Do you have an obsession for all things clay? The other day I took some photos of some of the ceramic collections I have dotted around my home, and wrote about them here, on the Country Style blog. Perhaps you can relate.

xx

I know it’s not a revolutionary idea, and I realise most of you figured I should have done this a long time ago but here it is, enfin, my very own online bookstore so that you can buy a signed copy of My Heart Wanders, Amsterdam: Made by Hand or Paris: Made by Hand any time you like, delivered anywhere in the world.

You’ll notice on the sidebar of the blog there is a button called “THE BOOKSHOP”. You can click on that whenever you’d like copies of the books sent to friends as gifts or of course for yourself. Each book can be signed if you leave a note in the comments section of your order, and each book will be wrapped in brown paper and string. No doubt with a little dried flower from my garden attached to it.

In celebration of finally opening a permanent online bookshop, I thought you might like to learn about the design of My Heart Wanders and how I came to create some of the pages. Those who have the book will know now that with the help and guidance of head book designer Vivien Valk, I designed each double page spread uniquely (in other words, there were no templates involved) as I wanted each page to be an artwork in itself, and for the book to be something that you could open at any random page and find inspiration within each single page of illustrations, images and text. With over 300 pages, there is much to explore and discuss about how it all came to be…

I hope you’ll enjoy this little series of posts. And I hope you will visit THE BOOKSHOP soon. Merci mes amis, have a wonderful weekend!

xx

PS I should mention that I haven’t had the time to put shipping costs in place for every country in the world, but each continent is covered so if you live in a country that doesn’t have a shipping cost in place, just look for the nearest country and use that (just be sure to enter your exact shipping details), otherwise send me an email and I’ll invoice you directly. The shipping is expensive to send books from Australia, unfortunately there is nothing I can do about that but each will be signed and wrapped by me so I hope that will count for something. x

what: faraway treasures. where: in my new home. why: they’re pretty

I’ve only a few more boxes to unpack. phew.

xx

PS if you like, you can click on the image above to see a bigger version with captions.

…it’s adorable. I found this pretty embroidered silk number in a little vintage boutique earlier this year, in a sweet seaside town outside of Sydney where my dear friend Jenni lives. We saw it together, both fell in love with it and spent the following moments passing it from one to another “no you have it”, “no you saw it first, you should have it” “no no, you have it”. Jenni insisted I take it, so I did. And now it lives with me here in Amsterdam. It’s a lovely summer bag, and even though I don’t get to use it much here in the north, I have it hanging on a hook in my bedroom where I can see it everyday and think of my dear friend.

For the past few weeks I’ve been looking into the best way to scan some negatives which I brought back with me from Sydney at the beginning of the year – just a small bunch of old and somewhat recent film,  images that I’d like to include in my upcoming book (commonly referred to as the book). First I asked all my photographer friends here if they had a neg scanner  – I figured at least one of them would have one since they all used to shoot film back in the day. But alas, no! Which was interesting. Then I looked online to see if any of my local photography shops scanned negs, but I also checked out the prices of neg scanners while I was at it.  Long story short, after getting a hefty quote for scanning a few negs I thought it worth investing in a neg scanner of my own as I’d like to start shooting film again soon. Yesterday the neg scanner arrived in the mail and even though it took a while to set up, I soon got the hang of it by scanning a few random negatives from my neg folders.  What is no doubt much more interesting to you though, is what I found among those random negatives: a spoon.

This spoon is possibly my favourite spoon of all time. I haven’t seen it for years, and I’m not even sure if it still exists. I think – I hope –  it is in my storage unit back in Sydney. It has a history which probably dates back to before my ownership of it, but its history with me is special: I bought it about ten years ago , possibly at a flea market,  when I had my store. And then when I opened the teahouse I put it on display there, behind the counter, resting on a little nail in the wall. However one of the staff knocked it unfortunately, and it broke. But I loved it too much to get rid of it. So I bound the two broken pieces rather crudely with some metal wire (time was of the essence back then) and over the years it fused together with rust. I must have taken a photo of it at some point in the last decade with my canon ae-1 and now, all the way over here in my home away from home, I have been reunited with my spoon again via this photo. Today, thanks to this spoon, this photograph,  I am inspired.

xx

PS This is the original photo scanned straight from negative, untouched, unaltered. I just love it. I might have to find a place for this photo in the book I think.

PPS I still think about opening another teahouse one day. I know it’s crazy since the last one nearly killed me, but I do think I’d do it soooo much better this time and really, how many cafés out there know how to make a proper chai these days? I need to bring back the chai.

PPPS I want to say thank you to everyone who has been leaving such luscious compliments about my writing of late. I can’t tell you how much that means to me since the book is filled with such writings, and your encouragement inspires me everyday. So, thank you.