Sneak peek at The Crafty Kid
Not too long now and the new book will be published… hurrah!
Here’s the cover image – a gorgeous craft table set-up by stylist Sarah DiNardi, and shot by photographer Franciska Rauwenhoff. I’ve been living kids’ craft for the last wee while, and can’t wait to hear what people think about these new projects.
The Crafty Kid: projects for and with children hits bookstore shelves this June.
The Crafty Kid - full jacket
Interview on Daily Imprint

Natalie's own home - isn't it gorgeous?
Natalie Walton, Deputy Editor of Real Living Magazine and the brains behind clever website Daily Imprint contacted me recently about an interview for her site. Click here to read it. Many thanks, Natalie!
UK Vogue’s March issue
Check out the current issue of UK Vogue for an interesting article on quilting by former enfant terrible of the British art world, Tracy Emin.
There’s also a great fashion spread on the trend for head-to-toe vintage denim (yikes, I know, but it actually looks fab) and about a million other retro and crafty references which are now feeling bang-up-to-date… even Karl Lagerfield’s at it. Have you seen the latest crocheted skirt suits at Chanel? Or the flower-embellished 2.55s? The revolution is well underway.
Thought for the day
I just read this quote and loved it so much I had to share it: ‘Better Keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world’ – George Bernard Shaw
Our home in The (Sydney) Magazine

Our kitchen, and the cover of The Crafty Minx
A few months ago the lovely Andrea Millar, homes writer for The (Sydney) Magazine visited, along with inspiring lifestyle photographer Prue Ruscoe. I’ve often admired Prue’s pictures in Inside Out and various other magazines and books, so was thrilled to have her in our home to take these shots, which appeared in the magazine last Thursday. If you follow the blog you will have seen all this before, but Prue has done a far better job than me at capturing our home in its best light.
For the full article, click here.
My crafts cupboard & me
The living room, with handmade cushion and throw
A peek inside Olive's room - artwork and monkey from the book
Our bedroom, and the 'Just Married' duvet cover from The Crafty Minx
The Lightness of Being an Olympian
In honour of the Winter Olympics, check out this clip directed by Ryan McGinley for the New York Times Magazine. The track featured is by The Ruby Suns.
The Catorialist

On the street... Nearly Spring, Los Angeles CA
I’m more of a dog person but this website is pure gold – love the picture captions. Check it out: The Catorialist.
The man in the park
I took a picture of this graffiti I spied in a Stanmore park some time ago, and then a friend told me it’s actually of a man who sits there almost every day. I haven’t seen him, but I think it’s touching he’s been immortalised in this most urban of ways.
For more fantastic graffiti, check out an earlier post here.
Beatles to Bowie

The Beatles in 1964
Speaking of the UK (see post below), I started looking again through some of my favourite UK sites, and found that the National Portrait Gallery is featuring the Beatles to Bowie retrospective at the moment. I wish I could be there to see it.
The NPG has to be my favourite place in all of London – when I lived there I would spend entire days just wandering through the various rooms and viewing the archives. There’s so much to see in people’s faces. And when they’ve been captured in a picture, you’re absolutely free to stare. I just love that – to me they are endlessly fascinating.
Here are two more black & white pics I love below – perhaps for sartorial inspiration more than anything else.

The incomparable Astrud Gilberto

Oh Edie... an Edie Sedgwick pic by Keith Moon
A cosy English winter
It’s hard to imagine as I sit here, silently wilting amidst the wet heat of a Sydney summer, but oh to be staring out the window at sights like these…
My father-in-law, D sent me these images recently of their farm in south-west England, snowed in as they were with the heaviest snowfall they’ve had in over thirty years. To be sitting inside near a roaring fire, sipping hot chocolate and cutting up old jumpers to make a soft toy or two, or a hot water bottle cover for a friend… now that would be bliss.
Deer in the fields
Or maybe a tea cosy from the book, like this:

My love heart tea cosy

