The Colour in the Room {Qi Change- Lou Endicott}

Lou's life changed at 3am in a hotel room in Bangkok. It was the last night of a three month exploration of Europe, and jet lag was rearing its ugly head. Frustrated, she started thinking about what she would do with her life when she got home when an image from 'Lonely Planet' popped into her head. She began googling jobs, looking up the types of creatives required, visualising an office full of colour, a creative space, and researching the qualifications she would need to do this kind of work. "At seven o'clock in the morning I woke my partner, I said 'Wake up, wake up, I'm going to go and study!' and we jumped up and down on the bed, because he knew how sad I had been for so long."

Astonishing Little Locals

I love shopping locally. There is something special about the relationships you can build with your local butcher/baker/wine shop lady. Quite a few of Melbourne's (inner) suburbs have quite a villagy feel and are set up so that you can often do a good chunk of your buying locally. Oddly the internet can also help us shop locally; with websites like Etsy and the free marketing powers of social media there are opportunities for talented people to sell their wares without all the costs associated with a shopfront.

Shopping for gifts online is a wonderful thing. It saves so much time and energy and stress caused by traipsing around heaps of stores hoping for inspiration (I missed out on the shopping gene). I have already talked about my love for Hard to Find (here), especially when Christmas shopping. I had to wait until after Christmas to write this post about some little local Melbourne companies/people making truly beautiful things because some of my readers were on my Christmas gift list.

One Two Carabou 

The exquisitely talented and lovely Lou is a friend of mine. We met a few years ago working on a short play festival when we were both trying to pursue theatre. Since then she had an amazing overseas adventure during which she rediscovered herself and her passion for design, quit her full-time teaching job, enrolled in a design course and discovered an amazing talent for illustrations (all in about 18 months- that is one inspirational lady!). She has recently launched her Etsy Shop with some prints of her beautiful illustrations. All the little people in my life got one of these for Christmas and I had to get one for me too.