The summer that was

I spent Christmas with my sister and my parents.

I spent New Year's with my boyfriend and a few thousand other people at Falls.

I did some creative things.

I did some spiffying up of the house.

I cooked and ate some fresh food.
I liked my summer holiday very very much.

Order your 'At Last' print for Valentine's Day

{Tape Strips via Pugsly Pixel}
Click here to buy this print in time for Valentine's Day!

Splashing out ...

... on a new tea dress by Michelle Walker at Rock MY Roll.

Just quietly - it's awesome. I adore the colour and it fits like the proverbial dream. When asked where I'd wear it I have two responses:

1. Here, there, and everywhere

and

2. Wherever and whenever I can until the day I die and then it'll have to be prised off my cold, dead body.

I have strong feelings about this dress.

Go and get yourself one here!

Advance Australia Fair

1/ 2/ 3/ 4/

Originally when I thought about doing an Australia Day-related post in recognition of it being Australia Day tomorrow, my first instinct was to share some of these great retro and retro inspired images. So I have.

But I have to be honest with you, this public holiday brings about some very mixed feelings in me.

This time last year, I had just come home from London and I was so glad to be in Australia. So. Glad. I can't even begin to tell you. Looking back on my time in the UK now, I can clearly see I was depressed. And I hate that word. And I hate admitting it. But there it is. So, coming home was a big big thing and while there were tears when the plane taxied off the runway at Heathrow {there may have even been blubbering and snot}, as soon as I hit home soil I felt like I could breathe properly again. {That doesn't even explain it fully, but it's the best I can do.}

So there's that.

Then there's the whole fact that we celebrate this date - a date when, if you choose to follow the text-book definition of invasion, Australia was "colonised". {Oh lordy, how many loaded words are in that sentence?!} The older I get, the less comfortable I am with the fact we recognise this specific date in history. It's pretty bloody exclusionary, if you ask me {and you didn't, but there you go, you can't have everything}.

I can't even begin to imagine what must run through the minds of Indigenous Australians every time this public holiday comes around on the calendar. And I recognise that I'm saying this from a white, female, {relatively} privileged perspective.

Then there's the nationalistic pride that has become so popular lately. I don't know why, but it just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe it's the Cronulla thing? Maybe I just get pissed off that so many people just view this public holiday as a chance to get drunk, downing slabs of VB with their mates while wearing cheap, imported Australia flag capes, thongs {of the footwear kind} and silk boxer shorts. Don't get me wrong, there are many great things about this country, but can we recognise that there is so much shittyness that has happened in the past. And quite frankly, is still happening? Could we {gasp, shock horror} recognise, in a real and genuine way the original {at least more original than the rest of us migrants} custodians of this land and not shit all over them and their culture in order to get a day off work and bray about "being Australian"? Could we?

I'm not one to go overboard with political correctness and whatnot, but I'm a fairly practical person when it comes down to it. More and more, I struggle to see the validity in celebrating a milestone that has resulted in the exclusion of this country's Indigenous people. It's just insulting and very bad manners.

Aherm.

So there you have it. There's a bucket load of opinion in this post. I've hesitated at being so frank with my opinions, but when it comes down to it, if I can't express them freely on my own blog, then where? And there's more than enough in the mainstream media about what is to be celebrated tomorrow, I just wanted to add my two cents worth, for what it's worth. Feel free to agree or disagree with me {but mind your manners when doing it - there's no need for a shitfight, it is a public holiday after all}.

"Girt by sea" - *rolls eyes*

My kingdom for a sideboard!

Image source.

That probably doesn't make much sense, because I don't have a kingdom.
I also don't have a sideboard.
And I want one.
I really, REALLY, *really* want one.

one.  two.

one.  two.

Weekend stuff

Create a gif

Lemon, lime, bitters, soda and ice.

Flowers, washing, patterns and new work shoes.

Painted canvases on the wall.

Vale.

Image source.

Her performance was the inspiration behind my "At Last" print and she passed away this weekend. Vale Etta James.


*

It seemed a bit odd to do a random draw with only three comments on the give-away blog post, so instead I'll be sending out a free print to each of the lovely ladies who liked the Look See Facebook page and commented on this post.

Helenmarie, Allana and Jodi: Please email your postal addresses to eatmyshortsd00d@gmail.com - and thank you for your support! :)

Slurp

Make an avatar

Sipping my afternoon coffee.

Staring out the window.

Adding this item to Look See on madeit.

Mucking around with animated gifs.

And, spotting one of my Instagrams featured on Emma Lamb's blog in a post about the Flickr group Making Everyday Beautiful! Thank you Emma! :)

AND! Selling two prints from this Facebook collection on Look See! Phew, what an awesome day this has been!

P.S. Don't forget to enter my give-away, which closes at 3pm on Sunday.

My creative space

Splashing bright colours and shiny gold paint onto small canvases.
Making simple lovely things for my madeit shop, Look See.
Selling and packaging and posting simple lovely things from my madeit shop, Look See.
{3 DAYS LEFT TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY - LOOK HERE FOR DETAILS}

Linked in with Our Creative Spaces.

Movies that are Made With Love

Here are the girls as market meerkats:

Market Meerkats from Naomi Fenton on Vimeo.

And here is a sneak peek inside the actual market ...

made with love market, january 2012 from Naomi Fenton on Vimeo.

Filmed on my iPhone 4 with the 8mm app.

Look See Grand Opening

{Grand Opening!}

My madeit store {Look See} is now open!

My first items for sale are a collection of photos from Paris last year titled Paris Postcards. These photographs have been professionally printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive gloss paper and are available framed for $12.

Photographs are sized 15 x 10cm

Click through here to see the collection.

You can pay securely via Paypal (and if you don't have an account, go for it - it's free to sign up!)

At the moment orders can only be sent within Australia.

I'm also selling a print for Valentine's Day - it's the one featured in my give-away this week. Enter the competition or buy the print straight away for $5.

If you like what you see - let me know and let your friends know - share that link!

UPDATE: And I've had my first sale! Thanks Sarah! She bought one of my "At Last" prints and I've listed another, so you can still buy one if you want one! Yay!

At last ... (LOOK SEE GIVE-AWAY!)

Tomorrow will see the Grand Opening of my madeit shop, look see. To celebrate that, and to celebrate Valentine's Day coming up I'm doing a wee give-away.

The above print is handwritten (by, err me) and features some of the lyrics to this song:

It is unframed, size 17.5cm x 16.5cm and I will be selling it on look see as well for $5. If you miss out on the give-away and still want one for your Valentine, please head over to the shop and let me know!

To be in the running to win this give-away, please head to the look see Facebook page and click 'Like' (if you haven't done so already!), then comment on this post. 

All comments will go into the draw and the winner will be drawn randomly on Sunday the 22nd of January, 2012, 3pm (AEDT). That gives you a week to enter! Get cracking and pass it on!

Please note: Competition is open to Australian residents only.

Made With Love Market Bazaar - January

A photo of me, taking photos.

For my market post this time around I wanted to focus on some of the lovely ladies who tirelessly and passionately organise each market. These women organise and communicate with stallholders, take care of public relations and publicity, do their crafty thang, run their own stalls each and every time as well as their own lives, households and regular day-jobs.

Possibly they are crazy for all of this, but more likely they are fabulous and this town is so much the better for all of the effort they put into this market.

Put simply, they are awesome chicks.

Claire and Baby Boudoir.

Lisa and Lisaloo.

Sarah (who is going to kill me for posting this photo but I think it's cute) and Turning Trixie.

Michelle and Rock My Roll.

The market also features a variety of other local artists, crafters, musicians and food stalls. It is held in the ArtsCape building at 45 Jackson Street, Wynyard on the second Saturday of each month. To check out some of the other stall-holders and goings-on from January's market, click on through here and have a good gander. It's worth it, if I do say so myself - and I'm not just saying that because I took the photos!

And now, here's the crux of the matter and why I'm so blatantly singing the praises of this little local market. Pretty soon the local council will start charging fees that ArtsCape can not afford. This community arts centre was started over six years ago by Michelle and is currently lacking sponsors and funding. As things stand, if ArtsCape can't pay these bills, then it will shut down.

The importance of a community arts centre in a small town like ours can not be overstated. This centre encourages local artists by giving them a voice and a space to create. You only have to look at the success of the Made With Love Market Bazaar over the last year to see some of what has been achieved. And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

But here is the beauty of technology and the internet, because it also provides support to causes like this. If you click on this link, you will find an amusing photograph of Michelle. Not only is it funny, but if you then vote for her, she has the opportunity to win $1000 worth of financial support which will go towards paying those local council bills. It's as simple as clicking your mouse (and perhaps sending the link on if you can, so others can click their mouses as well). Michelle was short-listed into the final 20 and now must make the last cut of 10 in order to get the funds. She wrote about it here.

Voting closes on the 7th of February.

I know a lot of you reading my blog aren't locals, but if you value community and the arts, if you value grass-roots regional cultural development (oooh, don't I sound academic?!) - if any of those things are important to you, we'd appreciate your support (and all it takes is a click to vote and a couple of clicks to share the link).

Thank you for reading and thank you for your support! xx

And a very productive day was had... (and also, my 200th post)

Yesterday was quite productive - in lots of little small ways. I went to Spotlight to spend a very generous voucher given to me at Christmas by my brother and sister-in-law. I found lots of great little things. And then I photographed them.

I also (finally) managed to hang my picture wall in the lounge room - it's so nice to have at least one wall looking less bare.

And lastly, I got to working on a special item for the opening of look see (next week, next week!!). I'll be doing a separate post on that later on, so stay tuned if you'd like to see what I made for Valentine's Day.

In the meantime, here are some of the photos I took using my "proper" camera...

There are a few more, which you can check out on Flickr.

You can also check out my Instagram shots by following me @nomesthenome. Here's a taste of what you'll find...

And very lastly, here is a song that has been stuck in my head.

Details, details

Flowers from my garden.

Suburban lawn.

Reading about pirates.

The infrequent thrifter

I don't know if this counts for a Flea Market Finds post, because technically these items weren't thrifted in the last week. I actually found them before Christmas. And that was ... well. Last year.

But I figure that I can be forgiven because technically this was the first chance I got since buying them to put them into place (well, the first of them, the others are a work in progress).

I think I can also be forgiven because I'm an occasional thrifter. I don't do it every weekend. I make an effort every now and again. This isn't a thrifting blog and isn't likely to turn into one. I may be a half-arsed thrifter, but I like to think that what that results in is quality, not quantity.

I found the above mirrror in a local second-hand/retro shop for $45. Not exactly cheap, but I have seen them more expensive and in worse nick. Plus, I love the two little birds etched into it.

I picked up the small mirror in the photo above at the same shop for $12. I love it as it is, but also because it's exactly like one my nan used to have. I'm planning on using it on a large wall in my lounge room along with some other pictures in smallish frames and a sun-ray (is that what they're called?) clock to fill in that  blank space somewhat.

Here I am mucking about with the layout and my iPhone, taking photos of myself. (Don't judge, like we all haven't been there before). I took this maybe a week ago and have changed my mind about a frillion times already.

And here's the clock in more detail. It wasn't cheap. I paid $60 for it. I know, I know. There was another one that I liked in the shop, but it was broken and they were asking $50. I figured I'd pay ten bucks for an un-broken clock. And I love it sick, so it's worth it in my mind. I've also cleaned it (and the two mirrors) since taking these photos and I can't believe how good they've come up. It just goes to show that if you take care of them, items like this really should last a lifetime. (And soap and warm water is a god-send and that I should put newspaper down before cleaning stuff anywhere in my house unless it's in the garage).

Actually, having now written this post, I think it's clear I'm a thrifting failure. I probably paid way too much for what I found, but I love love love them and that has to count for something, right?

Gah, here's what you should do - check out the professionals over at Sophie Isobel's blog Her Library Adventures. These guys are the true thrifting experts. Let's all see how it's really done.

Playing the tourist at Stanley and Wynyard

Our holiday is over but we've got some very nice photos and very nice memories that will hang around for a long time yet.

New name, new address

Just a heads up - coming up very soon is the opening of my madeit store. I'll be selling my original photographs and art online starting later this month.

As a result, Hsawaknow. is now look see. That's lookseebynaomifenton.blogspot.com

You can also stalk look see. via Facebook here - that's www.facebook.com/lookseebynaomifenton 

It's a bit bare right now (on Facebook and madeit), but everything will be up and running in a short jiffy - bare with me while I get organised, yes? Yes!

You can't resist visiting a place called Snug, can you?

We couldn't.

And, yes. It was snug in Snug. But we were in a smallish camper van so it was snug everywhere we went.

Anyhoo, do visit Snug if you get the chance, I can vouch for the caravan park which is clean and quiet and smack bang on the beach. It's lovely there.

Falls Festival 2011-2012

{Consider yourself warned - this is a picture heavy post!}

Can I recommend doing Falls in a camper van? Yes? Do it. I don't know about you, but it made a big difference to me knowing that I had somewhere comfortable to go to when I'd had enough of the crowd. And it was a big one. Apparently there were around 16, 000 people (that's not counting the artists and the employees).

Waiting for Kimbra's set.

Kimbra.

Aloe Blacc.

Fiesta.

Tim Finn.

It's pretty hard to pick a highlight from the festival. It was pretty cool eating dinner at the table next to Aloe Blacc. Then he left and Regurgitator sat down at the other table next to us. That was fairly rad. The next night Young MC sat down at the table next to us. He had the same as us for dinner (paella) but he was a bit perturbed that it took a little while for it to get to him.

Kimbra's set was fabulous - she really gave it her all. And DJ Yoda managed to get pretty much literally everybody up on their feet.

In the photo pit.

New Years Eve.

But, I think what is really great about this music festival is that everyone is generally pretty chilled and relaxed. It appeals to all ages, you see little babies (with their ears protected, looking all cute and stuff) and you see older people (with their ears protected and their walking sticks looking all cute and stuff) and everyone in between. There isn't a whole lot of aggression and most people are pretty well behaved (and sunburnt).

Can't wait for next year.