and I have to dash to prep for a shoot so i am going to leave it up to today’s soundtrack to do the honours of announcing the countdown, click here to get into the day’s countdown groove.

My Heart Wanders notes: I have been flooded with wonderful submissions and haven’t been able to reply to everyone yet, so don’t worry if you haven’t heard from me, I will try to reply to all by the weekend. Keep those submissions coming!! Also, for all new submissions, can you put your name when labelling your submission as that would make things alot easier. For example write “johnsmith_1” or “sarahp_3”, something like that.

have a wonderful day everyone!

Most mornings, when I am reluctantly waking up from my slumber, I hear water bubble noises around me.
It is a pretty cool way to wake up.
But it gets me thinking, what is under there? What is swimming and diving around me to make those lovely bubble sounds? You’d think that nothing would survive in these Amsterdam canals, but I can tell you there is a whole world under there. I know the noises I hear are probably from slimy slippery eels, but I prefer to think there are these funny looking seahorses, blowing little heart shaped bubbles up to the surface to wake me up. What do you imagine could be making these bubble sounds?

(13 days to deadline!)

if you are in sydney, you must not miss this sale tomorrow in newtown! I used to stock Gaia organic baby wear in my store, and the designer Annette and I became good friends. Her designs are so gorgeous, she set a new trend in baby wear with her little kimono style outfits and i always purchase a few of her items for the newborns in my life (um, oops, speaking of which I owe little elliott and sahraa some gaia outfits! coming soon my little cherubs!) Let Annette and her team know I sent you, say hello from me, and tell her I’ll be placing my order very soon!

If you are in some other part of the world and can’t make the sale, then check out the Gaia website here. Be warned that you will want to purchase everything you see, so go for it! And stay tuned for more about Gaia as I will be giving you an ‘interior inspiration’ exclusive of Annette’s home in coming days.

…bloglines, blogcatalog, de.l.i.c.i.ou.s (where do all the dots go?!), or flickr. I don’t know how to rss feed something, and I have no idea what technorati is.

Are you surprised to hear this raw and awful truth? me too. it’s embarrassing to admit and right now my cheeks are flushed fuchsia.

BUT. what I have become familiar with is etsy. now i know most of you must be asking yourselves, “how ancient is this woman?!”, but look, here is the story…

Us stylists (any of you out there, lots of head nodding and “right on sista!” would be helpful here), we are more what you’d call “shop stalkers”: I mean, we have only just learnt that you can locate a shop by looking it up in the yellow pages on the internet, all this time we’ve been lugging the hard copy around on the front seat of our car along with our baby wipes, fabric samples, and multitude of tape measures (yes I’m looking at you jboo).

And, well, we have our faves (I’ve already mentioned this one and this one with plenty more to come), so we usually go straight to them when we know what we need, and then branch out from there.

My plan, I must reveal, has been to use the (blog)house as my branch. So as I find interesting items that I think will come in handy for shoots, I blog about them, for two reasons – first to support small businesses because g.o.d knows how much I know how much this is necessary; and secondly as a personal ‘pia’ pages (yes sorry ‘yellow’, you have been thrown out the window) for myself and my friends to refer to. Some stylists are known to hold on to their secret boutiques and craftspeople like it is gold, but I’ve never been one of them.

are you getting the gab of my gib now? good. so on and upward with who and what are among my favourites in etsy!

FOR ME:

I want this bag from Rome-based designer ninù. Check out her other awesome designs here.

The Lulu Satchel from Tennessee designer Erica Bazile. Beautifully made. Stylish. Classy. Funky. And all that.

FOR THE BUBS IN MY LIFE:

I don’t know what a windsee is, but I love Rita! and her friends Bettee, Bobee, and June – all handmade form vintage fabrics by Canadian-born, Melbourne-dweller One Girl. She also has a blog which is pretty cool.

Sofia Barão has added this sweet little number to her etsy shop. I think it would be perfect in a baby’s room.

& FOR ME, AGAIN:

Lovely Marie has just opened her very own boutique! It’s called Tissu and is fast becoming sold out with her first items (yes I left a bit of a dint after buying a couple of her beautiful crochet pins and garland, sorry guys but first in first served!).

So I hope you’ve enjoyed this first segment of:

You will also find an etsy category here now so you can check out my etsy favourites at any time. Happy Etsying!

from liz at wishful thinking.

from Jennifer at Odette.

from erin and her hairy legged friend at Design For Mankind.

and the countdown continues! only two weeks away to deadline!

click here to read more about it and follow the links to send your submission. Many submissions came through this weekend, thank you all! xx