housin’ & gardenin’

well, i am just over halfway through the 10 day house & garden show and starting to earn my stripes with the long hours!  i thought i would quickly share some snaps i took the other day…

the whimsy stall, opening day

new whimsy t-shirts

whimsy height decal on the homemade cloud screen!

whimsy’s black and white juxtaposed next to the gorgeously polychromatic dodo furniture

the most lusted-after object at the homegrown fair : dodo‘s wingback chair

another stunning dodo chair

the wonderful kids/family cookbook four out of five by chrisandcole.com

the mooi girls

nadia’s vintage cupcake couture stand

another alice-in-wonderland furniture piece from dodo

leaping fox

so, i have been running my whimsy stand at the house & garden show for the past three days, and still another week to go…thus blog posts will be few and far between for the next 7 days but i will do my best to make up for it!

a wonderful leaping critter from fellow fox-lover wolfeyebrows

the giraffe, the tiger & the fox…

introducing the newest addition to the whimsy wall decal family – the height chart.  this will be launched at the durban house & garden show this friday, 24 june (running until 3 july).  anyone not in the area and wanting to order one please contact me…

a coupla “yippee’s!” for whimsy tees

i can hear the approaching hoofbeats of the house & garden show, which opens this friday (24 June).  i am working my fingers to the bone and my little heart is pounding with excitement and anxiety as i rush to get everything ready for the opening.  whimsy will be launching a t-shirt range to test the “market waters” and should it prove a sea-worthy…well, let’s just say i am looking forward to the potential design fun.

“now what?” (boys & girls tee, ages 2 – 10)

“robots”  (boys tee, ages 2 – 10)

“she never wanted to come back down…” (girls tee, ages 2 – 10)

paper-jet pilot (ladies tee: sizes XS – L)

happily homegrown

exactly one week until the house & garden show opens!  i am feverishly designing, glueing, tracing, scribbling & whistling-a-happy-tune into the wee hours each day (and, it seems, night).   the homegrown fair blog is up and running, featuring all the local talent on show…

and very soon…i promise…new whimsy creations will be posted!

wednesday tiger

i thought i would post a little scribble i did this afternoon.  it has been a hectically busy fortnight as i prepare for the house & garden show next week.  i will start revealing some of my new creations as the opening of the show draws nigh!

the art of playing

i was recently introduced to colossal, a wonderful art blog that i spent a good few minutes perusing.  there are such intriguing & awe-inspiring contemporary artworks on this site…here are my 4 immediate favourites that i wish i could have been able to appreciate personally :

this installation entitled I wish you hadn’t asked, a small house that rains nearly 200 litres of water every minute on the inside, was created by creative collective, the glue society.  the public were encourage to enter with a raincoat or without.  artist james dive of the glue society says the work is “about that moment in a relationship when something is said, or done, that can’t be taken back. And the rot sets in.”

armada, jacob hashimoto‘s latest artwork, is a  large-scale kinetic sculpture of suspended sailboats affixed to three gently rolling lever mechanisms that cause the ships to roll gently along invisible waves.   i would love to see this in action…

competitive swinging is an installation by artist paolo salvagione.  the enormous rope swings are installed 5-on-5 in an old gymnasium and the only true goal seems to be who can have the most fun, a competition I think many people in this world often forget to engage in.

and because i am a sucker for hype-realism…the latest painting  byjeremy geddes, a perfect vacuum. wow..

from the depths…

i have been collecting images of jellyfish for a couple of months now.  i love the balletic appearance and elegance of their shapes and slow-shifting movements.

also an interesting fact: the final image is of a jellyfish known as turritopsis nutricula and is revered as “the immortal jellyfish”!  read more…

{images via pinterest & guido mocafico}

house & garden show 2011

exciting news!  whimsy will be participating in this year’s house & garden show in the “homegrown” section.  so if you are in the area, please do pop by and see all the amazing, durbanite stalls.  i will be launching new whimsy ranges and posting about them just before the show opens…

other participants include: cupcake couture, mooi, ikhaya, terry’s art, little mud hut, woodnewz, olivia villet

one can dream…

it is my birthday in just under a month and, in the spirit of things, i thought i would put together a wishlist of my current material lustings…

{a classic swiss army knife}

{the kite day dress}

{mid 180o’s lapis anchor intaglio signet ring}

{arredamenti saporiti bookcase}

{blackbird fly twin lens reflex camera}

{balloon bench, a sculpture created by japanese designer satoshi itasaka}

{this gorgeous bird jacket}

kaleidoscopic creepy-crawlies

i thought would share this entymological find with you.  these amazing insect photographs are from this archive.  in my opinion, marveling at their multifacted, metallic armour is a good way to start any day!

wood & words

i came across these works by brooklyn-based artist & graphic designer scott albrecht on pinterest.  his latest exhibition along the way opens in a fortnight.  i really like his clean-cut, geometric colours and organic use of wood…

a stare of raccoons…

united by a love of graphic design, words and images , a small group of artists founded woop to bring a unique and exciting angle to the fascinating world of collective nouns.  here are the results from this collective of creatives…