Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everybody!

Almost over for another year, the store will be closed from Saturday 25th Dec. through to 11th Jan. 2011.

We wish you all a safe and happy festive season and look forward to seeing you all in the new year.

                                              

                                              Bone china from Sydney, above and below

Pointy, pointy end of things now for shopping! We are OPEN 11am  -  6pm today and get in early Friday for those perrrrrfect pressies (11am) until it winds down and like you we'll be ready for some Christmas cheer!

Daisy Chain Necklace, above from Dick and Dora in Tassie

Above: Sunday Morning Designs - gorgeous tees for your little people

Handmade softies above from Central Victoria.

We were so thrilled to welcome back an old favorite- Pancake Zoo! Cool little resin creatures for big and little people!

Busy and happy- need we say more?

Cheerful socks in assorted colours, and they are REALLY Happy Socks!

He hopped into the shop last week with 11 of his coloured friends. Resin bunny trinket box has been lovingly crafted here in Melbourne by Amy.
Amy hand pours each little bunny in jewellery quality resin ensuring that each one is unique after hand colouring with opaque pigments.

Perfect for small jewel like treasures, or even a first tooth!

Celebrating the local theme- these lovely new jewels are from Hope Street Studio(Brunswick) beauty Tara Lofhelm. Sterling, oxidised and gold plated silver are twisted and cast into a range of striking rings, studs and pendants.

It doesn't get much better when your makers can deliver their work on foot and thats just how it is for locals 'Otto & Spike'. This time the delivery has seen them delve into their archive of yarns, back to the 60's-70's for these great Japanese space dyed yarns.
Such a great combination has produced a slinky almost jewel like wrap in popping colours, red, pink and white; cobalt, pale blue and white and lastly a red number, suitable festive.

Deliveries are thick and fast at the moment, as soon as it's unpacked it's literally being wrapped up ready for gift giving.
We've just received another gorgeous delivery of ceramics from South Australia, tea pots, mugs, and bowls in assorted sizes.
Be quick these won't last!

For the next three weeks in the lead up to Christmas we will be OPEN on Mondays, trading the usual hours 11am - 6pm. All good things seem to close on a Monday so we're helping you out by opening the door for an extra day a week for your shopping needs. Don't leave it till the last minute!

We were featured in the M Magazine yesterday too (see above), as a stress free shopping spot-yay!

Another great delivery of bags made by a guy called....Matt! This year is an exciting year as its been 10, yes thats right ten years since Matt started producing his signature style, that by now has to be considered a Melbourne icon!

Included in the delivery are the cuisenaire rod bags in amazing colours. These little blocks or rods where once used in schools for teaching mathematics...but not in my days!

They have scanned a number of designs in and using their tricky digital printer, ta-da brand new look for an seemingly defunct product! Along with those bags we have some great Ink and Spindle fabrics again- raspberry and aqua in the Birch Forest design has been restocked after selling out!

Big congratulations to Mattt and his hard working team as well as all the loyal supporters.

On the theme of books, we have on our shelves a mook...it's the exciting new project put together by the team at Frankie Magazine. As big as a book, but with that styley feel to a magazine, thats how you get the mook, cute yeah.

Featuring a whole talent of people from here in Australia and reaches far across the globe.

A peep into other crafty homes, and seriously who can deny that don't love to take a peek!

We love books and a local project so were doubly excited when 'and collective/erm books' started talking about their latest offerings, in the form of limited edition, artists books.

001 is out with the launch tonight of the super exciting 'sequins & sequence' featuring the work of Kat Macleod, who probably doesn't need an introduction! In store now but if you're keen for a signed copy tonights the night:

Tuesday 23rd November 6pm - 8pm

Metropolis Bookshop

Level 3, Curtain House

252 Swanston Street

Hope to see you there!

Cabinets are filled again with the gorgeous work from Klei. Sterling silver and porcelain combine in organic shapes and muted tones, arriving in studs, hook earrings, rings and an assortment of necklaces.

Beautiful white vessels arrived this week from Kenji Uranishi. Everything comes wrapped carefully and is a pleasure to discover.

This time the pourers have sweet little trees on them, some even have a special double trunk- perhaps for a wedding or engagement, now that would be lovely.

Decorating with white tones this Christmas? We can help there too, gorgeous acorns in assorted sizes have just arrived.

I heard someone discussing their Christmas tree that was purchased last year at some expense- it was decided in their house that the tree was to go up on the first of December, to make the most of it you see.

Lucky for them we have Christmas decorations from 'Dick and Dora' on hand, ready for the big day.

This year we have retro baubles small and large, and doves with frilly wings which are a two piece ensemble.

There are a number gracing our windows at the moment along with the limited edition 'Hook Turn' BYO cups in seriously festive colours.

This time we can introduce you to matt, finished ceramics and natural timber products. Attia has delivered items to fit in with your collections already.

Small condiments dishes, salt spoons, cups with timber saucers, tasting spoons and cheese boards to name a few.

We are now well and truly into the count down for Christmas- so pop in and stock up!

Stoneware ceramics have arrived, not from far away- thats right another Brunswick resident, Tara Shackell! How lucky we are to have such a rich, local community.

Creamy, white tones in these keep for ever pieces, salt bowls with sweet contrast spoons, beakers, plates and bowls available in a range of sizes.

We went for a mega walk on monday, sometimes its so great to just explore your neighborhood, we usually want to get away, maybe go for a drive to the beach and eat some fish and chips...only to get stuck in traffic on the way and spending the little family time we have in the car.

Enough said, we did find a shop being renovated (see the theme) and just thought the history was great to see. What amazing colours.

What else would you expect to do on your single (1) day off a week? Rip out a wall and re-plaster it off course. Thats what happened in our shop last week, so we've opened a bit more up and made it easy for you to navigate! No rest for the wicked!

I know we've posted about Mister Mista before but we didn't show off the ace kids tees. These are very exciting, and other mums would agree, when shopping for young boys it's very limited. Girls clothing is bountiful, so we swooped on these pretties, ready for some rock and rollin'. Oh, and incidentally these are made as limited editions! Hah.

We've interrupted a busy girl again, who has been making beautiful silver jewellery, **swoon**.

And taken delivery of some gorgeous new pieces.

Sterling silver circles on silk and chain, above. Softly finished hook earrings, below. Lovely.

If you've seen the much enjoyed "Hello, very busy, very important" badge and thought it was your sort of thing, meaning you're really busy and therefore quite important then perhaps it's time to get your diary sorted for 2011.

Hot of the press and in strictly limited numbers, 'Rebound' have scoured for second hand Little Golden Books which have created the basis for the journals. Each week of the calendar is on the left hand side with the right side either blank for notes or contains a page from the cover title story, which they have cleverly included. Get your favorite or enjoy a new title!

The diary pages are printed in Melbourne using vegetable inks on Australian made, 100% recycled paper.

Whats not to love?

How spoilt we are with this beautiful weather, yikes what a weekend!

While your out enjoying yourselves (& I do hope you are!) we are busily stocking our shelves with new products.

With more deliveries from Sunday Morning Designs, Dick and Dora and back in stock are the NY Coffee Cups- thats right, you heard right the New York cups are back. Be quick!

My photos are old as the camera is off to take photos at this weekends holy grail 'Chopped' car show follow this link... http://www.chopped.com.au/events.php

After 3 floors of trade fair carrying a 9kg baby there was light at the end of the tunnel. Not only some of the BEST products but an enthusiastic designer wanting to relieve me of said baby! Phew.

With free arms I discovered 'Mister Mista'. I think there was instant happiness here in this newly formed relationship, perfect boys Tees, amazing re-stickable decals and gift cards with some of the most amusing characters around!

If your a fan of 'Ren and Stimpy' and sing to your children like we do, "it's log, it's log it's better then bad it's good" you'll find there own Blog character as funny as I did! http://www.mistermista.com/blog/

Whether it's the ABC or counting to 10 you want, these guys have it covered with repositional decal sets.

As well as some fabulous friends to try out like the 'Modsters' and the 'Lebowski's' which are pictured at the top!

Growing UP

**Back by popular demand!**

Co-Op are showing us when you have children all style doesn't have to go straight out the window...(it doesn't does it?) Check out these Melbourne designed and made growth charts. Our little Charlie has been making his way up his very own and has already reached 'Larry the Lion' status! They are available in green, yellow, orange and a blue which is in very limited numbers!

classic cars

Production is back on, we are seeing one day a week back in the studio and boy is it great to get ink on our screens and pins in our fabric! We have whipped out another batch of the classic car and vintage caravan cushions. What a way to brighten up your space at home.

Rebound have done it again, ripped out the paper pages (to be used by other artists and up cycled) and replaced them with 100% tree free plain paper ready for you to make lists, write novels or illustrate. Soon to be released are the very limited edition 2011 diaries. These beauties go fast so once there in you'd better be quick!

Brunswick just keeps coming up with the goods. This time 'Reissued' is taking the hard work out of vintage furniture for us all, sourcing predominately Australian vintage/retro furniture and giving it a new life.

Each item is re finished and re upholstered highlighting it best assets. The choice of fabrics is also carefully considered with the examples in store at the moment finished in Australian made 'Cloth' and Instyle fabrics.