One Year On

It has almost been one year since I started my Etsy shop. It was around the second week of my winter break that I started selling online. It almost ended up being ebay, until I found Etsy in a google search. Today I started my holidays and was finally able to take some photos of products I have made due to being home when there is some sun in the sky.

This is a new style of bag I made with pleats. It has five buttons on each side that I purchased on ebay a few weeks back. The fabric is a lovely printed cotton. It is available in my Etsy shop.

In my previous post I had a picture of my ping pong t-shirt. The girl who won ran up to me and said she loved it and her friend said that I should sell them. I told them I was planning on it and I think they were quite excited.

Ding Dong I love Ping Pong

So I made these t-shirts for school and in all my stupidity, I spell Ping pong PONGPONG. I was writing it backwards so it would be as long as the dingdong. I managed to do a fix up job by turning the O into a paddle with an i in the middle. (At the moment the i is a photoshop job, I'm waiting for it to dry before I print it)

My "fix up" sort of works. It made me so angry all I could do was laugh and say I'm an idiot over and over again. I don't think I would have even noticed till Gareth told me. The kids would have just laughed and said, oh the impotence of proof reading!

In far more exciting news my little badges are in the Frank Bits in Frankie Magazine with some other noteworthy people, including Made It, Liana Kabel and Kara Smith.

New Style

I've had a busy week this week although I've been a little slow with the blog updates.

On Thursday night I went to a very informative craft business talk run by Nikki-Shell and her accountant and friend, Mary. I have since been sorting out my finances on e-record (from the ATO website) and I wish I had it 12 months ago! I know now what I need to do for next year in terms of keeping my business in order. I am usually okay at keeping records, but sometimes get slack and then have to fix up all the backlog.

On Friday night I took some badges and coin purses to a new bookshop on Sydney Road called Brunswick Bound. The address is 361 Sydney Road, Brunswick and it is on the same side of the road as Spotlight and quite close to Scavengers and Art China. The shops looks great and they have the most interesting counter made from lots of old books.

After I was finished sorting out all my end of year finances I made a new bag. I was going to finish the other tote I made, but left the iron on it and burnt it. I decided to stop looking at it because it made me so sad, although I think there is probably an area I can recover for something smaller.

I created another bag with a new design. This one has buttons and applique and is a smaller than my totes but bigger than my pouches. It also has a press stud and pocket inside. The photo doesn't show the colour too well because it was dark when I took it, but it is a lovely bag and I am quite proud. I think I will make a few more like it. I got a nice stash of buttons from Ebay recently, although the ones on this bag are from my local op-shop. Hopefully I will list it on Etsy during the week, although light and finishing work will dictate this.

New Bag

I decided I would make some new tote bags with the fabric I got last weekend. I thought I would try a multicoloured screen print with colours overlapping. I had a look on some style blogs for inspiration and then went on Illustrator to try out some different colours and ideas. It was hard to find a background colour that was the same as the bag, I couldn't get any pale browns, only warm skin colours. I think the design works a little better on the warmer colour. It was fun to make some totes again, although I was worried I would make a mistake because it gets a little complicated when it comes to joining the bag with the lining and strap and I have ended up with inside out lining or pockets upside-down in the past. I will be putting the bags in the shop during the week, they are the same, but with different linings.

Colour Lovers

After a week of long days, using a red pen far too much and wondering when I would return I have almost finished everything school related and can breathe a sigh of relief. I have discovered a lovely site through Gemmafactrix called colourlovers. It is very simple, but a real challenge to create something that looks good. This is my first (and most popular) palette called Mostly Moss.

The other thing I like about the site, other than making a palette, is if the colours you select have not been named (which is often) you can name them yourself. This is rather exciting because I feel it is an important job, like I work at the Derwent factory. Sometimes I like to name the colours after people and call them Brent or Craig.

As for new items in the Etsy shop, it's like the pouch I posted last week, but a wallet:

Reporting Sickness

I've been away from my blog for over a week due to two things, getting sick and writing reports. But the weekend is back so I had some time to make some new things. I went op-shopping this morning and was planning on getting some cheap wool jumpers because I wanted to try felting them by putting them in a hot machine wash, but the only ones I saw were expensive and I was shocked at how little there were. I did find some lovely fabric with a cotton weave through it. I have only seen it with the white weave, but this is white with a brown weave. It is a little thicker and sturdier than the cotton drill I often use which is great and it looks a little like linen. I made wristlet pouch and combined it with a screenprint I did last week. I went for the dual fabric, but this time the stitching is on the outside. I am really happy with the results and I love the big black dots in the design and it is available in my Etsy shop.

I would also like to thank Inaluxe for organising the interview with me on her blog, although I found it hard to answer the questions! Inaluxe is one of the many talented Australian's on Etsy and her work is just beautiful. Kristina sent me some of her Moo cards featuring her work and they are almost to good to send out, I just want to stick them up around the house. I thought I would share some of the loveliness with you: