About a hundred years ago I lived in a beautiful city in regional QLD called Toowoomba.  It was a pretty fantastic place to grow up when I was a kid, and I have a lot of awesome memories from those years.  One of the things I remember about it was the strong folk art and handmade culture that flourished there.

I came across Toowoomba artist Anna Bartlett by chance last month and had lots of fun poking around her shop, Shiny Happy Art.  I was immediately drawn to this sweet little robin fabric panel, and quickly added it to my cart despite having no idea what I was going to do with it!

It arrived after just a couple of days, beautifully packaged with a cute hand-drawn picture drawn on the envelope.  Adorable.  In fact, I had to convince the receptionist at work to part with it so that I could see what was inside!

There’s something extra special about receiving a package directly from the artist, especially when it’s personalised in this way!  Anna also  included a note with my order, suggesting that I might like to stitch around the robin to bring out his little feet.

A month later I still haven’t decided what my little birdy will become, but someday he’s probably going to be a cute little cushion or a bag.  For now I’m just admiring him from afar until inspiration strikes.

Did I mention that this little guy is only $12?

There’s plenty of other beautiful things to see at Shiny Happy Art.  These are my top picks.

Original art: Mid Century I and Antique I, $146

Robin Red Breast and Blue Wren hankies, $14

Robin Red Breast teatowel, $24

Blue Wren and Robin Red Breast parlour cushions, $35
(These are my favourites!)

I know sometimes it isn’t easy to be sure, so I thought I should mention that I wasn’t asked to write this post.

I’m just all about sharing the pretties with you guys!

Click here to see “Full Hearts & Empty Rooms” on iTunes

I heard this magical song by Emma Louise for the first time last week, and was happy to discover that she’s a Brisbane/Cairns girl like me. I bought her EP Full Hearts & Empty Rooms a few days ago and it’s been on a constant loop ever since.

This was the only version of the song that I’ve been able to track down online, and it seems to be an older recording than the one that made it to the EP. I love the raw beauty of this version.

Emma Louise – 1000 Sundowns by undercover tracks

(If you’re reading this via an RSS reader, and there is no flash audio player above, please click through to listen)

I met a boy who made me cry
He said, “stay away from my kind”
I said I appreciated his honesty
And I stayed away for a while

Then he cried and I laughed on the telephone
and we talked for hours
He says he wants to be a rock star, well so do I
so I guess it would never work

But on these summer nights when the weather’s fine
I miss him by my side
oh, by my side

And when the wind blows west from the hills
on these April nights I think of him
Oh the boy who surely taught me how to love
showed me how to trust, and I gave in

And oh, our love it was strong, it was so deep and we were young
and I was a little bit naive
But still how I was in his arms for 1000 sundowns
it was a love worth remembering

And on these summer nights when the weather’s fine
I miss him by my side
oh, by my side
And oh, my darling, say that you miss me too
on these summer nights
you miss me by your side

I know, I know I’ll see your face at the gates of heaven
when it’s my turn to go
But, oh Lord, please do not pass judgement on us
we were but young and full of love
And, oh please, let me cry in his arms just once more
for 1000 sundowns
for 1000 sundowns

There is more info at her Myspace and Facebook profiles. Hopefully a website (and album!) isn’t too far away.

I’ll leave you with Jungle, which has been the most popular single from the EP. There are big things ahead for this girl.

Moomba Festival, 2011 (using the Instagram iPhone app)

I’ve been missing this place.

It’s strange to not be writing here so much anymore; to have taken a break without actually meaning to. No great personal crisis occurred to bring on the silence, just a combination of factors that have made me take a back seat for a while.

But it’s been a strange year so far, beginning with the devastation of three of my childhood cities. Toowoomba, which was my home from ages 8 to 11, was the target of an ‘inland tsunami’ which killed many people (and even more in the Lockyer Valley). Then Brisbane began to drown underneath one of the worst floods it has ever experienced. There was almost no loss of life there, but large numbers of people were displaced and lost everything they owned. I was glued to every piece of footage, recognising landmarks as they went underwater and wondering how long it would take my old city to get back on its feet. Most of my friends and family were lucky enough to escape the floods unharmed, but a couple were forced to evacuate with whatever they could carry.

Shortly afterwards Cyclone Yasi hit Cairns, which is where I lived from the ages of 12 to 17. Cairns suffered only mild damage compared to the little towns to the South, but it was a scary couple of days as my old friends prepared to ride it out with their loved ones, bottled water and the occasional update on Facebook. Even here in Melbourne the impact is still felt with bananas costing $11/kg, but I buy them anyway in the hope that it helps Far North Queensland in some small way.

It was too much. Too many people killed or displaced in such a short period of time, too many terrified children, families broken apart, and animals who were left to fend for themselves. The media coverage was extensive, and sucked the energy from my bones here in Melbourne.

There wasn’t much energy left by the time Christchurch and Japan experienced their horrific earthquakes. It’s taken a lot of effort to push through the ‘disaster fatigue’ that I was feeling to expose myself to the incredible stories from both those places. These people must feel as though their world is ending.

It makes me hope that those Mayans weren’t as insightful as they claimed.

Moomba Festival, 2011 (using the Instagram iPhone app)

But I miss this place. I want to write here, I want to hear from you again, and I want to give myself permission to blog about pretty things – even if those things feel a bit flippant at the moment. I’d like to write more about the changes that I’m noticing in myself lately, instead of peeking from the sidelines until I’ve got it all figured out.

What I need is to give more of myself here, and to trust that I’m in good hands.

How are things with you?

My heart has felt very heavy this week.

Back home in Queensland, where I grew up, an area the size of France and Germany combined has been declared a disaster zone. 21 days of flooding culminated a few days ago in a devastating inland tsunami through my old town of Toowoomba, and then engulfed my beautiful Brisbane.

The news coverage has been – for better or worse – truly overwhelming. I’ve found it difficult to tear myself from the TV each night, and at work I’m really distracted by all the new stories coming through. My family and friends in Brisbane and Toowoomba have been using Facebook to share their personal accounts, and while all of my immediate family are safe and dry, many of my old friends are facing months of hardship as the damage is revealed.

Entire suburbs were submerged yesterday.

Right now, there have been 15 confirmed deaths with another 51 people missing – in some cases, entire families. I fear that there will be a sharp increase in the death toll as the water subsides and reveals muddy graves. I worry that a lot of avoidable deaths are ahead because of accidents with electricity or disease.

In my case, it’s been particularly weird to see footage of areas that I know like the back of my hand. There’s the restaurant where we celebrated my 21st birthday, which literally floated down the river before crashing into a bridge. My local McDonalds, filled to the rooftop with muddy water and accessible only by canoe. The rows and rows of rooftops, like tips of an iceberg.

It just makes me feel sick.

My mum’s good friend is anxiously awaiting news of her sister in law, who is on the missing person’s list. Another body from that area was discovered today 80km from home. Can you even imagine?

The spirit of the those affected has been astounding. There has been very little talk of lost possessions, just relief for safe loved ones. Stories of heroism are beginning to emerge, such as the 13 year old boy who insisted that his brother be rescued first. This decision ultimately cost him his own life.

Stories like this are teaching me some good lessons about what matters, and what matters most.

Please donate to the Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal if you have anything to spare.

I wish I was there to do more.

I’ve just been sifting through my photos from our holiday to Hobart, Tasmania in September.  Some of the prettiest photos came from Mt Wellington, on a day when it was covered in snow.

It was the second-coldest I’d ever been, and it was wonderful.

I was reminded of this funny little place today while (finally!) going through my holiday photos from September. Doo Town is a tiny little township made up with little houses whose names all end in “doo”.

Discover Tasmania explains:

The town dates back to the 1930s when in 1935, Hobart architect Eric Round began a custom that continues today. He placed the name plate ‘Doo I’ at his Pirate’s Bay weekender shack. Charles Gibson (Doo-Me) and Bill Eldridge (Doo-Us) followed. The tradition caught on and today most of the town’s 1930s or so cottages have ‘Doo’ names.

Here are some of my photos, taken quickly from the passenger seat of the car so as to not disturb the residents too much!

This place is such a gem! I love knowing that a place like this exists.

And speaking of funny town names, this video has to be seen to believed. The real fun kicks off at about the 1 minute mark…

It seems as though Australia bloggers are all discovering Beth Emily at once, as I’ve come across her work a number of times in the past few weeks. I have found these birds especially captivating and so it’s time I started to spread the word too!

Beth has a background in printmaking, and in 2009 set up her own illustration practice in Hobart. These birds are all available for sale at Udessi (along with many other brilliant Aussie artists), but her personal portfolio is also worth seeing for her magical portraits.

I love it when I discover somebody who is making art that I could fill my home with. One of each, please!

Thanks to That Unreliable Girl for posting about her most recently!

Photo by Craig Matthews for The Mercury

This time tomorrow we will be wandering around the markets at Salamanca Place, and – if the photo above is anything to go by – freezing our BUTTS off! Tasmania obviously didn’t get the memo about Winter being over already. I will spread the word when we fly in tomorrow.

So there won’t be much action here until late next week when we return from our trip. Visiting Tasmania is another item on my 101 Things in 1001 Days list, and fortunately the Universe arranged for me to be there without any real effort on my part!

This is my first trip to Tasmania and we have a lot of ground to cover while we’re there. We’re going to spend a day in Port Arthur, see parts of Hobart and Richmond (including the markets) and tours of the Cascade Brewery and Cadbury Chocolate Factory. This will be my second chocolate factory tour in 8 days but no I *twitch* don’t have a *twitch* problem OKAY?!

We also have a long list of restaurants to try, so we’re in for a great few days away. Mostly, I’m excited about having a change of scenery and seeing a bit more of this brilliant country of mine.

(We’re very grateful to our friends J & G who will be puppysitting for us while we’re away. They seemed to think that our original plan to leave Harry with the TV remote and the number for Pizza Hut was somehow inadequate, so hooray for good friends!)

I’ll be back next week with 60,000 photos…

Part of my 101 Things in 1001 Days project.

Yesterday Tim and I jumped in our little car, and went in pursuit of snow. It was the first time that Tim or I had seen snow since he moved here three years ago, so we marked the occasion with a funny looking snowman (and a few costume changes!).

Next year Tim is going to teach me to snowboard, which I am anticipating with equal measures of excitement and dread. I expect to be front-page news the next day so my plan is to ring around the hospitals and make sure I won’t have any trouble securing a bed. I have a year to figure that part out.

So I can tick “see the snow” off my list – and another one too! Yesterday I recorded my day in pictures from beginning to end, and tonight I’ll be putting together an “A Day in My Life” post so that you can laugh at my bedhair. There will be plenty more snow photos to come in my next post!

In the meantime, I can’t help but think of my icy little friend up on Lake Mountain. I hope he doesn’t get too much sun today, and that his nose wasn’t nibbled by creatures overnight!

During our vacation earlier this month I took Tim to Shelly Beach.  It’s a little spot in Caloundra, QLD, where I spent many happy hours as a kid.  My grandparents lived two streets away from this beach for 30 years and our extended family usually congregated there a few times each year, for Christmas and other occasions.

My grandparents sold their beautiful little house 6 or 7 years ago and moved to Brisbane.  The person who bought it rented it out to bogans who pulled out Grandpa’s roses and put a BBQ on the front porch.  Driving past the house 10 days ago was really sad, and I’m not sure I’ll ever do that again.

Today is Boxing Day, and one year since we lost Grandpa to cancer.

I don’t know how to write about my Grandpa without writing you a novel.  In his own quiet way, he taught me so much about the sort of person I want to be, and to be around.  He will forever be the standard by which I compare all other people in my life, and the loss that I feel today doesn’t feel any less than it did one year ago.

You’d have loved my Grandpa.

Ten days ago I took the time to sit on the volcanic rocks at Shelly Beach and remember him.  I looked around and pictured me and my cousins as kids, picking up hermit crabs and building sandcastles together.  I thought about how lucky we were to have such an amazing playground in which to make these memories together.

Music is “Silent Sea” by KT Tunstall. Forgive my shaky iphone video…

It felt good to show this place to Tim.

The world lost one of its treasures 12 months ago, and I miss him more than I can say.