smith+purton homewares!

A new homewares brand has started up in Hobart: smith+purton. We design, screenprint and make (okay, we outsource the making to someone who knows what she is doing with a sewing machine!) funky homewares such as tea towels, cushions, textile wall banners and crafter's fat quarters, with children's and adults' aprons, and new cushion and fat quarter designs to come later this month! So far all the fabric used is hemp-organic cotton or hemp-cotton denim, and it's all printed with water-based, solvent-free inks, so you can rest assured it's a clean process resulting in a safe (nevermind durable, original and desirable!) product! We also post on our facebook page and our store blog a new illustration each Monday, to keep things interesting. Here is this week's offering:

Here's a stack of our tea towels, folded and ready for packaging and shipping. Oh, we'll ship to anywhere in Australia for free too!

Here is one of our hemp-organic cotton tea towels, Kitchen City, also available in black, for $25, or as a pre-hung wall banner in red or black for $39.

Here are our yardage print Kitchen Scribble tea towels, currently on sale for $20 each!

One of our zingy hemp-organic cotton cushions, orange Zigzag.

So here we are. And we have one last offering. If you sign up for our mailing list before this Friday, 17 August, you'll go in the draw to win your choice of one of our tea towels, shipped free to wherever you are in the world! Sweet!

Long Beach

We only discovered this summer just gone the recently rejuvenated playground down at Long Beach in Sandy Bay, and it's quickly become one of our favourite outdoor haunts. There is a fantastic multi-level play structure, with slides, rope ladders, suspension bridges, tunnels, spinning things, ramps, poles and more. There are plenty of swings, a climbing wall cubby, a balance wheel and it's all surrounded by clean sand and tanbark, tall shady trees, large lushly green grassed areas and flanked along its length by the lovely, and eminently swimmable Long Beach. You can also barbecue your lunch (if you can dibs a spot!) under a large pavilion. The beach itself is clean, gentle and edged with a new cement promenade.



There's an awesome ice-cream shop around the corner, where you can buy a generous single scoop, in a waffle cone, for a measly $2, splash out on a double for $3. They don't have a huge range, but they've got all the basic flavours, and for a two-buck treat, I'm not complaining.

There is a well-paved path running the length of the beach and around to Blinking Billy Point (where you might find an accommodating rock-pool or two) and then to Blinking Billy Beach, another lovely beach, very much quieter than Long Beach (but it's seriously a five minute stroll) but just as nice for swimming and poking around for smooth stones.



Long Beach is a fantastic day out. There is plenty of parking by the playground, always a bunch of kids to muck in with, and it can cost you nothing if that's all you have.

Where: Beach Road, Sandy Bay (left off Sandy Bay Road as you leave the city, just past Lipscombe Larder, but that's another post...!)

Salamanca Market

Lots of locals like to pooh-pooh Salamanca as being full of tasteless crap catering only to tourists, and yes, it's true that there are a lot of tacky souvenirs available, but you just can't beat it for atmosphere.

On a sunny, blue-sky day, the many spreading green lawns, the buskers, the food stalls, and best of all the Hobart City Council mini-tractors that are left with keys in the ignition, kids crawling all over them and the council workers happily turning a blind eye, make a morning spent mooching around the market a very pleasant one indeed. I usually make sure to scrape up $3 for a bag of Oliebollen, the delicious Dutch fruit donuts made fresh on-site at one of the stalls (their tempura mushrooms are also excellent!). For an outing with kids, you've got loads to see, Princess Park just around the corner, the docks a stones throw the other way, and the CBD a stroll away.

There's a reason it's famous around the world. It's noice.


Oliebollen: DO NOT miss out on these.

PS: I've labelled it as pram-friendly, but you have to pick your routes. There is loads of space to park a pram and lay about on the grassed areas, and it's not impossible to meander through the stalls with a pram, even a Hummer like ours, but be sensitive to the fact that you're taking up more space than the average punter, and watch out for those ankles!

Montrose Foreshore All-Abilities Playground

Montrose Foreshore All-Abilities Playground (what a mouthful!) is a pretty cool playground between the Derwent River (good) and the Brooker Highway (less good) in Montrose, north of the city. It's got a cool rope climbing pyramid, crazy mirrors, kid-friendly chimes to play, slide, swings, seesaw... even a fancy wheelchair swing (always swarming with fascinated and non-wheelchair-bound kids). There is lots of space to throw balls, exercise dogs, and a great walking path that runs along the river back up to Glenorchy. Public toilets, plenty of parking, a couple of electric BBQ sites, ducks for feeding along the river's edge, sometimes an enterprising coffee van too! Downside: there isn't any kid-safe fencing + gates so you can't completely veg out...you have to supervise your own children, dammit!

Where: Brooker Highway, Montrose (on the left as you head into the city).

Princess Park

Princess Park, on Hampden Rd in Battery Point, is a favourite city hangout of ours. Nomatter the weather, it is always populated by at least a few kids (more often than not swarming with them), so it's toddler heaven! Three slides, pirate ship, sand, grassy hills, and a stone's throw from the likes of Salamanca, the picturesque streets of Battery Point, Sandy Bay or the CBD...what's not to like? It's a beautiful park with a fabulous view over the water and lots of shaded spots to sit on a warm day and picnic, play and people-watch.

The Market August post-mortem...

Yesterday's The Market was a great success, I'm delighted to report! We (Zando Design and T'Art) had one of the two "showcase" positions in the foyer, which meant basically every one of the 700+ visitors took their loaded wallets past us first!
My tealight candle-shades, 'Bright Lights, Little City', had their second public showing, and sold like hot-cakes (The Republic Bar had sold out by 11.30!), and I got heaps of fantastic and helpful feedback. Thanks to all who came along, and to all who come to this wonderful market every month!

Zando Design and T'Art will be back at the October Market, on Sunday October 4, 10-3. Come along to see the new candle shade designs I will be selling. You may even find your favourite pub immortalised in 4 inches of glowing card!

World on fire at The Market!

The Market is on again at the Masonic Temple on Sandy Bay Rd in Hobart. Lots of fantastic wares to be had, including a range of candle lanterns from moi, Zando Design. The orginal "Manhattan" series will be available, as well as the newly completed "Hobart Deco" series, featuring three iconic Hobart art deco buildings known and loved by locals. Hobart is more than just settlers cottages and overlords mansions, you know!



Where: Masonic Temple, Sandy Bay Rd, Hobart (opposite St David's Park)
When: Sunday August 2, 10-3
What: hot soup, great coffee, nibbles, cards, badges, bags, bears, jewellery, hair accessories, and heaps more!