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I wasn’t sure I’d get the Fance up today because I had a bunch of stuff to do, coupled with some stuff I forgot I had to do. I’m not one of those organised bloggers who has posts queued up for weeks… noooooo. This is genuine off-the-cuff blogging magic, right here. I took my carrot cupcakes out of the oven, flopped into my seat and thought about all the fancy things I’d seen this week and thus… cobbled together this barely passable collection of whimsies!

⇒ I have always loved these collars! Love Maegan has put up a tutorial on how to create this ruffly collar, which can be wrapped and pinned different ways. If I can find any lightweight cotton fabrics I’m totally making this for summer.

⇒ Henrik Simonsen’s Midnight Garden is so gorgeous. It reminds me of a cyanotype, or sunprint. I’ve been googling them madly for the last week… I desperately want to buy a bunch of the special paper and have a sunprint party in a park with my friends.

⇒ The First Man of Fance, Matt Preston, has such a way with words! *swoon*

⇒ I am so in love with this tattoo! How could I not be?

⇒ When I am rich and fancier I’m going to have a chandelier, a painted fresco (one? why not 10?!) and moulded ceilings. Go check out the photos from the Chateau de Versailles on NOTCOT… dreamy!

⇒ Laurie Lipton’s pencil pieces are bad ass fance.

The jacaranda trees are blooming here and they always remind me of being in primary school. We used to collect the least squished flowers from the ground, thread them on twigs and present purple wands to our teachers and mothers. I remember all my exercise books so fondly, and how I’d doodle in them all through high school and university (even now!) November’s desktop is just a little indulgence in childhood, really… and a reminder that everyone should doodle!

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
You may not upload this desktop to other websites, nor may you use it for any other purpose than to wallpaper your desktop. This also means it’s uncool to alter it and reupload it somewhere as your own work. Soz

If you read this blog you are familiar with “the fance” and going OTT with pride and dedication, which is why I am sure you will love the creations of Sunshine Coast cobblers, Pendragon Shoes. Recently used in an editorial shoot by Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia, the Pendragon star is rising with amazing fancy people like Helena Bonham Carter counting themselves as fans!

KiLN are exhibiting Pendragon’s new collection, To Have and To Hold, in November. Go and check them out (and if you’ve got someone who loves you very much, they might buy you some lovely shoes!) If you’re not able to get to KiLN for the show, you can browse the Pendragon website and facebook page longingly.

Making shoes would be such an amazing job! I wonder if they need a model *cough* intern…?

Sunday was Z-day: the day of the undead, The Brisbane Zombie Walk. If you were in the CBD you may have seen the shuffling gait of the rotting hoards raising money (and the deceased) for the Brain Foundation. The day was organised by the lovely Cara, and I would have gone had I not been feeling rather undead and bed stricken

Instead, I leave you with these fantastic photos taken by Nic Suzor!

SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS!

We went to the markets this morning and I bought some more mystery flowers! Remember the mystery flowers from last Saturday? Amongst the suggested species: sweet pea, snapdragon and ranunculus; but the closest suggestion was from ozjoe who said they could be Stock flowers. The photo on the wikipedia page wasn’t convincing but after browsing Google image search I’m beginning to think they could indeed be a variety of them!

Now I implore you to continue the greenening of my opposable digit! What are these flowers? They have a very sturdy flower head with stiff, card-like petals. I remember these from my childhood as being the scratchy things that would rudely brush past us whenever we would trample people’s gardens.

I could ask the flower sellers at the markets… but that’d take the fun out of the game and deny you the opportunity of being a smart arse

⇒ If you move in the typographic circles online, no doubt you’ll have gotten wind of this already but I wanted to show you Jessica Hische’s project called Daily Drop Cap. She’s an incredible letterer(erererer)! F stands for “Fancy”, indubitably.

⇒ If you like photobooths and fetishising French quaintness, you will probably lose your shizz over La PhotoCabine.

⇒ I would like to do my hair like this (even though I’ve been thinking of cutting it!) Julianna Swaney’s little drawings are just so beautiful.

⇒ I found this illustrated cover by Willy Pogany on tumblr, and traced it back to where it was posted on The Pictorial Life, a blog that has tonnes of gorgeous illustration!

⇒ Jeremy Clarkson is hot, there I said it. I posted this unaltered picture to tumblr because it looked suss and dear Shaun came along and managed to make it G rated AND fancy in one fell swoop. Well done, chap!

⇒ What a stunning idea for a piece of jewellery! I wonder if all those books were hand bound… it must have taken forever. This was found via Chainsaws and Jelly.

A couple of weeks ago I was notified that I’d been picked by Pilgrim and Stefan Sagmeister as a finalist in the “Happy” design contest on Red Bubble. I was pretty stoked (read: squealing) to be hand picked out of all the entries, because Mr Sagmeister’s approach towards graphic design is one I am very influenced by.

My prize was a copy of Stefan’s 2001 monograph “Made You Look“, complete with a personal message scrawled in his own distinct penmanship. I don’t get to buy books often, especially the most luxe of design and art books, so this is one I will put in the “pool room” along with the Marian Bantjes – Fox River Paper promotional booklet that I managed to get shipped over to Australia by a kind fellow designer!

The book is infused with the spirit in which Sagmeister undertakes all of his work. Written by Peter Hall with loads of hand written notes, his story to date is fascinating and inspiring and speaks of his quest to design things with meaning and heart.

This little flick animation is just one of the surprising things in the book! I love how I felt encouraged to really use the book, as if it wanted me to pour over it and find all it’s little secrets.

Thank you so much Red Bubble and Stefan!

What makes you happy? – shot on 5DMKII from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

@thedesignfiles posted a link to one of Jon Rawlinson’s short films, Kuroshio Sea (which is also awesome, check it out) and being the curious cat that I am I clicked onto the next video which posed the question, “What makes you happy?”

A few years ago now, I used to have a VW Beetle, and I would ponder the question of happiness a lot as I drove late at night. Back then, my list of things that made me happy included:

• A full tank of petrol
• A full packet of ciggies (sigh, oh the past!)
• Driving home after a lovely night with my friends
• Singing songs really loud (my Beetle didn’t have a radio!)
• Driving the bug

Right now, I have a very bland sort of car and while it’s very reliable and doesn’t strand me on scary motorways in the middle of the night (with no mobile phone credit, I had to flag down a stranger!) it doesn’t really give me any happiness. I absolutely hated breaking down all the time in Poberty Jane (my bug) but driving it was thrilling and engaging. In a new car there doesn’t seem to be any kind of engagement or thrill (unless you buy something really fast, fancy and expensive!)

So, the things that make me happy must surely have shifted. I met and married Nick since those times, and I have embarked on a career as a graphic artist and designer. So let’s revisit the happy list, yeah?

Things that make me happy, 2009

• Solving a design problem
• Laughing with my family and friends
• Emptying my pencil sharpener
• Absent-minded doodling
• Stimulating conversation
• Seeing new places and exploring them by foot (like waterfalls!)
• Writing something that reflects how I feel as accurately and succinctly as possible
• Learning new things
• Collaborating with people
• Making beautiful food
• Expressing myself through personal styling (I hate to use the term “fashion” since styling one’s identity extends beyond that!)
• Meeting people I connect with
• Cracking jokes that people laugh at

I guess I could go on and on… and I feel pretty grateful for that! What makes you happy?

Today was a busy day! This morning I had breakfast to celebrate my uncle’s birthday and this afternoon we had an epic dessert picnic for dear Kathleen’s birthday tomorrow. We all brought something, so there was too much food. Too much delicious, lovingly made food! Cupcakes, slices, brownies, biscuits and cakes – I’d never seen so much dessert in my life and I’ve been to High Tea! There was also a macaw at the park, apparently his owner brings him down often. He was flying all over the place, swooping people and landing on them but he was generally well behaved. Shortly after the above photo was taken (by Kiki) he landed on my back and started pecking at my hair!

Dutifully reporting in with my OOTD for today! I changed shoes after I went to breakfast though.

Cardigan: City Chic
Dress: Yours Clothing
Tights: We Love Colors (I snipped the feet off)
Thongs: Who knows!
Earrings: Random store in Fortitude Valley
Sunglasses: Valley market vendor

Most of the lovely people.

So. Much. Food.

The zebra cake I made.

What amazing colours!

New Farm Park has a lovely rose garden too

I was in a shocking mood this morning but we went to the markets and bought loads of beautiful fruit and veges (and flowers!) so now I’m feeling a lot better. Included in our market booty: pomegranates to make pommie cupcakes, and besan flour to make delicious vegetable kofta balls. I took some photos of my haul to further enhance my cheering and then I whimsyfscked them (ie: put a bunch of colour layers over the image to make it look hip and vintage).

Nick enjoyed his wurst and sauerkraut immensely!

Now while I go bake a zebra cake for my friend’s birthday party tomorrow, you must tell me what these flowers are!