on the hunt for Halloween costumes, you can just see his blue eyes peaking through...

Macau is a curious place, once a Portuguese colony it was handed back to China like Hong Kong in the late 90's.
Now it may as well be a colony of Las Vegas with 28 casinos that make it the highest-volume gambling centre in the world.
We went there to escape Hong Kong and to live it up 5star style with a cheap deal at the Sofitel.
Not being gamblers we only ventured into 2 casinos. One being the obligatory one in our hotel, a very dull affair with none of the hilarity of Star City, Sydney.
The other we stumbled into was the MGM Grand, the most exciting part of the complex for me was the Dale Chihuly Gallery. Dale Chihuly is a renowned glass artist that i first saw at the Sydney Bienannle about 9yrs ago where he had installed giant luminous onions around the botanic gardens.

I've been quite enamoured with his luscious bold glass pieces that are often on a huge scale filling atriums with thousands of glass tendrils.

There was a gallery shop that could sell you a piece to take home for a tens of thousands of dollars, shipping included.

I was content to gasp at the collection they had in a quite hall at the casino.

I've been noticing these pieces popping up around here, round, red, lines. All different, no tag so i don't know who it might be...
I find them pleasing and hope they don't get painted over.
Corner of Shepherd and Wilson St....

I am a weather geek and proud of it.
I check the OzWeather morning and night. My link bar always has Radar and Observations.
Recently the BoM (Bureau of Meteorology) opened a new radar station at Terrey Hills with add dopplar wind readings. I'm not going to go into the technical aspect to this (because I'm not that knowledgeable) but it does give a cool new view of wind around Sydney and with the crazy weather we've been having this week there is a lot to see.
Here is a snapshot of the wind right now in the Sydney region.
Most of the time winds in Sydney would be around the light blue/yellow range at best so to see this much dark blue/red.
The thunderstorm that came through Wednesday night was also pretty intense in so far as the localised rainfall.
This is certainly the coldest October i can recall in sometime and a shock to the system after the hot humid weather in Hong Kong.

with the most awesome aunt treen from Canberra, her bff from nz and mr blue eyes crashing some kids party and showing them how to shake it.

seen up the street from me, just near shepherd St.
so did they steal the milk crates? is it a reference to the stolen generation? or did they steal the idea?
if you're visiting the carriageworks for the markets etc then stroll east along Wilson and check it out.
it reminds me of the crate man seen around Melbourne.

After 3 days of rambling in Kowloon and the islands we hit Macau. We scored a sweet deal at the 5star Sofitel at AUD$140 per night and put our feet up. From the TV in the bath to the L'Occitane toiletries with was fun to live it up a little. We caught up on the Sydney duststorms via BBC World/CCN/Australia TV. The view from our 20th floor room over the old quarter to the dazzling, gaudy casinos was astonishing (proper pix of that and more of Macau to come).

Poolside we were brought plush towels, chilled hand towels for our face and bottles of water.

The place was mostly empty with any other guests no doubt in the smoked filled casino. Macau is the only place where one can legally gamble in China and the casino industry there has exploded. We didn't go there for that, for us it was to explore the Portuguese colonial influences, the custard tarts and the cuisine.

So for the last 4yrs Mr Blue-Eyes has scored himself a sweet support gig for a roaming international conference. In past years it has been held in Sydney, Boston, Vienna and this year Hong Kong.

Where possible we tack on a holiday, last year we did Italy & Corsica as our honeymoon and this year i went over for 8 days in HK and 2 days Macau.

HK was astonishing in its scale and efficiency. My first thought when walking out into a Kowloon evening (30c+/60% humidity) was that it is just like Chinatown at home but bigger :)

We did 3 days based in Kowloon with day trips to Chung Chua island and Lantau Island. Breakfasting on pork buns, getting lost in the streets of Mong Kok and barhopping at night in Soho.

Mr Blue-Eyes is the cameraman in these parts with his Canon 40D and 5 lenses so the pix you'll see from me to start with are the happy snaps on the iphone when he couldn't be bothered hauling the beast about.

Rest assured he did get it about and is in the process of culling and grading approx 1000 images which you'll see the best of over the next week or so.

We stayed around the corner from the Temple St Night Markets, a buzzing market of knockoffs and trinkets fresh from China interspersed with clusters of openair dining establishments.

Beer was essential in the steamy nights and cheap too, about AUD$2.40 for 1litre.

And all beered up and full of amazing spring rolls and spicy prawns.

I've had a bit of time on my hands recently but it has still taken me a while to actually do something crafty with my time.
Miss Cath gave me the Meet Me At Mike's book of crafty things to do which i have used to help me with my knitting but i hadn't quite got much further than that.
I used to work with a Sussie of Sweden who was quite the sewer and when she returned to Sweden she donated her fabric stash to me (and to a BrownOwls stash swap). Part of her stash is a number of metres of quirky vintage paisleys, 2 of which complemented each other very nicely.
I figured the 'Cute as a button vintage clutch' project wasn't too daunting and I'd have something useful at the end of it too.
Plus I'm a long time reader of Kara Smith's blog and was inspired by her fab bags and clutches to have a go.

Well i've had this on the go for a couple of weeks, I have fear of cutting so it can take a while fo rme ot work up to that. Then i stumbled on the iron-on interfacing step as what i thought was iron-on wasn't. BrownOwls to the rescue with the suggesting to use spray adhesive to attach that to the material.
A few more stumbles with the sewing machine not playing nice, Mr Blue-eyes is the machine expert around here so i had to twiddle knobs until it came good.
So today i had no more excuses, I'd finished the book i was reading, read all my blogs for the day, applied for a few jobs and checked the mail.

The pattern suggests using a button and snap closure but i have metres of mauve/blue snap-button tape in my stash that i'e been saving for just this sort of project. However i had no real idea how to actually use it, hence the sort of wonky attachment below.
I possibly could have ironed the seams flat along the way and i tend to be a bit of a free-flying kind of sewer but overall i think it turned out alright.
I certainly have enough of both materials to have another go at it or perhaps make a matching tote....look out

As mentioned in my last post, I now have a desk of my own for the first time in nearly 3yrs.
Furniture in our house is a much discussed and planned thing, least of all because if Mr Blue-eyes can make something better why would he buy something (therefore the majority of Ikea furniture is abhorrent to him).
Then the making itself is planned with CAD, the timber scoped and sourced, the steel checked and prototypes made.
What you see here is actually the 2nd incarnation and the drawers and storage at the top were debated endlessly. He welded the K frame, inserted the powerpoints and constructed it out of 12mm form ply.
We still have moments about how tidy my desk is but i figure it is my desk, my space and i'll run it as i need. Obviously it is looking most tidy in this pic, perhaps one day I'll show you my creative space in action.
Let it be know that i am most delighted that i can sit at a desk, with a desktop computer and type away as opposed to the laptop on the lounge passively surfing.