Sunday sunday

This is what we did on our "lazy" Sunday...

The Owl emptied her library cabinet (don't ask!!!) ......

Continued work on her "new" buffet.....

and stood back and admired Alice's next big step...... (*sigh* so in love)

The Elephant started with a cuppa......

took care of some Owl and the Elephant Facebook business.....

and then sat down to watch "The Wizard of Oz" for the zillionth time.......

What did YOU do on this lazy Sunday?




Thought of the moment:

Weekends are a bit like rainbows; they look good from a distance but disappear when you get up close to them.  ~John Shirley

Road trip!!

The Owl and the Elephant are busy loading up our ipods with 80's classics getting ready to head off on a road trip next weekend. (Despite the fact it is the Owl's wedding anniversary - a slight oversight on her behalf, sorry Mr Owl!!)

We are SO excited to be going away for two nights to dunsborough ( though of course we will miss our husbands and children TERRIBLY *cough*) and can't wait to check out some of the talented local handicrafts and knick knacky shops.

One of the Elephant's favourite shops which she cannot wait to introduce the Owl to is Little Leisure Toys. One look at the welcome page of their website is enough to make our hearts flutter!!

Then of course a trip down south would not be a trip down south without a visit to the chocolate factory! no explanation needed, one simply cannot function without the recomended daily dose of this medicine!

The Old Court House in Busselton is one of those brilliant places neither of us have visited before that is full of local arts and crafts and we can't wait to check it out.

Two places we cannot wait to check out we first found on facebook!  room2room looks simply too good to just walk on past...

and Rustic French Living  is the sort of shop we could easily get lost in for days!

What are some of your favourite places to visit? We would love to hear some suggestions, especially for handcrafted goodies or beautiful stores!

Thought of the moment:

"Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring."
- Marilyn Monroe

P.S (do you do P.S's in blogs? Apparently we do!) Those of our lovely likers waiting for an "Alice" update... stay tuned...the next blog could well be the big reveal!!!

double the reason to celebrate!!

  Happy Australia day to all! but an extra specially big..................

                 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MRS 
                            ELEPHANT!!!


From this beautiful baby..........

To this beautiful lady.................

An amazing mother, wife, woman of God, business partner and friend!! So blessed to have you in my life!! The Owl and the Elephant wouldn't be the same without you!! ( infact it would just be "The Owl" and business meetings aka tea time would be very lonely!!)
                                             Wishing you an amazing day and an incredible year!

curiouser and curiouser....

So the dolls house continues slowly, slowly but is rather large and rather time consuming so we have decided to get started on a SECOND piece of furniture (as if we are not busy enough already)! This piece will combine our love of beautiful furniture, stunning fabrics AND timeless childhood favourites as we begin the creation of "Alice". Recipe for an Alice? Simple!  Take one small and incredibly cute dresser ( which comes with a stunning elongated oval mirror currently unattached for refurbishing purposes!!) : and one piece of BEAUTIFUL Alice themed fabric from one of our fav places Spoonflower.... Add one clever Owl and an equally clever Elephant then simply sit back and watch the magic unfold! We cant WAIT to show you the finished product and all going well you won't have to wait for to much longer! Thought of the moment: "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."                                          - C.S Lewis -

I (Josie) dislike peas, bananas, early morning wake ups and the press studs on wondersuits (I can just never seem to get them right the first time!).
Nat (a-latte as I prefer to call her!) dislikes brussel sprouts, coffee breath, things in her ears and arches on houses (like seriously, in a 'they make her skin crawl' kinda way!)

We both however  LOVE .....

plates on walls!!!!!

ooh la la!

So the time has come faithful followers! We can no longer contain our excitement and we simply must introduce you to our new line of products...

Here at The Owl and the Elephant we pride ourselves on our beautiful products handcrafted by yours truly and Mrs Elephant. Lately we have not been able to draw ourselves away from the stunning variety of hand-crafted products available outside our own little studio, and as such we have decided to branch out and stock a wider range. We have searched high and low for a selection of delicious hand-crafted products made to perfection, ready to deliver to you.

Where to start? Firstly, as we love writing we went on the hunt for some stunning leather journals. Hand-printed with a beautiful soft leather cover and all wrapped up safety with a leather strap.
Guaranteed to end your writers block!

Leather Journals

Next we would like to introduce you to our toooooo cute to pass up Pocket Pals. These will be an instant winner with any child (or any child at heart!). Handcrafted from eco-fibre felt and embroidery thread, how could you resist? Our little Pocket Pals can be removed from their pockets for endless hours of imaginary fun and then popped back into their little homes and carried off to their next adventure. Ready for their new homes!

Pocket Pals

Up next we have these little cuties. Hand-crafted felt pins that need no description - they speak for themselves! Made by Cute&Classy Boutique

Felt Owl Brooch

Felt Cupcake Brooch

Last but by no means least, these delectable slide top secret tins. The perfect place to store all those "little bits" that continuously rumble around in the bottom of your bag or simply to just sit on a shelf looking pretty. We just love these little fellows!

Slide-top Tins

We hope that you love our new collection as much as we do. We cannot wait to hear your feedback so please comment below and let us know what you think!!


Thought of the moment:

                      "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."
                                                                     Mother Teresa

to market to market to buy a fat pig.....

Hands down one of the "funnest" parts of owning a business such as The Owl and the Elephant is attending markets, both as a shopper and a seller! We love to "get amongst it" and see what WA handmade has to offer and WOW!! there are certainly some talents out there! One of the HARDEST parts of having a stall at any markets is not spending all the money we make on all the beautiful goods available!

Last weekend we decided to do some research *cough* shopping *cough* and headed off to the Kalamunda markets to see if The Owl and the Elephant would "fit in".


We set out bright and early with all the best intentions of getting to the markets for open time but decided to take a detour *cough* get lost *cough* and took the scenic route past Mundaring Weir. When we FINALLY got there we where blown away by the array of gorgeous goodies.

Kalamunda Markets

What beautiful things we saw!! We have put in our application and cannot wait to have our first stall there. Stay tuned, you certainly won't want to miss it!

Another market we just LOVE is Market Girl and if you would like to come and check out The Owl and the Elephant " in the flesh" so to speak we will be there on the 13th February. One of the best parts of markets is when our facebook likers (and now faithful blog followers!) come to see us - so please come say hi!! We might even have to work out some "special" for our fans who mention where they follow us. Hmm now there's an idea!
As we have so many lovely things if you ARE coming to the markets and there is something particular you would like to see please let us know.   Now would also be a great time to get those custom orders in so you can save on postage and just come past and pick it up.

Market Girl

and now just a teaser of our beautiful market spreads....

We really do hope to catch all you Perthies there! If nothing more, its a great day out!

Thought of the moment: 

Whatever you feed the most- your heart or your convictions- will become the stronger and in the end will claim the victory

Out of the Mouths of Babes....

So faithful follower, you might find yourself wondering a little more about "The Owl and the Elephant" so let us share with you a bit more about who we are.

"The Owl" is Josie - Sydneysider at heart, relocated to Perth 4 years ago. Married to Tyler and mum to 4 beautiful children Toby (8 in March, gees when did that happen?) Alex (5) Bella (3) and Max (18 mths)

"The Elephant" is Nat - Perth born and bred, married to Chris and mum to two gorgeous girls Evie (3) and Mischa (10 mths)

We are both incredibly blessed in our families as our children are just amazing (and we are not biased AT ALL!). And they all get on incredibly well (99.9% of the time anyway!)
The Owl and the Elephant is our newest baby. It has been such a joy getting it "up and running" and learning to juggle our kids, our home life, our social life and our work life but we have loved every minute.

Our families provide incredible support and  life with kids... well, they just make everything so much fun! To be able to see what they see for just a moment, to "simplify" life through the eyes of a child would I'm sure be a breath of fresh air into many lives.... to be just as happy with a brand new flashy toy as with seeing a furry caterpillar in the garden.

Recently our church put on a pantomime "Snow White and her Motley Crew" and the kids just LOVED it.
A few days later as I (Mrs Owl) was sitting at home, Miss 3 came toddling in to me wearing her clickly plastic $3 Target heels...and so began the following conversation:
"Mum, do we have any poisoned apples?"
"Ah, no I think we are fresh out of poisoned apples"
"Ohhh but Prince Charming won't come! I need to be poisoned!!"
"You don't need a Prince Charming yet sweetheart"
"Noo but I want his horse!!!"

Sometimes kids say the darndest things! I still remember when Master 7 came to me with this pearl of wisdom:
"Mum Superman must have had a pretty bad mum - she never taught him that undies go on the inside" (he was 3 at  the time!)

Then of course there is Mrs Elephant's eldest daughter Evie, who once informed me she could not go swimming "because I forgot my water skin!". She loves nothing more than playing with her Owl and the Elephant Doctors kit and once came to Mrs Elephant with kit in tow... "Mummy, let me check your heart. OH NO! You are VERY sick! You have snake germs!!!"

What do YOU do with all these moments?  I have come to the decision that it is time to start writing them all down so they don't get forgotten. These moments pass by so quickly! Blink and they are gone, that 3 year old who was so concerned about Superman's underpants is suddenly 16 and wayyyyyy too cool to care!

We would love to hear some of the funny things your kids have come out with.

Thought of the moment:
Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.  ~Elizabeth Stone

Dollshouses and Motorbikes

So back in the beginning, before there was a facebook page, a website or a blog - The Owl and the Elephant was merely a twinkle in our eyes, an idea in our hearts and a storm in our teacups!
We drank copious amounts of tea and discussed all the things we would love to do and went to work.
Suddenly what used to be The Elephant's (Nat's) games room became our workshop! Filled to the brim with fabrics, wipes cases, light switches, chocolate (face it, can any business really succeed without chocolate?) and more. Then, just when we thought it could fit no more "stuff" in it, came the dollshouse.....
One of our many lines will be repurposed, reinvented and rebeautified furniture so before we became inundated with orders and before we realised just HOW busy we would be we went around and collected furniture...just one or two pieces......

Including a rather large, could store your kids in it type dollshouse.
Here is where we find our dilema... Apparently, Mr Elephant would like his garage back to park his motorbike in. I mean come on - priorities!!! So at the risk of coming home to all our furniture out on the curb (or worse!) we are rolling up our sleeves and beginning the rebirth of the dollshouse!
Over the next couple of weeks we will be blogging our progress starting with this before pic:

So stay tuned! We have a few ideas up our sleeve but would love to hear your suggestions! Obviously this item would be a litttttttlllle hard to post (though courier is of course an option) so we are hoping to "rehome" our finished dollshouse with a lovely Perth family upon completion so if you are interested please drop us a line!

Thought of the moment : 

                 Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You! 

                                                                        Dr Seuss