Flower Monday

I've always had a love of flowers and now that I'm in my lovely new house (with an amazing florist round the corner!) I've found myself buying flowers every Saturday. I love buying a few bunches and arranging them when I get home. It warms the heart cockles. Plus I can't help but photograph them because I smile every time I walk past them. So I thought I would try and post these photos every Monday for a bit of start-of-the-week cheer. So here's the first Flower Monday.

This week I chose pink oriental lillies, tuber rose (which smells amazing, a bit like gardenias) and some unknown bright green foliage I've never seen before. I asked the lovely Asian lady who owns the florist shop and her reply was 'leaf' and that's as much as she would tell me :)

:) Kim

Phillipa Finch Heartwork

Ok so I'm so in love with 'The Demise of Phillipa Finch' that I'm going to blog about it some more. As mentioned below you can go to this interactive website and make your own heartwork. Here's mine! It's lot of fun and I'm blown away by the whole idea and concept. It fits in perfectly with what I'm working on at the moment (illustration and design outlets) so excuse me while I go "ARggghhhh this is sooo freakin cool!!!' Ahem. yes.

:) Kim

The Gradual Demise of Phillipa Finch

This is sooo gorgeous I can't even begin to describe it. This is episode 6 of a new series of short 1-2min episodes that are airing on ABC. They're made by Emma Magenta and narrated by Toni Collette. There's also an interactive website where you can watch the episodes and make your own 'heartwork'.
I find it so heartening that the ABC are supporting something like this. Its whimsical, different and just amazingly beautiful. I'm inspired! I hope you find it so too.

:)Kim

You Gotta Check Out These Exhibitions

I saw both of these exhibitions last week and I was blown away by them. The Art of Australian Picture Books featured some amazing original illustration from recent children's books as well as books I remember as a kid. Great exhibition and since its free and on till May I'm definitely going to pop my head in a few more times.

I love Disney and this is a huge and detailed exhibition on at ACMI about the art and processes behind Disney films. It can be easy to forget how amazing the artists are who draw the films when you're busy watching the story. They also have cool films about how they shoot the hand drawn frames etc. But make sure you allow at least an hour and half to see everything properly. Well worth the entry fee!

:) Kim

Lookie What I Made

This little dress was my weekend project and I'm surprised it actually turned out ok! I'm not the best at following patterns and it took waaay too much brain power to figure out how all the pieces went together.

What made it hard was this vintage pattern I found. Very cool dress (ok I admit I've been watching A LOT of Mad Men and just had to have a Betty Draper dress. Tehehe.) but the pattern was really hard to understand! Besides being in yards and inches, it also didn't explain the steps very well and the pattern pieces have no markings.

I took it to Spotlight to see if someone working there could help me because I couldn't figure out the skirt part of the dress. But they were no help either - there were 3 of us scratching our heads. I just went home and got stuck in to see how far I got.
In the end the bodice was so much harder than the skirt. The 2 darts they had in the pattern just made the fabric bunch up and bulge around my bust which looked terrible. So I improvised and made one long curved seam that ran from the waist to the armpit (like I'd seen in other dresses). Needless to say I was very impressed when it actually worked and pulled the fabric into a nice snug fit. Yay! Then after that the skirt was pretty easy. It took me 7 hours but I reckon the next time I do it it'll be a lot less. Although I have 3 other vintage patterns to try first...

:)Kim