The other night, something terrible happened. [...]]]> The other week you would have read my adoration for Heidi, an amazing person and blogger. I have never met anyone who discusses their life and its trials so openly, and she has been a big role model for me when it comes to “opening up”.

The other night, something terrible happened. Her father committed suicide in their home, and Heidi found his body. Every time I think about it tears come to my eyes and I selfishly put myself in her position – it makes me feel so many emotions… but I know I probably wouldn’t have felt I could reach out to my friends all over the world from my blog. I love that Heidi did, and still does, because I know she’s in trouble and needs help… emotionally and financially.

She has to, quite literally, clean up the mess. Some of her local friends contacted a local cleaning agency, Crime Scene Steri-Clean, who have been absolutely brilliant in helping her deal with the situation but there are unavoidable costs that her friends are hoping to help her with. If you’re in a position to help, Heidi has put up a PayPal button on her blog, but she also adores handwritten letters. You can find the details here.

I love you Heidi, I wish I could fly over and give you a hug and a kiss.

In this exciting installment I divulge five more names from my list of the world’s up and coming awesome folk. They dabble in writing, modelling, designing, entrepreneurship, art and being pretty cool.

I present to you four more of the most awesome people around, including a musician, burlesque star, jewellery designer, writer and photographer! They all have my seal of approval ;)

Sharon’s [...]]]>

I present to you four more of the most awesome people around, including a musician, burlesque star, jewellery designer, writer and photographer! They all have my seal of approval ;)

Sharon Walker – jewellery designer for Kittycat Black

Sharon’s polymer clay sculptures caught my eye years ago, and I got to know her through our hugely irregular but always fun Stitch n Bitch sessions. She is a huge role model for me, being incredibly focused and driven to make her business succeed and caring for a growing family as well!

Chelsea – “Erin GoBraughless” with Big Star Burlesque

Chelsea is a hot redhead who performs with Big Star Burlesque as Erin GoBraughless, the daughter of a potato farmer and a whiskey heiress whose three passions include drinking, fighting, and dancing. I think Chelsea has huge balls to do what she does – recently she even performed in a bacon bikini!

Melissa Maples – writer and photographer

Melissa has a fabulous way with words, and she is my go-to lady on what I can and can not do with the English language (though I probably fall foul of these rules daily!) She blogs about living in Turkey, and posts photos of garments with hilarious slogans available for purchase by the discerning tee collector at her local bazaar as well as other very beautiful shots of Antalya and surrounding areas. Melissa and I are suspiciously similar in personality, which is probably why I think she’s so great!

Bryn Ridd – Twist Oliver, Twist

Bryn plays the synth for Brisbane band Twist Oliver, Twist, and has always been a lovely supportive friend. He manages to have the most fabulously groomed facial hair, and always makes me laugh! Bryn also does film, photography and painting. Oh is there no end to your creative scope, sir?

I have a lot of talented friends, and I only realised it when I sat down and thought about writing profiles on all of them to share with you here! I have friends who are photographers, artists, designers, models, performers, publishers, writers, musicians and activists. For [...]]]>

I have a lot of talented friends, and I only realised it when I sat down and thought about writing profiles on all of them to share with you here! I have friends who are photographers, artists, designers, models, performers, publishers, writers, musicians and activists. For most of these guys, I’m lucky to have fallen into their company as just a “friend” while others I met in a professional sense and then we developed a friendship. Because there are so many, I am going to break this up into a series of sorts, to allow you to digest the sheer amount of talent and creativity I have around me!

Tea Tasbihgou – jewellery designer for Sacré Coeur

I met Teayam online so long ago now! She does heaps of creative things – illustration, modelling and jewellery design. She recently started up Sacre Coeur, and creates steampunk styled accessories out of the most beautiful found objects. Of course, I chose the above image because there’s a paisley pendant in it, muahaha!

Mark Payne – artist and designer

Mark and I struck up a friendship on Red Bubble when he sent me a ffffound invite (no sorry guys, I still don’t have any and even if I did I’d give it to one of my mates!) Since then he has been one of the biggest supporters of my art practice – he even won the auction for my drawing at the Brisbane Twestival! His graphic work is beautiful – foreign worlds of fragmented and dizzying objects twisted like bright alien car crashes.

Kate O’Brien – photographer

I had the fortune of befriending Kate a couple of years ago when I was planning my wedding. I had admired her vintage-esque photographs for a while, and nervously emailed her asking if she’d like to photograph our wedding – she agreed and we became friends! She has also never done another wedding since :P

Ashley Moyer – fat activist and Chunky Dunk organiser

It may or may not come as a surprise, but I am fat and I am a fat advocate. Ashley is one of my fat activist friends: she has been a cheerleader and is running Chunky Dunk in Portland this year. Chunky Dunk events are private pool parties for people of size and their allies, and were started last year to provide a shame-free venue for swimming, bathing and bomb diving for fat folk. I really want to be Ashley when I grow up, and start Chunky Dunk parties here in Brisbane, Australia!!

Stick around for the next few days to cop a load of my other talented friends!