Home sweet home paper ring

I made a ring like this nearly a year ago out of a customers invoice at my old job (it was scrap!) out of pure boredom, last week I found that ring with all my other jewelry, I didn't realise I kept it!

So I took the original apart, scanned it and made a pattern of it in Illustrator and now its ready to print and fold in the millions aha!

Even though its totally impractical and short lasting I really love it ! Is that arrogant to admit that out loud?

I'm going to make it in my usual of blue, green, yellow, orange and red and each one will come with its own cute little box!

Goodbye £, Hello $

Silly I know but in changing the price tags on some of my older items I all of a sudden felt homesick. Its only been this month where I've really felt it, funny because I feel like I'm starting to settle more too.

The first time was when I went into M&S and all its packaging, the canned soups, the rich teas, the crisps, in particular the apple juice. Everything reminded me of home and how I wish I could just click my heels and be home for 1 day or 2.

:(

Spoonflower ll / new character dolls

My proper spoon flower order arrived the other day !

(go here for the SF swatches I received)

They came out a bit smaller than I t

hought but the quality is very very good and although the shipping took longer than expected (through no fault of SF) I was really happy with their customer service - friendly, efficient and to-the-point-helpful.

The Quilting weight fabric I choose was quite thin so quite see through, its absolutely fine for what I'm using it for but just something to bear in mind for everyone else out there.

From left to right - PingPongStan, PregnantPam, Sunburnt Sally, BananaGirl & Maggie.

Dogs belong in clothes

I used to think putting clothes on dogs was a little cruel but then I became a dog owner and well...LOOK HOW CUTE HE IS !!!

He looks a bit sad because he doesn't like his new haircut and is a bit chilly indoors because of the a/c, hence the reasoning for the t shirt and pink jumper quilt !

little finds - peter callesen

I love paper and the limitless and interesting things people can do with it but this is pretty incredible.

I love how it all originates from a single piece of A4 paper, how structurally everything can be mapped out and flattened like those cool architectural drawings seen from all angles.

Artist and photo credit to PeterCallesen.com

Beautiful doll house

Check out my latest ebay treasure.

A beautiful doll house for my sisters for a barganeous £31 !

The nice lady even delivered it to my parents house. I'm actually secretly miffed I can't see/touch/play with it myself as I love doll houses....from an serious adult design perspective of course ;)

The other presents they wanted was a 'pretend' princess dress (for some reason she really emphasised the pretend part) and a ice cream maker (one of them is diabetic) oh and a dog. I should just send them Rex aha!

Craft show photos

The Living room craft market went really well, lots of people turned up and the atmosphere was really happy and friendly so it felt fun rather than work, I sold quite well too so all in all a success hooray!

More photos on the facebook page here. I would add mine but I am a facebooktard so unfortunately this kind of technology is beyond me :(

(check out the cute baby!)

Little feature

Tschau Tschuessi, a stocklist of mine has included my studio on their blog where they are documenting the work spaces of their designers, mine is the latest one! Go check out the other spaces here.

(Photo belongs to Tschau Tshuessi, taken from their website here.)

New Designs - SWAG $$$ bags

I came up with this idea a long time ago and only recently went about making them and I love them, they are so fun, I feel like a mini bank robber carrying these!

Etsy $$$ USD

Blah Blah Blah

Its been a couple of good days.

I exposed my first screens in HK and they went fine! I think I am always trying to put things off that I'm convinced will fail so that I can *hope* for that little bit longer. I should grow a pair I know.

I'm pretty excited about some of the designs on the screens, they are more in line with the sort of humor/random/fun aesthetic I aim for.

Also I collected a-hella-of-a-lotta cards from a printing company that specialise in environmentally friendly papers (like finding a needle in a haystack!) and really happy with them.

Part of the 'Office' series that were drawn whilst at my old receptionist job about inanimate everyday objects & what they would say if they could speak.

Spoonflower test swatches - zip case

So I made the test swatches into a small zip case, sadly too small to replace my beaten pencil case and too big to replace my worn out purse (too much spending heheh) so I think I'll be including this baby at the craft show next weekend.

upcoming craft show

I've found myself a craft show to sell at and its now in about 2 weeks time, I'm not very ready but I figured what the heck!

So much to do before then with little time :(

Come come come if you happen to be nearby!

Spoonflower test swatches

Spoonflower (a custom Direct To Garment print company) had a 24 hour free swatches promotion a while back which obviously I took advantage of !

I'm quite happy with the results, the lines are really clear and the colours are quite close to the Jpeg I submitted although the purple is a bit more grey than I wanted and I'm not sure which fabric type I prefer.

The yellow Littleclouds is an organic cotton knit, the Jazzkitties swatch is organic cotton sateen and the real order is quilting weight...confused? So am I ! I don't really know the difference - help anyone?

For anyone interested the shipping times were pretty decent, took around 12 working days (roughly 3 weeks) to arrive, although my real order which I placed before the swatches have yet to arrive :(

via air

I love love love love my new airmail envelopes !

blargh!

ahhh I found out today a treasury I submitted on Etsy that didn't work (bad cookies or something, told me to log out and back in etc)

did in fact work so an empty treasury sat all day - Whoops!

so less more than halfway there but its never too late to eh I guess?

check it out

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=80411

Handmade boxes

I've been looking for simple kraft boxes but haven't seen them anywhere, unless I buy 1000 boxes of a million trillion etc etc.

So yesterday I submitted and made my own from an Etsy tutorial which looked decent so I've taken it to the next geek level !

To save time and to minimise unneeded creases I made myself a guide on Illustrator so that I just print it out and know where to cut & fold !

I made some modifications to the pattern to make for a rectangular shaped box too.

You can't see it very well in the photo but the boxes are made out of index cards and the 'Littleclouds' is made from the new stamp. I think only in Hong Kong would you find A4 sized index cards !

stamps are fun ll

I collected my stamps yesterday and am so happy with them, the quality of the lines are really good and they are quite inexpensive for the quality.

I think I will use these to decorate packages and randomly at pleasure !

YAWN card in Etsy gift guide

oooh I don't know how it works or who makes the selection, but today I found out one of my cards is in an Etsy gift guide (Under 20 USD).

1. firebirdjewellery, 2. SeaPinks, 3. Littleclouds, 4. NHWoodcreations, 5. 1canoe2, 6. AttysVintage, 7. Monkeysalwayslook, 8. Creativepastimes, 9. robotbaby, 10. dhhdesign, 11. whimsyandspice, 12. Carolinacottage

Google analytics on your blog

Came across a easy step by step guide to how to do this just now, might be useful for anyone who is nosey and wants to know the details of visits to your blog.

Go here. It is question number 2.

Thanks to Magnetgames !

where I do stuff

I kept meaning to post a photo of where I do stuff so here it is!

Excuse the terrible photoshopping, its never been one of my strengths.

Its all starting to come together my little nook, I have a book case too but that is about it, there is just never enough room.

DIY cheap home decor...kind of

On my Madeira hunt a while ago I randomly walked past a security guard who was selling 2nd hand woven baskets on the side (literally NEXT to his security booth) as you do for $2-10 / 15p - 80p a pop.

I got 3 and lined the insides with some charity shop fabric, I'm pretty chuffed with the huge one because it fits so perfectly on my bookcase! And it was like $10 !!!

Stamps are fun...

Today I went to a local print shop to get some stamps made, pick up is Thursday so am pretty excited to see the quality.

I'm getting the following made up in varying sizes.

My boyfriend asked me 'what are these for again?'

I said 'erm....for fun of course!'

Also in going to buy some stuff for dinner we witnessed our first HK public slanging match between these 2 old ladies!

Was pretty funny to see 60 year olds shouting and swearing at each other (one pushed past the other) someone eventually called the police. Imagine telling the police what happened 'this biatch pushed past me' and 'well she swore at me' etc etc etc.