Sarah's seeds

My lovely friend, Sarah Ryan of Hillandale Gardens and Nursery in Yetholme, country NSW has been bringing me flowers from her garden to paint for the last year or so.  Yetholme has a cooler climate so the old fashioned favourites thrive there. 

We are currently working on a series of seed packets for her nursery.  Here are the first three offerings: Calendula (marigolds), Penstemon and Granny bonnets.

There will be more throughout the year and Sarah will be selling these on her open days and plant markets - or you could ask me here.

The designs have been executed by my extremely talented niece and Gabby Malpas brand manager: Emma Harris.  Pretty huh?

Valentine's Day blog hop

I'm not usually a fan of Valentine's Day but the following idea is such a lovely one from my very, very talented friend Chris Chun that I wanted to particpate.  Chris invited a number of artist friends to share an image signifying love and romance.  Not being the romantic sort, Chris took one of my images and added the poem above  - and voila!  A Valentine's Day picture that could be included.

The other participants of this idea are as follows - please click on them to view their beautiful artworks.  I am so excited to be included.

...and Happy Valentine's Day.

Chris Chun 
Sharon Himes
Allison Langton
Peggy Jo Ackley
Patrica Shea
Skye Rogers
Phyllis Dobbs
Barbara Johansen Newman
Natalie Ryan
Bee Strong

Gabby Malpas article in Lifestyle Asia 200

My interview with Mingyue Zhou, from Lifestyle Asia was published in January 2012 and was glorious!

For those of you who missed the publication, the article can be downloaded from here in PDF format (NB: the article is in Chinese):

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4.

I have uploaded my original, raw text and images, in english - here