Hand-writing.

I found myself last week, while in transit somewhere, accidently putting appointments into my iPhone. I never intended to become this type of person. A type-writer. As convienient as an iPhone may be for organising every facet of one's life, I do not want to stop writing with real ink on a blank page. Notes to myself, lists, things to do. Blank paged notebooks, diaries and journals are lovely tactile things that should be treasured.

Check out rebound books.... http://www.reboundbooks.net/

They take old unloved books (that are likely to end up in landfill) and recreate them as new and beautiful using 100% recycled paper. Now given a new life, the books can be filled with thoughts, sketches, shopping lists, ideas or photos of your own. Each Rebound Book is handmade, each cover is unique, each page is hand cut and each binding is closed by hand.

Keep Cup

Beacuse I don't make enough money selling trinkets, I also work as a barista in Newtown.

I love this great new product called 'keep cup', its super cute and very practical. You can customise your own, and they are made from recyclable plastic.

Read more and buy one http://www.keepcup.com.au

When I grow up, I want to be a designer. I'm trying already, actually. To both grow up as well as be a designer. I studied jewellery and object design, where I learnt how to technically and conceptually transform an idea sucessfully into being. To transform raw creativity and a flippant thought into a usable, wearable, tactile object. I learnt how to hustle my wares. Where, how, using what marketing techniques and when. People will buy anything if it is packaged in the right way. There is a market for everything. Whatever crap you are merchandising, if you stick it in the right place and use the right type-face on your labels, someone will spend their money and take said crap home with them.

A jewellery making colleague of mine once came to me in a very distressed state. In a manic fit of bedroom organisation she hit the wall of stuff she had collected over the years with a realisation of the precarious relationship between her sanity and things. "What are we doing?" she lamented, "our lives are spent making more and more of these things, these trinkets, these items, these objects, this stuff. Sorting through them, and throwing them away." And we, as designers get some kind of pleasure out of infilltrating and adding to the glut of paraphernalia that people call their belongings. Thats fucked up.

What is this compulsion? To buy stuff, to make stuff, to create stuff out of nothing? This blog is basically an investigation into the hazardous relationship we humans have with the objects around us. As tumultous as it is however, the link we have with the things we wear, adorn ourselves with and keep close to us, doesn't have to be a negative one. There must be a positive way of buying, consuming and creating mindfully.