Humphrey Put A Bird On It

I'm sure you already know how much I love Humphrey B Bear. He'll always be a 70's classic to me.
He was soooo ahead of his time - check out that Put A Bird On It artwork and that glorious patchwork rug - ahem!
 
My original 1970's Humphrey lives in my lounge room. He's still awaiting a repair to his split side (whoops).

Anyway, I was delighted when my sister found this during our little op shopping mission on Monday.

But, I didn't check inside until I arrived home.

This copy is a 1977 re-print..... so I wonder where a 37 year old Aaron is now?

Blogtoberfest Day 8: My Creative Space

Although I do usually create something each and every day at CurlyPops HQ, today I'm taking the day off.

Instead, I'm attending an appointment where I get to sit in a nice comfy armchair, read a book, and listen to some groovy tunes..... If I'm nice, someone might even make me a cup of tea and bring me a sandwich while I'm there (not including any salad of course).

I'm also taking a notebook to sketch some new ideas, and write some lists.... I'm having terrible problems remembering things lately.

Of course, if you'd like to see some lovely people who are actually creating something today, then make sure to head on over and say hi to Kirsty and join in the fun (and make sure to check out the cool corner bookmark tute - I need one of those today)!

A Book of Gorgeousness...

This absolutely divine book arrived in my mailbox yesterday.......

Super lucky for me, Jenny from Daisy Chain accidentally ordered two copies, and so she most generously offered to send me the spare one. It is absolutely jam packed with beautiful and inspiring photos...enough to make anyone want to craft or bake or knit!

I love the photos, I love the swirly fonts, I love the colours.......

I haven't had the chance to read it all yet but I'm sure it will provide oodles of inspiration for when I start searching for my new home.

Thankyou so much Jenny!

This is.....my current reading material

Even though I love reading novels, I have a really really short attention span, so I tend not to bother even trying. The only exception to this is during a hospital appointment that I have every four weeks where I'm forced to sit in a chair and not move for three to four hours. I always dedicate this time to reading and listening to my MP3 player.....

So this months pick was Eat Pray Love. My sister gave it to me to read, and I have to admit that I wasn't a big fan of it. It might have just been the wrong time in my life to be reading about someone else's self indulgent life journey after a break up. I found the middle section really long winded and boring. I had to keep re-reading because I was daydreaming instead!

This is the only magazine left that I subscribe to (other than Mixtapezine of course). I had to cancel all the others because my house was being swamped by magazines. I was also tending to notice that after subscribing to the high end home magazines for about 5 years, they tended to re-run the same sorts of stories over and over each year...so I scrapped them all.

Other than that, I have about 150 blogs in my favourites to read each day....

Thanks to My Champagne Dreams for picking this weeks theme....and of course, head on over to Three Buttons to see who else is playing along.

This is.......my favourite childrens book

It was really really hard to choose just one.....so I managed to choose this 3-in-1 book.

I always loved Enid Blyton books when I was younger but these three classics are my absolute all time favourites. I always wanted to live at the top of the Faraway Tree too....

There are also some honourable mentions that I cannot forget:

• Roald Dahl - The Twits
• Sue Townsend - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

Ahhhhh...memories....

Thanks to Pottymouthmama for this weeks fab theme and to Angela for hosting!

Jackpot

The postie arrived yesterday with two lovely little parcels.......

The first is this excellent book...
Justine and Nichola (the lovely ladies behind MixTape Zine) were having a giveaway on the Mix Tape blog and I was the very very lucky winner! If you have been living under a rock and haven't heard about their ace zine, then get on over and buy one (or all 4)!

I had a quick read of the book yesterday.......if you love beaded jewellery, you will love this book. It's the most comprehensive book on beading that I've ever read and there are soooooo many great projects inside ranging from simple to difficult. I can't wait to get the beads out and have a go! Thanks so much girls!

The second package was some lovely Retromummy fabric that I bought from the Retromummy shop.
.....and a little bit extra (thankyou so much Corrie)! The twins are due on the 30th May so I'd better get cracking and whip up something right away from this little stash!

Booktown + Giveaway

We went to Booktown at Clunes on Sunday and I'm finally posting my finds!


I bought some books for my nephews.....the first one is an Australian History book.
Kids don't seem to be learning much about our history at school these days.


A kids bible (for Catholic school homework)


....and a book about insects!


These ones are for me.....a cool 1970's Golden Hands book


and an old Mc'Calls sewing book.


I found this dolls pram at the Clunes Op Shop. It was $10, but I only had $8.70 cash left so I asked nicely if I could have it and the lady said Yes!


...And now for the giveaway!
I found this Australian Womens Weekly knitting book from 1951.
I can't knit, but I thought that someone out there in blogland would love it so I bought it anyway.....

It has lots of lovely knitting patterns.....

.....and lots of cool 1950's ads.....


If you would like to be in the draw, leave me a comment by next Tuesday 5.00PM Melbourne time!

This is.......my favourite book......sssss

Well I couldn't choose just one from my overflowing double packed bookcase......
I love reading, I love books, I can't throw any of them away!

My early favourites were anything from Enid Blyton.....sadly these are the only two that I have left......(I've moved house a lot in my life)....

Looking at the handwriting, I'm guessing that this might have been around grade 5 or grade 6!

My high school favourite was definitely 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. This was an english text maybe in year 8 or year 9 and this is my old original copy.

My next favourite is 'Cloudstreet'. This was a gift from one of my cousins when I was in hospital a few years ago. It's a sentimental favourite because of the lovely inscription....

But...this is my all time favourite!

The inscription in this book is from when we lived in a little town in Western Victoria in 1979 (when I was in grade prep).

This book was published by the Australia Council as part of the International Year of the Child in 1979. It was made for kids so that they could look back on how things change. More than 10,000 Australian children submitted their information and a broad selection were used in the final published book. I pulled it out of the bookcase just a few months ago for a re-read and a chuckle.

I've included some photos of the inside so that everyone can have a read!

Thanks to Dees for the great theme this week and to Angela for hosting this great meme.

Happy Sunday!

Girls Day Out (well, morning out) - Updated

My sister and I decided to go on a little drive away from the 'burbs' thismorning and into the city. We left the Melways behind and took one of Mr CurlyPops's favourite gadgets 'Lola' (aka the Navman). We had a slight problem when Lola wouldn't give us directions becuase she kept switching herself off! It seems that I may have inadvertantly jammed her powercord in the concole of my car, so unless we held the power cord at a certain angle, she wouldn't stay switched on........in the end, we pulled over and got her to finally work!



My sister ran out of Peter Watson tomato sauce yesterday, so the first stop on the intinerary was the Peter Watson shop in South Melbourne (Update - thanks Pip - there's another store in St David St, Fitzroy) . It was only 11.00 but they had some lovely grilled fish and sliced vegies for tastings and they were offering wine too. It was a bit early to get sloshed so we passed on that and just bought our sauce. I got some lovely tomato sauce and some worcestershire sauce too.

The next stop on the intinerary was Meet Me At Mikes. We got to meet lovely Cam and to see lovely Pip in the shop! We also got to see what some ugly horrible people decided to do last night.....

On a happier note, there were so many lovely things to see. If I had a limitless budget, I would have bought one of everything. What I did buy was:

A Heart for Mirabel made by Kitty (I'm not sure which Kitty, but if you're out there let me know and I'll add your link). Update: I've been doing some searching and I'm pretty sure my heart was made by Kitty from Kitty's Kaboodle.

I managed to snap up the wonderful babushkas pencil case handmade by Mikes.....

...and I also bought this gorgeous notepad by Kristen Doran....

....and to make it even better, I picked up my fabulous soupy prize of vintage fat quarters!

This is a close-up shot of my favourite. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to make yet but I can use my cool new notebook to start making some lists and drawing some pictures.



The best thing about Mikes was being able to check out all of the cool stuff that all the crafters and bloggers make. It was great to be able to pick things up and see them in the flesh after seeing photos on all the blogs.



There was one little downside.....I'm feeling very depressed because my hearts are still hanging in the window. If anyone is reading this, can you please please please shell out $10 for charity and buy one that I made before it's all over.

It was raining when we left Mikes so we got in the car and headed down Gertrude St in search of coffee. We found a nice warm cosy coffee shop and had a cappucino and a lemon slice (it was delicious) and then headed into a secondhand bookstore called 'The Searchers' which was in Smith St. I got 6 novels for $22 which was a bargain.

The next stop on our itinerary was supposed to be the Rose St Artists Market but my dad called to let us know that he was on the way for a visit from Ballarat. So we had to pack up and head back to the 'burbs'.

In other news, Mr CurlyPops made it to Hong Kong overnight and has been sending through MMS messages. Above photo: Roadworks.........Why?.......I have no idea......

Next photo.....trying to find the train station to get to the rugby stadium.

I guess he found it!