1. Matryoshka Kimono Dolls, 2. Colour palette: Green, 3. Tamarillo chutney, 4. Cutest of cute hats!, 5. West Coast adventure, 6. Hands-on dog food!, 7. Pirates treasure bag PART TWO, 8. Autumn, 9. My new crafting space, 10. Friendly cat toys, 11. Birthday pancakes, 12. Magical toadstools, 13. Bush bath bliss, 14. Coral, shell and bone, 15. Autumn Blues, 16. Big skies, 17. Garden meditation, 18. The joy of wood, 19. Gratitude, 20. Birthday bunny

 1. My shop is now open!, 2. Cosy Friday evening, 3. Kimono paper tape PREVIEW!, 4. Happy weekend papercut, 5. Colour palette: Red, 6. Tin can lanterns, 7. Shop update: Tom Cats, 8. Spring love: magnolia blossoms, 9. Poultry PS, 10. …and the winner is…, 11. Display jars for treasures, 12. Pin board inspiration, 13. Monday’s inspiration: Honour, 14. Happy Equinox!, 15. Fresh start and a GIVEAWAY!, 16. Paper Fan Inspiration Cards, 17. Morocco on my mind, 18. Midwinter mandarin lanterns, 19. Rainbow eggs and a basket of flowers, 20. Vintage kimono palette

1. London by night, 2. Travelling feet, 3. Poultry Show, 4. Kimono paper tape PREVIEW!, 5. New things, 6. A new season…, 7. Hand carved stamps: lanterns and blossoms, 8. Monday’s Inspiration: Creativity, 9. Rob Ryan’s shop on Columbia Road, 10. Happy Christmas!, 11. Happy New Year!, 12. Plant skeletons, 13. Header artwork, 14. Paper Fan Inspiration Cards, 15. Earth Hour 2010, 16. Contact me, 17. Monday’s inspiration: Communication, 18. Pirate’s treasure bag, 19. More gratitude, 20. Olive Harvesting

This series is from Morocco. So many different kinds of tiles – in the patios, stairways and rooftops of traditional riads and dars where we stayed; in the great courtyard of an Islamic school in Fez; on the street of a town’s cobbled medina; and the pastel-bricked step of a pottery factory. Oh, and a monkey in the cedar forests of the Middle Atlas, sizing up my bag of peanuts!

These photos are all taken in the Black Forest in Germany where my half-sister and I stayed in a fairy tale 400 year-old traditional farmhouse. We spent the weekend walking through misty forests filled with Autumn leaves, mossy rocks, mushrooms, twisted roots, wild blueberries and chattering streams. Pure magic! Just wait till you see the farmhouse itself…

…And these photos are in the UK. The many different floors of the Victoria and Albert Museum, great ammonite fossils and sea-worn pebbles on the beaches of Exmoor, an ancient stone bridge and fallen berries on moss (also in Exmoor), and the floors of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich (opposite where my brother lives and, more excitingly, where the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean film had just been shot!).

I’m slightly alarmed by how many of the photos feature the same pair of jeans and shoes… I’m ashamed to say, for a fairly seasoned traveller, I actually don’t travel lightly at all, and practically had my whole wardrobe with me, but you certainly wouldn’t know it! These photos must have all been taken on days when I was wearing my most comfortable, practical, walking clothes… : )

In Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation, Charolotte remarks “…every girl goes through a photography phase, like horses, you know dumb pictures of your feet…” Well, it seems I’m still going through that phase! Somehow, photographing my feet in different locations has an irresistible immediacy that I still can’t quite get past.

And hello Autumn in London, England!

Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while, I’ve been so busy getting ready for my trip. I’m going to be away for 6 weeks and will try and touch base with my blog whenever I can. I’m sure I’m going to have lots of wonderful things to share. A week in Morocco for starters! And a long weekend in a beautiful old farmhouse in the Black Forest in Germany… And of course London experiences too.

Before I set off on my trip I picked one of my Paper Fan Inspiration Cards. Here is what I got:

That seems pretty appropriate, doesn’t it? The card’s even  got Autumn leaves on it, which wouldn’t seem like the obviously choice for ‘new beginnings’ (I’m surprised I didn’t illustrate the card with new Spring blossom, now I think about it!), but it works perfectly for me right now!

This trip feels like a really special time for me and somehow a new step or turning point in my life… Everything has just fallen into place so beautifully for it too. I can’t quite believe it!

I’m going to be running 5 Reiki workshops while I’m in the UK which I’m so happy about. I feel utterly lucky to be combining a wonderful holiday with doing the work that I love, and catching up with friends and family who I haven’t seen since I left London and moved back to New Zealand more than three years ago.

Speaking of that time in my life… When I first moved back to New Zealand, for almost a year, every single time I picked an Inspiration Card, I would get New Beginnings!

What ‘new beginnings’ are you welcoming into your life right now? I’d love to hear about them.

I love these fly agaric toadstools, they make me think of magical fairy stories. And I love the word ‘toadstool’! I always imagine fat toads sitting on them with their legs daintily crossed. That little toadstool in the middle is so perfect and spotty, isn’t it?

And look at how huge this one is! I had to take a picture of it with my feet for size comparison so you could fully appreciate how large it is. More like a toad armchair, or even a sofa…

I love the library. We have great libraries in Waitakere and I’m a regular and prolific borrower. (Hmmm… Do you think that it’s possible to love the library too much? I was recently told by a Library Assistant that I was the first person ever that she’d come across who knows their library card barcode off by heart.)

On the way to the library I was reminded of some of the things I love about Autumn and why it’s actually one of my favourite seasons. Two words for you: Persimmon orchards!

Once at the library I tend to skip the ground floor (fiction) and head straight upstairs to non-fiction. I get books on interior design, crafting, sustainable building, gardening, cooking, writing, art, travel, fashion, graphic design, blogging… Oh! So much inspiration to choose from!

One of the gems that I found yesterday was a completely hand-written, hand-illustrated, palm-sized book called How to Make a Journal of Your Life by Dan Price. Great inspiration for keeping a hand-written journal or a blog.

One of the delightful reminders I got from the book was the art of doing what we used to call at school ‘blind contour drawing.’ They’re the kind of drawings where you simply follow the outline of objects with your eyes and pen or pencil and see what magic you create. It’s a great exercise for switching off your left, intellectual, analytical “thinking” brain, and using your right, creative, intuitive brain. I always find these drawings have a kind of wonderful free wonky whimsy to them.

I had some fun with my pot of Yogi Tea this morning. As you can tell, some of the detailing (like the dashes on the cup) aren’t done entirely “blind.” When I’d finished, I scanned my drawing into Photoshop and did a spot of colouring in.

Why don’t you have a go with blind contour drawing yourself? I’d love to see anything you come up.

We grew the kumara in two long beds in our terraced vegetable garden, planting the tupu out in November and then basically leaving them to it over the Summer.

We grew two varieties this year:

Reka Rawa
This large, white skinned kumara, which comes from an ancient Far North collection, is described by Kay Baxter from Koanga Institute as: “The ultimate kumara, tastes like roasted chestnuts to me!”

Poporo
This kumara is reddish pink right through and goes an intense deep purple when cooked. Kay Baxter believes this kumara to be an outstandingly nutrient dense variety. 

Digging around in the earth with our hands feels like hunting for treasure! We’re not sure what’s a “good” crop, but we’re really chuffed with the amount that our plants produced. Once we’d harvested them all from the two beds, we laid them out on one of the beds to cure.

You can’t do much out in the garden around here without having some kind of input from the animals!

Meet Plum, he’s half Siamese and half big, black, wild tom cat. He has something to say about everything (in typical, deep Siamese tones). He may look a little crazy here, but he’s actually just come to say hello and see what we’re up to.

Just out of interest, this was our kumara harvest from last year. We tried out five different varieties, but only grew a couple of plants of each. As you can see, there was a big range of shape and colour.

They are (from left to right):

Maikio Gold (old commercial variety)
Maikio Red (old commercial variety)
Reka Rawa (see above)
(a volunteer pumpkin!)
Paraparapara (Pink. Reputed to be the old medicinal kumara that was used to feed the elderly, babies and invalids. From the Far North.)
Huti Huti (Cream, grows up to 60cm long! Old variety from the South Island. In the East Cape, Te Whanau a Apanui know it as the kumara to cook over the ashes of a fire when fishing at the beach.)

I photographed these hawthorn berries on the side of the road near Matakana the other weekend. Aren’t they beautiful?

We’ve had a busy last couple of weeks harvesting, preserving and getting our winter wood supply sorted.  We hauled 7 loads of firewood in our trusty ute (pickup) this week and stacked it away in our shed.  There’s something so utterly satisfying and reassuring about a shed full of dry, chopped, resin-scented wood, isn’t there?

There was a blissful moment on Saturday afternoon when the fire was on, rain was brewing outside, Mum and I were quietly working inside, and the air was full of the delicious lemony aroma of my man baking zingy citrus cakes in the kitchen. Ahhhhhh…….!