Cutcakes

What to do when you really need a haircut but your budget says you should decide to grow your hair??? I found this gorgeous British girl Becky here in Berlin who cuts your hair for a very reasonable 15 Euros for the first cut, and makes you cake too! She even accommodated my food sensitivities, the sweetheart. Check out her blog Cutcakes and give her a call. My cake was delicious... and the cut is great, phew I have my neck back!

Social Designer

I just entered the latest competition (Freedom) on Social Designer. It's a website that "curates and creates smart products that tune into the greater good. You can join the cause by submitting designs for our competitions, weighing in with your opinion, purchasing goods or just simply talking about them. After all, every good idea (and every good cause) starts with a conversation – the more, the merrier." Social Designer is brought to you by the New York office of Felissimo, a global company that strives to promote social responsibility through good design.

They conduct competitions to design t-shirts and tote bags to support worthy causes. Go on, have a go and enter one!! And if you could imagine my design above on a t-shirt then please vote for my design... thank you!!

Kurt Schranzer

The other day I received an email from Kurt Schranzer, a dear artist friend back in Queensland Australia whose work is exquisite - both his sexy, homoerotic drawings and his current project The Great Walls , involving artisanal techniques of marquetry passed down by the men in his family. His work is held in collections worldwide and has been exhibited widely internationally.

Kurt is one of the subjects of my ongoing series of tattoo portraits and our shoot together several years ago reigns as one of the most entertaining by far!

Shusta, Berlin

You would be forgiven for thinking I had disappeared lately from lack of blogging... Truth is, life has been juicy and exciting and now that the sun is out, the urge to be outside when possible takes over! This means that my list of things to blog about has been steadily growing by the minute and so I will put a few out there on this first day of June!

Recently I discovered a funky new shoe store in Mitte Berlin called Shusta, where they have yummy coloured desert boots - honestly still one of my favourites from childhood, fair-trade Brazilian sandals, and young labels making shoes and accessories, all impeccably chosen. The store is located at Rosentaler Straße 72, near the well-known internet café Sankt Oberholz on the corner of Torstraße.

Mod3rnArt

I received yesterday the sweetest invitation by Greek jewellery designers and handmade supporters Mod3rnArt (on Etsy) to join an online project to show the workspaces/studios/ateliers of all us creative folk who are busy making things to fill the world with beauty and handtouched love!

Here is the link to their project iStudio: http://mod3rnart.com/Gallery/iStudio/Mod3rnart-iStudio.html.html

J & L books

I was just distracted by one of my favourite books on my shelf - I know it's a favourite when it made the big journey across the world with me almost a year ago! J & L's Dancing Pictures.

I bought it in New York in 2002 and now I see it's out of print... ooh, it's even more of a treasure to me. So with trusty Google's help I've discovered J & L are a not-for-profit organisation publishing artist books and they all look pretty delectable to me from the first browse of their site... They also host live events that I'd be at if I was in the USA. Their beautifully simple logo pictured above is designed by Paul Sahre, whose work I'm delighted to discover.

Christopher Hanlon cosmetics

I was introduced to Christopher Hanlon's divine all natural, organic, incredible smelling cosmetics, established in 1994, through a wonderful healing friend of mine Paie. I honestly cannot live without my beloved face cream from Christopher, and so now that I've moved to the other side of the world, I rely on good old Australia Post or friends visiting to bring me supplies... My Australian skin feels very happy when smeared with this fresh, smooth, skin-nourishing potion that is Visage Silké. I can highly recommend his hand cream and body lotions, and the men's cosmetics are amongst the largest range available!

Contact Christopher through his site for orders and enquiries - he's more than willing to help!