cute & colourful...

These cute felt & fabric creations are the work of my Mum & sister Kathryn, to sell on their 'Hollipotamus' stall at the markets we attend (the name is inspired by our favourite cutie-pie). Their range of toys, brooches, clips & assorted other creations is ever expanding & I think all the things they are making are utterly adorable (possibly slightly biased, but I mean, just look at them!).

So anyway, just felt like having a some light-heartedness & colour on the blog (these little creatures make me smile). Also rather pleased with how the photos turned out, so kind of showing off a little, lol.

*working on having a proper web presence for Hollipotamus, but for now you can contact them via the shop facebook page.

flinders street market | may

A cool, rainy first day of winter found us at the always lovely Flinders Street Market.

 It turned out to be a bit quiet, but there’s always such a great energy at Flinders (thanks to the great people) that it was a fun day.

It was also a delicious day: we enjoyed sampling some amazing chocolate covered strawberries from the coco stop, timtam truffles from Your Inspiration At Home, and some pretty awesome rhubarb cake from The Lunch Lady. If nothing else, you should check out this little market for the food!

Looking forward to our next market in July! :)

flinders street market | april

We had a wonderful weekend at the Flinders Street Market - gorgeous bright, autumnal weather, lovely people & plenty of interesting things to see. I was very happy with how our stall tuned out - we decided to have a bigger space & filled it not just with my jewellery, but Mum's crochet berets, embroidery art & flower accessories, Kathryn's felt clips & brooches, zentangle cards & our painted bags & aprons.

Not entirely sure when our next time at the Flinders Street Market will be - probably late May or early June - I'll keep you posted :)

a day at the market | march

Another lovely market day - started out grey & rainy (although we didn't get too wet, thankfully), with scattered sunny patches & by the time we were packing up it was a cool but sunshiny day. A little quiet perhaps, but plenty of people braved the weather & we had a lovely time.

It was also the twelve-month anniversary of our first Wirrabara Producers Market stall :)

a day at the market 2013 | february

a few good things

1. flowering crepe myrtle in the early light.

2. baking choc chip cupcakes.

3. sweet little ceramic bowls my brother gave me for christmas (plus a family portrait).

4. fresh peaches - one of my favourite things about summer.

5. tea & toast + home-made apricot jam.

6. Mum planted this rose in memory of my grandfather (her Dad).

7. the awesome new name-tags we made ourselves.

a day at the market | july

It has been pretty wet around here lately (to put it mildly), so with the forecast saying there was an eighty percent chance of rain, we decided to go with a spot in the hall for this month's Wirrabara Producer's Market. Although it ended up staying dry, the wind was absolutely freezing & I was very glad to get back inside after a quick walk around the rest of the market. The rest of the stalls were split about evenly between in & outside, so we weren't on our own.

a day at the market | march | june

a day at the market | june

We were at the Wirrabara Producer's Market again on Sunday. As well as celebrating their 100th market, they were also celebrating winning 'Excellence in Flinders Ranges & Outback Food and Beverage Tourism'  at the Flinders Ranges & Outback Tourism Awards the night before. Although it seems like we've been visiting the market forever, it also seems incredible that it has been going for eight years.

Although is was cold, it wasn't quite as freezing as I feared it would be & we had plenty of hot drinks to keep us warm. I do hope someone has the pizza oven going next month...

We took beaded jewellery, polymer brooches, felt clips & brooches, crochet berets, clips, brooches & rings, zentangle cards & hand-stamped calico bags. We've also been having fun coming up with ideas, so we should have some new things ready for next month :)

a day at the market | march

the top left photo in the first triptych, along with the photos in the second triptych are courtesy of Kathryn.

a bunch of brooches...

...are the results of my recent experimenting with polymer clay. I'm quite pleased with the results.

My original idea was for the buff coloured ones, with green or autumnal leaves (I really like the cream/buff colour I got in my second batch). The dark ones were really only came about because the purple clay is new & I wanted to play with it.

I used a mixture of leaves from the garden - salvia, jacaranda, geranium, mint & tree-that-I-don't-know-the name-of (it has these seed pods). I pretty happy with most of them, though I probably won't use the mint again.

Once they were baked, I painted them - green or orange/yellow (autumnal) for the cream, as I said. For the black & purple ones I used metallic paint. It's a bit hard to capture properly in the photos, but I used a combination of silver, copper, pale & rich gold. And a couple of coats of varnish to protect the paint.

If they look vaguely familiar it's probably 'cos I've shown bits of them before - only here, here, here & here though.

recently | on my bench...