Exactly one year ago

Exactly one year ago, I took this photo.*

I was huge. And I'm not kidding, I was H-U-G-E. Plus, I don't know if you remember what Melbourne was like this time last year, but I do; it was freakin' hot. Huge and hot are two things I never want to be simultaneously ever again.

I was almost a week overdue so John and I set out that afternoon and drove around the bumpy back streets of Fitzroy in the hope that our little unborn bub, running ever-so-fashionably late, would wake up and get a wriggle on. This piece of graffiti near the corner of Gertrude and George Streets has since become a bit of a local icon but I noticed it that day for the first time. I told John to stop the car and feeling like a fat dork in front of a crowd of coffee-swilling, beard-sporting Northside hipsters, I waddled out, took this photo and got right back into the car.

Hours later, at the dinner table, my waters broke.

Looking back through your iPhone photos is like watching a retrospective of your life. This photo marks, for me, the end of one life and the start of another. The photos before this one are varied anecdotal snapshots of daily life - work, play, friends, family, travel, pets, hats, shoes... The photo that follows it is this:

You hear many things about childbirth, new motherhood and parenting. You are told, ad nauseum, all the things you need. You need an SUV-sized pram that looks as though it's capable of space travel. You need to eat a diet of unpalatable organic muck while breastfeeding. You need to worry about {insert a scaremongering topic here} but somehow, simultaneously, you need to stop worrying about everything. Becoming a parent sometimes feels like the collective population of planet earth is telling you what you need to do and how you need to feel. But it's these immortal words of John Lennon that bring it all back home for me:

All you need is love. Love is all you need.

Happy first birthday, Hazel Louise.

* Editors note: to say I took this photo exactly one year ago is actually untrue. I took it one year ago on Tuesday. And let me say that after almost two days in labour, John and the entire maternity ward of the Royal Women's Hospital were pretty bloody sick of the Beatles.

Letterpress Tidings

Hello folks and a happy silly season!

Today I bring you news from the studio that our online store has just gone live! Letterpress Christmas cards for your loved ones (and a very special card for your most loved one).

Head over to http://saintgertrude.bigcartel.com to check out the small but sweet Christmas collection.

Orders made before 12noon Monday-Friday get next business day delivery.

Happy shopping!

Georgie's 'Classy' Hens

Friends, where have I been? It's December already. I don't know where your year went, but my year was gobbled up by numerous things... a baby, a rebrand, a new website and some amazing new clients and friends.

I wanted to share with you some of the crafty creations that I put together for a classy hens party this month. Detecting a serious gap in the market for this kind of thing, I really enjoyed putting this little parcel together.

The hens was a sit-down lunch in the Conservatory of Hotel Nest. This is a venue too gorgeous for appendage straws, hot pink veils and L-plates. Instead, I helped to create a little package that sat in each guests' place as both a place card as well as a goodie bag. The sweet little 'I do' on the place tag matched her invitations and the dress shaped 'Dirty Laundry' was where guests wrote humorous/embarrassing stories about the hen and then hung them out for all to see! Personally selected vintage postcards and magnets rounded everything off and the day was a huge hit.

Small confession... some less classy things took place later in the evening and for this I made a "creatively" shaped piñata, naughty boys' and girls' cut-outs and some... ah... appendage bunting. This is a family show so I won't include photos of these, but I'm sure you get my drift.