How did it get to be Wednesday again so soon?

What’s hot and what’s not at your place? The weather is getting hotter around here and so is my frame of mind. Bonza. I had a few people asking me how to play along – it’s as easy as writing up your own hot/not list on your blog and then linking back to me and then adding your url to the widget below. Simple! So hot!

Hot

Home organisation – brilliant! I am actually making a difference around the house. What will be totally hot is if I keep it up for more than a fortnight. The house looks pretty fine at the moment and I am still managing to get some parenting and some NaNoWriMo-ing in.

Polly&Me handbags… (images above) so gorgeous. I saw a couple of these bags in a gorgeous shop in Bangalow last month and came home to look up the website. “Polly&me is an Australian sister team working in Pakistan. Cath Braid, a fashion designer who trained at Central St. Martins, London, started working in Chitral on a womenwear label “Caravana” and has been working in Chitral for six years. Now she and her sister Ange run the business Polly&Me with over 400 women across eight centers in and around Chitral town, producing textiles for women’s accessories.” (from Fashion Windows). The top two bags are from their current collection Sugar and Spice (how much I love that beautiful bag with songbirds and laundry – top right) and the bottom two bags are from the new range, Gup Shup, coming out soon. (images reproduced with permission).

Bored to Death – love it. It makes me laugh out loud.

We have a big gap in our yard and I keen to fill it with a cubby house. I am super keen on this Roulotte in a garden in the Netherlands- -see what I mean? Who wouldn’t want such a cute playhouse? I have serious playhouse inspiration every time I visit Mikodesign.

Lemsip, echinacea, blueberry & pomegranite juice, vitamins, fruit and lots of water. Coaxing my immune system back into a more enthusiastic approach to life.

Not Hot

Arguing kids. Is this how it’s going to be for the next 15 plus years? Perhaps when they get to the age when they plug themselves into individual sound systems and cease communicating all together will be when we have some peace. Sad!

Not hot is not getting around to visit all the What’s Hot + What’s Not participants from last week. I’ll definitely come by and visit this week now that I have everything so neatly written on index cards and am totally organised! Thanks for playing along again. xx

Hello! It’s What’s hot + What’s not time *again*! Luckily my interests are so fleeting and fickle I have enough stuff to manage to get these lists together weekly. Are you taking part with your own list this week? If so, don’t forget to leave you link in the widget below. I will come and say hello!

HOT

Zinc – my favourite store this side of my parent’s house. While sometimes I feel a little like I am living in a shopper’s desert, a quick visit to Zinc in Toorak Road, Burwood (or is it Glen Iris around there?) to use a gift certificate and to dream of Christmases to come  always restores my faith in the Eastern suburbs. Yesterday I finally replaced my (exploding sunscreen filled) wallet with a gorgeous thing from Elk. Very nice.

Halloween! This year we have a cindy-lauper-style rockstar and a bottom-of-the-dress-up-basket fairy princess.

Count down to NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. Are you taking part this year? The first year I signed up was 2000 and it was a complete failure. I look back and think to myself… what was my problem? I had all that TIME! This year time *will* be my biggest problem, but I want to get back into my daily writing again and this is as good an excuse as any. I have a new book to start so it seems like perfect timing.

Related – The NaNoWriMo Young Writer’s Program. Just like NaNoWriMo but for kids under 17 years and with the opportunity to set reasonable word count goals. The word count recommended for Amelia’s age group is 300-3000 words. Hmm. Wonder if she’d be into it too.

Related – the Office of Light and Letters is hot. I loved reading the history of NaNoWriMo and am so impressed with the vision and the energy and the passion of the people involved in running it and their charitable organisation, the Office of Light and Letters. Donate to a great cause, or if that’s a stretch, use GoodSearch for all your NaNoWriMo searching and choose the Office of Light and Letters as your charity – GoodSearch is a brilliant idea – 50% of the company’s revenue is donated to designated charities.

What I wore today in drawings – the blog and the flickr pool. Gemma Correll is one of my favourite illustrators and she has started such a great meme. I think I might have to get in on the action. Also, just for fun – today is an All Gemma Correll day in my etsy faves over there in my sidebar.

NOT

My energy levels are not hot. My immune system is not hot. It’s boring, and annoying.

Sleepless nights – so, when do kids start sleeping through the night? I was hoping 7 would be the magic number but it seems not.

Forgetting to take snaps for my “life long project” of dinner photography. I missed every dinner while we were away and then there was the gastro so now am out of the habit enough to only keep up sporadically.

Favourite new book – Yumeji Graphics.

“This book focuses on the graphic works created by legendary Japanese artist and designer Yumeji Takehisa. It included his illustrations for books, editorial designs for magazines, drawing, typography and more.Takehisa (1884-1934) was a painter and pioneering graphic designer during Taisho era and early Showa era in Japan.”

There are spy girls creeping around our house wearing advanced technology bracelets. Look down and you might find a tracking device has been planted on your sleeve, or your pants.

Also — The Quilt Project is now online. We went along last night to the showing at the (magical) Abbotsford Convent and it was quite moving. Kirsty’s amazing – and so was the quilt.

It’s time again for this week’s What Hot + What’s Not. It comes around quickly – take part if you feel compelled and leave your url link in the little widget at the end of my post so we can come and see you hots and nots.

What’s Hot

Around the World with Mouk by Marc Boutavant. Recently translated from the French is this fabulous children’s book which is totally hot in our house this week. Every page is a huge explosion of colour, activity and cute characters. Mouk travels from Lapland to Africa, from Australia (Kangaroo Island specifically) to Japan. The whimsical characters are a little Moomin-like (and spot the character reading a Moomin book in Lapland!) and the huge spreads with so much to explore remind me of some of Richard Scarry’s big books from when I was a kid. According to the Chronicle Books blog, the American version will be released in the Fall… so… now-ish? If you have a child in the right age group for this which is probably 3 – 10 (or a illustration freak of any age) — this book would be an AWESOME christmas gift as it is big and glossy and has a slightly puffy cover and has removable stickers in the back. So good. You can preorder it at Amazon, or get it at Readings.

Pimm’s: We went to Byron Bay with a UK lad who introduced us to the joys of Pimm’s and lemonade. I gained several kilos from sipping on these. So our new celebratory cocktail is Pimm’s on ice, with a top up with lemonade, with slices of orange, lemon, thin slivers of cucumber and a sprig of mint. So pretty and so delicious.

Holztiger wooden animals: I bought a shark and a dolfin back from Byron for my girls – because not only are they absolutely gorgeous but can go in the bath! Lily’s shark has become a bathtime terror. “Holztiger toys are all handmade using maple, oak, beech and birch and make use of water-based acrylic paints.” We got ours from the beautiful My Toy Shop in Byron Bay. The fox is sitting on my bedside table.

Trop Jr: “The Worlds Largest Short Film Festival for Kids! By Kids! A recent addition to the Tropfest program is a short filmmaking competition open to kids aged 15 years and younger. 2008 was the first ever Trop Jr, 8 Finalists premiered their films to a live audience at the Crescent Precinct, across from Sydney’s Domain, before big Tropfest.” — this year’s signature item (a theme or something that needs to be included somehow) is “DOT”. It’s time to put all those video cameras.

Also: Teddy’s new nose, blue playdough, our new avocado and lemon trees, Flash Forward and Hydralyte Liquid.

What’s Not

Gastro! First Lily, then my parents, now me… who will be next?

Coming home from our holiday to an exhausted and sick family – and all the associated stress and guilt. Not hot at all.

My Mum looking after Lily as I vomited etc. on her birthday – NOT HOT! Happy birthday Mum.

Blergh. Hopefully next week’s not hot will not be about vomit.

Pip’s started a meme – My Place & Yours… with a new theme every week. This week is “On the Shelf”. I found these two sweet little kokeshi dolls in a gorgeous shop in Bangalow called Little Peach. They have joined my handmade girls on top of my radio on the shelf above the sink. They make me happy.

We’ve been back from Byron Bay for two days now, and I can hardly even believe we were actually ever there. It was a completely perfect break and hard to drag ourselves away on Friday. I was pleased to find that while Byron has changed a lot in the 12 years since we were last there, it still manages to hang on to its essential Byron-ness. We have loads of photos but most involve me in my bathers so quite obviously not blog-appropriate.

Top to bottom: Australia’s Eastern most point, where we stood and peered out at the ocean, hoping to catch a glimpse of a whale.

And glimpse we did. I know it’s pretty slight – but it made my day (holiday, even).

Poolside, lying back on my banana lounge looking up into the trees. This is probably my “happy place”… the place I close my eyes and imagine when the girls start shouting at each other, or someone is stamping their three year old foot and shouting at me.

Thank goodness for blogs – all I need to do is visit Megan’s blog The Byron Life and I am right back there.

Hello – There is a phantom publishing this post, as  I am some miles away hopefully lying on a beach or sipping a cocktail. What – no internet for 5 days? CRAZY. But here’s my What’s Hot + What’s Not Wednesday – it was great to hop about the place last week and find out what’s hot and what’s not elsewhere, so please feel free to post the link to your url below if you take part.

HOT

Fake tan! I got a fake tan – oh so funny. Amelia couldn’t look at me without saying “I want the real you back!”. I have never, ever had a tan in my whole life so it was really very novel. I was surprised at how good all my clothes looked. Now I get why people like to look brown. The actual spray tan process was not nearly as humiliating as I imagined and I am not even orange. Amazing! It’s too bad I discovered this in an era when it is completely dangerous to get out in the sun and get the natural version of this.

Migaloo: (above) An albino humpback whale. He was sighted off Byron Bay on the 28th of September. He’s probably well and truly gone by now, but I hope to see some whales (and maybe their calves) on their way home from their migration south. I am also packing binoculars because imagine how many new birds there will be to add to my list! The place we are staying even has a downloadable bird walk brochure. Awesome. (Tag: bird nerd)

Paul’s chocolates. Our good friend Paul did a chocolate making class last week and he gave us a box of his beautiful goodies. I am so impressed with how beautiful and interesting they are, and how good they taste. We spent quite a lot of time trying to convince Paul to try out for Master Chef for next season… but then we all wondered if there is anyone who needs that amount of stress in life.

Upgrading iTunes and sharing all Phil’s music. So much good listening going on around here.

NOT

Pale people (but not pale whales – ha ha!)

The little barky dog next door, right outside our bedroom window. We had a peek at him over the fence and he’s insanely cute but he does have a tendency to need to express himself at all the wrong times.

A small child with post-viral asthma: Phil and I were running on stress for two days. She’s getting better but I am no good at sleeping while wondering if we are going to be leaping into an ambulance at any moment.

Survivor Samoa. I dunno. We watched the first episode and there a couple of characters who are so mean I didn’t feel compelled to tune in again. I *know* they are probably actors, I *know* they need bad guys… but it left me with such a bad taste in my mouth.

Hot or Not? Alexander McQueen’s 10 inch stiletto pod shoes — I can’t stop looking at these. Surely influenced by the Alien films – but amazing and creepy and dangerous! What do you think?

Greetings from Sleep Deprivation Land! Woah – sick kids and no sleep are beginning to get to me… I have tried to edit this post over 24 hours and I just can’t get a nice flow so publish and be damned, I say, and sorry it isn’t more sparkly:

I have just finished this doll to give to a good friend on her big 4-0. I based the idea for this doll on  a quick doodle I did last year. She’s a bit more clown-like, but I quite like her. I made up a new pattern using elements of my punkdorf doll pattern (arms and legs – less seam allowance), and a crazy adaptation of my marshamllow rabbits, believe it or not. Her legs are attached with buttons – a technique I learnt from Mimi and her fabulous felt doll tutorial at Purl Bee. Her dress is lifted directly from Fiona’s gorgeous Poppy Doll pattern (such a good pattern!) which was so quick and easy to make that I am looking forward to finding some time to make an actual Poppy doll. I used wool fleece to stuff my doll which was a great choice for something that needed a strong form and not much squish. Even so, I had to stablise her neck with half a paddle pop stick and it still has wrinkles (grr).

Off to have a coffee (my best friend).

Tomorrow we are off to Byron Bay but I am going to auto-publish next week’s What’s Hot and What’s Not on Wednesday so join me then – hopefully the widget works. xx

Another Wednesday, another rundown of what’s hot and what’s not at Chez McCluskey-Robbo. This week I’m trying something new. If you feel like doing your own What’s Hot + What’s Not, add your post’s url to the little widget at the bottom of this post so that we can all pop by and see what’s hot and what isn’t at your place. I hope it works!

What’s HOT

Being home again: After two weeks in the country it’s nice to be back in the ‘burbs. I spent a lot of time while we were away thinking about ways we could possibly move to an old farmhouse in the country, but coming home to our cosy house and a garden green and running rampant from the rain, I find myself feeling pleased and settled.

Holiday reading: Phil and I are off to Byron Bay next week for our long-planned *escape from reality* and these are the three books (above) I am packing… well… we are only going for four nights so I might have to choose just one, but I am excited about all three. The Time Traveler’s Wife was my favourite book from last year’s reading so Audrey Niffenegger’s new one is exciting. I love Nick Hornby and I love the premise of Juliet, Naked: a novel. I am still enjoying A Fraction of the Whole in all its wandering craziness.

Light evenings:  Summer’s a coming, and the time change is already making the evenings seem longer. The hour missing from the morning is a little harder to come to terms with.

One of my favourite clients ever has a gift/stationery company with a new online shop selling fabulous products – how CUTE are these pop-up activity place mats!?

Photos of homes on Dos Family and The Selby. A little like online Paumes books: lovely inspiration from the homes of real and interesting people.

Permablitz – “Eating the Suburbs, Once Backyard at a Time”: What a great idea – sign up to take part in overhauling backyards into permaculture paradises and after you have helped out in at least two other working-bees, you are eligible for a permablitz at your house. So good – Why have a water-sucking lawn when you can produce your own organic food?

Kirsty’s X Marks the Spot tutorial – and I just bought the kit.

What’s NOT

A virus from the country : Amelia, Lily and I are all sick sick sick. It’s a nasty virus which has meant we have had 3am trips to the country hospital to treat croup, a trip to the doctor to get antibiotics for ear infections and many sleepless nights. While I love little children, the one thing I am looking forward to about them growing a little older is the idea that we might not spend the months of March to October fighting off every single virus that comes our way.

Related: giving eye drops to a three year old. NOT hot at all. Takes two of us to do it and it’s awful.

Gourmet and Cookie Magazines closing down: Oh so sad! Am I choosing the worst time in recent history to be considering getting my freelance illustration business up and going again?

STUFF: We’ve got too much of it. Coming home to a house full of messy rooms;  cheap plastic toys strewn about the place, piles of washing needing folding and sorting, and a studio full of out-of-control rubbish waiting to be turned into projects was a little depressing. While we were away the kids seemed to do just fine with very limited amounts of play-stuff. A box of old blocks, cotton reels and wooden pegs went a long way. I have been sulking around the house, crunching lost and forgotten items underfoot, saying “how much of this *crap* do we really need?”.  Anyway, it’s got me thinking and I can feel one of those massive purge projects coming on. That might be followed by one of my evangelical “no spend” projects which may (or may not) coincide with Christmas. If it does coincide, that can only be a good thing, as I would say that 90% of the lost and forgotten and broken junk lying around comes from the stockings of Christmas Past.

What’s hot and not at your place?