bought/gift/made 19

My last, bought/gift/made post was a year ago! 

I really love doing this blog series so I'm re-erecting it today :)

My normal deodorant of choice is a simple salt rock I've been happily using for the past 5 years.  I invested in this roll-on deodorant because I wanted a harder-hitter when I shoot weddings. I do need to preface this by saying I don't sweat much but if I don't wear deodorant I do get b.o.  The Salt of the Earth roll-on (in lavender + vanilla) was backed up with loads of positive reviews and after using it for a year I can happily agree.  The scent is just enough (a muted perfume of sorts), the deodorant rolls on easily without leaving white residue and it completes the job of making sure I'm not a stinking mess by the end of my wedding day.  The only thing I can't comment on is its effectiveness against perspiration.

At our old rental, Ben and I had a fun challenge - who could make the better cat bed!  

Both of us were fed up with the tacky store-bought options so we drew up our own unique design.  Once finished, we got all our friends to vote (and our cats :P).  It was a fairly even score but my bed had the slightly higher cat usage :P. The wooden stump above is how my bed started and evolved into the final design below.

I used wooden materials we had lying around and scored the fluffy cushion from fb marketplace for a few dollars.  

Pretty proud of myself!

Now lastly, in the gifted category, possibly the coolest gift anyone has ever given me, a dorodango.

What a crazy, cool, insanely weird gift! 

Dorodango is an art form where you compact and refine dirt/clay/mud until left with a polished sphere! It's from my friend, Shane, who used dirt and clay from around his house and gave it to me as a combined Christmas/house warming gift. I love it!

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bought/gift/made /18

I love the story of my gifted item for this round of bought/gift/made. At our local farmers markets they have a few old gents selling tools. I've been wanting a spokeshave for a really long time for my stools but I've also had a little break from stand making to focus on other areas and so when I finally spotted this spokeshave below, I ummed and ahhed and eventually walked away, knowing I didn't have a use for it right away.  I was with Ben and by the end of the market I decided I was super silly for not getting it because I'd been wanting one for so long and they are really hard to find (second hand!) so we walked back to the stall only to find it was gone.  I walked away trying to convince myself it was only a thing but cursing myself in the same breath for not grabbing it earlier.  Ben hearing my rambling chatter pulled it out of his pocket.  He had ducked away earlier whilst I was immersed in vegetables, to surprise me :)

In the made category, a cat stand I made for our cats.  I saw this incredible cat stand whilst trawling instagram here and it stood out to me because cat stand designs are usually super awful.  I tracked it down to this company but they had stopped selling their stands and now it looks like they have pulled down their website too :(  Anyway full credit goes to them for their amazing design, I just did some reverse engineering and came up with this guy below.  After making it, I was super proud of myself and every time I see Peach on it, I squeal with delight!

And finally, in the bought category some pretty crystals. I don't buy a lot that isn't food or second hand to be honest (and the 2nd hand things go into my thrifty sunday posts).  I'm no consumerist saint, I definitely buy things just items that fall into the uncool bucket, like an antennae for my car or a peg basket or underwear.  

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Year of Fear - March

I totally dropped the ball this month for my year of fear and I'm not sure which avenue to wander down in my thoughts, to talk about creative blocks and being kind when they happen or maybe how I was thinking this month would be incredibly easy yet I found myself faced with fear and making a hell of a lot of excuses.  The idea this month was to take portraits in public and as the days started to disappear a constant (nagging!) thought kept reminding me to make this task a priority whilst the other half of my brain told me it wasn't one.  

So my excuses, valid or not included, feeling emotional taxed in my support work job (it happens, usually, for myself, at a 3 year mark with the same client).  Immersing myself into learning about business and feeling drained creativity, having lots of emotions or none at all (I'm partially blaming all the astrological happenings of March!) and just feeling a very low level of motivation (which is odd for myself).  Ben is back from his work hitch today - which feels like a really amazing gift.  In the end I lost track of how long Ben was away for 6+ weeks (?!) everything in March has a tiny haze over it but I really missed hugs and the connection of a conversation that doesn't worry about how strong an internet connection is.

So I'm sending myself a lot of compassion and also for you too, if you found yourself in a similar situation this March.  It happens, it's okay and creativity/love/goodness will come back :)

I thought that my 'jumping into the water' fear (which I'm still diligent keeping up with - bonus points!) would be way harder then any social based fears.  I'm not sure if it was because March was an off month for me or if all my excuses this month were actually more to do with my social fears being crazy high and trying to avoid them at all costs.  I'm interested to see how these next few months pan out. I just wanted to cocoon and be still and not challenge myself personally because I felt challenged externally (if any of that makes sense!).

On a side note, the first week of March I was actually off to a good start and I even managed to go and do something that my 2018 self would have never ever dreamed of doing! Ben had bought a mower and blower (the previous month) off a local guy who fixes and sells second hand equipment.  I got the mower to work fine but the blower's chord wouldn't retract.  We had a whipper snipper that didn't work so I thought I'd go give him the whipper snipper as a peace offering in the hopes he would look at the blower.  I figured Ben has only used the blower once and even though the gentleman mentioned you weren't allowed to bring back equipment I took a big courage breath in and drove over.  The old guy happily took the whipper snipper but didn't offer to fix the blower. He just said to get Ben to look at it when he got home from work.  If I had more courage I would have been more direct but baby steps!

// These photos are actually from the end of January where I was doing a test to see if this could be a potential fear challenge.  Hopefully I'm able to pick the March challenge up again over the year but I'm definitely allowing some deadline breathing room along the way :)

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bought/gift/made /14

In the bought category...

A pair of goggles.  A recommendation from Tim Ferriss and I have to say as far as goggles go these are great! I'm a complete weiner and I hate having my head under the water but these help take away some of the discomfort.  They sit really nice on my face/head, I haven't had issues with them fogging up and most importantly they make a really nice seal to keep the water out :)

In the gift category, a present from Carmen (who you may remember from the mosaics post). I love this sun catcher so much, the colours and design are super pretty.  I'd personally love to get into working with glass - little glass planters have been on my brain a lot lately :)

And finally in the made category, a super simple coconut bowl.  I just cleaned it out after eating the flesh and gave it a sand and hey presto, instant bowl!

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Year of Blooms

I bawled my eyes out at the end of Loving Vincent, a film about Vincent van Gogh but before the tears I had an epiphany of sorts - that I'm meant to be planting flowers and lots of them. So this year, I'm doing a project called, year of blooms. I have a rough idea in my head but I'm letting the project be open to change with a simple guideline to have more flowers in the world! This project has already seen hopeful synchronicity. The first flower I picked to plant was sunflowers and as I'm typing this, realising it's the bloom that started the project (thanks Vincent!) though originally picked because it's the right time (I hope!) and I was gifted sunflower seeds (from Ben's brother's wife) after I mentioned how lovely her garden and the sunflowers growing in it, were.

In November, Ben and I visited a cafe where I spent far too long admiring their plant wall. I took photos to remember the plants to seek some out for myself. I pointed to one plant with pretty flowers and asked Ben if he knew what it was, he did, a plant we had been gifted by Ben's Mum years ago but had never bloomed. Three weeks later I let out a little gasp - tiny white flowers sprung forth from the pot – the loveliest omen!

My african violet, despite it's abundance blooms (when gifted to me from Dad) lived the rest of the time, with pretty leaves. You might also guess where this is headed, below is a photo from a couple of weeks ago....

We moved into our new place, flattening out a path from the top house to below and at the end of the path, an overgrown flower bed with two rose bushes amongst the weeds. I've been rose obsessed for too many years but I only just planted my first rose last year. In 2012 we took a trip to Tasmania and visited a hedge maze. As we walked through the maze, hand-painted signs with quotes on them were scattered on the paths. I'm terrible at remembering quotes but I always remember the sentiment of this one, even if in delivery I muddled a few words. It's been an important philosophy to contemplate, especially with renting - the idea of waiting for the perfect time, but how you spend your days, becomes how you spend your life, right? It's definitely time to plant those roses.

Ben's Mum gifted me with this book for Christmas and (below) a desert rose with many seed pods ready to sprout.

I'm going to check back in every month and keep you updated on the project. I need to build a new garden bed for my sunflowers and I'm also going to sprinkle a packet of wildflowers seeds Ben bought. I explained my vague project to our garden friend Lowy and the first thing that came to mind for him was Masanobu Fukuoka and his earth balls. I want to plant seeds at home but the majority of the project will be guerilla gardening with the idea to spread as much beauty as I can :) :) January will keep me busy, sourcing materials and writing lists and starting the growing process! If you have any input or ideas, I'd love to hear them too :) :) 

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