Locco for Gocco

Yesterday I attended a workshop run by the Sydney Brown Owls.


It was a Gocco Print workshop and it has got me Locco for Gocco hehehe!

Print Gocco is a Japanese color screenprinting system developed in 1977 by Noboru Hayama. Resembling a toy, the compact and completely self-contained printer is clean, quick and easy to use. The system works using flash bulbs, a carbon-based image or photocopy and an emulsion-coated screen. When the bulbs are manually flashed, the carbon in the drawing or photocopy burns the screen into a stencil. Several colors of Ink can then be applied at one time and multiples can be stamped out, as many as 100 before re-inking is needed. Fans of Print Gocco appreciate its size, cleanliness, relatively inexpensive cost, and the fact that several colors can be printed in one “pass.” Wording taken from here.

Here are some of the girls using the Gocco machines.

Once you've made your screen from your own design you can screen print it onto paper.

And Voila! You just do that over and over again and you've got gorgeous little prints from your own design!

Here are some of the designs that were produced. It was such a great workshop and now I'm itching to get myself a Gocco machine.

If you'd like to attend one of the many Brown Owls events which are held around the country then check out Pip's blog here.

Thanks to Manu and the Brown Owls girls for organising, it was so much fun.

Have a great Monday,

Escape to the Country

I think I could leave the city for the likes of this property :) Take a look!

"Kurkulla" in Bowral

My favourite colour scheme!


Could a kitchen be any more perfect than this?

Winter room/library

Look at the ceiling and the floors!

Window seat!!! And all that french style furniture, I'll take it furnished thanks!


Glen can do his laps here

Or maybe we could have a spot of tennis?

I might just sit on the veranda and watch the sun go down over the valley.

Blurb from the real estate site www.domain.com.au:
"KURKULLA" This magnificent country estate, dating back to 1880, was originally built as a boarding school for boys and then later purchased by Ada Evans (the first woman to qualify for admission to the Bar in NSW) in 1909.

"Kurkulla" has been renovated and extended under the strict guidance of arguably Australia's leading heritage architect, Howard Tanner, resulting in the creation of a glorious family home. Some of the outstanding features include 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, study, library, formal living room, a large open plan sitting and dining room, separate rumpus room, and a wonderful state of the art kitchen.

The house is surrounded by almost 11 acres of park-like gardens including a separate self-contained studio, an inground pool, and a floodlit tennis court.

A rare opportunity to secure a property that offers grandeur and history.

How cool that it was bought by the first woman to qualify for admission to the Bar in NSW, she obviously had brains and a great eye for beauty!

So what do you think? Could you escape to the country if it was in this humble abode?

Have a great day,

Thank You

Big thank you to two lovely ladies...

First up, Leanne aka Mrs A in the Cove, for her blog post on Monday about My Sweet Prints here.

If you haven't met Leanne before you have to take a look at her blog. Leanne has a business called Sweet Style. She makes the most beautiful dessert tables for parties, think Amy Atlas etc and she shares photos from the events as well as life with three adorable little girls. So thank you Leanne! William and I are looking forward to the next play date :)

And the next thank you is to Letitia from The White Shed.
I must be slow off the mark or something but I only discovered Letitia's blog and STUNNING shop recently. Anyway Letitia ordered one of my new Wedding Scroll prints last week for her 7yr Wedding Anniversary which was on Monday - congrats again Letitia!

You can see pics of her wedding as well as the Wedding Scroll I made her on the post here.

So thank you lovely ladies you both made my day!

And thanks to everyone for stopping by my Facebook page - and for reading and commenting on my little blog :)

Have a great day,

These are a few of my favourite things...

I thought I'd share with you some of my favourite purchases or presents I've received that I just love. You know those things that you admire or are grateful for every time you use them? Well here are some of mine.


My friends Suzie and Tori gave me a set of these beautiful Mozi mugs for my 30th and I just love them, I always drink my tea or coffee out of them so when I saw a matching apron I bought it for William to give me for Christmas. The pattern is very ME so it makes me happy when I'm using them... check out mozi here.

We've been needing a new beach bag what with the addition of floaties, buckets and spades that are now in tow so when I saw this bag at Bed Bath n Table last week on sale for $9.95 I got it. And I'm loving it sitting here under the hall table. I can shove things into it quickly to clean up this, often a dumping ground, area.

I got these wrought iron book ends a few weeks ago from Target for the HUGE price of $11.95. I'd been on the look out for bookends to keep the area next to my side of the bed nice and neat. You know what it's like, I've got my reading books and mags and then Will brings in his story books in the morning and they were just everywhere so it's all nice and neat now and goes with the grey/silver and black theme in the bedroom.

I am loving the CK sunnies that Glen got me for Christmas. I've had a few pairs of cheapies the last few years, which was great with a little bub that likes to grab but I felt it was time to upgrade and we got Polarized lenses put in so no squinting and I love the aviator shape.

These were also a Christmas present, the Fred M-CUPS matryoshkas. I love them displayed in the kitchen on top of the little radio.

So there you have it, my current favourite things :)

I don't know about you but I've been glued to the TV watching the NZ earth quake. My goodness, it's like a nightmare and the people of Christchurch really need our thoughts and prayers right now. I hope that all my fellow bloggers and customers and your family and friends are safe and sound.

Have a lovely day everyone,





P.S. Are you on facebook? If so, I'd love you to visit my facebook page!

Press: Real Living March 2011

HUGE excitement today as the big wait is over... the real living March issue came out today!
And when I got my hot little hands on it this morning I flicked through like a bandit!

First I spotted this in the contents page (Ek, my Eye Chart!)...

And quickly kept flicked through to find the feature.
YAY! There's my Eye Chart and Keep Quiet the Baby's Sleeping prints...

The Eye Chart is featured twice over the DPS as it's a fantastic article on 'Create double-duty kids rooms', eg Baby to Toddler etc...

And my S is for Sophie customised print over the next page!

Featured twice again!

So as you can tell I'm excited and I feel very humbled to see my prints in my fav mag again.

The prints were requested back in October 2010 for the photoshoot, so you can see why it's felt like an eternity waiting to see the mag :)

Someone else loves this new issue!!! Isn't he a little angel!

Have a fantastic day everyone,

Weddings

I've been doing a few of the new Customised Wedding Scroll print this week and it's got me wedding reminiscing/dreaming...

And so when I came across this on pintrest.com I just had to share!

Breath taking or what!

Look at the colours in this bouquet, so beautiful! And the draping of the dress!

The plates and silver...

Chairs, flowers...

A beautiful table marker and flowers on a cake stand.... great idea!

Yummy!

Even more yummy!

I might ask Glen tonight if he'd like to remarry me :) hehehe.

Have a beautiful day ladies,

The obsession continues

Does Christmas feel like a distant memory already?
It does for me, but obviously not for my little man...
The big red jolly fellow must have made quite an impression as his Santa obsession is continuing way into February. And no, I didn't make a big deal about Santa over Christmas, Will just really took to him :)

Often when he wakes the first thing he'll say is 'SANTA!'... 'Where?' and put his little hands up in a 'where?' question.

So we point out on the map that Santa has gone back home to the north pole and now every time he sees his map or any map it's 'Santa!', 'Santa!', 'Santa'!!!

He spotted his Christmas outfit in his cupboard the other day and now it gets put on at least once a day.

Santa lives in Greenland, close enough!

(And if you'd like a canvas world map like William's one then visit my shop www.MySweetPrints.com.au and you can order one of your very own so you can point out where Santa lives too).

So I wonder how long the Santa obsession will continue for?

Did your kids, or did you have a Santa obsession at any stage?

Have a great day everyone,

Great Restaurant - New Shanghai

So we kicked up our heels on Monday night, got a babysitter and headed out to a restaurant I've been wanting to try for a while, New Shanghai in Chatswood Chase.

I basically just wanted to go there because the decor is so original...


It seriously has you feeling like you're eating in a little outdoor laneway somewhere in China with it's cobbled stone floor, black ceiling, vintage style tables and stools, red flags and umbrellas and cool vintage Chinese ads used as art.


The food was YUUUMMMMOOO too (was too busy chowing down to take a pic). I wanted to order everything from the Dim Sim menu and the food came out quickly.


So if you're in Sydney, go give it a try.


When we got home I asked Alex, the babysitter, how it all went and if there were any dramas...
"No it was all fine" she said... "Will did start crying though, so I went in and he had taken his pants off and his nappy and was sitting there with his nappy in one hand holding it up for me to see."

Ah! I felt so bad, I had told her that he'd be asleep and she could just watch TV...
He's only ever done that once before and it's just Murphy's Law that the only other time he'd choose to take his nappy off in bed is when the babysitter is over. Luckily Alex is a very level headed girl and was fine to put him in a new nappy, make him a bottle and put him back to bed.

Anyway, it was a great day and so nice to get out at night together just the two of us. Have you been to any great restaurants lately?

Have a great hump day :)