I’ve been admiring the works of Indigenous artist Jeannie Mills Pwerl for some time, especially her Anaty collection or also known as the Desert Yam.

I love Jeannie’s bold and colourful strokes of the Bush Yam. Every artwork is a different variation of colours, from earthy tones to pink and purple hues. It was love at first sight when I saw this piece.

We had the canvas stretched before we decided to hang it up by the dining corner.

I find that the problem with me marrying a tall husband (or him marrying a short Asian wife) is that we can never agree on the perfect height to hang anything. What may be the perfect height for him, always seems so high up for me. This problem is of course bugging me slightly…so if anyone has any tips and advice on how to hang a picture up at a “reasonable” height, please let me know.

But still…the painting is very sweet, yes? I would like to hang a cuckoo clock somewhere near the painting and bookcase. I hope we can find one during our Euro trip. I also hope that Rich will hang it up for me a tad lower this time!

We drink a lot of tea at home: Green tea, Chinese tea, Black tea…even Bubble tea! We buy them in loose leaves so that we can brew it in our teapot.

Today while tea shopping, I saw this tiffin carrier at an Antique shop and thought, ‘I could use this to keep our tea stash!’

It’s a lovely piece with cranes and dragons and gold accents around it. Very Chinese. I think even my parents would be pleased with my purchase.

Actually, when growing up I used to cringe at my parent’s taste for oriental furnishing. I never fully appreciated the intricate handiwork and carvings. I kept thinking everything looked so Chinese! This is me…circa 80′s…I am crawling around my house which looks like a Chinese museum.

But how times have changed now. I find that as I grow older each year, I’ve learned to embrace my roots…which has made me a little more sentimental and nostalgic about my past. I also find myself appreciating and liking the same kind of decor or artifacts that my parents like! Though if I were to decorate my home, I think it would be a mixture of the current things that I love and also the Chinese soul in me.

And lastly…as we’re on the topic of tea (which was supposed to be a short post!). If you like tea, I’d recommend that you try the blooming tea. They are tea leaves, flattened and shaped into a ball. When you drop the ball in the teapot, it blooms into a flower! A very pretty sight.

A few days before the Lunar New Year, it gets a bit chaotic at my parent’s house. My dad will be off to the shops to buy the best crispy suckling pig or roasted duck for our reunion dinner. We’ll do a huge spring clean because on Chinese New Year we’re not suppose to do any cleaning. The Chinese believe that cleaning on New Years day is like sweeping good luck out the front door.

Even though it’s all ridiculously superstitious, we’ve adhere to this tradition every year. We also decorate the house by putting mandarin oranges in a basket and planting fresh cherry blossoms in a vase.

Since moving back to Perth, Big Mo and I have kept with this tradition. This morning after our spring cleaning, I decided to do some crafty decoration. I made paper hearts out of red paper and tied them to our plant. I pretended it was our little money plant!

The gorgeous watermelon bowl is by Samantha Robinson. I love her work. The tea set is a wedding gift from my mum, which we used during our tea pouring ceremony. In it are ‘Ang Pows’ or red packets. It is customary that on Chinese New Year, married couples or the older generation hand out red packets filled with money to children, teenagers or unmarried adults.

It’s also quite normal to see a lot of red during the Lunar festival as red symbolises good fortune and joy!

I’ve been eying Deborah’s creations for the longest time. I thought I would go crazy if I waited any longer to purchase something from her shop.

I decided to get one of her water lily plates so that I could use them for our Lunar New Year dinner.

The plates arrived this week…and let’s just say, I am pretty smitten by its beauty.

Some random things that kept me occupied this weekend.

Fresh basil from the garden. I took a handful and made mushroom and ricotta pasta for dinner.

Sun parasols. This was a wedding gift from one of our guests and now that spring is here, it has started blooming again:)

Fresh strawberries for tea.

I found this fern plant at the sick bay in the local garden section and I had to bring it home. I’ve been looking for some fern plants to put in our house and this one caught my eye because of it’s funny shaped leaves. A few days of watering and misting did it good!

My husband jokes that every time I go out, I bring a plant home. I can’t help it! I like having plants around, they make me happy and I love having various shades of green in the house too. If I was to decorate our dream house, I would first knock a big hole on the roof for sunlight to flood in, paint all the walls white, buy light wood furniture, put white shutters on every window and put green foliage at every corner of the house. Everything will look fresh and bright. Like a greenhouse maybe?

Speaking of fresh foliage, here are some lovely things that have caught my eyes recently:

Early morning art print

Succulent planter

Mudpuppy moon chimes

Butterfly Necklace

Adding a bit of green colour in the house!

My little teacup succulent (a dwarf aloe vera) and my peperomia angulata plant.

I can’t wait till my plants grows bigger so that I can draw their pretty leaves for my new designs. I love drawing foliage…pretty obvious huh:)

My yellow Calandiva plant is blooming happily on my kitchen window sill.

I love yellow. I think yellow is a happy colour!

Comes in abundance of colours.

A fresh posie.

A blue blue sky.

Home grown greens.

The winter dreariness has been slowly catching up to me. I feel like on some days I just want to crawl into a dark cave and hibernate. I’ve also realised that it takes me longer to do my art because my mind sometimes behaves like a stalled cold engine.

Yesterday the beautiful sunshine seemed to make the winter day pleasant enough. I’ve also noticed how much my mood has improved by just bringing flowers home.

Sending you all warm wishes for this week! xoxo

An old friend flew in and we’re having dinner at our place.

We’ll be using the dinner plates that Niina drew for our wedding present. I’m starting to think that she’s like superwoman. She can sew + draw + make just about anything. It scares me a little.