WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

spring break

On RRR last week Beck and I were talking about school holiday crafts. There are plenty of fantastic old and new crafty books that can inspire even the youngest in the household (sometimes the oldest too!) We admit to being very project oriented people and have probably passed this onto our offspring. So it's no surprise that we've become addicted to kaboose.com.

essentially a good looking parenting website out of the States it has the most comprehensive list of craft projects for children that we have ever seen. Imagine summer camp, boy scouts, kindergarten, 1975, Martha Stewart, and old boys and girls annuals all poured into the one resource that is pretty and functional at the same time. Not just glam styling but the instructions on how to make a paper boat...

...or grow your own herbs out of a tin can. You can search by age group, media, length of project, topic, and seasons. There are lots of printouts for instructions and colouring pages. All the projects are inexpensive and pretty much fool proof. My Thom is obsessed with all things nature so we'll be making pet rocks and coffee filter butterflies. Beck and I get the boys together every week so there will be some shared activities too.

If you don't have kids yourself there is still a lot of inspiration to be found here (especially come Christmas time). How about putting a kit together for nieces, nephews, neighbours or friends kidlets?

Because you are never to young or old to learn that crafting, simply for pleasure, is totally where it's at. RAMONA

CRAP SHOW OF THE WEEK

stinker

The fantastic Helen Round is again curating one of the Fringe Festivals best events the Museum of Particularly Bad Art's Itchiball Award. This event has now been going for 6 years now and the work gets worse every year

There are three things you are alway guaranteed to see at a MOPBA show -unicorns, nudie bits and Elvis.So bad it's good. But like all things, once collected and displayed it does take on a different quality. A sort of melancholia. After all, none of the artists really set out to make bad work, none of us ever do. We can't be that self conscious in our failures or our successes.

Fringe has lots of good stuff on offer. We'll bring you highlights and lowlights as the 3 weeks rolls on. Those of you with Iphones should download the app. Those of you who don't should jump on their website, it's terrific! RAMONA

SHOP OF THE WEEK

c'est magnifique

Ohh la la! While on an epic gallery crawl last Saturday I was directed to level 2 of the Nicholas Building to the amazing L'uccello. One of those shops that just takes your breath away. Crammed with vintage haberdashery, beautiful books, gorgeous craft kits. It was just dreamy. This wasn't your average pretty frou frou either. We're talking proper ricrac, horn buttons, and enough millinery ephemera to make me dream of an elaborate spring hat!

I allowed myself a couple of treats. Some new old buttons for a much loved cardigan and a couple of pretty fat quarters that will probably sit on my bedside table before I work out what to do with them

really dreamy and well worth rambling up and down flights of stairs. Oh I miss the lift ladies on the weekend. RAMONA.

Have a wonderful week!

WHO LISTENS TO THE RADIO

Ramona and I will be doing our monthly report from the Craftiverse live on RRR's Grapevine this morning at 10.30 in the AM. We'll be talking up bad beasts, christmas lists and things to do with toilet rolls and dried pasta with the kids come the school holidays next week. Happy listening peoples! BECK

Dream dress

V magazine Summer 2010

SHOW OF THE WEEK

lucky charm

Opening tomorrow night is the new collaborative exhibition BAD BEASTS DO NOT HARM ME by two of our favourite 'new jewellers' Natalia Milosz-Piekarska and Karla Way. We gasped our first gasp over these ladies works at their RMIT graduate show at 35 Downstairs a couple of years back, immediately identifying them as 'ones to watch'...  Which of course is what we have been doing ever since, and we've been eagerly anticipating this new show since we first saw it come up on the Craft Victoria exhibition calendar. Bad Beasts is a joint "investigating the transcendent and transformative capabilities of materials." Their collective interest in superstition, ritual, divination ritual and belief made manifest in highly personal objects that draws inspiration from the extensive pre/history of jewellery and hollowware. Maybe it's just me but I find the experience of viewing their work reminiscent of that scene in the Blair Witch Project where you first witness the hairy wicker bits hanging in the trees en masse... spooky, dark, increadibly disturbing but utterly compelling. I have been lucky enough to watch the installation come together and couldnt resist taking a few shots to give you all a sneak peak of what you might see tomorrow night. Really and truly one NOT to miss.

BAD BEASTS DO NOT HARM ME
Opening Thursday 9 September, 6-8pm


September 10  until October 17
Gallery 1, Craft Victoria
31 Flinders Lane Melbourne, 3000

REBECCA