Home Festival

On Saturday we were invited to a lovely event called Home Festival in Kangaroo Point's Raymond Park. We arrived late after soccer games and break ups but it was still warm and lively in the long afternoon light. The whole thing was most homely indeed. 

This was the most enjoyable festival I have been to in years. It was much less crowded with a gentle, happy community ambience that really did feel like you were in a congenial host's large back yard. It just shows how a gathering of the local folk can be about fun and music and sustainability without being a money grabbing juggernaut.

There were some particularly homely touches like the clothesline full of art work made in one of the many free workshops for all ages. Yes, I said free. These people were running their festival from the heart with volunteers and friends.

 There was the paper mache bird making stall to create a large installation to be erected as a Bimblebox protest. It looks a bit loaves and fishes nestled away in the basket there.

Of course every back yard needs a cubby house or twenty made from enormous cartons and cardboard and industrious groups of chillun... and quite a few adults.

The back fence was lined with some thought provoking art about our neighbourhood.

There were even mini op shops and...

screen printing workshops to print your own tote and save on the plastics.

 Then there was the obligatory fair fare- snow cones,

 and bicycle powered smoothie makers paid for by the benevolent aunty society.

The hit of the day though had to be the bike bus powered by lots of little legs doing endless laps of the park without it EVER becoming boring. Not a screen in sight!

Some of the local delinquents preferred to loiter at the bus stop indulging in a spot of sugar....

but were eventually enticed into some bike-bussing with the added incentive of holding the gold coin donation tin.

So as they pedalled into the sunset to the merry strains of live Rockabilly and some cheerful rapping, people settled back into sofas and rugs to enjoy a balmy spring evening in the park with like-minded folk ...and it was good.

                               See you there next year. I'll be reminding you when it's on again.

Return of the Op Shop Karma

Lady Di wannabe (aka the Bosnian Orphan, aka Shorty),  and I hit the oppy again last week after a long hiatus. Frankly I haven't been up for it and I felt my opping mojo was perhaps compromised.

Imagine my barely contained excitement when after a brief round of the premises, I spied a WASHING MACHINE box full of vintage fabulousness. In fact it seemed to be from the one nanna source.

 Some had already been sewn into pillowcases with ric rac borders. Another woman was already sorting with trembling fingers. I hoped her two energetic toddlers might melt  down so I could take my turn like a lesser hyena at a kill on the Serengeti.
Op shop etiquette held me back till she looked up with the dilated pupils of a fellow fabric addict and asked me to please take some as she was already out of control and had to put some back. She added, as if to excuse her excitement, "I make bags for the markets."
"At least you don't hoard it in old suitcases like moi-self", I thought silently.

There would be more but for the inexplicable fact that one of Ron and Brian's lovely assistants tottered over and bemoaned the fact that she had to put it all on the shelf and price mark it. So she dragged the huge box of booty away from us with remarkable strength for a seventy + woman. My colleague and I took it as a sign to stop and draw a breath. Besides the toddlers were tired of the cutlery shelf by then. One of hers seemed to be trying to balance a rusty steak knife on his dummy. Another sign.

I have not made a quilt or a patchwork teepee yet as it is still lying in the back of the car under the trombone and euphonium.

Lucky I left the oppy when I did as I found this little group by the cash register. The one on the left is either a dog or a weasel. He is ours and we shall call him Dweazil. The mare-mie and foal are cute but.... 

 ...Bambi trumps horse/ dweazil every time.

There has been more crochet in the endless effort to make a beanie that fits my pin head. Fishy boy got the one on the left and Shorty's got non-bell baubles. She does look a bit like a little teapot with it on but that is, appropriately, one of her favourite songs.

 This small token got painted up in a lairy nail varnish to fulfil a Bitossi yearning. It is the only Bitossi I'll be getting for a while as I am supporting certain doctors' yearnings at the moments rather than my own.

Here it is in situ. The Noahs have left the building.

Paddo Antique Centre Catalogue

So we were going to meet a friend for coffee. It was just Shorty and I and the 6th child, UFO Knee-'em. After three years of being cursed that big hooter now gets me the good parks at Big Boy School.Then we waited for Martha until I realised I had misread the e-mail. Because my brain is full, okay! So we decided to make it a reconnoitre trip for tomorrow's actual meeting.
This is a litany of lovely stuff (or not) just to run your eyes over if you are in Samoa or Darwin or such. Step away from the stools, Annie!
I may have to recheck this little bird thing tomorrow. It's a just a little bit Picasso-esque.
But where is the green glass???
The milk glass is all about. I'm never leaving that stuff in an oppy again, seeing what they charge here. I may open my own stall in this place! That one's for Bungalowgirl although I know you usually do white.
Here's a bit for Scandi Andy although he normally pays no more than $5 for a piece of West Germany. This was about $30.
Duck! I gave a set of three of these away at the garage sale of regret before I went overseas. They had red faceted glass eyes. Appropriately they were bought after a big night out when I was a mere tacker.

These are often at Roy and Brian's.

I got these at the Kawana Lifeline in 2010 for $2. These are $25!
Then she started to channel Marilyn on the air vent...
and began looking for a bambi.
Which one would you have bought her?
The bambi vase started to chat through the glass with other bambis. "Tappity tap, clink", it said.
Once she started lining up the merchandise, I knew our number was up and it was time for a long rainy day sleep.
Back tomorrow I hope!