Eleventhirty

Eleventhirty is a new publishing project by Jack Pam, a photographer and film-maker from Perth, who now lives in Melbourne. I've known Jack since he was about ten years old so can't help but feel a little bit proud at all his impressive achievements, and this one is especially exciting. It is part of the FotoFreo Fringe Festival, who describe it as "a magazine printed for distribution directly onto the walls of a city and reproduced as an online journal." The pages of the magazine are posted onto surfaces in public locations at various points around Fremantle. A map is available online, which shows the location of each of the 64 pages and encourages people to explore the city of Fremantle by following the links. The pages feature the work of photographers from all over the globe, including Klaus Muenzner (Germany), lin zhipeng (China) Lilly Mcelroy (USA) and Jack himself.

I saw this page (pictured) when in Freo last weekend to see Jack's other latest venture, a documentary film called Photography Hijacked. It will be screening on ABC TV in May (go Jack!) and was premiering as part of FotoFreo. It is a film extension of the photography book, Hijacked Volume One: Australia and America, which features the photography of a variety of artists in Australia and America. The film goes further, asking the photographers to discuss their motivations and experiences with photography, as well as showcasing some of their amazing work.

Having studied film at uni, I have to say I was incredibly impressed with the professionalism of Jack's film - it was beautifully shot and edited, and just totally watchable, and I know how hard that is to achieve! Can't say I ever got there :)

Anyway, you will have to wait till May to see Photography Hijacked now, when it screens on TV, but you can still check out Eleventhirty until 18th April. Get the map with locations here.

For more on Jack's work (and details of the film screening), check out his blog.

Thanks to Eko for the photo :)

Boranup forest

The weekend before last I went down south to a beautiful wedding of two friends near Margaret River. On the morning of the wedding a few of us took a drive to our favourite patch of the Boranup forest and went for a wander amongst the karri trees. With so many spectacular places in the world it's easy to forget how beautiful your own country is sometimes, but this place always reminds me. It's hard to capture the feeling of this amazing forest, but it is just such a peaceful and spiritual place...and was a perfect start to a lovely, love-filled day!

PopMats

I love these! I discovered them on etsy late last year but only just got organised enough to get them into Mr Sparrow. They are pop-up paper placemats by PubliQue Living of San Francisco.

Designer Lian Ng was inspired by children's pop-up books to create these fantastic 3D place settings. They are made from 100% recycled paper with a lasercut design. The placemats are large enough for an entire setting (plate, knife & fork, glass...) and you could even write the name of your guests on the pop-up section. I feel like there must be a thousand other things you could do with these as well! They come in a pack of ten of the same design, and Mr Sparrow has the Mailbox (in white) and Tree (in kraft) designs in-store now.

Photos are from PubliQue Living - see more on their website.

Jasmine

On Wednesday, it was my birthday, and on that very same day the jasmine out the front of our house decided to burst into bloom. It literally happened overnight so when I stepped outside that morning I was faced with a sweet-smelling wall of white. It's a Lakeview Jasmine (also called Orange Jasmine because it looks and smells a lot like orange blossom) and it grows as a large hedge. The smell is absolutely intoxicating - I have the tiniest bunch in a teacup on my counter and I was asked twice yesterday what the amazing smell was! Today I discovered a lot of the petals had fallen already and created a pretty carpet of white along the path. Unfortunately the blooms don't last long, and when picked they will only last about a day...but I suppose that makes the day they chose to bloom even more special!

Make anything nice lately?

This is what Kia Hing Fay asks when you log onto her brand new website. And if the answer is "Hmm...no, not really" then she has all the tools of the trade to help you turn that around! She has expanded her range of products into three categories: sew, stamp and rattle. In "sew" you'll find her beautiful applique kits, in "stamp" you'll find her fantastic new range of cute stamp sets like these sheep and typewriter ones, and in "rattle" you'll find her unbelievably cute crocheted rattles. The really great news is that in addition to her applique kits, Mr Sparrow now has her stamp sets and rattles ready for you to buy! There are four stamp sets in total (sheep, cow, rooster and typewriter), and each one comes as a two-pack in a sweet little box. They are all hand-carved by Kia from her original illustrations. I'm seriously excited about having the rattles on my shelves now, too - you might remember I fell in love with them back here and they are even cuter in reality than I imagined! Thanks to Kia Hing Fay for the photos.

The storm

At about 4.30pm yesterday Perth was hit by the most violent storm in the city's history. It had been extremely overcast all day and they had predicted thunderstorms but right up until it actually hit I still didn't even believe it was even going to rain. It had been threatening rain here for days and yet hadn't actually rained in many, many months. But then it hit and it was just crazy. Within seconds there were enormous hailstones pelting down and torrential rain. There wasn't even time to rush out and bring in signs, seating or anything, so quite a lot of shops around here suffered a fair bit of damage but miraculously Mr Sparrow survived unscathed. I shut my door within a few minutes and had hail pelting at it and building up in a pile outside like snow! Needless to say I didn't see a customer after that :)

I took most of these photos on my way home while I was stuck in traffic. Sorry for the poor quality but they were just on my phone. For about an hour during this time the sky cleared up and there was the most incredible sunset, but then the storm started up again. A lot of roads were flooded and I had to drive through some scarily deep water a few times. One amazing sight I saw was people standing out in the rain blocking off one street that was obviously flooded further down. They had put cardboard boxes across the street and were directing traffic down side streets. I thought it was just amazing that these ordinary people would go out of their way to help out like that.

Our house and garden didn't suffer much damage - our power was our for a while and we had a bit of flooding upstairs due to an open window (I told you I didn't believe it was going to rain!), but otherwise we came out of it pretty well. My parents were down in Dwellingup so we checked on their place here last night and found their beautiful garden pretty much destroyed and some windows smashed, but other people have suffered much worse damage to their home and cars.

I hope you're all doing ok out there today!

Tootie & Tweet

These cute hair slides just arrived from Monique Germon. I ordered them a little while ago and, I have to confess, completely forgot about them until they turned up in the post today! I think they are so sweet, though, and love the packaging, too. When Monique emailed me last month, she described them as "lolly-like" and I think she's right - they are almost good enough to eat! I am a sucker for a good hair pin and think I might just have to add a pair of these to my collection. The question is, which one - Tootie, Tweet, or one of each?

Milk jug

Isn't he so sweet? I was so excited when I unwrapped a package from Chris Plumridge this morning and found this inside. It is one of two samples he sent me of Claystone Pottery's new products - the other is a "Perfect Poached Egg Boat", which is as beautifully-made as all his products and a great idea to boot. The milk jug comes in three colours - the plain white, clear blue and dark blue - and the poached egg boat comes in four - yellow, green, clear blue and white. I fell in love with both of them instantly and have already ordered a whole pile!

In the background are the beautiful Claystone vases and tea bowls I had ordered, which are now on Mr Sparrow's shelves...

More photos for the online store

I had a fun photography session yesterday afternoon, with the beautiful Katharine as my amazing model and Eko as my brilliant assistant! I'm really happy with the way all the photos turned out and so grateful to these two fantastic ladies for helping me out! Only just over six weeks till the online store is up and running...if all goes to plan!

Little chair

I was just looking through some oldish photos and realised I never showed you the final wedding present we gave Eko and Rick - this little chair! I say we, but this was really James's labour of love. We found this little chair on the roadside during a bulk collection, looking pretty much how he does in the top picture, although James had already sanded down the seat by the time I took this photo. He fixed a few wobbly bits, then over a period of many months sanded down the whole chair until it was smooth and paint-free. Finally we gave it a few coats of stain and varnish and I made this little felt cushion for it (to match the felt rug we gave them). Oh, and we also put the letters E and R into the back posts by engraving then burning them in with a butane torch. The whole process took such a long time that we didn't hand over this present until several months after their actual wedding, but I don't think they minded too much! I have quite a collection of little chairs, both at the shop and at home, all of which have come from people's verges or swapmeets, so it was nice to share some little chair love around.

Picking the shiraz

A few years ago my parents planted a small vineyard as part of their property at Dwellingup. Last year they picked their first vintage and around Christmas we cracked the first bottles of River Road Chardonnay, which everyone agreed was actually pretty good! They also grow Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Viognier, which gets mixed with the Shiraz and the Chardonnay alternately, but none of those are ready for drinking yet. Last year James and I missed all the grape-picking because it all happens very last-minute, depending on the weather (both the grapes and the pickers need it to be as cool as possible) and the Baumé of the grapes. This year, though, we were determined to earn our share of wine by doing at least a little picking! So last Sunday evening we - together with my parents - donned our long-sleeved shirts and gloves, picked up our secateurs and got to work! We were picking the Shiraz, which is a very thick-skinned almost black grape. We only had about two hours until it got too dark to work but we worked our way up and down the rows pretty quickly and got all the grapes you can see here picked in that time. It's not complicated work but it is repetitive and you do get hot and tired pretty quickly. After two hours we were still doing ok, but I have to say I didn't envy mum and dad getting back into it at 6am the next morning!

I think when we get our hands on this year's wine it will taste especially good!

Photo shoot...and online store news!

I took these photos to celebrate the shop looking its absolute best and brightest today. Why is it looking so fine today? Because I had a very exciting photo shoot this morning! About a month ago I received a phonecall from Vanessa at Home Beautiful magazine, saying they would love to feature Mr Sparrow! Home Beautiful is one of my two favourite magazines (the other being Inside Out), and it is something of a dream of mine to have my little shop gracing its pages. It will be in the Shop Watch section, which is a full page spread with a few photos and a little story. So...the shoot was this morning, but we'll have to wait a few months to see the photos, unfortunately (although I got a sneak peek and they look pretty fantastic). I'll be in the July issue, which comes out in early June. The really good news, though, is that the Mr Sparrow online store is scheduled to launch on May 1st, so it will be well and truly up and running by then, so people reading the magazine in Sydney or Brisbane or Melbourne or just about anywhere can hop online and check it out! So if you're hanging out for the online store, you don't have too much longer to wait! :)