29 December 2011

the great coffee plunge - printing tea towels



Just before Christmas, I signed up for a one day intensive, tea towel screen printing course at the sensational Harvest Workshop in Brunswick. Absolutely love what these guys do - alongside creating their own wonderful products, Harvest Textiles (the umbrella business) organises textile and screen printing classes, design markets, pop up shops & exhibitions.

I had screen printed before, but quite some time ago. The lovely Elissa Sadgrove & I had an exhibition at West Space many moons ago, where we used tshirts to represent a kind of storyboard for a little obtuse narrative we created with stylised graphics - about wombats, weather gods & forces going horribly wrong!

Creating smaller one off prints at one's leisure is a helluva lot easier than setting up a mini production line in a really small window of time. I looked as though I had run a marathon by the end of the course, but was super pleased with the end result. I could unfortunately only print four, so three have found new homes with family (chrissy presents), and one remains with me. Definitely would like to pursue more printing on fabric in the the not too distant future. But due to lack of space, I'm thinking of playing around with smaller stencils and the good ol potato. I do like the idea of a vegetable being a piece of image making equipment!

25 December 2011

silly season



Thank you for your wonderful support throughout the year, especially since posts have been rather sparse! May you all have a lovely Chrissy (if it's something you celebrate/acknowledge) and a truly fantabulous year ahead.

17 December 2011

an evening of quirky love = etsy front page


1. Jevgenia Masks / Yevgeniya Kilupe 2. mck254 / Mimi Kirchner 3. Little Peche Jewellery / Maxine Turnock 4. ninon 5. Recultivation 6. DearDeerDesigns / Dan Leanio 7. AustinModern (US) 8. AnimalFancy / Donna Sanna 9. Foxglove Pearly / Kitty Valentine 10. Paris Couture Antiques11. David Met Grace / Marina Sheridan 12. Sandra Eterovic 13. Herman Marie 14. Karenscottage 15. dadadreams 16. lascosasdibujadas / Mariela Pessah

I'm a just little excited. I recently arrived home from spending a lovely lunch with old friends, jumped online to check my email, and found a whole lot of new people on Etsy had included me in their circle (ie, they can now follow my favourites list - of objects, shops and treasuries/galleries). It was really quite out of character to get so many at once, so I logged into Etsy, and lo & behold, my most recent treasury (where you create a 'gallery' of things you like from other shops) had suddenly received over 400 views. Reading down the comments, it seems the above collection of quirky goodness (meant to be a bit of fun, but I would seriously be elated to receive any of these as a gift - {hint!}) made it to the front page of Etsy. I'm really rather superbly chuffed - especially since I haven't even got around to getting my own shop up and running yet!

So pleased all the wonderful artists and vintage shops in this profile were able to receive the glory they deserve. Noice. Very very very noice indeedy! (The last image of the plate has been added in, because the plate I actually chose from this shop has disappeared from the listing - it's still a great one though). I do receive a lot of pleasure trawling through Etsy to curate a treasury - although sometimes it can take a rediculously long time! You can head here to view more of my favourites unearthed in this sensational handmade/vintage universe.