On my wishlist...

1. Circle Shelf from Bride & Wolfe
2. Satchel from The Cambridge Satchel Company
3. Striped tee from Bassike
4. Engineer boots from Frye
5. Cargo platform bed from Nightwood

Mmmm....yes please!

Looks like: Typewriter lust

Isn't this a fabulous typewriter? Oh to have a spare $550!

Happy Friday!...and new things

Happy Friday! Today I thought I'd bring you a cutting from a sweet little succulent in this corner of our backyard...

...plus a few lovely new things that have arrived at Mr Sparrow in the last couple of weeks that I haven't had a chance to tell you about!

Those beautiful Lovi birds, hearts and balls are now here...so, so pretty.

Also some sweet mobiles, toys, rattles and bunting from Pepper Stitches...

...fun new interactive bags and teatowels from TMOD (also in the online store)...

...and brilliant clay pottery vases (at fantastic prices) from Have You Met Miss Jones.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and hopefully get a chance to pop in and check these out!

*Images 5 & 6 from Pepper Stitches, images 7 & 8 from Telegram. All other by me.

A cute custom package

Remember a few weeks ago I said Kia Hing Fay had been busy hand-carving me a cute stamp from my sparrow logo? Well, last week it arrived! Isn't he the cutest?

Kia is starting to do custom hand-carved stamps and asked me to send through a jpg of my sparrow for her to work from. I love the finished result and am going to be using him left, right and centre!

Once her new website is up and running you will be able to see more examples of her custom work, and if you're lucky she might be able to whip you up something! In the mean time, Kia is always up to something wonderful on her blog.

Now to get stamping...

Noor Eesti Scenery theatre

I love this temporary theatre in Estonia, built entrirely from light timber batons that are easy to assemble and weatherproof. Designed by architecture firm Kadarik Tüür Arhitektid, the Noor Eesti Scenery theatre will be taken apart and reused for other purposes at the end of the summer.

I particularly love the way the natural surroundings - the hillside, the trees, the lake - are incorporated into the design, and the way the light filters through.

Beautiful, isn't it?

*All images from Kadarik Tüür Arhitektid. Found via inhabitat.

The first

There's something special about the first bulbs of the season. These sweet paperwhites in our back garden have been in flower for about a week now and I'm enjoying seeing their happy faces and smelling that heady scent each morning.

I think I'll have to pick a bunch for Mr Sparrow tomorrow!

Weekend wrap-up

Well, I had a very busy and somewhat exhausting weekend at First Comes Love, but it was a huge success! Sooo many people came by and there was lots of interest in the little Mr Sparrow table, and lots of people signing up to the mailing list and promising to stop by the store. Plus I got to meet lots of lovely, talented people and make a few new friends :)

Thanks so much to everyone who came along, and especially those who took part in the "guess the number" competition! It turns out there were an impressive 701 jellybeans in that jar (I'll be eating those for a while), which means the lucky winner of a $50 Mr Sparrow voucher is Katherine, with her guess of 704. Congratulations, Katherine!

If you didn't manage to make it on the weekend but have a wedding in the works, I'd recommend stopping by the First Comes Love website, where you can check out all the talented people involved and follow links to their websites.

Thanks again to Leah and Angela at Studio Bomba for inviting me to be a part of this really exciting and inspiring event!

Looks like: Yellow dress red lips

Remember this stunning Vera Wang that Michelle Williams wore to the Oscars in 2006? Well... Kirsten Dunst took a leaf out of her book this year at Cannes with a Chloe dress in a similar colour. Isn't a yellow dress with red lips a killer combination? Images: Michelle from style spotter fashion blogger. Kirsten from MarieClaire.com

Happy Friday!...and First Comes Love

Happy Friday! It's a white theme today, with a rose from our front yard in a mini milk jug. Why so white? Because white means weddings and weddings mean First Comes Love! That's right, it's this weekend! From 12-6pm on Saturday and Sunday the Oxford Hotel in Leederville will be chock-full of wedding wonderfulness, with musicians, stylists, stationers, bakers, florists, and photographers galore! Mr Sparrow will also be there, with lots of interesting gift ideas, as well as plenty of things to buy, and a "guess the number" jar where you could win a $50 Mr Sparrow gift voucher if you can guess the number of lollies in the jar!

There are plenty of other giveaways happening, too, plus goodie bags, musicians and fashion parades, so why not grab a drink at the bar and make an afternoon of it?

Entry is $5 and you can find out more details at the First Comes Love website.

I hope to see you there!

Wishlists are go!

 

Hooray, wishlists are now online! For a while now it's been possible to create a wishlist with Mr Sparrow in the Subiaco store, but now you can also create one online!

It's a great way to send friends or family members in the right direction for that birthday you have coming up, or just to remember those favourite items you've seen on the website for down the track.

It's live on the website now, so pop into the online store and take a look. You'll see "add to wishlist" buttons under each item, and also a "Wishlist" tab up the top, which will take you to more information. You'll need to register your details (very easy) to set up a wishlist, but then you can log in as many times as you like to make changes, and your wishlist will be saved indefinitely. If you'd like to show your family and friends your wishlist, just give them our website address and your login details.

Wishlists are also great for couples who want to create a wedding registry full of really special gifts...which is why I'm so happy to be launching this just in time for First Comes Love (it's this weekend!). If you're using it this way, I'd recommend setting it up in the store initially (which means you'll get a voucher for 10% of the total amount purchased in the store from your wishlist!), and then adding an online component, so you get the best of both worlds. We also have cute "We've created a wishlist with Mr Sparrow" cards you can give your guests, and we will keep track of any in-store purchases for you.


I hope you have fun setting up your wishlist! I just did one myself and suddenly realised just how many things I want from my own store - ha!

A big thanks to Vanessa, my website manager, for setting this up for me so quick-smart :)

Walpole Part III

These are the last ones, I promise! I just had to include these ones of Walpole's famous giant tingle forest and the Treetop Walk that travels through it. Tingles are enormous native Western Australian trees. They are pretty special not just because of their size (they can be as wide as 16 metres at the base and as tall as 60 metres!) but also because they are now only found in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park and in a few isolated sites in the Walpole area. They are also famous for splitting at the base as a result of bushfires, and there used to be a tree with a hole so huge you could drive your car into it. When this came down in 1990 (I think), as a result of root damage from all the tourists, the Treetop Walk was constructed as a way for tourists to explore the beautiful forest without causing any damage.

Interestingly, Walpole's Treetop Walk has now inspired similar ones in the Great Otway National Park in Victoria (which we visited on our roadtrip last year) and in the Californian Redwood Forest (where we have also been!), which is still in the works. It certainly is pretty amazing to be walking through a forest at 38 metres in the air!

Two other spots that were truly spectacular were Circular Pool, a collection of tranquil pools and rushing waterfalls on the Frankland River (that's it in the third photo above), and Conspicuous Cliff, an impressive viewpoint over the ocean where if you're lucky you can see whales cavorting around (we didn't see any, but we still felt pretty lucky with the dolphins!).

Well, Walpole, what more can I say other than you have my heart?