bee

Chuffed with this one - taken with the macro lens in the garden yesterday. Have a lovely weekend!

reading material

This is what I'm reading at the moment ...
Oh Comely ~ a cool mag about creativity and quirkiness that I picked up in London
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs ~ chick lit with a crafty plot about a woman who owns a yarn store in New York. I'm really enjoying it - no thinking required!
Gardens Illustrated ~ a British garden mag with the most beautiful photography. I bought this in London too, but I buy this mag at home in Australia regularly.
Mollie Makes ~ the new "it" craft mag ~ lovely! The new edition was released yesterday ... pity there are currently no stockists in Spain!!
Smoke ~ a "london peculiar" ~ stories celebrating modern London. Edgy, alternative, interesting - I enjoyed reading it.
Black Cab Wisdom ~ a small tome of pearls collected by a London cabbie from his passengers ... "if you think your life is bland, then you haven't added enough flavour", and "you are the pink flamingo on the great lawn of life". Genius!

What have you loved reading lately?

london calling

I had been looking forward to our long weekend in London for weeks and weeks, and it did not disappoint. Aside from all of the lovely family things we did (sightseeing, eating, shopping, eating!), I managed a few hours to tick some things off my crafty list ... starting with a visit to this lovely store ...

Liberty of London has to be one of my most favourite stores. Aside from the beautiful fabric, it is just full of beautiful things - an old fashioned department store with wonderful service. Lucky for me, Liberty is currently having a sale, so I came away with these gorgeous fabrics. The top four are 1m remnants that were half price, and the bottom fabric (the same as the one hanging over the chair) I bought 3m of ... I love it!

I also visited The Make Lounge (thanks Jennie for the tip!) - a gorgeous craft shop full of lovely bit's and pieces. I finally got myself a copy of Mollie Makes from there.

It was just so lovely to be back in London again. The city is in "spruce up" mode - getting ready for the Olympics next year, so the place is buzzing. As an Australian, London is such a homey place to visit - similar food and lifestyle and loads of Aussies! Here are a couple of my favourite snaps from around the town ...

Back in Spain now for a couple of weeks. Cheerio!

heart

Can you see it? Taken at the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, Kensington Gardens, London. For my blogger friend Cam.

block printing

Block printing is my portable printing craft of choice - when I need a printing fix, I whip out the carving tools, some rubber and some ink and I'm happy! Yesterday, I carved out a couple of new designs ...

I want to re-carve the circus tent design - I like the concept, but I want more detail.

Wishing all of you a lovely weekend. Thanks so much for your comments and emails these past weeks - it has (at times) kept me sane to know you are all there while I am a stranger in a strange land.

zara + knobs

I know the Zara phenomenon is currently hitting Australia right now. Zara is a Spanish store that is now global. They also have Zara Home - infact there is one in the shopping centre near me, where today I found these cute button knobs on sale for just 5 euro ...

My experience of Zara so far is that it's good (lovely stores, great range, lovely colour palettes), but you need to be selective with their products (especially clothing). However, many products (usually the more expensive ones), and most of their homewares are well made, good quality and well priced. Their responsive business model is quite interesting (you can read about it in a brief article here). Have you been to Zara? What did you think?