Category Archives: Events

Christmas Markets – Brisbane 2012

Posted on by
Reply

[ Ho Ho Ho ]

It is that time of the year, again, when frantic search begins for those special gifts. Similar to last year, I’ve gathered a few details about what’s going on around in terms of markets.

First up is Billycart Markets at Sandgate. This market is for those who are after gifts for children, for parents of young ones or those who are expecting. I can give you a little hint here, Kva Books & Albums – who made an amazing custom photo album for my niece – will be there! Don’t miss this opportunity to get something really special.

http://www.billycartmarkets.com/index.html

24th November, Saturday

3pm till 7pm

Sacred Heart Primary School, 92 Brighton Road, Sandgate 4017

.

Next up is BrisStyle Indie Twilight Market, which is on the 14th of December. If you don’t feel like rushing in with gift shopping just yet, this one is a nice balance between too early and too late. BrisStyle is a collaboration of different Etsy sellers, so you can be sure there will plenty of handmade and vintage goodness at this market.

http://www.brisstyle.com.au/indie-twilight-market/

14th December, Friday

5pm till 9pm

King George Square in the City

.

Another interesting destination this year is West End Twilight Markets. If you don’t like the pressure of one-night-only markets then West End is where you should head to. You will find market stalls there every second and fourth Saturday of the month till end of December. And there are live performances as well!

http://www.westendtwilightmarkets.com/

24th November; 8th, 22nd December

4pm till 9pm

Reclaimed Hangar on the Corner of Wilson and Boundary St, West End

.

There are also plenty of twilight markets in the suburbs, so when you drive around pay attention to any banners near schools and churches.

And as always, for those not looking forward to spending time among crowds, online shopping is your answer.

Check out Etsy, Young Republic for unique handmade items or Biome and Oxfam for environment-concious gifts.

Kusudama flowers

Posted on by
Reply

[kusuri = medicine, tama=ball]

Kusudama is a Japanese art of making spherical models out of folded pieces of paper, which are then either stitched or glued together. Most often the folded pieces resemble flowers. In ancient Japan they were used as incense and potpourri.

The inspiration to make some Kusudama flowers came to us from Sandra Pearce, a Brisbane-based paper and printmaking artist. We met Sandra a couple of months ago at an exhibition of her work, while visiting the Mt-Cootha Botanic Gardens. We loved her art, especially her hand made papers and the little kusudama flowers she had made out of pages from an old Japanese book.

ABOVE: Sandra Pearce
BELOW: Some samples of Sandra’s work
(Click them to get a bigger, better look)

Since then, these things have happened:

- I’ve learnt how to make them watching an online tutorial;

- I’ve made about a dozen flowers for a Polish Library in Brisbane market stall at a local festival;

- We’ve found a great little shop with scrapbooking supplies, which has a wonderful range of colourful craft papers;

- Ryan modified the ancient way of folding (he does that…);

- We’re making more flowers!

Now, the first thing you may say is, ‘Why aren’t your flowers forming a ball?’

Then we would say, ‘It’s because we haven’t glued them together yet – and for most of them we won’t, because they look awesome as they are. Don’t you think?’

Then you may say, ‘Why are you making them in the first place?’.

But the answer to that is material for another story still to come!

While you wait, have a look at these gems:
Sandra Pearce website
Kusudama on Wiki
Scrapbooking Sanctuary on Yellow Pages

Winter Retreat

Posted on by
1

[ Weekend of traditional gaming ]

Winter Retreat is a two-and-a-half-day event organised every year by the League of Extraordinary Gamers, of which we are proud members, at the Leslie Dam Recreation Centre in Warwick (this location for the last three years).

We missed out on this getaway weekend last year and we had heard so much good about the whole event, so this year we made sure we put our names down quickly.

We set off on Friday 23rd of June before lunch time to get there in the afternoon (it’s about a 3-hour drive from Brisbane). As we reached the Recreation Centre games were already being played, so we joined in pretty quickly with our first game being Agricola.

As usual the club library provided us with a choice of several hundred games. These are the games we ended up playing during the weekend (click on the names to find out more about them):

Ad Astra

Agricola

Citadels

Dominion Intrigue

Glory to Rome

Puerto Rico

Quarriors

Thunderstone Advance

The whole weekend was fully catered, so between games we had food, lots of it!  Also we slept, a bit.

More info about the Winter Retreat and LXG here.

We can’t wait till next Winter Retreat!