activities, I hope! And, who knows? Maybe one day I’ll marry my newly acquired skills with my years of editing and publishing expertise and land a prestigious position with Inside Out or Real Living!

New stuff in the Flying Ducks house

Last week was very busy, as we decided to repaint the bathroom before John returned to work this week. This involved sanding most of the walls right back (well, my husband did that part), painstakingly preparing the surface, and then painting in a room with very little ventilation (which means longer drying time). There's still some work to do, like finishing the edges and installing towel rails, so I won't post pictures until it's completed.

In other news, I completely lied about my previous post being the last one about our wedding, because we received another awesome gift! On Saturday night our friend JB dropped around for a surprise visit with this stunning frame from Abode & Bod in Wilston (a place which I have never heard of before, so I must pay them a visit!). It's an apple picture made from hundreds of pieces of Japanese tape. I've been wanting a picture to put on the wall leading into the kitchen, and now we have one!

On the weekend we also visited my favourite Brisbane store, Nook. There are far too many things there that I want to buy for myself, so I always spend quite a while there deciding what I want. Much to John's dismay, another item for the home decided it wanted to live with us - this pouffy little owl. It's come to my realisation that I have quite a collection of birdy things now, so I figure another one won't hurt. Mr Owl lives above another Mr Owl (the framed owl fabric I bought last year from Sivad Designs in Nundah), and I hope he'll be very happy there. 

Speaking of Nook, Michelle has now opened an online store. That's right, now I don't even need to leave the house to buy things. Very, very dangerous indeed. The really good news is that people who aren't in Brisbane can now enjoy shopping at Nook too. Check it out here. 

Post-wedding overview

I wanted to show off some of the lovely aspects of our wedding, held on 10 April. I’m not going to show off my favourite photos — most of the super-cute shots include my husband, who is a very private person and won’t want his image splashed all over the internet. (If anyone’s really keen to see some shoot me an email.) I will, however, do my best to give you an overview of many of the elements of our wedding.

All photography (except for the table shot, which was taken by Riini) is by our very talented friend Natasha Harth.

The lovely ring pillow was made by my mum, with rings made by Maple XO (John) and Bentley De Lisle (me). The butterfly bouquet was made by myself and my mum using feather butterflies from Floral Trims, based on one featured on the Martha Stewart website. The 1950s handbag is from Vintage Rose in my local neighbourhood, and the shoes are by Camper (of course).

My hairpiece was purchased online (like most other things for the wedding!) from fascinators.net. My 1960s dress came from eBay (a steal at $30), and was altered to fit perfectly by PQ Fashions in Brisbane (they also expertly altered John’s vintage suit jacket).

The car was an old Dodge that’s been in John’s family for several generations. It was also used as the wedding car for his parents, as well as his grandparents. It was brought from Toowoomba to Brisbane for the weekend, which was a real treat for us.

Our reception dinner was held at the Grove Establishment in Ashgrove. In addition to the wonderful food, I was drawn to this place because of the black and gold Japanese Floral wallpaper by Florence Broadhurst. The table settings were very simple, using cheap Ikea vases with orange and black sticks. The table numbers were simply folded cardboard with number stickers, with clip-on feather butterflies from Floral Trims.

The fabulous and extremely delicious cake was made by Vanessa Franklin. It was organic gluten-free organge and poppyseed cake with Green and Blacks white chocolate ganache, served with a yummy lemon curd. Oh, and it also had candied oranges on it! If anyone in Brisbane would like Vanessa's details, please let me know.

I think it's fair to say that we had a lovely, relatively stress-free day. It was nice to see so many of our friends and family, and we even got to eat (amazing, I know!). This was very much a DIY wedding (with a bit of help from our creative friends), and I think it turned out pretty well.