Breath Taking

photo by Jason Busch, stylist Rachel Brown

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I came across this awe-inspiring photo on the design files. She has an interview with photographer Jason Busch. His website has incredible work. But there is just something about this image that made me stop. Hill End Artist Retreat is in the outback of Australia. I don't know if I am subconsciously drawn to it because of its location or not. It does remind me of the house from the movie, Australia. I loved that house as well. Maybe I'll design the exterior of our house to play off the appearance of homes found in the Australian outback.

Australian Snapshots

Crab Paintings and Thrift Shopping

This is the painting of the Australian crab I finished last night. I think its my favorite out of the works I've done while living down under.

Today I went to Salvos and found a few great things.

1. This watermelon spoon and fork set. I realize that they're a little broken, but nothing that sanding and care couldn't fix.

2. A beautiful patterned sundress. Also needs a little work. I've had to undo the straps from the back, and will be resewing them in an X to make them shorter.

3. I bought two books for the plane rides to Ayers Rock and back, and then the long 27 hour stint of flights and airports home to Jackson. Bridget Jones's Diary, and The Hound of Baskerville, neither of which have I read.

4. Lastly I found an art smock, with two big pockets on the front and a tie in the back. I've just washed it to get some of the sizing out of the fabric, but when its done airdrying I'll photograph it. I love it a lot. Just what I had wanted.

Packing My Bags!!

It's official, my bags are packed! Turned my room into a total wreck before rolling up my clothes for hours. I brought an extra duffel bag just in case I'd need it to bring home all the stuff I'd inevitably buy in my six months living abroad. Ended up being able to jam everything into the three suitcases I came over with. Rather impressed with myself. That feat was only possible by sorting through all my belongings I have and setting aside everything I haven't used or don't want anymore to be given to the Salvation Army, Salvos. I'm going to drop it off tomorrow.

And I discovered that I like to cut canvas fabric off of the wooden frames so I now I can take the paintings home with me that I've done in Australia. Brilliant!

Little Things that Brighten My Day

This is my side table at the moment. I thought the collection of things that have accumulated were quite nice. We have my watercolor of the harbour, my palette and paintbrushes. Also some four leaf, five leaf, and even six and seven leaf clovers I found in a one square foot patch out in the front yard. There's also the little pink bike I bought at a fair trade store; it's made of recycled materials. There's my Aussie version of rubber cement, called Clag. My green Indian elephant bank that I think is so wonderful. And my tiny metal jewelry box. And if you look carefully in the back right corner there is the ziploc bag of shells I found at Mona Vale beach.

Here's the inside view of my jewelry box. I not only love this box for its compact travel size, but also for the fact that Matty bought it for me at a consignment store before I left for Australia. I think it used to be a pill case, but my jewelry fits quite nicely inside it.

This is the cover of my jewelry case which I had engraved with my first name. Amelia is scribbled elegantly in the fake gold case.

The other day at the shops I found a dollar store that sells the instrumental part of music boxes. The one I chose to buy plays Waltzing Matilda, and it sounds very beautiful with the little plinks the music crank makes.

Here's the little pink hand made bike. The foot peddles and tires even rotate, but not coordinatedly.

Emma's Crazy Faces

Emma is obviously a little model. She loves the camera and can definately whip out some funny faces. It takes her all of half a second to come up with new ones. I'll probably keeping clicking away as long as she keeps performing. Brooke makes some great ones too, I just havent quite caught them on camera.