Photographic updates are one of my favourite kind of posts to ‘read’, I think most people are interested in glimpsing  how other people see the world. I also have an obsessive need to photograph everything so it seems obvious I should be sharing my photos more often!

This week has been filled with beautiful autumn days, job applications, laughing with friends and family, birthdays, coffee, drawing and lots of driving for work. The latter is made more fun by my pink suede driving gloves, although unfortunately one bow fell off on first wearing. I have to say I expected better craftsmanship from Alannah Hill.

A visit to my grandmother’s farm for her 89th birthday had me spend a great afternoon planting tulips. Here she is filling a heavy bucket of dirt in her vegie garden which she was about to carry over to me. She is pretty amazing to still live completely alone and unaided in her rural property, let alone to still be growing her own vegies and flowers and looking after her chickens, dog, and alpacas. I think she looks like a french peasant here, the perfect subject for an impressionist painting.

From my grandmother’s garden I picked some stunning dahlias. Although they aren’t the best lasting flower they are my favourite in terms of structure. I loved the colours of these ones set against one of my father’s collages.

The best parts of life are the unexpected details like the combination of your two favourite things on a grumpy morning.

On the weekend a friend and I made a spur of the moment decision to hire a couple of Segways. I have rarely had so much fun on a moving vehicle. There were a couple of tumbles (each) due to reckless driving but zooming around the lake on such a beautiful day, doubled over with laughter made it a highlight of my year! Our faces were sore from smiling as we handed them back and I can’t wait to do it again because I lost the race and demand a re-match! There were lots of kids hiring them, and it would be very easy not to fall off if that doesn’t sound fun to you. It’s a bit pricey but I highly recommend giving it a go!

One of my recent illustrations and a pretty posy.

I stocked up on fun eyelashes at an amazing $2 shop. I haven’t seen as many bargain eyelashes since I was in Japan and managed to get 8 pairs for the price of one elsewhere. I don’t think quality matters with eyelashes as long as you have a good adhesive. I want to try customising some because it’s my motto that heels, hair and lashes can’t ever be too big. (How Fran Fine of me.)

I hope you had a great week and feel nothing like my poor little Tobi in this picture.

I have a serious vegiburger addiction. I’ve toyed with the idea for over a year of starting a tumblr to map and rate my vegiburger experiences, however I’ve just discovered something SO MUCH BETTER.

Burgers and Nails does nothing more than the title suggests, and with the ‘Meat Free Mondays’ feature I think they’ve done my work for me. Check it out here.

I really love the internet.

I realised I’ve put a lot of thoughts and not much of my work here on the blog, so this is just a quick post to show you a pair of oxfords I made. They are brown cow hide and pig skin, with randing and a toe cap. The photo is by the wonderful Sealegs Imagery, who I couldn’t recommend highly enough, and this image actually appeared on the Italian Vogue website as part of Photo Vogue!

My dad recieved these as a birthday present, but I think he’s too afraid of ruining them to wear them. Either that or he just would have preferred winklepickers!

The other day on Facebook, I cracked a Sharmadean Reid joke, and nobody seemed to get it. So I thought it was time to spread the word further about one of the coolest and most inspirational business women in the world.

Despite being only 27, and having a one year old son, the stylist, brand consultant and entrepreneur has an enviable career history. Having moved to London to study at Central St Martins, she assisted Nichola Formachetti (then Fashion Director of Dazed and Confused, currently better known as Lady Gaga’s stylist) and worked for Levi’s and Nike as a stylist and brand consultant. I’d be jealous of her for living my dream life if she wasn’t so genuine and endlessly inspiring.

As the owner and founder of WAH Nails, I believe she is the catalyst for the current worldwide popularity of nail art. I’m always interested to watch a trend trickle down from the trendsetters to the mass market, and over the last few years watching more and more conservative women bring bling to their fingers has made me really happy. There’s a lot of nastiness to deal with day to day, and seeing someone’s tuxedo nails on the train or matching polkadot nails and dress really brightens my day.

Most people would be quick to dismiss nail art as frivolous and irrelevant, however it becomes far less frivolous from a business perspective when you see the growth of the nail industry through the recession. Neilson reports that sales of nail products now take up 15% of the beauty market, while also being the fastest growing sector having grown almost 23% last year. The fact that Reid not only grew her business with this trend, and predicted it early enough to start her business before it took hold, but also provided a service and product exciting enough to feed the trend and spur it on, is only one reason I’m so interested in her. If those figures haven’t convinced you, she was also chosen as one of only six women in Forbes’ list of 70 most powerful people.

Far more inspiring to me than the numbers, is her reasoning behind WAH and her perspective on starting a small business.  From an interview with Dazed and Confused from 3 years ago, just before she opened the WAH salon, she makes it clear that her intention with the salon is to support female youth culture, and nurture other talented business women who may not find the support elsewhere.

I want the nail bar to be a WAH HQ, I want it to be responsible to the local community too – I just wanna provide a space to hang out.  And I want it to be the dopest nail art place in town! Basically I want the satisfaction of giving something back to Hackney – a place I’ve robbed so much inspiration from.

In a more recent interview, she again explains her intentions.

I can do nails, and I love them, but it’s everything else that’s interesting to me. The nails are a creative outlet and an excuse to bring girls together. I’m interested in youth and girls, and I think inspiring and educating young women is the most valuable and precious thing I can do.

Her attitude to business strikes a chord with me. I find it hard not to get bogged down and depressed by the waste and excess of the fashion industry, but if we can think of our creative pursuits as a contribution as well as an income, and keep our intentions and creations true and pure, then the outcome will not only feel more satisfying but the product will become more covetable. I know that finding out more about Reid has made me desperately want to support WAH, and since I haven’t moved to London (yet) maybe I’ll have to do that by buying the new WAH book.

The method I’ve applied – keeping it unique and pure – can be applied to any business, so if I decided I wanted to open a bakery, it would be the coolest bakery.

But until I get the book, I’m pretty happy with practising my tuxedo nails for the upcoming Janelle Monae concert in Sydney (the devil’s in the details) and alternating those with my Sally Hansen salon effects polish strips – which even make my To Do lists look more fun.

All images from Wah Nails or my own.