Pretty Little Things

I just got back from New Zealand yesterday.  I won't write a detailed play by play of my trip because that's boring and I'm sick and my head hurts, BUT, I thought I'd share these cool little local finds.  Fortunately the weather was absolutely perfect the whole time I was traveling around New Zealand, but it started raining on the last day I was there.  So, my plans to spend the extra time until my flight walking around the Parnell area (look! It looks so cool!  http://www.parnell.net.nz/parnell_photos.htm) were replaced with souvenir shopping on Queen Street.  Most of the stuff I got came from this cool little artsy shop "From N to Z," but some of the stuff you could find other places, too.

The set of block art prints is of Lake Taupo, which is where the tour I was on went to next (unbeknownst to me, I was on a modified version of the tour... sad... bungy jumping in Taupo looked like it would be awesome... I jumped off a building instead, but it just wasn't the same).  Anyway, it's from this company Tantrum Design (http://www.tantrum.co.nz/).  Shann Whitaker is the guy who started the company, and on the packaging for the set there's a paragraph of stuff that has influenced his art so far, which I think adds a cool touch.

As for the little hen, it's from this lady who started this company Happy Hens (http://www.happyhens.co.nz/).  They're handpainted in Dunedin.  The main reason I got one of these little guys is that, somewhere along the way, my family got really into weird, artistic renditions of birds.  We have this crazy metal panel contraption of a rooster (the head is attached to a rusty spring and bobs up and down... it's really weird... hence it got moved to the farm house), a multi-colored glass rooster (also in the farm house), and the Oaxacan parrot alebrije depicted behind the Happy Hen above.  We probably have some others that I'm not remembering.

A bunch of little shops have these nice tea towels, but you have to look around and find the ones with cool patterns and that aren't overpriced (pricing in these shops is completely arbitrary).  So I got one with colorful kiwis, one with colorful sheep, a retro looking one that has a pavlova recipe (Kiwis love pavlova... and yes, I fully intend on trying out the recipe), and a cool pop art sheep one.  I absolutely love the pop art sheep idea and got the coasters, too (sheep are pretty huge in New Zealand... they outnumber people 12 to 1... and they're delicious).  The N to Z shop also had these cool wall clocks made out of bottles of New Zealand beers that were melted flat... perfect for knowing when beer o'clock is.

Alright... time to go make some hot tea with Manuka honey... :)