New Journal... you WILL be mine

...One day!
Yes I say that a lot.
Much the same way I say "One day I will go through and finish all those other journals I started and wrote half way as a teenager".
Maaaan they're scary things.

I found myself starting the journals in a happy head space, getting distracted by life as only a teen can, then only picking them up to write when things on my chest got a little too heavy.
Eventually I'd ignore them completely as I noticed everything I was writing was actually too depressing to even read back to myself! (Heaven forbid someone else actually stumbles across them after my death :P I'm attaching warning labels)
Press stop. Rewind. Press play... and so it loops.
Ridiculous.

It seems I've successfully convinced myself that "if life starts to get you down... toss your old journal into the back of a cupboard and start a new one!" It's a physical put-things-down-on-paper way of starting fresh!

To date my life is documented by about 7, half filled, journals and this blog. And may I once again say, "bless you Internet". You're a magical space where I feel obligated not to moan too much and where wonderful new discoveries wait for me every day to lift any kind of heavy heart.

Or you know... I could just BUY THIS and stop writing altogether. Life is easier to absorb in pretty pictures anyway.



found via The World's Best Ever

Also I was attracted to this because the person is drawing a robot. It makes it THAT much cooler.

I'm not Knit picky

I love google reader, but mostly I'm glad I'm such an obsessive blog follower!

How else would I have found two beautiful projects, so very different and yet both using knitting?

#1. Ginormous knit used to upholster stools

Claire-Anne O'Brien has used a combination of hand and machine knitting to create dramatically oversized patters as upholstery

#2. Teeny Tiny two-year project

Anna Hrachovec embarked on a two-year project after knitting a tiny brain. She's now made over 100 tiny designs and written patterns for some of them! Amazing madness! If you'd like to read an interview with her there's a great one on Craftzine where I found her.

What I would love to be doing right now is reading a book, with my feet happily resting on THIS stool, and THIS cutie-pie of a donut lovingly attached to a silver chain. (or any of the characters from this big little collection - I'm not picky ;))

Move it or Lose it!

We're moving offices this Friday! FINALLY.

This is something that the powers that be have been dangling as a carrot for, oh, about 2 whole years.
Only thing now is we've been told we can pack a box. One. Each. One box will hold all our notes, files, our "help me remembers", our multi-coloured highlighters and pens so very necessary to survive this office jungle. Most disastrous of all, this box will have to hold all our reference magazines.
IMPOSSIBLE.

I wonder if they'd consider me bringing some chairs with me to my new little "pod person" space.
Hmmmmmmm.

This is brilliant and I think I could do with some at home as well. That might just JUST help me out.


by Sut Kutusu
Via Swiss Miss

Oh Hello Monday. Oh? Uhoh... Boom!

Not a Monday person.
I think that will be one of the things said about me one day when I'm gone.
I'm one of those people whose mood actually starts to plummet on a Sunday evening in anticipation of the horrors I suspect are lurking in the next day.

So this is just a quick post for these beautiful pieces (via The Given Collective) by Zach Johnson.

THIS is what I feel like at the beginning of every week!
(or at least it's pretty damn close to what I keep imagining I must look like when the day's tasks POUNCE! and cause my poor unsuspecting brain to explode.)


Boom.

Better than Barbie or Barney fo' sho

Contradiction...
One of the things I try very hard not to be is a hypocrite and yet some days I find little inconsistencies which tug at my brain going "hey... but yesterday you were moaning about that VERY thing!".

Here's an example. I haven't always been treated kindly by my chosen profession. Design is a harsh and fickle deity to worship and loves reminding you that you'll never quite be able to completely absorb or understand everything. So I hate telling people I'm a designer. Absolutely, utterly, hate it. I always feel like they immediately put you in a box. A very pretty creative box, sure, but I've never really felt comfortable there. Don't get me wrong... I still LOVE design (my posts should show a little of that at the very least), but I find the pressure and other people's expectancy to be cool a bit much. (flashbacks to high school *shudder*)
SO I do what I always do... try to ignore it. Deny it. Only buying things I really like and not things just because they're currently fashionable. Sometimes just plain hiding out in the suburbs helps quite a bit. You know that old trick of signing up to be a library monitor on your first day during lunch because you KNOW it's the wrong thing to do but you love books? - That's what I'm still doing.
Ridiculous? Yes! Childish? Yes. I have no excuse.

So here I am coveting these...
Dammit.



If you like them as much as I do you can get the whole LOT of them as part of their launch special over at Tattly

Unbeleafable!

In my defence, I'm surrounded by people who make it impossible not to leap at the opportunity of cheesey wordplay.

These peices are so intricate and beautiful that part of me really itches to try create one... Then my reality returns and the overwhelming thought is WHO HAS TIME? Crepes!

Amazing Cut Leaves Art via Craft:

"Natural leaf carving is actual manual cutting and removal of a leaf's surface to produce an art work on a leaf. The process of carving is performed by artists using tools to carefully remove the surface without cutting or removing the veins. The veins add detail into the subject matter of the carving. The material or most common leaf used in leaf carving is the leaf of a Chinar tree. The Chinar tree is native to India, Pakistan and China. Chinar leaves have a close resemblance to maple leaves."

These next three don't use the Japanese style of keeping the veins of the leaves in tact but are still beautiful! (by Lorenzo Duran via Design Boom)

(Of course I coooould considerrrr spending less time scouring the internet for cool things... Erm... Nah.)