Good Things...

This morning I woke up to sunshine and snow!  A light dusting of fresh stuff on the balcony, a few stray flakes falling and the gentle warmth of the winter sun.  A perfectly gorgeous start to the weekend, just when the Korean winter was starting to drag a bit...

...and speaking of the long, cold winter (it very rarely gets above zero degrees Celsius at the moment), having survived my first month I promise to never ever speak disdainfully of earmuffs again.  They might look a bit silly, but gosh they are actually damn sensible.  Life (ear?) savers. These beauties are from Muji.  I love Muji.  I have been slowly growing my earmuff collection, as I keep leaving the house without them and then am forced to pick up a pair when my head starts to go all tingly with the cold. (ps. if any of you know how I can get my hands on the Muji x LEGO goodies I would be eternally grateful...)

I know it wasn't on my list of creative goals for 2011 but I have got to try sashiko this year. Sashiko (which, according to Wikipedia, literally means 'little stabs'!) is a kind of Japanese embroidery, and to me it is everything wonderful and good.  I can't wait to give it a go.  I think this introductory how-to from The Purl Bee will be a good starting point.  (Photo is from good-ness, whose photostream I have just fallen in love with.)

Korea has some great lifestyle / home decor magazines that I regularly buy and drool over.  This kids rooms is from the January issue of Lemon Tree - isn't it great?  I especially love that tree-shelf. My dream craft room would look a bit like this, I think.  But with way more storage.  Way more.

As you might expect, my sister has a knack for getting me ace presents.  This amazing paper-craft book was part of my xmas package.  Every page is bursting with seriously good stuff.  Thanks sis!

Owl brooches

My mum recently asked my to make eleven owl brooches to hand out to a group she's been doing a course with (the owls symbolise wisdom gained!).  I was quite pleased with the end result.  For some reason I especially like variations on a theme - things that are the same but different.

I have a few spares to finish off for the Etsy shop, however considering that one of my goals for 2011 is  'taking advantage' of the time I have, I'm going to go slowly with them and think about ways to make the brooches extra special, maybe with some extra embellishment and embroidery.  Stay tuned!

Death by Doxie: The Etsy Edition

My inner geek is urging me to go purchase this print by Brian Rubenacker, right now!  But my inner mid-century modern loving interior designer is holding me back.  It is kind of cool though, isn't it?

The View From Here x Death by Doxie

Today I am once again playing along with Gogovivi.  The View From Here challenge this week is to share your last shot of 2010.  This photo of Elfi was taken at 11:58:55 on New Years Eve, so it is well and truly my last shot of 2010!

The husband was no doubt yelling at me to put the camera away as the count down was just about to start (we had a night in with roast chicken, martinis, Star Wars, Pictionary and lots of K-pop on the local TV).  But Elfi had made herself a nest in the pile of down jackets that had been thrown on the couch (from our brief sojourns out to the snowy balcony to see if anything was happening in the streets below). And she looked even cuter than normal (if that's possible).  Plus I had my new toy to play with (husband came through with a Canon 550D for xmas!).  So I had to take some photos...

And here are my first three shots of 2011:

A trip to the snow

Hello there!  How is your whole xmas/new year shebang going?  It's all been rather good and delicious and relaxing here, apart from the fact that I seem to be starting 2011 off with a whopper of a head cold...

We went to the snow last week, four days skiing at Alpensia and the near-by YongPyong.  As we've come to expect from our little Korean sojourns everything from accommodation to equipment rental to retail was spotlessly clean, great value-for-money and ridiculously well organised.  

As an added novelty, each resort also has an all-season water park, so after a morning of skiing you can then ride a water slide, if you choose.  As you can imagine this particular slice of Korean-ness was especially popular with the step-sons.  (Personally, I am still adjusting to the change room, um, ettiquitte.  But that is for another post...)

I didn't have my camera with me, but I had fun playing with the iPhone and using some photography apps - the current favourite being CrossProcess.