Hanging (20)10

Can you believe it's the last day of 2010? Nor can I... I'm heading down to the beach to see out the year with friends, so here's an appropriate photo I prepared earlier. Five years earlier, to be exact. No, I'm not so organised that I take photos for you five years in advance, this is one from when a friend and I were taking our first surfing lesson on a beach in Japan. As much as I wish I were cool enough to actually master surfing, the gravel embedded in my knees ensured that that first lesson was also my last. So any subsequent beach photos are more likely to feature leisurely reclining and passive enjoyment of ocean views while soaking up the rays (and simultaneously trying to avoid getting skin cancer)... anyway, happy new year, and see you in 2011!!

Post-Christmas sales, cheap Chinese-style

Many years ago, when I was but a slip of a girl, the most exciting day of the year was not Christmas day, but stocktake sale day. I would stay over at my cousin's place, and visions of bargains would dance through our heads as we gossiped into the wee small hours. Then, full of beans despite having had little rest (aah, youth!), we would take the train into town and shop all day, although my aged brain is having trouble recalling what we actually bought. 

By the way, does anyone remember whether the stocktake sales were on Boxing Day way back when? Or did they start later so that the poor shop assistants could enjoy Christmas too? Seeing as they were called "stocktake sales" rather than "Boxing Day sales", I'm guessing maybe they started later... anyway, that's beside the point. I now avoid these sales like the plague, as I can find nearly everything I need at op shops or make it myself. My one exception is supermarket sales. The prospect of all those Christmas goodies retailing at considerably lower prices simply because the big day is too tempting for the cheap Chinese in me to bear. Today I went to four supermarkets (I know, I have no life) and bought stollen and Christmas fruitcake, among other things that people generally don't enjoy eating after December 25th. Personally, I take great pleasure in consuming this sort of thing at Easter, partly for the novelty factor, but also because the weather is cooler and European cakey things taste like they should. Although as the temperature was something like 14 degrees this morning in Melbourne, a slab of fruitcake would not have gone astray today either. 

On the subject of retail (in fact, the reason I started writing this post), I think some supermarkets would make a killing if they employed shop assistants like this:

 

My friend sent me these pictures ages ago and I found them as I was going through my email trying to find attachments which I can download and use again (think CVs, photos, invoices - basically everything that has disappeared thanks to my own stupidity at not backing up my hard drive for three years)... I just couldn't resist somehow linking gratuitous cat pictures with my wafflings about supermarket shopping. But I'm sure lots of you still do hit the proper sales... what did you buy? 

Fashion show wrap up - a week late!

Due to my whingeing over the last few posts, you are already familiar with the event that prevented me from bringing you a post-show-post... yes, laptops suffer fashion show fatigue too, and mine threw a supermodel-worthy tantrum last week and wouldn't go on until I took it to Hard Drive Hotel to have its bits massaged or whatever it is that those tech types do to computers.
A week of indulging in byte-size snacks later, it's back with me, minus its entire hard drive AKA ALL MY WORK FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS. AGGH. I'm trying to think of it as a fresh start for the new year, a few weeks early. And not think about the fact that I will now have to complete an entire workbook for the most boring course in the world again because I did not back it up. Aggh. Anyway, without further ado, here's the inside story on the Fair@Square festival!
I arrived at Federation Square on the morning of Sunday, Dec 12, and headed to the dressing tent at the side of the stage - the show was held outside so "backstage" was a slightly primitive and intimate (read: squashy) affair, made more difficult by several torrential downpours throughout the day which sent rivers running through the tent. I tried to keep the models' feet slightly dry by laying down huge plastic garbage bags. Aah, fashion. Always so glamorous!



After getting the tent ready, Fabia and I had a wander around the rest of the festival. We visited lovely Lou at the Peppermint tent (new issue on sale now!! Buy! Buy!)...


... and found this little helper at one of the stalls...


But a festival wouldn't be a festival without music! There were bands and performers on the main stage all through the festival, including a very special one called The Vertical Smiles which counts the gorgeous Miss Claire among its members... yes, I finally got to meet one of my favourite bloggers.

She has a supercute rabbit but couldn't bring him with her so you will just have to go and visit her blog for some of that awwww-someness. Her band was pretty awesome too. They play gypsy style music, Claire is on the violin.

The band was so good that they got people dancing even though it was raining... well, they got these festival volunteers dancing anyway...



Meanwhile, crowds had gathered at the top of the square to watch our live fashion shoot. Here's Alicia from Cameron's working her magic in an outfit by Neisha...


And here are the people who help the magic to happen, photographer Stephanie Bradford and co.


Finally 2:45pm rolled around and it was time to show the people of Melbourne (and the world, thanks to this blogging biz!) what we were all about. The models and volunteers were all in good spirits and there was even time to sit around having a joke.

And then the show began!

Here's the lovely Lady Melbourne in her custom made Obus dress (it's made of certified Fair Trade organic cotton! Isn't it gorgeous? Isn't SHE gorgeous?)

The backdrops were made by the talented Sian Pascale and set off the outfits beautifully... (OK, here's where I admit that these photos were taken on Saturday by my mum... it poured down later in the day so the backdrops got soaking wet and had to be taken down, so there were no decorations on the stage on Sunday!)

You might have seen this little number before...


If you want to know more about the designers involved just go to the Fashion Show program guide here. And why wouldn't you want to know more about all this fabulous - and ethical, eco-friendly - fashion!?



Once the show was over, we gathered round for some snapshots with Lady Melbourne... check out the big grins on our faces, we're all so happy to have pulled off a successful event!

Who knows what Lady Melbourne seems to be looking at in this shot, there's not a great deal to see in my chest region, haha.


And here are Fabia and I modelling our Dutzi bags - a little reward for all our hard work! Phew, if you've got through this massive post then you probably need a little reward for all your hard work. So go ahead, treat yourself to some Fairtrade chocolate, you've earnt it!

Pre-Christmas cheer gone wrong

So I just got a call from the computer maintenance guy who has told me that my entire hard drive is gone. Best Christmas present I have had in a while. I was not so worried as I have most of my photos backed up and some of my work too... but then I realised that the ENTIRE first workbook for the most boring course in the entire universe AKA Cert IV in Training and Assessment was on the desktop and not backed up. AGGGHHH. So let my laziness be a warning to you - stop reading this post and go and back up all your stuff!!!
And when you've done that, take a look at these AMAZING photos from our fashion show last week - I will post some others properly when I get them, although looking at these ones, maybe there's no point?

Fashion show fatigue

Well, apologies everyone, my computer has died (I think it's a case of fashion show fatigue) so all my grand plans for millions of pictures from the fashion show have been put on hold. I'm writing this at the computer in the library!! I'll be back soon hopefully (once I've forked out a zillion dollars for my Mac to be fixed, grr...)....
xx

My friend's big fat Greek/Sri Lankan/Thai wedding

Often my weekends are a leisurely affair involving slobbing around the house in tracksuit pants catching up on whatever I didn't get done during the week and making feeble plans to tidy/dust/get a life/file receipts/ which never come to fruition. However, the trackies did not stand a chance this weekend - Saturday was devoted to wedding celebrations (Siri's, not mine!) and Sunday was all about the Fair@Square festival, but more about that in the next post. This one's all about the wedding. The big, fat, Greek (on the groom's side)/Sri Lankan & Thai (the bride) wedding.

As there had already been a Buddhist (ie Thai) blessing ceremony, the actual wedding was at a Greek Orthodox church. Did you know that Greek priests (well, this one, anyway) are sticklers for being on time? I was in charge of transporting the bride's mother and sister and we took a wrong turn off the freeway and were therefore 15 minutes late... and when we arrived, the wedding had already started!! Oops... it was a beautiful ceremony, although mainly in Greek so I spent much of it only imagining what was going on and admiring the frescoes and chandelier (I'm sure it's not called that in a church but you know what I mean).

After the ceremony we all lined up to kiss the happy couple, then filed outside to blatantly disregard the sign on the church wall that said "strictly no confetti or rice". I didn't throw any but lots of people came prepared and we made a bit of a mess, although I was still surprised that the church cleaners brought out a vacuum cleaner to tidy up practically immediately afterwards!

We made our way to a lake to have photos .. here you can see the couple and their families being snapped, with the bride's sister, Tidha, and her dad in the foreground. I made Tidha's dress... it's the same pattern as this one. Doesn't she look glamorous?

And here I am with the maid of honour, Veronica. As you can see I decided on the green dress after all...

My camera doesn't excite me at the best of times but it annoys me the most at functions like this - I have just realised I don't have any really good photos of the bride and groom because either there were people in the way (OK, not my camera's fault) or the light was too strong (when we were outside) or we were inside and the flash is extremely unflattering and makes everything blurry or too exposed. So I'll try to get some pics from other friends and post them later, but for the moment here's the beautiful bride with her new husband at the reception centre performing the Sri Lankan ceremony...

...thank goodness the groom is Greek through and through, or they would have had to go through FOUR different ceremonies! I think after the three they have already had, they are well and truly married.
There was Greek dancing and a delicious cake made by the bride's friend using FIFTEEN DOZEN eggs... I was rather glad I had decided on the green dress option!

Ridiculously good looking people strut their stuff for Fair@Square

Yeah, I know, Friday night, not cool to be sitting in front of a computer blogging in front of Go Girls (my guilty pleasure... anyone else out there love this soap from NZ?), and who reads blogs on a Friday night or over the weekend anyway? But couldn't resist putting up some pics from this evening - the team at Moral Fairground managed to get onto The 7PM Project, a national TV show which, as the name suggests, starts at 7pm...
I rustled up some of the models from Cameron's who are going to be strutting their stuff in the Fair@Square show over the weekend and waved the magic styling wand and hey presto... instant gorgeousness!! (OK, they were gorgeous before I even got to Fed Square, I just got to pick their outfits).

Below, from left to right, Alana wearing a dress from New Model Beauty Queen with a necklace from Emma Grace and bracelets from Beads For Wildlife; Alicia in my FOURTH DAUGHTER dress (it looks SOOOOO amazing on her, nothing like when I tried it on myself while making it... ) and jewellery from Paro Paro; and Louka in Kowtow Tshirt, Sinerji shorts, Etiko shoes and Mulberries scarf.


What do you think of he modelling efforts of the fashion show coordinators (ie myself and Fabia)? If there were modelling agency that specialised in pygmies, I would be in with a fighting chance. According to a magazine article I read a while ago, I am the average height of women in Australia, but you wouldn't guess it looking at this photo.

Oh well, at least I can be a model in my own bedroom... tomorrow's my friend's big fat Greek/Sri Lankan/Thai wedding and I still haven't worked out what I'm wearing. I have a burning desire to wear red... but I'm not sure that this dress will stand up to the rigours of the FEAST that is in store at the reception...

...so I might have to go with this somewhat more demure minty green sparkly number...notice the LOOSE waistline. Think of this as a before pic, the after one won't be this pretty!!

FREE FASHION SHOW THIS WEEKEND!!

Oh-kay. So I'm fairly sure I've mentioned several times over the past few months that I, along with the fabulous Fabia, have been organising a fashion show for Fair@Square festival this weekend. If you've only just joined us or you weren't paying attention - well, there's a massive festival this weekend at Federation Square in Melbourne, where all manner of fair trade, sustainable, organic, recycled and eco-friendly goods and services will be on show and on sale, and we're also showcasing about 40 designers in a fashion parade on both days from 2:45pm (that's worthy of bold red font, right? Sorry, I'm not technologically advanced enough to make a flashing neon sign so bold red font will have to do).

You might remember I said I was doing a project with local blogger Lady Melbourne ... well, she is our MC and has just posted about the dress that has been made specially for her for this event by Obus from Fairtrade certified organic cotton - looks cute in this pic, can't wait to see it properly!

Last night we had final fittings for our lovely models from Cameron's and also did a little bit of a dress rehearsal, but I was running around so much I didn't really get great photos. I don't want to give too much away, either! But here are a few looks from the show when we were working on the styling last week. These three are by First Born - fabulous fair trade knitted dresses in crazy colour combos.

And you can't see them that well as I have snaplock bags hanging over the hangers (which is how you keep everything in order for a fashion show!) but here we have some things from New Model Beauty Queen, a Melbourne-based company which handles manufacturing and has their own label too which is accredited by Ethical Clothing Australia. The bags are by Dutzi, a fair trade label from Mexico which I read about on Shine by Three a while ago.

We've got plenty of other fabulous labels - clothes and accessories - so even if you can't make it to the show, check out the Fair Fashion program guide via this link which lists the websites for all of the brands involved. As the organiser of this little shindig, I think I'm entitled to some shameless self promotion, so I'll leave you with a sneak peek of the amazing Alana from Cameron's, wearing one of my designs (recognise the hat??).

In which I learn AGAIN that craft does not pay

Whoever said that crime does not pay obviously meant to say craft. Last time I checked, robbing a bank could yield you a gazillion dollars, whereas my profits from the weekend's craft stall were definitely shy of that figure. (Warning: long rant ahead)

To give you an idea of how painfully shy of that figure they were, let's just say that I spent over 50% of my profits purchasing stuff from other people's stalls which added up to the grand sum of $23. So although I enjoyed trying to sell my wares at the Kingston Night Art Market (as you can see by my smiling face in this picture with my sister), I will not be giving up my day job and turning to craft any time soon.

Oh, whoops! I forgot.. I don't have a day job. Or even a night job, for that matter. So maybe I should be considering craft after all. I mean people were offering me a whopping $20 for necklaces that take hours to make, so I could be rolling in it if I just gave up those little emotional stumbling blocks called "pride in my work" and "belief in fair trade"... (why is it that people are fine with paying a fair price for the craftwork of people in developing nations overseas, but baulk at shelling out the equivalent to artisans in their home countries?)(Dare I call myself an artisan? You know what I mean, anyway!) The next time someone suggests selling something that has taken three hours to make for a measly $20, I will suggest they work for under half the minimum hourly wage and see what they think!!

Grrr!

OK, rant semi-over, I did manage to actually sell some stuff prior to the market thanks to my sister sending out an email to all and sundry which linked to my post from last week. And not to name drop or anything, but one of the people who bought one of my pieces is way-cool Melbourne artist extraordinaire Tai Snaith (my sister has connections).

In a strange display of synchronicity, my sister's work (a zombie hamster with its intestines intact, as opposed to the others which have exploding guts... check my last post for pictures) was purchased by another artist, Elise Hurst, who is well known for her illustrations in children's books. If she is at all inspired by stuff she buys at markets, her future efforts may be a little more gory than these lovely illustrations which feature on the front of these cards, making them impossible to resist (I'm sure she stole Suki to use as a model for the cat one).

If you like these, you can buy them and see more of Elise's work here. (I have to admit that I had never heard of her before the market but having just looked at her website, have realised that I was in the presence of an extraordinary talent and a prolific artist... who just happens to also be a lovely person who likes zombie hamsters.)

Apart from the cards, something else I could not resist was this lump of wood with gold paint on it, which is probably how unkind people would refer to this piece of Art Deco-esque-ish myrtle which I believe required a high degree of woodturning and polishing skill in its execution and was only $15. I plan to use it as a glamorous bookend.

My friends and relatives who visited the market were somewhat shocked that I bought this as 1. it was brand new, unlike most of my purchases and 2. it was $15, which is a massive sum for me to spend on something that is not exactly essential, especially given my unemployed state. My sister pointed out that I wouldn't have paid that much for it in an op shop but I retorted that it is brand new, so of course I had to exceed my usual threshold. She accepted that as perfectly logical, because it is. Given my rant about artisans not being paid properly, I really should have put in an offer of at least $100, but the price tag said $15, so who was I to argue... (hypocrite? who, me?)