I lived on the river at New Farm for just over eight years and now I am back on dry land at Woollongabba, I miss the river. A lot.
So I sometimes head down the river on the citycat or the ferry.
And although as you know I love to travel. The Brisbane River always seems like home.
The best part about the whole fancy Iphone thing is of course now I have a little nifty camera in my handbag.
I snapped these photos of the city from a little ferry that was crossing the river (jazz music on the radio and all!) on a very, very hot, hazy, lazy day a few weeks ago. Phew! I was baking on that trip!
You can follow my river journeys on Instagram using the profile name @penelopeandpip.
We’d love to meet you on Instagram too! (Ain’t technology amazing).
Hello everyone and Happy New Year!
We are back from our annual holiday, rested, relaxed and very happy, ready to tackle an exciting new year full of adventure, new illustrations, lots of tutorials and photo projects and inspiration from all sorts of lovely places.
As you know, we jetted off to a month in the Northern Hemisphere at the beginning of December and I have much news to tell you of our adventures and a lot of photos to share.
The above photo was taken on a very cold but very beautiful night in Paris and I have to say that Paris was my favourite place on our trip as to my surprise the Eiffel Tower wasn’t the only sparkly thing I saw!
We hope that everyone has had a relaxing Christmas break and we look forward to sharing our little world of whimsy with you again this year.
Sometimes my day job takes me to places I can’t believe I am in.
This week I went camping with 46 sixteen year olds. Yes. You read that correctly!
We walked on the beach at sunrise.
We saw beautiful clouds. Lonely trees. And squished our feet in the sand.
And one of my students gave me the most beautiful lilies (my favourite) just to say “thanks”.
Blessed? Yes.
P.S. Can you tell I have discovered Instagram? Come join in the fun and follow us here.
Oh my goodness, we are so excited about these markets!
Not only are we going to be selling our wares next to our market idols Bespoke Letterpress, Kimono Reincarnate and Paper Boat Press, but we get to hang out at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art.
If you are in beautiful Brisvegas this weekend, pop on over to the South Bank Parklands and say hello!We will have lots of fabric, prints and cards for sale.
Sunshine, art, design, Christmas shopping, gallery hopping – what an amazing day it will be.
P.S. Trevor even made it onto the Gallery’s promotional postcards! Yay!
I love grand adventures.
And I love snow.
I have been skiing every year since I was sixteen (that is a lot of years!) and the magic of the white wonderland that is a snowcapped peak has never lost its allure.
This Christmas, Pete and I are off on a grandest adventure yet. We are traveling many thousands of miles away from our little home to a place inside the Arctic Circle. Here we will hopefully be able to look into the sky and see nature’s most beautiful light show – the Aurora Borealis.
We are crossing our fingers that we get a sneak peak or two at this amazing phenomenon (they are a bit elusive after all), and while I am waiting with bated breath for the wonderment of this experience, I have to confess that just being in the snow will be enough for me. A light show on top of that? Well, that will be the icing on our Christmas cake…
[photo: skiing the peak of Mt Hutt, New Zealand, 2190m, 2009]
The Finders Keepers Markets are amazing. Located in The Old Museum in Brisbane, an historic, gorgeous building with super high ceilings and beautiful brickwork, these markets are a haven for handmade crafts.
They are organised by Brooke and Sarah of Follow in Sydney (another must do if you are traveling in those parts!) and in Brisbane, they also have a wonderful coordinator, the beautiful Alischa of Bespoke Letterpress. I admire how these girls run their own businesses and devote time to helping local emerging designers, artists and crafters share their wares.
We have been very lucky to have our own pop up shop at The Finders Keepers, however, this time around we were just shopping and snapping some photos to share.
Here are some of the highlights and some of my lovely crafty friend’s shops.
Marcello Neckwear | www.etsy.com/shop/marcelloneckwear
I met Nikki from The Encouragement Award (below) last weekend at The Bowerbird Bazaar. And she is friends with Toby (above) from Marcello Neckwear. Oh Brisbane, you are such a small town!
The Encouragement Award | www.encouragementaward.com
Nikki’s hats are pretty special. You really should buy one – it is almost summer you know!
Emma Leonard | bonesbraidsandatricycle.blogspot.com
How cute is Emma with her vintage scarf. I am seriously artistically envious of her work.
Top row: Brooke from Follow
Okay, confession time. I bought the necklace top left. Yes, I should be saving for the holidays – but I really couldn’t walk by! Thanks Brooke.
Frankie Magazine |www.frankie.com.au
It is no secret I adore Frankie and the girls always have a gorgeous stall. And they have a magazine devoted to design, art, fashion and literature. And they have beautiful diaries and calenders and cookbooks. And lollies. And vintage clothes. Yes, it is heaven!
Top left: Herbert & Friends | Top right: Ra Ra Superstar | Bottom: Pannikan
Torunn’s soft toys and cushions are so beautiful! And Holly’s little illustrative pieces from Pannikan are really inspiring to a fellow artist like me. I also loved Ra Ra Superstar’s bows – so colourful and sweet.
Loving Lauren Carney’s little people all hanging up in a row! And I spotted some more fellow Brisbane artists – (bottom photo) Amanda and Colin from Hungry Designs.
I also adore Sharon Muir’s ceramic owls.
We were pretty chuffed to be asked by Kirsteene from Etsy to display one of our prints. Her stall looked amazing! If you haven’t introduced yourself to Kirsteene, you can drop by here.
Top: Kimono Reincarnate brooches | Bottom: Your Organ Grinder brooches
Mel from Kimono Reincarnate is a bit of an inspiration for me. She “gave up her day job” ages ago which makes me think I don’t have any excuses!
I was also very excited to meet Simmone from Your Organ Grinder. One of her little brains in jars was my first purchase on Etsy.
Top: Bespoke Zine | Bottom: Seam Magazine
Oh my! Not one, but two local independant magazines!
I was already familiar with the amazing Jess and her team from Bespoke as I purchase it each month, but I was super excited to meet the girls from Seam. Yes, yes, yes to more independent art and style reads!
[P.S We spotted one of our cards on the Bespoke table. Thanks sweet Jess!]
Okay, more confessions to make. I purchased these two cute little vases from Shannon Garson. So lovely! Also, when I was taking the middle photo above of the beautiful bangles from Emerald Green Submarine it was so lovely to hear customers buying one for each other for Christmas – such a sweet idea.
You probably have seen The Gently Unfurling Sneak (middle photo) at previous Finders Keepers. But Anika had lots of lovely new illustrations and wearable art – you can sneak a peek here.
Kindling were selling these gorgeous spotty numbers as well which would look very cute with one of bRainbow’s toucan necklaces.
And finally – some much loved finds for the day…
Top: Paper Boat Press | Middle: Bespoke Letterpress | Bottom: Renee Treml
Gorgeous ceramics from Kylie at Paper Boat Press make me smile every time I see them (I have a few in my collection too!). Alischa’s beautiful designs at Bespoke Letterpress are stunning as always. And Renee’s artwork looked amazing on her new necklaces.
Thanks Finders Keepers for a lovely day!
What an amazing weekend we have just had! A few months ago we were very lucky to be accepted to have our own little pop up shop at The Bowerbird Bazaar. We have just spent three wonderful days in the company of some pretty special people, selling our wares to lots of lovely shoppers in Adelaide.
We arrived on Friday lunchtime with our new display in tow and lots of bunting. The building where the markets were located was an old abandoned theatre and the space was so perfect for lots of lovely creative types to get together.
We were situated next to the super sweet Nickki and her mum Annette from The Encouragement Award. Nikki is not only a very talented dressmaker and milliner extraordinaire, but one of the funniest people I have met in a long time. The weekend sped by thanks to lots of laughs between our stalls.
And of course I did some purchasing! Some lovely Christmas ornaments from my friend Kylie at Paper Boat Press and a gorgeous ceramic bowl from Georgia Gabrielle and a little surprise for someone special from Kristina Brenke.
I am always in awe of the organisation and hard work that goes into creating beautiful markets and am very thankful to Rebekah Cichero and Jane Barwick for giving me the change to showcase my prints and fabric to a whole new audience!
If you missed out on sneaking a peek at all of the handmade goodness on offer, you can check out some lovely pics by Alicia over at her very cool blog Atypical Type A (Thanks Alicia for stopping by to say hello!).
And if you live in Adelaide and missed out on buying some Penelope and Pip goodness, you can now stop by Galleria 131 to purchase your own little print. Yay!
I am finally sorting through my photographs from my holiday in Berlin earlier this year. I spent fours days by myself just searching, exploring, visiting museums, art galleries, shops (Oh Berlin you know how to show a girl a good time) and eating – mostly currywurst.
Looking at these images bought home to me the profound amazement I had while wandering through the streets of this incredible city. It was nothing as I imagined. At times it felt cold. At times it felt deeply rooted in its turbulent past, yet always tugging away underneath was this sense that Berlin is going places other cities only dream of – culture, art, philosophy and warmth abound. And everywhere – people in love with their home town.
My first day in Berlin I walked for 13 straight hours and had my legs not started to seriously ache – I could easily have walked some more.
I can’t wait to go back and explore.
Today we have a special treat! A tour inside our studio. Our little creative space is located all the way down in the Southern Hemisphere in a very pretty city called Brisbane. We are on the East Coast of Australia, just a hop, skip and a jump from some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Picture a tropical climate, a relaxed lifestyle and lots of long daylight hours just waiting to be filled with creative endeavours!
My lovely Pete built this studio space for me when we renovated our house. It is filled with all sorts of sweet things from family, friends and fellow artists.
(Pictured above: a poster from the very amazing Australian magazine Frankie – if you haven’t checked out Frankie magazine, you need to now!)
I am an avid traveler – my favourite destination this year has been Berlin. You can see a postcard I sent home above with some amazing Berlin street art.
You can also sneak a peek at my brother’s and sister and I at Disneyland. I think I was about seven at the time – it was such a lovely holiday and this is my favourite photo of the four of us.
There is a vintage Humpty Dumpty cup where I keep my most used pens, a house I purchased from the amazing The Little Red Door, a brain in a jar from a fellow Brisbanite Your Organ Grinder and an apple I made using some of our Pastel Cats in Bowler Hats fabric.
Our workspace is quite cosy – usually there are two furry cats lazing on the floor somewhere (they were a bit camera shy today!).
I love to surround myself with work from other artists as inspiration as well. On the wall above you can see an illustration Pete bought me at the first ever markets I did – a Courtney Brims print (yes, another Brisbane girl!). A very cute photograph by fellow Etsian Zime, a gorgeous necklace hanging underneath that from my friend Chrissy Foreman Cranitch – a textile artist whom I very much admire, and one of Ashley G‘s ceramic pendants.
And our “The Juggler Extraordinaire” print ready to be shipped off to Laura (thanks Laura!).
Some books (I love reading) and a vintage pin cushion my Aunty bought back from China for me when I was a young girl – it is one of my most precious artefacts!
And as much as I love to travel. There really is no place I’d rather be.
Then in my little studio, drawing, dreaming and creating – in a space built just for me.
Follow Us!