My chips love me and the feeling is mutual.

You’ve seen the miraculous Easter bunny bread and now I give you the loving chip.

LOVE: Due Punti silicone diamond rings

I’m not so much in love with these colourful rings as TOTALLY obsessed. I discovered them last year and they made beautiful (although slightly extravagant but I couldn’t resist ’em)  Christmas and birthday gifts for a few special people in my life.

(This photo: Due Punti website.)

I got two.

I usually wear them together but quite like the subtle look of one as well (although not so great on heat-swollen fingers).

Made in Italy, “due punti” means “two points” in Italian and the diamonds are set between two flat points of silver.

I love the juxtaposition of the colourful silicone and diamond. The diamonds are real, by the way. They’re only .o2 of a carat which means they’re so small that if the jeweller accidentally sniffed while setting them he’d probably inhale a few. Despite their diminutive size, these mere hints of diamond sparkle like a footballer’s girlfriend on the Brownlow red carpet. Only tastefully.

I think these would make the perfect engagement holding ring ie, the ring you might get in the interim while you choose the one you’ll wear forever. At $99AUS they really are pretty reasonably priced.

(This photo: Due Punti website.)

Do you like these rings or think diamonds and plastic should never meet? What colour would you buy?

Email me if you want to know where I bought mine (in Australia).

LOVE: Danielle Rickaby turf paper weights

These remind me of my mini terrarium from my last post.

Love the way you can choose manicured or every-which-way grass. And, as the artist  points out,  no sprinkler required.

Buy here.

And if money were no object I’d buy one of these in her Diamond Series.

Photo from Danielle Rickaby’s blog, Glassy Knoll.

LOVE: Cat caves

There’s only one thing holding me back from buying one of these hilariously Hobbit-ish cat caves from Etsy shop Grazim :

I don’t have a cat.

But this is making me alternatively laugh, pull back in horror and “awwwwww” so much that I’m thinking of buying one  – just to see it curled up in here like this freaky puss:

All images from Grazim Etsy shop.

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This is part of a new series simply called ‘LOVE:’

I buy lots of handmade stuff and see so much great stuff in my webby wanderings and have decided to start sharing a bit more of that on the off chance you might like some of it too.

I came to this decision after a blog I’ve started following recently featured two things, among others,  in the space of weeks – that I bought. I’ll link you to that blog when I post about aforesaid things.

Also, two real-life friends have  recently told me that they bought a copy of Action Pack after seeing it in my sidebar and that they would love other recommendations.

Finally, I love it when people point me to cool bits and pieces that I fall in love with and can then buy with the simple click of a button. It leaves me so much more time to browse the internet for someone selling freaky cats in my area.

Afterall, I do spend a veritable shitload of time oohing and aahing  over stuff I find of the internet. NOT pornographic stuff, mind.

That’s over on my other blog.

A love story. The final chapter.

Fast forward to the 21st century and we find another handsome young chap, Edward, enjoying a summer holiday in the seaside town of Lorne, where Betty and  Edgar had  met all those years before.

Perhaps Lorne is the Lourdes of love matches because there Edward met a gorgeous girl called Johanna who was also on holidays and they too, shortly after meeting, began  their very own love affair.

After knowing each other for a little bit, Edward took Jo out for dinner and they began, as you do, to ask about each other’s backgrounds.

“Where are your family from” Edward asked Jo. “Oh, you wouldn’t know it” Jo replied. “A tiny little town in the country called Minyip”.

*a moment of stunned silence*

“I do know it actually”, Ed replied. “That’s where my family is from.”

*more moments of stunned silence*.

They were both more than a little shocked by the coincidence.’

And what a coincidence. Next day Jo was straight on the phone to her mum asking whether she knew of the Waller family from Minyip. Of course she did. Everyone knew everyone.

Jo’s mum recounted how they were great old family friends, how Ed’s father had even  briefly gone out with one of Jo’s aunties and  how later on Jo’s uncle had held Ed’s dad’s buck’s party (he didn’t end up with Jo’s aunt – which is somewhat of a relief for the purposes of this story!) in his shearing shed. Later on Jo and Ed also heard the now famous family story of their respective grandfathers; those two great mates and their eponymous sheepdogs: Edgar and Dave.

It was a little later again that they discovered, in yet another beautiful coincidence, that Ed’s grandparents Betty and Edgar had also met in the seaside town of Lorne.

And so they lived awhile and loved a lot and then they decided to be married.

So where would be the perfect spot to hold a wedding forged between two families with such a long and rich story of friendship and love? A wedding between two people whose bond is so steeped in history that it seems somehow destined and yet, on the odds of probability, is so unlikely. I mean, what are the odds of these two people a) meeting b) meeting in Lorne and c) falling in love and marrying?

If I had to guess, I’d say roughly about the same odds as a Hollywood silent movie star moving to a tiny town in rural Australia with a gentleman farmer and living happily ever after.

In a perfect world, they would get married at Mooramong, Scobie and Claire Mackinnon (the aforementioned silent movie star’s ) beautiful property and the setting in which they played out their great love;  a place that is not only stunningly beautiful but somewhere that echoes in every corner with the spirit of a great love.

A place where a moving ceremony,

included an unexpected guest who was quite possibly egged on by the spirit of that life-long adorer of animals, Claire Mackinnon.

A place where after the ceremony, their guests sipped sangria around a stunning pool and garden

then ducked through a little arched wooden doorway

to another exquisite garden

until, enticed by this promise,

they arrived, just as twilight fell, at a magical room set amongst majestic silver gums.

Well, sometimes it is a perfect world.

Ed’s parents have lived on and managed Mooramong for over a decade. It’s only a few kilometers from the farm where Edward grew up. This whole area is the place Edward feels most connected to of anywhere on earth.

As I stood , some 70 years after Claire and Scobie’s story began and some 60 after Betty and Edgar’s to witness Ed and Jo declare their love and eternal committment, it felt inordinately and quintessentially right.  Their love was always destined to be great and enduring, but with the loving threads of  Betty and Edgar, Betty and Dave and Scobie and Claire already woven so closely and intricately through and around Ed and Jo’s own story well that, I think,  can’t help but make for something quite extraordinary.

So how did I come to be at this wonderful wedding?  Well in case it isn’t clear, Betty (Edgar’s wife) was my (and Edward’s) beloved grandmother and is the Betty whom Edgar twirled around the dance floor in St Kilda and for whom this blog and indeed my whole business is named. The other Betty (there were a lot back then) and Dave are Jo’s grandparents.

So Edward is my cousin. But he is much more than that to me. I think of him as a brother and of the gorgeous Jo as a sister.

My aunt and uncle, Ed’s parents, manage Mooramong. That includes a large working farm (over 10,000 hectares) and all outbuildings and residences including of course, Claire and Scobie’s homestead the interior of which really does have to be seen to be believed. It is simply amazing. And because it was bequeathed  “as is” to the National Trust of Australia on Claire’s death, it is literally as though Claire and Scobie have both just popped out for a walk and will be back at any moment.

Their boots stand ready for riding and half-empty bottles of expensive cosmetics and perfumes (shipped in from New York) stand on Claire’s dressing room table.  Beside them are the headbands and other floral adornments Claire loved to sport in her hair. There are grand rooms, spectacular rooms and simple but fascinating rooms like the kitchen with its enormous Aga stove. But most moving of all for me was Claire’s shower cap, still hanging on a hook beside her shower. Such a humble, somehow human thing.

I’m so privileged to have been able to witness Ed and Jo’s marriage this weekend just gone. I think the thought of these three wonderful interwoven love stories will comfort and inspire me my entire life.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing them.