New from Burgon & Ball

These beautiful new tools are designed by British writer and designer Sophie Conran for Burgon & Ball and have just arrived at Mr Sparrow! The tools are specifically designed to fit women's hands and each one comes beautifully boxed. They are really reasonably priced as well (between $32 for the hand fork or trowel and $44 for the secateurs) and I think they'd make such a lovely gift for a gardener.

There are also some other lovely new things from Burgon & Ball, including cute gingham jar covers and sweet little printed labels for jams and chutneys. Plus some lovely new wooden labels for herbs and vegetables. All perfect to get into a bit of gardening and harvesting once the weather cools off a bit!

I'll be putting the new pieces up in the online store over the next week, so keep an eye out...and in the mean time come and take a peek in the store if you can!

*All images by Burgon & Ball

Kokedama

 Three lovely new balls of mossy goodness!

Conto

Hello! I'm sorry for the lack of Happy Friday post last week! I was having internet issues and although I tried long and hard to get one up there, it just wasn't to be. Anyway, I hope you had a lovely weekend!

James and I really needed to get away from everything last week, so we headed to Conto campground near Margaret River for a couple of nights. It was so nice to be surrounded by natural beauty and to take pleasure in such simple things as cooking a camp stove meal, reading under a tree or settling into a cozy sleeping bag at night. And to feel cool again...

Emily Green prints

You're probably familiar with Emily Green's bright and beautiful necklaces and brooches, but did you know the Melbourne-based designer also creates beautiful artworks from watercolours and collage? The artworks complement her jewellery designs perfectly, with beautiful soft pastels or bright and bold colour mixes (you may have noticed she photographs her necklaces in front of her watercolours, which I think takes them to a whole new level of beautiful!).

When I opened Emily's latest catalogue, I was really excited to discover that she's now selling her artworks as A4 digital prints. The Mega Silk 50% recycled 300gsm smooth white paper used makes for a very beautiful print that shows every detail of the original artwork.

Along with lots of lovely new necklaces and brooches, these prints will be arriving at Mr Sparrow very soon, so keep an eye out and you could have a bit of Emily on your walls!

*All images by Emily Green

givemakewrap

I've started a new blog! It's called givemakewrap and it's all about gift-giving. Each week I'll post an idea of a gift to give, something to make, or a fun way to wrap a present.

I'm still doing a little tweaking but you can check out my very first post right here.

I hope you enjoy stopping by and hopefully pick up an idea or two! Oh, and don't worry, this blog isn't going anywhere :)

farrah sit

I fell in love with these pieces from Brooklyn designer Farrah Sit at first sight (what is it about me and Brooklyn designers??).

Sit's ethos is “own less and own well”, and to this end she has created a range of strikingly simple designs driven by her passion for attention to detail, honesty to material, craft and form. Her collection features furniture, light fixtures and tabletop pieces made from natural materials such as wood, ceramic, and metal.

I've just placed an order for these beautiful porcelain and leather hanging containers, and ash and porcelain desk accessories, so look out for these at Mr Sparrow soon!

*All images by Farrah Sit

Happy Friday...and a tune for your weekend!

Happy Friday!

My favourite orange jasmine is blossoming at the moment and lining our front path with the most heavenly, summery scent. Plus I have little sprigs in every room (and at the shop) so I can smell it all day long!

For this week's tune for your weekend I had to pay tribute to the incredible Whitney Houston, who tragically died last Saturday. James and I are both unashamedly huge Whitney fans - I mean, that voice was one in a million. This track is a classic and a favourite of both of ours, How Will I Know from her debut self-titled album in 1985. So long, Whitney. You will be missed!

I hope you have a great weekend!

Hay

I love these beautiful goods by Hay from Copenhagen. So pretty! And they even have something for my wooden spoon collection! I am completely in love with that tablecloth, too...

*All images from Hay

Unexpected

A few days ago I noticed something unexpected happening in one of the Sky Planters on display at the shop - sprouts! Instead of just growing downwards, the mint has sprouted from its roots and is growing upwards as well! I know I should probably cut it off but it just seems so enthusiastic, how can I?

Tree swing

James made me this beautiful tree swing for Christmas and we just put it up at Dwellingup over the weekend. I forgot how much I love that feeling of gliding through the air! It's especially nice when you're in the middle of the bush, too, and you have views like this:

I'm looking forward to spending many an hour swinging away amid the treetops!

Last-minute Valentine

I'm not hugely into Valentine's Day, but I do usually like to do a little something. Last year I cut some hearts out of alfoil and made them into semi-permanent street art in the laneway outside our house by blu tacking them down and then driving over them to meld the alfoil into the pavement. It was right outside our back gate where James comes home from work each day so he could see them...and they stayed there for about six months before finally wearing away, which was kind of fun. I also took a few hipstamatic photos of the hearts and printed them onto notebooks as a gift for James.

If you've left your Valentine's thinking to the last minute but would still like to make someone feel a bit special, here are a few quick and easy ideas:

• make some cute heart-shaped t-bags
• make a beautiful floral 'love bomb'
• make something delicious like this spiced cardamom hot chocolate with orange whipped cream
• heart attack someone!

You can see some of my past Valentine's ideas here, here and here. Have a lovely day!

*Images from (from top): Design*Sponge, The Design Files, west elm, Oh Happy Day.

Happy Friday...and a tune for your weekend!

Happy Friday! These are some of the tasty cherry tomatoes we've been growing in our backyard. I picked these and some others a few days ago and made the most delicious bruschetta!

I hope you've got a fun weekend planned. Laneway is on in Perth tomorrow, and while I usually shy away from music festivals these days (getting too old!), I make an exception for Laneway because it always has such a great line-up and it's a fair bit more chilled than most of the other festivals. James and I had planned to go tomorrow but it's now looking like I won't be able to because of some medical stuff I have going on at the moment. I'm feeling mightily disappointed but nevertheless I thought for this week's tune for your weekend I'd choose something from one of the musicians I was looking forward to seeing tomorrow. I was particularly excited about M83, Feist, Cults, Girls, Active Child, EMA...aahh so much goodness! And also the awesome Toro Y Moi, so here is one of my favourite tracks of his, New Beat, from his album of last year, Underneath the Pine (and did you know his real name is Chazwick Bundick?? That's insane.)

Enjoy!

Have a fantastic weekend, and if you are going to Laneway, have an extra dose of good times for me!

Workshop #3

On Sunday I held another terrarium workshop at Mr Sparrow, which was the final one in this round of workshops (more to be announced soon!). Once again, I had a lot of fun and I hope everyone else did, too! It was another creative bunch and their terrariums all turned out beautifully - such sweet little worlds. Below are images of each of the terrariums made during the workshop.

 

 

 

 

Thanks so much to everyone who took part in the summer workshops! You can see more photos here.