looking forwards...

Today in New Zealand it feels like a day to look back and a day to look forward. I'm going to focus on the latter because I'm at a lose for words about the former. So here's a post about thing's I'm looking forward to.

This week I'm looking forward to my first trip to Melbourne, drinking lots of coffee in Fitzroy. Walking the streets with Scott and using his SLR to shoot lots of graffiti, signage and all the other street crap designer types take photos of. I'm looking forward to staying in this amazing looking house (See above). Thanks to twitter for tipping us off about Airbnb, because the hotels we were looking at where awful and out of budget. We're really keen on meeting other creative types while we're in town so if you fancy joining us for a coffee you can find me on twitter @dearcolleen or leave a message here.

I can't wait to catch up with old and new friends in Wellington. I have a few days there on route home from Australia and will do my best to fit visits in with all I can. I guess this means more coffee drinking, oh dear what a shame.

Weirdly I'm starting to look forward to winter. Making soup and snuggling infront of the wood burner. I'm going to buy some wellington boot (that's right wellies, I'm never coming round to the term gummies) and I'm adopting the saying 'no such thing as bad weather only bad clothes' so if you catch me whining about being cold tell me to put a jumper on.

Finally I'm so excited to be all moved into the new studio. Three days DIYing, a creaked neck and a hell of a lot of help from Scott but it's a bright beautiful space. It's pretty much the studio I have been dreaming about since I was a little girl, only it's in Dunedin not New York. Life's a funny old thing. I'll probably make a little film about it at some point but for the time being I'll stop boring everyone and just leave you with these before and after pictures.

1. above: space before work, long work bench which was taking up a whole wall. Black beams and scuffed paint work.

2. Bench cut in half, wooden slaps exposed and sanded to make a window seat for day dreaming/ procrastinating on.

3. Unused door way covered over with a large black board. Plus art work I did for the other studio moved and hung on the wall.

4. Finally after white washing the walls four or five times the black is gone and the space is pretty much finished. Furniture has been moved in and I just need to buy a plant and hang some artwork. A huge thank you to my lovely Scott for giving up his weekend and doing so much hard labour.