Melbourne Design Market

While I was in Melbourne I was lucky enough to stumble across the Melbourne Design Market which was held in the underground carpark at Federation Square. I was like a kid in a candy store - so much cool stuff, so little money, but I did my best and managed to talk to lots of creative types and click some photos...and buy a few keepsakes. So what did I spy?

Fabrics:

Melbourne screenprinting outfit - Spacecraft - was selling wall hangings, floor cushions and other homewares made with their hand printed fabrics. I also visited their store space in Gertrude Street. In their studio they have one print table with a backing cloth on it, this gets saturated with ink from the print ideas and colours that they use and gets replaced every few months - it's these backing cloth paintings are wonderful to view. They had a wonderful print on their window of a stack of books - but alas - they haven't printed this onto material...I suggested they may like to...hint hint!

Ceramics:

The State of Design Festival store had a variety of great products including very cute ceramic hot water bottle vases, 'house' plates as well as recycled plates cut into the shape of butterflies - gorgeous. They also had a range of mirrors in the shape of animals, balloons and children jumping and playing.

Gregory Bonasera designed an Elk vase I bought almost 10 years ago, it was great to accidently meet the man behind my treasured piece (and the story behind it) and see what work he has been doing since - I particularly liked his ceramic pieces of bones - kinda creepy but you can't help but pick them up (or maybe that's just me).

Sandra Bowkett creates delicate and beautiful little bowls and cups with polka dots, paperthin spoons which look ready to dip into a caddy of earl grey tea and ceramic brooches - I liked the insect decal drawings too (it's the scientist in me) and couldn't resist buying one of the tea cups to add to my collection.

Clever Stuff:

Lego Zip Drives: I saw these originally about a year ago in a design magazine and bought one so I was glad to see they are still available and getting out there. They come in different sizes (1, 2, 4, and 8 Gb) and colours (red, blue, pink, yellow, green, clear and black). This company (Zip Zip) also sells very cute ipod lego speakers. They're geeky hot and never fail to get a reaction from boys like - 'that's the coolest thing I've ever seen'...yeah - good for the crafty chicka's ego!

The Keep Cup: These Australian designed and manufactured reusable hot beverage cups sold like hotcakes - two sizes were available and you could choose the colour of cup, lid, preference band and the top sealing plug. Everything pops on and off, is microwavable and dishwasher safe. Estimated lifespan is four years and they are totally recyclable. I'm off to the States soon and will be taking mine to spread the word. I think we'll be seeing these everywhere.

Kearnsie: Funny, clever pieces by Lisa Kearns. The 'Hello' badges - inspired by working in customer service, the eyepiece scarf toggles and the cute knitting needle rings and bangles all were too cool for school!