Monday Mural - Do aliens dance the Flamenco?

This mural on the corner of Beaufort and Harold Street in Mount Lawley, was painted on a wall of a laundromat by Martin E Wills (MEW), a Perth based artist born in the UK.
His murals mainly depict aliens with 60's beehive hairstyles and desolate landscapes.

The whole wall is covered by this mural which also has an Asian dancer/instrument player with a red flower in her hair. I'm not sure this part of the mural which integrates with the aliens is also Will's work, it's got a totally different style so I presume it isn't, but I couldn't find the artist's name anywhere.
Hope you enjoy the quirky characters.
You can see more of Monday's murals by following this link.

Unusual potting vessels

Around Perth I've found a few unusual potting vessels from a bath tub to an old metal bed frame.
It shows that if you have imagination you can recycle and use anything in your garden.

This was meant to be a very wet weekend but luckily it hardly rained and we were able to buy grass rolls and lay them on Saturday. So much work, our bodies are all sore...old age!
I'll be working on a couple of posts about our garden renovation.

It's looking so much better with a bit of green....

Colourful geraniums outside a Vegetarian restaurant in Mount Lawley

Herbs anyone? Please pick some on your way home...

Recycle old pallets for an unusual box

An old metal bed-frame turned into a planter for herbs in Mount Lawley

A plastic tank surrounded by a metal frame holds a tree outside a Fremantle bakery

These aren't unusual, but are pretty cement pots with mosaics, outside the Shipwreck museum in Fremantle

Hope you had/or are still having a wonderful weekend.

Sunset by the River

Today was my day off work and I took some visiting friends to Kings Park Botanic Gardens to get a glimpse of the wildflowers - the Spring wildflower festival starts on the 1st of September, and I'll be going back for more pictures...

Afterwards we drove via Mounts Bay Road, close to the river's edge towards the University of Western Australia, so we could photograph the Crawley Boatshed also know as the Blue Boat House or Matilda Bay Boathouse. This spot is a popular wedding photo venue.

The jetty was blocked as it was unsafe, but it's still a worthwhile photo destination, specially as in our case we got the sunset colours...

A bit of a picture overload, buy I can't help it, it was such a peaceful and beautiful place.

The Swan river at sunset

 A short walk away is the statue of Eliza, 15 metres offshore on the Swan River.
She was "naked" today but often people dress her up according to the occasions - a flag for Australia Day, a scarf for winter, T-shirts, a hat and a dress for Melbourne Cup day, etc.
Eliza, is made of bronze, 2,2 mt high, dressed in a swim suit and cap with her arms up as if about to dive from the wooden platform.
She was created by Perth sculptors Tony and Ben Jones and was unveiled in October 2007.
The statue was located in that area to commemorate the "Crawley Baths", Perth's prime competition and recreational swimming venue on that site from 1914 to 1964.

the statue of Eliza as seen from the Boatshed

The Boat shed taken from Eliza

Hope you enjoyed the sunset photos as much as I did. Have a wonderful day.

Monday Mural - Would you buy it?

On a recent visit to the inner city suburb of Mount Lawley I came across this tiny house and fence covered in graffiti. I have to presume that the owner wanted it painted that way.

The garden looked well looked after, so it couldn't have been an abandoned house...

But I don't think I would buy a house that looked like this, even though it is for sure a one off!

I wonder what the neighbours think of it?

Would you buy it?

For more murals around the world check this link.

Have a wonderful week.

Public Art in Perth 8

Looking back at some of my draft posts I realized I had yet to post some photos related to the series I did last year about Public art in Perth. So here are a few more works of art.

By one of the entrances to the Crown Metropol Casino at Burswood, stands this very elegant metal structure. I don't know much about it though... It could well have been part of the Sculpture by the Sea exhibitions a few years ago...

  

This pink kite is just outside the Art Gallery of Western Australia in the Cultural precinct. The artist is also unknown. I like the quote...

This one called "Games" was one of the statues exhibited at the Sculpture by the Sea 2013, by Chinese artist, Chen Wen Ling. As I drove home one day from the Northern suburbs I saw this while I waited by the traffic light. Luckily the light was red and I quickly took out my camera and took a photo. A bit blurry... 

On the corner of Beaufort and Vincent Street in Mount Lawley stands this quirky bronze statue of a male dog and female rabbit on a bike.

I first saw it about 2 years ago when I was invited to a friend's birthday lunch at "Veggie Mama", a vegetarian restaurant.
On my last trip to Mount Lawley where I photographed some murals, I went past it again, and this time the bicycle tyres were covered in pink material, as well as the "dog" was holding a board advertising something.

Silver Circle by Unknown

Hope you're having a fabulous weekend! Enjoy it!!

Monday Mural - Old world trams

This wonderful mural at 824 Beaufort Street in the suburb of Mount Lawley, was painted by Canadian born, Perth based artist Mel McVee aka Melski.

Painted on a wall between a dentist's car park and the Mondo Butcher and Delicatessen, it represents the old world of Perth's trams when up to 130 trams would go past Beaufort street.
Now it's just cars...

You see more Monday Murals from around the world by clicking here.

The mural and the Mondo Butchery

Monday Mural - Black and Blue

Painted by local Fremantle artist Winston Booth Hawk this mural of a cat, innards and other strange things is also located in Nick's Lane in Northbridge.
It was painted for Form 2015 in April this year.
Couldn't find much about the artist apart from his facebook page, no information about him in the Form site.


You can see more Monday murals here.

Cats and Birds in the garden

It's been a very wet and stormy Saturday and the rain will be here for a few more days.
I'm posting a few photos of my cats taken last weekend and of birds that visit our garden too.

Twiggy very relaxed sleeping in the sun

Shelley sitting on a garden chair in the patio

Fluffy our ginger male catching some sun-rays and behind him is Twiggy again

We have doves visiting and nesting in our lemon tree, and because I couldn't find a big enough tree house I made one by joining two coir plant baskets and cutting a small entrance for them.

What do you think? I still haven't noticed if the doves have been using it, I hope they do!

A new bird house for the doves. Behind is the bird seed I buy them and which they rapidly devour

A shy little dove peaking through the leaves

doves on the fence

The Honeysuckers also visit our garden

Fluffy keeps an eye on the Magpies in the driveway

Have a great and relaxing weekend! 

Monday Mural - Dragon in Chinatown

This mural painted in Chinatown in the suburb of Northbridge was painted by Australian graffiti artists Yok and Fecks and Singaporean artist Sheryo for the Perth's 2015 Form in April this year.

Yok and Sheryo who are based in New York, have done a few "painting" partnerships in other murals around Perth and the world.
It certainly brightened an old brown brick building.

An oriental theme fitting the area where it is painted, don't you think?

For more murals around the world click here.

Rainy weekend Wardrobe Organisation

A few weeks ago during a rainy weekend I decided I needed to sort out my wardrobe.
Every day I struggled to choose what to wear...

Now, my wardrobe is only about 1,30 wide!! Yes, just that narrow, and I have quite an extensive wardrobe too. Although I don't buy many clothes, I still have clothes from many years ago and I feel very attached to my things when I like them.

I also have lots of bags and they were hanging from a "coat rack" on the door and others in a box on the top shelf of the wardrobe, and every time I wanted to change my bag it was difficult to get to them so high up. Apart from holding the bags the high shelf at the top was useless.
My winter tops were in the small plastic drawers. Luckily there's no need for bulky winter coats, although I brought a few from Portugal with me and I keep them in the spare room wardrobe, which happens to be bigger than the one in our main bedroom...


                      BEFORE

The wardrobe was messy, handbags were to high to be reached... Here I had already removed a few clothes

 After removing the clothes, I removed the rail, then attacked the shelf with a hammer, removed it and painted the interior with the same colour as the rest of the bedroom. I also removed the rails attached to the door from where I hung bags and belts and painted the interior of the door.

Painted and almost ready for the makeover

 After that it was time to put in a new and slightly wider rail (the other had been attached to the shelf) attached to the side walls, right at the top of the wardrobe.
Then I bought a small cheap 5 shelf unit and put it in the middle leaving a gap either side.
I bought 3 boxes and put scarves in the top one, winter wraps in the middle one and stockings and in the bottom one.
On the left shelves I put my turtleneck pullovers, and a couple of bags that I still need to hang up.

The clothes were all sorted by colour - from white to black - first all the shirts/tops, then a few hangers with my skirts, then a few hangers with trousers, and to the left are the longer dresses that fall in the gap left by the little shelf unit.

                      AFTER

I bought a few transparent hooks that could hold up to 1kg and stuck them to the door and let them sit for 1 hour according to their instructions, before I hung my favourite bags on them. 

I also bought a battery operated light that is set to switch on sensing movement, so that if I have to get dressed in the dark I can actually see my clothes.

On the side of the shelving unit I drilled some holes and screwed metal hooks and I have hung the small purses. You can see that on the right in the above photo.

My favourite bags hanging on the door of the wardrobe - do you like my two cork bags (middle left)?

The transparent hooks used to hang the bags

The battery operated light with motion sensor

I feel so much better for getting this sorted, managed to get rid of 4 or 5 items of clothing that I never wear, and now every time I wash and iron an item I put it in the same colour order as before.

I also sorted through our chest of drawers, and folded my t-shirts instead of having them on top of each other which makes them more difficult to access. 
I used cardboard for the dividers, but I've now bought some white mdf board and I'm just waiting for my husband to cut it to size. (I'm not afraid of tools and power tools and can use most of them, but the electric saw is just too scary for me).

T-shirts sorted in the chest of drawers

Update - About a week later a couple of the transparent hooks started falling off, one of them falling in middle of night scaring the hell out of me when the bag hit the floor!
I have now glued those to the wardrobe with "Liquid nails". Not sure if it was because the door was freshly painted, or maybe I should have cleaned the area with alcohol?

Anyway, it's an improvement of the former wardrobe! What do you think?

If ever we buy another house it will only be on the condition I can have a walk-in wardrobe, and I'll be in Heaven!!  :) :) :)