antique-a-palooza (IMAGE HEAVY)

Well, on the weekend I thought i would do something different as i generally veg out or "lay like broccoli" as Vivienne aka Pretty Woman would say (yay i love that movie woo!) to counteract my busy full time week. I started my "different weekend" with dinner at an overpriced German restaurant in the city. Of course it was delicious but it is quite rustic and basic for what you pay. Plus the beer was really expensive too so i could only afford 1. eep!

Then Saturday I organised with mum (the ultimate antique roadshow lady) to go on a nice country drive to do some op-shopping and antiquing! She didn't have to even think twice and we were in the car on the open road. We went first to Ballarat and had lunch at the delicious Beechworth Bakery. She wanted to buy the cookbook so it was a neccessary pit stop. As was the purchase of lunch, 8 cookies to take home, and a rasberry tart to have later on that day :P

So after that we hit the road towards Daylesford hoping to find some cool stuff... and man did we ever! The first place we went to was in the main street called Junk Style. I don't remember seeing it any of the times i have been there, but she swears they have been open for a few years. Maybe 2. shrug. So walking along you see this sign:

Then you turn to look up the stairs lined with old mirrors and paintings and clothes, needless to say I was totally pumped to see what else was up there!

You walk out to see this amazing vintage/retro loft FULL of crazy things. It was a visual orgasm, there was not one boring thing there and there was simply too much to take in!! I didn't take a picture of what i bought but i got a beaded pineapple candle holder (josh said it is borderline garish/cool) and a babushka :)

that's my mum checking out their vintage furniture to outfit her little californian bungalow house that is being re-built.

Next stop was another antique store on the main drag as well. This place was called Wombat Hill Antiques, and was a nice old building on the corner across from the Info centre.

Inside was like a rabbit warren of rooms, packed floor to ceiling with heaps of old stuff. I didn't end up buying anything here - partly because there was noone there. my mum and i were the only ones there - i think the owners were out for lunch or something, but the door was open and this little old TV was on near the register and i could faintly hear some sports playing on it. It was a little weird. I half considered stealing something but they were probably watching on a hidden camera and would set off some hidden bear traps or something. i think i have seen a horror movie like that. ha. oh man, they had a stuffed peacock with all its feathers! i couldnt get a good pic cos it was up high and behind stuff. anyway here are some of the cool things i saw in the shop...

gotta love the headlines on those mags! anyway, after a good browse we went to another place that was mainly furniture and quite expensive. I did buy a candlestick and an old milk jug but no pics! Then we were ready for the peice de resistance. THE MILL MARKETS! There are Mill Markets in Geelong, Ballarat, Newcomb, i think Warnambool, and here in Daylesford. I thought i had been here before but walking in the door i knew i would have remembered a place like this...

three words played on my mind: Holy Fucking Shit. It is like a Bunnings but all op-shop stuff and antiques and crazy stuff! there was another shed almost this size behind me. I have never seen something so amazing.

It is made up of hundreds of little stalls set up by local shop owners or individuals. Generally they don't man the stalls and the price tags have a stall number on it which gets noted at the cash register. Here is mum perusing one such stall...

I saw this little money box and had a flashback to childhood. His name is Robbie and i had one as a kid. You put a coin on his hand and he lifts it to his mouth then opens wide and eats the coin. he was a good tool to get us to save our silvers, thats fo sho.

oh and i saw this retro picnic set - how cccccccccoooolllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!

and here are some other cool shotzzz of my fun time at the mill markets!

omg those face jugs are made by Royal Doulton and are like $250 each. No thanks! Oh and guess what my fellow subarashii friends!!!???! I found ANOTHER DIRTY PILLOW!!!!!!! omfgomfgomfgomfgomfg!

this one is very cute, i cannot believe i now have 4 pillows from the 70's. all of which kinda freak people out. But let me think - the one above cost $15... the elephant one was $2.99, and the two others with people on them were $2.99 each as well. So that's $23.97 for 4 pillows. I'm sittin' pretty.

yeah obviously i saw this and was drawn to what i thought was a board game called "lose your shit"... but even "lose your shirt" is fairly strange. I couldnt reach it cos it was up high but i wonder if it is some kind of stripping game... Sadly i just put my suspicions to rest by Google searching it. It is a lame horse racing game where the jockey "loses his shirt" if you lose. boo!

oh and i saw this cool bird cage below for nearly $1,000!!!!

I watched "A series of unfortunate events" last night and i swear this same design cage was in it! But it housed reptilessssss! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppp. Also from the Mill Market i bought 2 70's style serving dishes - one is from Japan. I also got a Christmas Drinks Tray, aaaaaand mum bought me a Champagne ice urn which is really fancy and lovely!

Once we left there we were starving hungry and went to get our bakery tarts from the car. Unfortunately we didnt realise it had gotten so hot and they were pretty melted and gooey. hmmm.... we still ate them though. laaawll. So anyone up for a drive to daylesford or one of the other mill markets sometime soon? you wont regret it :D

my loooong weekend

Well, here i am! After 5 days off work i am feeling.... honestly... crap. BUT I'm sure given time i will go from crap to 'meh' just like that! Over the weekend I was a busy bunny indeed! On Friday night I hosted a fundraiser party for the Cancer Council called "Girls Night in" in which we raise money for Breast Cancer research. I think we ended up raising over $200 :) hooray humanitarian hooray

the next morning Josh and I packed up and headed to greyer overcast skies at Apollo Bay. I may have been there once as a kid but dude I never appreicated how amazing it is! Although the weather at the beach was colder and darker than back at home, we still had a rad time. On Sunday i went walking on the beach to collect wood for an art project... when i came across this:

it was just a stick but it looked like a turtle head! i kept him :) I also took a few other pics of the things around, that is of course when i wasn't busy stealing flowers from peoples gardens to make a native floral bouquet haha.

This is in a place called "paradise" in the otways- just behind apollo bay. it was stunning!

My mum came over yesterday to show me the baby bird she rescued from a crow. Chester immediately loved it - but in a good way - not in a normal cat/bird way...

how effing adorable.

the first mushroom harvested

Josh picked the mushroom on Tuesday night and i made a delicious mushroom risotto using it! I used button mushrooms mostly, but i sliced and grilled this baby on my grill pan then put some lemon juice and parsley on it, then had it on top as a garnish...

can't wait for more mushrooms... So far there are none, and it is Thursday lunch-time... so... linen cupboards - are they always messy? cos mine looks messy. i dont know. i dont care. i want to go out for a walk.

growin' me own mushrooms

well well well, here i have proof of $20 well spent by me, because i am a crafty consumer! I bought a Mushroom Farm from Bunnings what seems like forever ago, and followed the instructions to grow your own mushrooms. As some weeks we spend $5 - 10 on mushrooms alone, i thought this could be a good investment - and you only pick them when you need them. No chucking out grey shrivelled mushies at the week's end!

Here is the delightful lid to the farm. I endeavour to grown an actual mushroom house, because either i would live happily ever after in it, or the deadly spores like on nausicaa of the valley of the wind would make me bleed out of all my orifices and die - but as it is an anime death it wouldnt hurt and i imagine i would float gently into the afterlife. maybe.

all you have to do is spray it with some water mist every now and then. I saw no results for prrroobably 2 months or something, and I was convinced it was yet another living thing i had killed due to negligence. At least thats what my case would be in the courts - as always i will plead insanity. THEN on Saturday morning i put some towels into the linen cupboard and looked down at the "farm" on the bottom shelf and thought i would give it yet another pathetic spray as though i were trying to give CPR to a zombie while wondering "does this meat smell off to you?" in the back of my mind. Anyway i opened the lid and shreeked MUSHROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to which josh came over to see. Here is my mushie bebby on Saturday morning:

and on Sunday afternoon:

i think it's time to feast on that massive juicy organic linen cupboard grown wonder. i hope they dont get to a certain point and then start to shrivel! it may already be too late for him! oh god, oh crap, oh no! nah she'll be right mate. I heard somewhere that these mushroom farms yield more mushrooms than you can handle sooooo i guess i'll be the judge of that and let you know!

see didge paint

This is Didge. Full name Richard Something Glaubitz, i could try to guess a middle name because i am sure we have discussed it before... It's his dad's name or Grandpa's name... Johanness...? Johan...? fuck! His other aliases are: Han Solo, Digimon, Ridgy Didge.. i can't think of any more right now... But he looks like Han Solo.

Didge likes to paint...

What does that look like to you? Josh saw this canvas leaning against a wall in a dark empty room at didge's house and was all "oh man, what an awesome BEAR!" and didge was like "uh...yeah a bear... that's what it is..." and eventually after Josh talked about this bear painting for 2 months, Didge said he would love for Josh to have it to keep! Such a nice gesture!! Good work Didge! So now it hangs in our loungeroom for all to admire - and oh how they admire it. So anyway, didge confessed months later that it is actually a Lion but he didn't have the heart to tell Josh. hehe. So now people make up their own minds :) Can you see the creepy skull face?

So as my dad is turning 50 in 2 days time, i was trying to think of something i could get him for his newly painted house that didn't cost much and was sentimental. Well I had the idea of collaborating with Didgimon to make a painting for dear old daddy-o. Then i had to think about subject matter... What on earth could i paint that would impress my dad, the not-so art aficionado. Then i realised there was something nay, someone who my dad loves unconditionally and to a level that would promt him to tattoo his flesh in a sign of adoration. No... it is nobody he knows. It is Billy Joel. The Piano Man, if you will.

My dad has loved Billy Joel since forever, and even got "Second Wind" tattooed in nice cursive writing on his forearm. This was his "i'm divorced now, and possibly having a mini mid-life crisis" stage. So i knew it HAD to be Billy Joel in the painting. I chose the picture above as it is very shadowy. Didge was excited to help me out!

See didge paint:

See me and josh paint:

See the finished product:

man, i hope my dad doesn't read my blog otherwise on Friday he will tooootally have to fake surprise and i don't know if he can do that. But i'm pretty confident he will not see this. We are nervous to see his reaction because if he doesn't recognise it is Bill yJoel he will be like "uh...great. a picture of a middle aged man....what i've always wanted..." and then we will have to explain what it's meant to be. Does it look Billy Joel-ish????????????? AH!

On the hunt for bento boxes (take 2: with a vengeance)

yoyoyo wassup wassup give up the rock!! So i remembered a little Korean gift store near the Target on Bourke Street and thought I might find bento boxes there. AND BOY DID I EVER! It is called "artbox" and is in the little arcade that Target is in. They had lots of ones - mainly Pooh bear and Hello Kitty but there were a few others.

This one was supa cool, it was a 1 level multi compartment lunchbox complete with a little carry bag. AND only $15! Bargain! (Available in pink or blue)

This one below is the same as i found the first time, BUT it is a bit cheaper. $22.35. I think it is really cute and i am totally considering buying one. But atm all my money is tied up in the purchase of my first home so i might wait a few weeks to splurge otherwise i will have post-purchase depression and try to drown my purchases or something.

oh and these ones were under lock and key. The set of 3 Japanese fancy tupperware things were...guess how much: $135. fuuuuuck that! and behind it is a fancy 3 tiered lunchbox with a carry handle and chopsticks. i couldn't see the price but i'm guessing it would be in the hundreds :P

So if you want to buy an asian lunchbox to make delicious lunches like THEEEESE head to Artbox! It is near Target on Bourke Street, just past the corner of Swanston Street. WWOOO