... onwards.

So, I'm pretending that we aren't in fact moving house anytime soon, and have decided to Get On With It. I'm feeling better already. The studio is vacuumed (it was disgraceful, the floor had been almost obscured by shredded paper and plaster dust for months. There were a few alarming rattles up the vacuum hose but I guess I'll figure out what they were when I go looking for that tool and can't find it.) and the room is feeling again like a productive workspace rather than a niggling job on my cleaning list.

To celebrate, I've been making some more mess! I've been meaning to expand on my seedpod wall hanging range ever since, a while back, I found a tiny sweet pine cone among my grandmother Mard's seedpods, which she collected on her travels around Australia with my grandfather. Followers of Kuberstore on Instagram will start to see the emergence of a pine cone theme.

Along with the pine cone, which I thought might mould up nicely, I recently found a handsome and suitable gumnut that I thought might also work. This morning I busted out some Pinkysil and went for it. I'm still in love with Pinkysil as a mouldmaking material - it sets so fast that you can go from 'no mould' to 'removing first casting' within an hour. Suits my impatient soul!

Inbuilt mould identification for the first time ever! I wish I'd thought of this before now, because I often find myself squinting into similarly-shaped moulds to try and figure out which one I want. This time I wrote (backwards) into the base layer of plasticene with a sharp pencil before pouring the silicone. Yay!

It's so exciting to crack open a mould for the first time and see the cast result. Double joy for me this morning!

 Pine cones and gumnuts... and wall hangings to come. Progress! AT LAST!

... on hair. Grey bits, and Something I have just learned.

I found my first grey hair at age seventeen, with a predictable degree of disgust. For a few years I experimented with as much hair colourant as any young woman, veering from almost-blonde to darkest-brown, with a rather risque peroxide and mulberry streaking period sometime in the 90s when I was a hair model for a girl I worked with. I found, like many young women, that dyeing your hair all the time really screws it up, and the only way back to nice hair (for me) is to grow it out, which takes ages. So, I haven't dyed my hair for years, and I have to say that I've enjoyed having hair in my 'natural' colour - generally brunette: darker brown at the roots, with degrees of sun-bleaching about the ends which may or may not in some lighting conditions look a bit reddish. And grey, of course. They've been multiplying happily ever since that first grey at seventeen. Scrutinising this photo of me and Ollie the other day prompted me have another look at the back of my head with the aid of two mirrors. As you do.

I made an interesting discovery. Some of those greys are as long as the longest hairs on my head, which at the moment is hanging at around the middle of my back. I'd never noticed that before. I also realised that as far as the placement of greys goes, I'm starting to develop concentrated areas of greyness that may be described as... streaks. Yes, grey streaks.

Now, I started loving my greys years ago. As a twenty-four year old I'd been introduced to a girl, only just older than me, who had developed a strong grey streak in her fringe, and she was rocking the look. I was in deep admiration of her grey streak, and it changed the way I felt about my own regrowth. I thought that, over the course of a (hopefully long) lifetime, a girl really only has a short time to enjoy her natural hair colour before it goes grey, and chances are it'll be grey a lot longer than any other colour it ever was. So, I chose to enjoy. I'm sure some women can dye the hell out of their hair and suffer no adverse effects - not me. I'm not saying I'll never hit the bottle again, but for now, no.

Anyway, I'll be forty next year, something that I can scarcely believe. Another thing I can't believe is this little snippet about long hair care which I've only just discovered. I had thought that my hair had a 'maximum length' (for me, about mid-back), where it just wouldn't get any longer before shedding and breakage and regrowth somehow cancelled each other out. Then recently - a revelation. I don't remember where I read it, but it was about how you get water out of your hair. I've always been a bit of a 'throw hair forward, cover with towel and scrub the blazes out of it' type of girl, and it turns out this could be the cause of my problem with (ahem) breakage. I feel so dimwitted about this. Apparently long hair needs to be treated gently! Huh? Squeeze the water out! NO scrubbing with a towel! NO! Such a simple thing. WHO KNEW!?

Not me.

... on packing, or not packing, and somewhere inbetween.

A little while ago I mentioned that we're moving house. At the time it seemed like the most imminent thing but due to one thing or another (more like 'one thing AND another, and then many more other things') it just hasn't happened yet. What with the holiday season and a long delay to a certain process (we're waiting on YOU, concrete-floor man!) it seems that my builder's maxim ("Double the time you think it will take and you'll be halfway there") is ringing true for us moving house, too.

I feel a little bit in limbo. I've been hesitant to get too involved in making anything, and my Etsy store remains closed for the moment. There's a number of piles of weeks-old half-started things on my worktable, and this sits awkwardly with me. Small hurdles seem insurmountable (WHY can't I drill right through one of my plaster eggs without breaking the bit, damnit?!) and the idea of packing up my lovely studio weighs heavily. I feel like I've only just moved in to it, although it's been more than a year. The as-yet-unpainted bathroom door mocks me somehow - I'll need to do that (insurmountable!) before we get our little house on the market. The garden here is running a bit rampant in parts, and is desiccated and bare in others. After all, there's not too much point in getting more vegies going when we'll be leaving them, is there? My gardening head is already thinking forward to the removal of weeds and sunburnt bromeliads at the next house.

So, as someone who doesn't really embrace change all that willingly, the stalling of this one has put me out of kilter with the things that are most good for my soul!

But, on account of the fact that it is suddenly February already, I'm feeling like I need to take control of this wait somehow. My Ma has suggested that I reopen my Etsy store, and pack up most of the studio, leaving out only the things I need to fill any orders that may come through. It seems so simple, but I needed someone else to point it out!

If anyone has any advice about how to manage indecision, running a handmade business through a house (and studio) move, and also about a vague and persistent lack of focus, please do share! I'd be greatly appreciative!

... on a mystery, solved!

Quite some time ago I wrote about finding these seedpods, which I then made a mould from and began casting. The resulting plaster versions have been featuring on one of my wall hangings ever since, but when people asked me, I had to admit that I didn't know what kind of a tree they were from.

I'd posted the question on an Australian plant forum, where it was suggested to be an immature Crow's Ash seedpod, which I thought was a possibility until I found a tree in the park and saw what the young pods looked like.

Crow's Ash (Flindersia australis) seedpods. The large open one was collected by my grandmother Mard somewhere on her travels, and the small one is an immature pod that I found beneath a tree in the Seventeen Mile Rocks park on the bank of the Brisbane River.

At the Finders Keepers market, one visitor said they looked just like bitter melon, and they do, a little... except bitter melon are green and large and the mystery seedpods were woody and small. No go.

It's funny - sometimes if you wait long enough, the answer to an old question will just... appear.

On my morning walk yesterday I took a route that I hadn't been along for some months. I was halfway up a particularly vicious hill, bordered on one side by a patch of bushland. As there was no footpath and the side of the road was gravelly and rutted, I was watching where I put my feet. Suddenly, among the spiny lantana branchlets grabbing at my socks, I saw a woody seedpod. It had opened up into three parts, but I could see that it had five lobes, and a rough exterior texture like my mystery pods. I peered up at the tree above, a towering rainforest-y type with large leaves and a smooth, mottled trunk. Could it be?

The mystery seedpod is as big as my hand... but what IS it?

Although Google had previously been no help to me, now I had some more information. I knew it was a tall rainforest tree native to Brisbane. I found a comprehensive list at Greening Australia, and started at the top. Some of the species had photographs of their fruit or seedpods, but for those that didn't I searched the scientific name in Google images. That's where I struck gold. My tree, with my pods. HURRAH! It's Queensland Maple! Flindersia brayleyana!

The interior of the Queensland Maple (Flindersia brayleyana) seedpod has the most wonderful texture - silky and papery and yet somehow woody at the same time.

I was on the right track with the Crow's Ash, even though they look like such different trees (and such different immature pods), as they both turned out to be Flindersia. I am so delighted to finally know what this is, and extra-happy that it's a Brisbane local!

Mystery solved. At last!

... on Christmasness and the coming year.

You know, I breathed a sigh of relief after my final market for the year. Unpacking the car for that last time felt like... like when you're finally on holidays from school, and they've been a long time coming! Don't get me wrong - I have enjoyed taking Kuberstore to the various markets this year, but I have to add that they wore me out in more ways than one, and I think this is why Christmas crept up on me this year. The house was unadorned until only a few days before, and I'm ashamed to say that this is the first year that I can remember that I haven't managed to send any christmas cards out. I'm more disappointed than I expect about this, because I did try! Making my christmas cards had, until this year, been an annual joy for me, but this time my first idea failed badly, and my second even more so, and then it was all too late and the whole lot sat in an accusing pile on my workbench until yesterday, when I chucked them out. But I have missed the rest of the process - the writing, the envelope-sealing, the addressing, stamp-affixing and the dropping-into-a-postbox. Perhaps some 'Merry January' cards might be in order?

But the past few weeks have seen rather a lot of company and a mild case of overeating rich foods - I feel like I would like to just eat plain lettuce for a while. A christmas tree was out of the question, given the interest it would generate in our monstrous teenage cat, so the Airspeed fan was bedecked, which was mostly-out-of-reach. Mostly.

A trip to the Rocklea flower markets a few days before Christmas saw me coming home laden with armloads of New Zealand christmas bush, and some of those bunches of northern-hemisphere-type festive greens that enlivened the house (and the cat) and filled up every vase I have. Their smell, drying slowly, made me think of snow, which was a good mental antidote to the heat here in Brisbane. I took refuge in our little air-conditioned house and also in the odd night away at my Ma's place at Currumbin, where ocean swims were had and my newfound interest in Instagram was indulged. Instagram is fun, isn't it?

Christmas itself was calm and foodful. Ma and I had our annual prawnfest on Christmas eve, and family came for breakfast on Christmas morning. C smoked out the neighbours (and alas, my washing that I'd forgotten was on the line) with the barbeque. Oliver-the-kitten (who was born on Christmas day) turned one.

"Me? Pull down your christmas decorations? Not me!" Yeah right.

Now, though, the greenery is in the compost heap and all the sparkly things are packed away. My home-made mint creams are all gobbled up, and the recycling bin is clinky with bottles!

I do always look forward to a new year, as it's a time of list-making and mental clearing-out, both things very good for my soul. It'll also involve an actual clearing-out for us, because we'll be moving house. It'll be sad to leave our little house here at Oxley, and I'll miss my lovely studio like mad, I suspect. But there's a room put aside for me at the new house at The Gap, which I'll report upon soon. For now... think termites, bagged eighties bessa-block, shagpile carpet and never... been... cleaned. But also... a great outlook and a big old pool that's like swimming in a sandy lagoon. Aaaah!

Happy New Year, all!

... on eggs. Real ones!

I've got a few eggs to show you. A while back there were some mickies nesting in the wattle tree out the front, and one day, soon after tiny whistlings started coming from the nest, I found an egg on the ground. It was almost-intact, save for a small hole in one side, and it must have been shoved out of the nest as a dud. 

Then, another bunch of mickies nesting at my Ma's place. They'd built in a hanging branch of a paperbark tree, quite low to the ground, and it contained three of their lovely brown-speckled eggs. A few days later though, my Ma reported that the nest must have been raided by a bigger bird, for the eggs were gone (as were the mickies) and the nest was hanging crookedly from the branch. Did I want the nest? Oh yes please!

Can you see the wonderful stuff they've used to pad the nest? I'd seen a few nests where the birds have sourced fluffy building insulation to use, which is generally white or grey, but these mickies have found some two-toned synthetic green material, and used that. 

There has been some interesting chicken egg action around here lately. Normally my Pekin bantam girls lay white-to-pale-brown solid-coloured eggs, but have at look at this delight that awaited me in the nestbox recently. 

A speckled egg! There has been only one, and I have my suspicions that it's the result of some antibiotics that I have been giving Ginger, trying to combat an ongoing case of bumblefoot. Isn't it special? (Ginger is much better, too!)

Lastly, a couple of oddities.

That big egg at the back is a regular Pekin bantam egg. The little white one in front is an end-of-the-season egg from my Ma's English Game hen, Major Hoolihan. The tiny brown one to the right there is a bit special because it's come all the way from Stanthorpe, through the mail, from fellow BrisStyle member, Sarah. I believe the egg came from friends of hers, and it's extra-special because it's the very first egg one of their bantams has laid. Shortly I'll make moulds of those two wee eggs, and see what happens next!

... on Finders Keepers... far out!

Oh my goodness. It feels like about three weeks since Friday afternoon, and yet the weekend flew by, too. I'm not sure that's possible, but it feels true to me right now! The studio is a shambles, the car is as-yet not unpacked, my feet are sore but I'm smiling, still!

In case anyone missed it, Kuberstore was a debutante at this past weekend's Brisbane Finders Keepers market. To me, Finders Keepers is a big deal. It's only on twice a year, and it's been something I've aspired to ever since I first visited one. The stalls are always so beautiful, and there's a cornucopia of desirable things on offer. If you have the stamina you can do just about all your christmas shopping in one hit, as you hone your ducking-and-weaving skills amongst the mad crowd.

What a fabulous weekend! I had a wonderful spot beside some beautiful red brick arched doors on the veranda of the Old Museum, and the only problem was my stock of paper bags running dangerously low on Saturday afternoon. If you had told me beforehand that the number of paper bags I had taken wasn't going to be enough then I would have laughed, because that would have meant that they were going off out into the world in the hands of buyers, filled with Kuberstore things. Well, they did! At 3 on Sunday morning I awoke, worrying about this no-more-bags issue, and got up to fashion some up out of brown paper on the sewing machine!

So. Two days of a pace so frenetic that it verged on nuts. At times I simply couldn't get around the side of my stall to tidy or restock the other end, so it got a little unruly down there. (Note to self for future stall design... ability to access it all from behind!) Lots of chats, and some degree of tablecloth wrangling as they did Monroe skirt impressions in the strengthening breeze! I saw a number of dear friends, (some of whom I hadn't seen for too long) and it was so lovely to spy their familiar faces coming towards me along the crowded veranda. The weather held. It was a long weekend. It was over in a flash. I'd do it again!

Many, many thanks to those who visited, your support and words of encouragement are absolutely cherished. Extra thanks to my Ma for minding the stall while I had a quick break, and to C for that fabulous breakfast you made us on Saturday morning, and everything else, you splendid man!

Three cheers for Finders Keepers! HURRAH!