Paula Mills Art

A dear friend of mine has recently started her own creative business called The Naturalist. She asked me to design the logo, which was an easy job for me, as I love her vision and could capture what she wanted very easily. The Naturalist is all about beautiful flowers, vintage finds and quirky little cabinet of curiosity gifts. You can have a look at the blog here , facebook page here  , brand new etsy shop here and pinterest boards here . The Naturalist is holding it's debut market on Sunday the 1st of September at the Greville Village market in Prahran, Melbourne. Be sure to pop along, Greville Street is always a great day out!

I recently purchased a new couch for our lounge - it is a turquoise velvet Chesterfield and I love it! We had a dark brown leather couch for ages, which was handy with very young kids in the house, but now that my children are old enough to mind where their dirty feet are going...I thought I would splash out on something I love! I have also had lots of fun filling my new couch with beautiful cushions. Now the only bit I have to worry about is stopping Bella the pugalier from jumping up on it! All these images can be found on my pinterest board and my instagram feed .

It is a lovely time of the year here in Melbourne, we have been having some wonderful weather. Apparently it is nearly the end of Hydrangea season so I was very pleased to pick up this beautiful bunch from  Blomsville , a lovely florist in Balwyn. I actually also bought the jar they are in and these very cute mirrored tea light glasses - Marcello, who owns the florist, has a great eye and his tiny shop is packed full of fresh flowers and lots of lovely things - I always leave with my arms full! I then stumbled down the road to a charity shop and picked up a few good finds - the sweet milk jug and an old toast holder which will come in handy for holding my post or maybe some cards on display. We had a quiet weekend enjoying the good weather and had a giggle at our carrot harvest -the girls were so excited to pull them from the ground even though they are all slightly dwarfed!

 My vintage glass jar collection above and below A  lovely cup to add to my Royalty collection  New finds - porcelaine dolls head and more vintage wooden rulers As mentioned in my previous post, I went off to Camberwell market on the weekend, which was completely rained out but I did mange to pick up one or two lovely pieces to add to my flea market find collections. I am loving old glass bottles at the moment and vintage rulers. I also picked up the porcelain dolls head - which I love for it's cute creepiness! Plus the Queeny cup, which looks great in my bathroom. I go through phases of collecting things - there is some thing strangely satisfying about putting groups of similar objects together...does any one else like to collect? What do you collect? I suppose it was a good thing Camberwell market was rained out as I may have come home with a lot more!

Detail of the engraving on my amazing find I had the most amazing find on the weekend. I was having a good scratch around Coburg trash and treasure market early on Sunday morning with a couple of girl friends, when I pile of old silverware caught my eye as well as some beautiful old trophies (which I am constantly on the look out for) and excitedly grabbed the one closest to me - imagine my surprise when I read the following engraving: Metropolitan Women's Basketball Association Season 1950 Undefeated Premiers Won by P. Mills That's me - Paula Mills! So this lovely bargain literally had my name on it. I have tried to take a close up shot of the engraving but it was quite tricky. So in celebration of my win here are a few other inspiring images of trophies as well as my fabulous find from the trash and treasure market: Paris Hotel Flickr Stream ; s habby scraps photography; sterling silver necklace ; letter press card ; upcycled 1898 dictionary printed vintage trophy Everyone...

I have fallen completely in love with the art direction and styling at sleeproom.com . I saw their advert in the latest Elle Decoration UK , went to visit the web site and have been pouring over the styling of each image. I also found their little annimated video above - so lovely! I love the white floors and pops of color all over the place, the vintage fabrics, and the cozy lived in feeling each room has. Lovely, lovely, lovely!

These little puzzles are courtesy of the Baptist thrift store in Waikanae, NZ. I must say I hesitated, just a little, you know that thought that runs through the head (do-I-really-need another-vintage-something-floating-around kind of thought), but, then I decided it was blog worthy, and surely if its blog worthy, its got to be had? And besides, who could resit a little boy in bright red shoes!

Our love for vintage paper runs long and deep. Here at Sweet William we are endlessly rummaging through second hand book shops, markets, thrift shops, charity shops, garage sales - always on the search for beautiful old treasures that no one loves. Then we transform our finds into these exciting packages - filled to the brim with paper goodness, ready for you to make what ever you want with them - cards, scrapbooks, artwork. We are passionate about these packs and love the idea of sharing our sometimes obsessive passion with other paper lovers. Each Sweet William mixed paper pack is an intriguing collection of vintage ephemera and papers, which may include roughly 30 pieces of : lovely old children's book images, postage stamps, illustrations, old playing cards, postcards, fine papers, labels, vintage wall paper, paper tags, maps and tons more. The A4 packs come secured with paper clips, backed with card, covered in cellophane, and sent with mad, paper collecting, love These new p...

We are mad paper collectors, we love making these very special paper packs and we love receiving feed back from happy customers who have enjoyed them too. We have just loaded a few new paper packs in our " made it" and "felt" shop s . Have a look.

So we all had the most wonderful summer holiday together, but its only a matter of time that we all had to go our separate ways. Paula back to Melbourne, my brother off to the South Island and us.... well we stayed put. Our time together definitely had a "gathering" theme to it - from collecting mussels on the beach, eggs from the chook house, or the big family evening meals with seven children and six adults trying to outdo each other with the noise level. A highlight for Paula and I was some gathering excursions to the local thrift shops. Here is a shot of the collection - My fav. is the metal and glass rack which I will use for the craft market stall for display. It was discovered in a vintage collectors dream of a shop called "ma-mite" - run by two old lady's with a fantastic eye for all things collectible and cool - with some old vinyl playing and the walls strung with vintage bathers, I don't know what was more fun, the lovely finds or the shop itself....

Some of the little moments that have brought us joy over this holiday time together. Some found treasures alongside fun family outings. We love to op shop together and we have fossicked some really nice pieces - (look out for some special vintage bits in our shop soon!) This little deer is one of a set we found - one each yay!

Well I remember there were times in our early years when sharing was quite hard to do ( eg : bedrooms and barbies). I think if I went thrift/garage/op shopping with you we would have to revert back to our age old system of working out who got what: put everything in a pile, then take turns choosing the first three things we wanted, then the rest numbered and drawn out of a hat! Here are a few of my latest bits of a recent scrounge: Lovely granny blanket (can't have too many of those), some fabric, apron and vintage habby . The really bad eighties patterns you seen in the corner are not there because i have a yen for a drop waist jacket or a lumberjack shirt- no, they have an eco use. I felt these patterns were in dire need of being put to rest once and for all, they are so bad one should put them out of their misery and so I do - by using the pattern paper to clean with!!! Love, Shells

If you are ever in Wellington, NZ - Trash Palace is the place to go for a good thrifty scrounge. Helen and I decided to go on a recce on Thursday and i found some nice little bits. The orange and floral containers were in the free bin outside. The tea cups are for my craft stall, the hoop is for some more screen printing (after the love bunny turned out so great), some ribbon, fabric and always some old patterns - cos the graphics always make me laugh. Oh, and some nice old books to add to the paper stash - grand total: $8. aaah the satisfaction........

I am totally in love with any old books that are about the human body. The graphics are always amazing. I think its from a childhood nostalgia. I remember there was a World Book Encyclopedia that showed the human body on clear pages so you could peel back the layers. I found this great book at the local charity shop and my 8 year old daughter loves it!

Shelley inspired me to go out and have a little scratch around my local op/thrift shops, one is never disappointed! My finds were: 2 meters of beautiful, vintage, flocked fabric, a little gold tray, two pretty glasses, another stunning tea cup to add to my collection, a pile of old Australian stamps, a 1952 encyclopedia and some pretty writing paper with birds on - all of this was under $25, ahhh the satisfaction.

My sister and I will tell you that nothing beats a good rummage through an op shop or at the flea market. I have to admit Paula is the queen - but i can hold my own sometimes and Im still proud of the plaster Virgin and child icon I recently found for her on a trip to Melbourne. Since this is a blog about the things we enjoy, i thought it would be fun to post our "finds'' on a regular basis. My find of the week was a beut. A set of drawers made of Remu wood. Lovley honey colour and lots and lots of little compartments and flat map drawers. Salvaged from an old science lab. Bargain at $5 a piece. I got two and the old scale in the photo and the old chalk board. This will soon turn into my drawer full of wonders. If you have an old vintage cabinet full of things - I'd love to know - What's in YOUR drawers?