My favourite places for buying craft supplies are Spotlight [111 Cecil Street, South], which is the major retail craft outlet here for fabric, beads, and furnishings. It’s open 7 days with late night shopping on Thursday and Friday. Eureka! Beads [1295 Nepean Highway, Cheltenham] In Pakenham (56km south east of Melbourne), for gemstone beads, Swarovski crystals, Austrian glass beads, sterling silver links, wire and findings. I also buy my gemstones and crystals from Crystal World [743 Glen Huntly Road, Caulfield]. It feels like you’re in a magikal wonderful; the sides of the driveway covered with crystals of all shapes and sizes. I also buy a lot of things from op~shops (charity) and online.
Some of my favourite places to eat would be Leo's Spaghetti Bar [55 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda VIC 3182, Australia], Fitzroy Street, St Kilda. It’s been there since I was a child. Famous for it’s spaghetti and lasagne and gelato bar. Our local eatery is LaColline Café [13 Commercial Road, South Yarra] in Belgrave (you can tell I love Italian) and closer to home Monroes café in Belgrave South.
I love to go down to our local parks to finish small drawings or sketches of my latest inspirations. Cardinia Dam wall and Lysterfield Lake, Lysterfield are great places to sit and draw and think get ideas.
Although I don’t belong to any craft clubs or groups, every suburb has a community house where they have groups for most of your interests, learning new skills; whether it be a computer course or knitting course. Community houses are also a great place to meet people who share your interests etc. Burrinja Cultural Centre (Dandenong Ranges Community Cultural Centre Inc) in Upwey holds workshops where local artists can run classes or groups in their chosen speciality.
There are so many places here to go for inspiration. We have the beautiful Arts Centre [Australia] with it’s 168 metre high imitation Eiffel tower. The heritage listed 243km stretch of road that is The Great Ocean Road, along the south-eastern coast. It runs between the famous (Jan Juc, Bells Beach) surf town of Torquay to Allansford. This road is well known for it’s many natural limestone and sandstone rock formations; Loch and Gorge, The Grotto, London Arch and The Twelve Apostles (of which there about 7 still standing).
I live about an hour from Melbourne in the beautiful rolling hills and rainforest of the Dandenong Ranges (known as the Dandenongs). We have the Mount Dandenong Lookout which is the highest point of the mountains at 633m. On a clear day you can see the city towers. Sitting on the side of the hill, along the Mt Dandenong Tourist Road is William Rickets Sactuary. A beautiful, peaceful, tranquil space for gathering your thoughts and focusing within. William Rickets spent many years living with the Aboriginals in central Australia, and his sculptures which are a testament to the respect and love he had for them.