Friday, January 26, 2007

Featured on Etsy again!

Thanks to Freckled Nest for bringing this to my attention today!

One of my "You're a Tweety" cards made it to the featured list on the Esty homepage...

Bottom right hand position again.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Project Update: Bookbinding

I have created all the covers, folded all the papers (signatures), cut all the inner papers and now I'm up to poking holes in all the signatures so that I can stitch them together to make text blocks!






Monday, January 22, 2007

The places we craft - 50s retro house

I think crafting can be done almost anywhere - the lounge room couch, the dining table, the car, a 50s retro house...

I have found out, now that I have a baby, crafting is the sort of hobby that is very portable and flexible. Other than book binding, which needs to be done on it's designated studio table - all the other things I create can be done almost anywhere.

Over the weekend we went to Ocean Grove (unfortunately I couldn't make it to the Rose St market to see annalaura) and I brought along my craft stuff just in case. On the way there in the car I stuck things down and the next day as the weather wasn't beach worthy - I continued to stick bits down at the place we were staying. Sweet! Very productive indeed.

Now, this place we stayed at was awesome! Just a quick glance over my blog would tell anyone that I love 50s + 60s retro. This house was the bees-knees in retro... it even had a glass float hanging at the front door!

Check this beauty out:



Crafting at Ocean Grove -
My most recent Valentine card designs...

For sale on Etsy!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Just like a kid in a candy store

Other than Bunnings, the other stores I get excited over and spend way too much time & money at, are Spotlight and any scrap booking store. I tend to not only buy things that I need, but may need in the future. This helps tremendously when I am creating things and I have stuff “on hand” all the time. The other fun yet somewhat annoying thing is to work out how to store all of these accumulated items… neatly, cheaply, functionally and as a bonus – creatively.

I found cheap storage jars that fit all of these descriptions at Ikea – which now brings me full circle - as Ikea is another place I love to spend way too much time & money at!

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

I've been tagged

OK – I’ve been tagged by Lara to do this internet game thing. It's pretty cool actually!

The rules are:

1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag people you’d like to know more about

ONE
I use to work part time at Johnny Rockets - my first ever work shift was on a New Years Eve (nasty). I loved the dancing as it made the time fly when I worked there. My favourite dance was to Aretha Franklin’s “Think”. . And I LOVED the 50s style hat we had to wear.

TWO
I went to art school from age of 9, but my mum pulled me out eventually because I talked too much and she felt I wasn’t learning enough…. I was a real chatterbox at school as well – my report cards would usually say “Helen talks too much”.

THREE
I love the Beastie Boys and I’ve listened to them ever since I was 15. I started off with a cassette tape of “Paul’s Boutique” and it had songs such as “Hey Ladies” on it. Get funky….

FOUR
The first ever cassette tape I was given as a gift from my parents was Julio Iglesias and Elvis Presley (I know, I know) and the first ever tape I bought myself with my pocket money was Olivia Newton-John with songs such as “Let’s get Physical”. I never thought the song was about anything other than aerobics!

FIVE
The first car I owned my dad bought for me and my mum called the colour of it “goose shit brown”. I thought it was gold ;o) It was a ’76 Ford Falcon XB and it was a TANK! I got my first real bicep muscles driving that car as it had manual steering. It was also known as the “Rad Mobile” as back then I was known as “Rad” because of my maiden name.

Now that you know 5 things about me that haven’t otherwise been mentioned in my blog – “I have to kill you” ;o)

I now tag Cherry Rockette

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Uh-Oh... Another Magazine!!!

I don't know how long this mag has been around, but I only found out about it today and I had to have the Dec issue...

It's appropriately titled "Handmade".


It was advertised in a scrapbooking mag (see, it's a vicious circle), and I bought 2 issues while out at Spotlight today.

Speaking of Spotlight... nahhh, that's a story for another day.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Wasting valuable time

I admit it, in the past I have wasted so much time doing meaningless things. To the point of feeling guilty about spending so much time, wasting it. I’m talking about (apologies in advance if I get anyone else here hooked on this) isketch.net

My husband knows of this site and knows the sounds that come out of it when participating…. So if I’m still playing when he comes home from work, and the first thing he hears when he opens the front door is “dun1 dun2 dun3!” he knows what I’ve been up to. Instead of asking, “how was your day?” he would ask, “how long have you been on that?”

It took a few months, but I have removed this wonderful time waster from my life. No twelve step program needed, just a re-assessment of where my life was heading ;o)

PS: Thanks to my husband who mentioned I should make the ‘dun, dun duns’ a bit more musical by adding descriptive pitches to them. So who’s wasting time now???


1 low pitch
2 high pitch
3 medium pitch

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Another idea at stupid o’clock

At about 2am again (up feeding the tacker), I got thinking about an idea I had a while back about making sunglass covers – and how exactly I would make them. So my thoughts were technical based… and I had to write them down before going back to bed.

Which got me thinking about all you other creative types out there. Surely if we’re all that similar (according to one of Lara’s posts, it’s frighteningly clear that were are that similar), how many of you have found yourself in this situation:

You go to bed (apparently tired) and your mind ticks over with a few ideas. One idea leads to another, hours pass and you haven’t slept yet, you try to convince yourself that sleeping is good and that’s why you’re in bed, your mind still ticks over with ideas. Enough is enough you think, you get up to write all these ideas down otherwise you’ll never get to sleep. However, sometimes this isn’t enough to get back to sleep, so you give in and continue thinking away until your mind has run out of ideas in its own time ;o)

Some of my best ideas come to me at these ridiculous hours, so I have learnt that sometimes giving in is better than fighting the fact that I should be sleeping instead. These times don’t happen often though, if I had to think of how often, I’d say about 3-4 times a year maybe?

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Slight Sidetrack…

I made another item before starting my next bookbinding project. Well, I guess I had started the bookbinding as I have spent time putting together all the colour combinations of covers, threads and inner papers...

Here is my sidetrack item, a cherry iron-on patch.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Next project: Bookbinding

Now that I’ve made all the things I had in mind for Valentines Day in my shop, my next project is to make blank journals. Or should I say, continue making blank journals... I have about 10 of them that are near completion – I started them about a year ago and got somewhat side tracked with other hobbies ;o)

I will finish them and list them on etsy and start my new design idea for blank journals.... *or* I will start my new idea first then finish the others - let's be honest here, this sounds more like me!

But first, to photograph the last items for the Valentines Day section that I have aptly titled the "Heart Felt Collection" as all the items are made with felt!

Friday, January 5, 2007

Creation: Lovey Kissy Mushy Stuff

Wellllllll, apparently Valentines is around the corner and now'd be a good time to start thinking about creations to sell for the *special* day. So, I thought I would try my hand at lovey dovey versions of the recent baby girl card I made.

I have listed some on etsy and will be listing the rest of them tomorrow.

I've also made a couple of plush toy / pin cushions (whatever you'd like to use them for)... I really love the flame version.

I have a list of other things I'd like to make and add to my shop, but I guess we'll see how much spare time I have after the number one priority in my life at the moment... my little boy.

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Featured on Etsy

My Tiki painting featured on the homepage of Etsy the other day!

(Bottom right hand corner image.)

Because of this feature, the image received 190 views compared to my other Tiki image which had... well, less ;o)

Monday, January 1, 2007

Creation: Baby girl card

Our friends have recently had a baby girl and my husband mentioned that perhaps I could make a card for them. Now, having a baby ourselves (2.5 months old) I said that I wouldn't promise anything and that I didn't have any ideas for one anyway.

It's very important for me to be inspired to begin with otherwise the outcome will be less than satisfying... and then I'd probably scrap the whole thing and have a less than perfect day ;o) Not to mention that it wouldn't be fun to create - and that's just wrong!

Well, while I was up at stupid o'clock feeding our boy (it was about 2am or thereabouts), the idea came to me! I thought I could make a felt flower just like the one on the recent photo album / brag book I had made, and go from there.

So here's the outcome, I'm very proud of it and I'm considering making them to sell on Etsy as well. I'll make a boy version first so there's more than one card to choose from ;o)


Hubby really likes it, what do you think?