rainbowtatt

In 6 weeks I’ll be bridesmaid for my sister.

I popped out west* this weekend for my dress-making appointments. This woman has gone from taking measurements yesterday morning to virtually having the whole dress done. We had four sessions in her little workroom in a 24-hour period. We left the dressmaker late this morning and all she has to do is finish the hems, add the lining, sew in the zipper and iron the damn thing.

THAT’S IT.

This woman is a machine. A brilliant dress-making machine.

I also managed to squeeze in a hair trial, makeup trial and watch Nephew Noah in the ANZAC parade.

I’m exhuasted, and that’s without the 8+ hours of driving.

Here’s me at the 2nd fitting yesterday (with trial hair). I’m holding the wrap across my gut:

And here’s me at the 4th and final fitting this morning with trial makeup and morning-after trial hair:

* “Popped out” aka driving 3½ hours yesterday and 5 hours today (damn you, holiday traffic in the blue mountains!)

Leigh, the CrazyMeezer of All For Women fame and my partner in crime at That’s Noice has launched a new web site this week: Blog Chicks – Networking for Australian Women Bloggers.

I’ve joined the forum and have already met some blogger chicks I normally wouldn’t have come across. I have lots of new blogs to add to my Netvibes!

Blog Chicks is also the new home of the Top 100 Australian Women Bloggers, at which, amazingly, I’m #97!

Hullo to the girls who have landed here from my ramblings on the forums! *waves*

Lately there’s been a lot of talk about graffiti in Sydney. Now that I’m 30 and listen to AM radio, I’ve heard a a lot of talkback on the topic.

I’ve gotten so close to ringing the radio (oh my god, I really am turning into my mother) because the close-minded opinion that graffiti artists just do it to piss people off was, well, pissing me off.

The word graffiti is being used far too broadly—graffiti really is moreso about illegal artworks and “tagging” (I hate tagging). Street art refers to those beautifully thought-out and executed pieces where most-often the artists have gained permission of the owners to decorate their vertical real estate.

Me? I’m a fan of street art. If I had that kind of talent with a spray can, I’d be going for it, too. And I really do hate tagging – it’s thoughtless and it’s a spray-can equivalent of a dog taking a whizz on every blade of grass in the neighbourhood.

Our garage wall had been covered in graffiti – meaningless tags and spray drips that made it look more like a training ground for junior street artists. Then late last year we saw a group of guys working on a wall near us that ended up looking like this:

We got to talking to the group of guys and offered them our tacky garage wall as a canvas. Turns out that most street artists get the permission of the property owners (or in our case, renter) and go as far as getting contact details of the property owners so that they have a fallback position if the cops start asking questions. Cause they know that doing it without permission is, you know, illegal.

The guys we met over the course of a few weeks while they worked on this wall as well as hours, we found them all to be intelligent, articulate and most of them had day jobs and this was just their creative outlet after hours.

I like that.

And I have since had greater respect for the street art I see around Enmore, Newtown, St Peter’s and other places around Sydney.Yes, I know there are some bad apples around, but aren’t there always in social groupings?

I’m making it my mission to educate everyone around me that there’s a difference between graffiti and street art and that there is a hell of a lot of street art-talent out there.

And for the record, ever since our garage wall has been done up, there has been NO MORE TAGGING on our roller door. Kinda goes to show that there is a level of respect for each other’s talent in the street art world.

I wrote about the blue monkey here.

Since I started LRKane Creative earlier this year, I’ve looked at (seemingly) a million web sites to inform and inspire me in these early days of my small business.

Here are the top 5 web sites that I’ve found to be the most helpful in terms of getting started with my small business:

1. ATO As much as I hate the tax office, I have to admit their web site was pretty good in giving me the answers I was looking for – whether I need to charge GST and complete a BAS every quarter (I don’t think I do because I’ll be earning less than $75,000 a year)
2. ABNs and business info I had no idea that ABNs are free (WIN!) and this site’s been a huge source of info, especially the how-to guides
3. Click Business Cards Not only are these cards a dead-set bargain (less than $70 for 250 cards incl delivery), the cards were on my doorstep within 36 hours of me submitting my order
4. Easy Signs car magnets A cheap alternative to stickers on my beloved car and the beauty is that they’re removable! Perfect for when I’m in the need to let out some road rage
5. SmallBiz I’ve only found this site fairly recently, but already finding the NSW-centric info really really helpful.