Key Rings

I've been looking for the rings to make keyrings for a while now and finally came across some in a little shop on Centre Road and grabbed everything they had. I went home and started playing around with different ideas and after 10 attemps I decided to make some like the fabric brooches I've been making and was finally happy with the result. I used primary colours, my favourite colour combination with a mixture of fabrics including tulle, linen, cotton. They are quite sturdy from the two layers of denim and all the stitching and I think I might change my current Charles Rennie Mackintosh keyring and test them out. You can see my failures over at Flickr.

Glitter Freak

I needed to print up the other six shirts I had to take along to Rose Street. I had been putting off printing them because I didn't know what to do for the prints. After reading the comments on Flickr from my print yesterday and Green Olive's suggestion that they would look good on t-shirts I cut out another stencil and printed them up.

I like the way the hair/fringe turned out and I'm still trying to work out if I like the colour combo with this image. White on red is one of my favourites, but with a face I'm not sure how well it works compared to other prints. I think it is the white lips looking strange because you don't see them very often.

Here is another of the bags from yesterday. They are in an edition of 9 (the 10th is mine due to a mishap with the scissors) and each has a different embellishment on it. This one has a blue tulle and button accessory in her hair. I'm not sure if tulle is something that some people turn their noses up at but it is one of my favourites. I love when you have a large piece of it and the colours look darker where it overlaps.

I am wondering if it is one of those things like glitter, which according to Dimitri Martin is the herpes of craft supplies. I loathe glitter, a hatred that stems from my secondary teaching experience. Kids love glitter and the seem to go insane crazy when they get the slightest whiff of it. It seems the only thing they can ever successfully do with it is empty containers of it on the table and floor, maybe with a small puddle of PVA in the middle. I remember seeing a show on the ABC (via the BBC) about people with phobias and one woman was scared of glitter. I wouldn't mind betting she was once an art teacher.

Lady Bag

I printed up some more shopping bags today with a new design. I usually stay away from faces because it is hard to cut them out from paper. I usually end up cutting the wrong section away so the ink becomes the skin area and it just doesn't work out that well. I started doing some sketches and realised it might work okay if the face is a little bigger. Once I realised it would actually be quite an easy stencil to cut I got going on making it up.

Once I started printing I realise it was too big so had to cut the bottom off, but this still looked okay. I added a little detail to the hair on this bag with some button and tulle in red, yellow and blue. It was going to be some earrings, but it looked better in the hair. I made 10 bags and was going to have something different on all of them.

Below are some of my drawings I did to get an idea of the size on the bag and how it would all look. The big bun to the side was something I wanted to include, a little like the badge ladies. I've started sketching on loose card as it is perfect for putting into the scanner, my bulky sketchbooks were really annoying as it was hard to get paper flat. I need to get one of those sketchbooks that open flat I think.

The first bag shown here is for sale on Etsy.

Stamping

I went along to Brown Owls last night and got to learn all about fabric stamping. I had a go at it once before but wasn't very impressed with my results. This time with some good instructions it seemed to work better. The thing I was most impressed with was Kirsty's ingenious use of a CD case as the backing for the foam because it means you don't have any problems with registration.

I ended up doing a pretty basic pattern, just lots of rectangles repeated over and over. I made part of the fabric into a little clutch today. The fabric we had was my favourite type of dual weave and I used a green colour for my ink. I made my colour up for the calico bag not for this fabric, but in the end I like the colours being quite similar.

The ladies at Brown Owls are very clever and the whole environment is great. Last time I went I had such a ball and it is nice to meet other people and make things at the same time. There is some pictures from last night over at Flickr and the designs everyone else came up with were really beautiful.

How cute are these little pins? I was looking at Hollie's resin jewellery at Rose Street and said how kittens would be a good addition. Anyway look what she has made up two days later. Very clever! Plus I also got to watch some Sarah Silverman courtesy of Hollie last night although she did give me a funny look when I said she was in an episode of Star Trek. Check out her super smart kitten Macey hiding from the rain.

Clutchie

I've been making clutch purses more and more over the last few weeks. I wasn't always sure about making things at that size, but after I sold the ones I had made at Rose Street I realised I should keep making them. The thing I like about them is working out different ways of dealing with the fabric. My favourite thing is pleating the fabric to create a design and adding pretty trims and buttons to the mix. This is one I made today from three different denims and I think it is one of my favourites. I pleated the creamy beige denim and stitched peices of the faded red together then added the dark blue to the top. The lining is a floral fabric that I think was stolen from Mum's stash from the early 80s.

I had a great day at Rose Street on Saturday as it nice to have some warmer weather so you don't have to dress up in survival mode with thermals and I ended up pulling out an old pair of docs from 10 years ago as they were my only good winter shoes. I felt like it was 1993 and I had just got into Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins when I was wearing them. I was next to Mikey and Hollie from Hokey again and we had lots of fun playing cards and talking about television shows like The Office, 30 Rock and Lost. Although I think I scared Hollie with my talk of Star Trek. I also got to see Pip from Mikes and will be seeing them again tonight at Brown Owls.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day Dad! I scared Gareth by telling him my Dad is the same age in this photograph as he will be in six months time. Gareth said he was looking good for a 20 year old.

250 Big Ones

EDIT:
Number 250 happened just after I hit post, so the next 3 sales will also get some loving, in the form of an extra felt lady badge with their order.


I am one sale off 250 sales on Etsy so to celebrate, whoever is the 250th sale will be getting some extra items. I will be including a felt lady badge, hand drawn card, new fabric pouch and hand screenprinted fabric along with your purchase (the products might not be identical to the ones shown, but they will be pretty similar). It doesn't matter what you purchase in my shop, you can still get the extra items. You may even feel the need to spread out your arms like you just got a blue plastic table and chair and a new duplo set for Christmas.

Muted

Thanks for all the lovely get well wishes after the last post. I am pleased to say I'm feeling much better, although I still have no appetite for most foods at the moment and am keeping it all pretty basic. I've been getting back to things slowly so no making the last two days, but I did spent this afternoon working on the long overdue process of finances. I the type of person who stacks all the important paperwork into a big "deal with it later" pile. Then I get annoyed with myself when it takes a whole day to deal with the deal with it later pile. Although I did find $5 folded between a receipt from Feb which was a sweet surprise. Imagine if it was a $50! That would make me want to do finances more often.

The image above was drawn on the couch yesterday and then changed around a fair bit on the computer, in both Photoshop and Illustrator. I quite liked the muted colours and thought I would put them together. The pale blue on the right is my favourite.

Extreme

As weekends go I think mine went from two extremes, from very good right through to very bad. Friday was the Craft Victoria talk that Bridget and I went along to. It was a great day, although 8 hours in a dark room was quite difficult even when the talks were so good. My two favourites were Richard Nylon and Barbara and Ben from Klei. Nicola Cerina was also a big inspiration and her studio is amazing.

It also made me realise how friendly and down to earth Melbourne Designers are as all these people are approachable and willing to share their time. It was also nice to have people reaffirm things that I think, but I am not always sure about.

Bridget and I then went along to the Nicholas Building open studio to check out the lovely studios and the views out over Melbourne. Lucy from The Design Files haswritten a great post about it, along with pictures, although I am a bit biased and liked Dan's studio the best. He had a vacuum machine and although he didn't put his pear inside it, he did turn it on for us.

I should have been good and gone home after a nice meal but decided to pretend I was only 20 and go hard without any dinner and finish the night on a kebab, ticking all the boxes for a trashy night on the turps. Saturday at Rose Street was as one would imagine after too many pints although the highlight was our post market drinks in a little alcove in a pub with a fire and a bunch of 70s couches and decor.

The lowlight of the weekend of the sickness that occurred late Saturday night and I'm still feeling today. I've not spent a day in bed in a long time but I couldn't walk for more than a few meters without wanting to lie down again. It meant I missed the Melbourne Etsy/Madeit/Crafty Meetup that Box of Glory went to a lot of effort to organise and I was looking forward to. I smsed Bridget to tell her I wasn't going to make it and she suggested Ginger Tea, which Gareth dutifully made, and I think that helped quite a lot. Doctor Farmer to the rescue!

Small Blue

Here are some close up shots of a little pouch I made yesterday. The screenprint isn't a new one but I've not made him up yet due to the no zipper situation. This one is available on Etsy and I will have more in different sizes coming along over the next few weeks. I'm still making up new designs and trying out different things, so I am sure my stall at Rose Street on Saturday will be a bit of a hodge podge, but it is always good to test things out and see what people think.

Tomorrow is going to be a fabo exciting day with the Craft Victoria's Craft and Design as a Career talk that Bridget and I are going to. It is held right next to where we draw our birds and should be a interesting and informative day. Then in the evening the Nicholas Building is holding its Open Studio event where I am sure I will feel envious that I don't get out of the house to work, but then remember that I can still wear my PJ's all day long if I want. Add a few drinks to the mix and I think it might be a fun day/night out.