Christmas mantlepiece

We have had the same stuff up on our mantlepiece, more or less, since we moved into our house eighteen months ago. Since we don't have room for a tree, I decided to decorate it for Christmas. I had so much fun I think I will try to do this regularly, and post photos.











The bunting was really fun and easy to make. I was inspired by Heart Handmade's Wee Bunting, and I enjoyed it so much I made extra for my office! Using felt to back the pieces is a good idea, because it gives the bunting enough weight and stiffness to hang properly. I didn't worry about getting the pieces the same size or even nice neat triangles, and I think it looks much better that way.

made on the left

(Apologies for cross-posting)

I will be selling my wares (including some new comics, a new line a jewellery and tote bags!) at the Made on the Left Craft Fair this weekend. Luckily I'm taking the rest of the week off to work on some stock!

Monster!

Making a monster to sit in the window of Keith & Lottie during our exhibition. He is huge and cuddly!

birdie!

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely manic for me. Pretty much every day I have been coming home, eating dinner, and working on comics and craft stuff till it's time for bed. Maybe that's why I had a brainfail and forgot to take a picture of the plush birdie I made! Luckily Ali J took this lovely photo of it.

It's part of a window display for the annual Windows on William project here in Perth. (If you live in Perth, the shop if Fi & Co!) This year the Made on the Left collective made up a window, and I contributed the bird and two pieces of painted jewellery (a brooch and a ring). The bird was such a pain to make! I hate sewing a curved bit to a straight bit. Oh, you know what I mean! Anyway I think it turned out pretty okay. I love that mushroom fabric so much! The orange fabric is corduroy, another favourite. The theme was 'Spring' and I think it fits nicely. You can also see a couple of my comics on the side there!

You can see more photos at http://madeontheleft.blogspot.com/ .

painted doll

I painted this little doll for my mother's birthday. I bought the wooden body from a wonderful Etsy seller, Goosegrease. (She also paints her own lovely dolls, they're worth checking out!) It was a fun little project, but painting on a curved surface is a very different challenge to painting on canvas! I'd like to more of these, perhaps a few for my exhibition?

mailing list!

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i <3 stationery

If there is one thing I love, it's writing notes, lists and letters. I always pick up adorable Japanese stationery whenever I see it cheap, but one of my favourite sources is Annette Lauder's range at Nut and Bee.



Her work is so sweet and simple, it makes me feel warm inside! She's a New Zealander but ships worldwide. The notebooks are particularly good value at only $4! How can you resist? She also has all sorts of other charming products like stamps, badges, labels and recipe cards:



I have been meaning to post about Nut and Bee for a while now, and then today Annette announced a redesign of her shop and a special 10% discount off any orders placed up until September 10th! To claim your discount just enter the code KITTENPAWS at checkout. Yay stationery!

my dream room

I have recently discovered my new favourite illustrator, S. Britt. I came across him when Drawn featured his Flickr set detailing the transformation of his work room into the best room I have ever seen. Seriously, if there is a heaven, it will look like this for me. And I will sit at the desk and be able to draw like S. Britt.

badges!!!

My 1-inch badges arrived! I've made them into sets and put them in my etsy shop. Some of them are also available as single badges.

I'm so happy with the way these turned out, they look so cute and the colours are really vibrant. I sliced up big sheets of card using the guillotine at work (shh!) and stamped the pieces with my old school letter stamp set and my home-made bird stamp. I think they look pretty good!

Best Hat Ever

Last night I got a package in the mail: my hand-knitted hat from Christabel, aka Craft Punk, aka cseneque!



I was wary about buying a hat online. I seem to have an unusually shaped head, and hats almost always look awful on me. Most commercially-produced beanies seem to be made for someone with a very long, thin head, and I guess I have a round one. I have a fringe, so it looks awful when a hat is too long and squishes my hair down to my eyes. Anyway, I convoed Christabel (who was lovely) and decided to go for it. I couldn't resist bunnies!

It came last night in a package with a bunch of goodies. It was like having a birthday! I was so grumpy and tired and it was just the thing I needed. And the hat fits like a dream! I am generally pretty critical of my appearance, but I have to say: THIS HAT MAKES ME LOOK CUTE AS A BUTTON. It is a lovely shape, not too long (it even looks fine with my fringe!) and perfectly fitted. The knitting is fantastic quality and the yarn is soft, high-quality pure wool. There is even a knitted cotton lining around the edge (behind the part covered by the bunnies) to protect sensitive skin from the wool! It's so comfy and warm, I love it. I wore it out to dinner then all night while we sat and drew at the table. I wore it on the bus this morning (I was so nice and warm!) and I wish I could wear it at my desk!

Christabel has a bunch more lovely hats as well as cuffs, crocheted jewellery and hand-painted yarn in her etsy shop. I am in love with the squirrel hat and this lovely fir hat, but I've already broken my "no Etsy presents for myself" rule this month, so I'll leave them for you.

Brooches

I've been making felt brooches with little bits of my precious Japanese fabrics. They sold very well at the Made on the Left market so I've put a few up in my Etsy store.



The fabric on this one is from one of my favourite fabrics, with Little Red Riding Hood on it. Part of me wishes I hadn't cut it up, but apart from simply framing all of these fabrics, I don't know what to do with them except use them!



I love the shades of pink and brown in this fabric, they make me so happy!



This was one of my favourites from the lot I made for MOTL. I was sure it would be one of the first to sell, but it was one of the few that was left over at the end of the day! I guess my sugar-sweet tastes aren't shared by everyone.

There are more in my shop if you want to take a look!

Made on the Left: Success!

The craft fair was a great success! Thank you to everyone who came down, it was lovely to see you all. I was so happy with what I sold, and I feel like I learned a lot about what people want to buy.



I made these brooches from felt and Japanese fabric for the fair, and they sold really well. I was a little surprised that the more conservative ones sold before the cuter ones-- I guess not everyone loved the sugar overload like I do! I'll be making more for my etsy store soon.

Photos by the lovely Lisa Max, who had a stall next to me. She sold stuff like crazy, people love her designs (for obvious reasons!)

Stamping is awesome

I carved my first stamp! It is a little bird. It came out a bit wonky but I prefer to think of it as rustic!



I just used an eraser and a craft knife, although I've just bought some carving tools which will hopefully help me make the next one a bit more polished. It's so much fun, I can't wait to make more!

Made on the Left

I will have a stall this Saturday (12 July) at Made on the Left, a craft market showcasing Western Australian talent. It will be held at the Hyde Park Hotel, 331 Bulwer St North Perth, from 11am to 4pm. Entry is free and there are going to be lots of very talented people selling their stuff, so if you live in Perth, come and check it out! I will have comics, badges and stuffed Space Rabbits for sale, and I am frantically working on a new item, felt brooches. I have so much to do and so little time!

little bear

This is a bear I made for Lisa's birthday. He is sewn in embroidery floss on calico, then backed with a pretty print in autumn-y colours and stuffed. He is very small, he fits in the palm of your hand.



Beautiful photos by Lisa, of course.

space rabbits

Well, I've finally opened my Etsy shop and put up some of my Space Rabbits for sale. I had a lot of fun matching backing fabrics, although it was hard to get nice matches for such bright colours-- I was envious of Lisa, whose brown owl looked good with everything! The rabbits are quite fun and simple to make, and the screenprinted image looks lovely. Looking at these is making me want to get the screen out again...

little bird

I sewed this little bird by hand while I was sick last week. Foolishly I thought, "This is so tiny, it will take no time at all! It will be an easy little project." Ha! Sewing a little thing with a curved edge is the most fiddly thing imaginable. Sewing a giant one on the machine would have taken a tiny fraction of the time! It's funny how people assume that large hand-made objects are "worth" more. Oh well, it is a cute little bird nonetheless, and it certainly made me appreciate my machine!

my house

I always like seeing pictures of other people's houses, so I thought I'd share a couple of photos that Lisa took last weekend. Other craft bloggers' houses seem to look like they have been styled for a magazine, but I can't compete with that, so these are candid shots (as in, I didn't know she was taking them till I saw them on her Flickr).



This is the 'dining' (sewing, drawing, dumping piles of things) room. It contains most of our books (although we have another bookcase in the study and one in the hall, and one still in the box waiting to be made up [thank you, IKEA]). A few points:

1. That iron has never been used for clothing, only for fabric. I HATE IRONING

2. My fabric stash on the right-hand side grew this weekend, thanks to a trip to Textile Traders and Spotlight with Lisa!

3. Yes it is always this messy

4. Actually this is pretty tidy compared to how it usually looks



A little corner of the kitchen, where a few ornaments and a teapot were dumped in the unpacking process, when I was promising myself that I would go through and order everything beautifully later (this was a year ago). Still, they look rather nice together!

screenprinting!

On Friday (ANZAC Day, a public holiday in Australia) the lovely Lisa Max (who took these photos) and the fabulous Jarrad Robb came over to our house for a day of screenprinting.



I screenprinted about 22 Space Rabbits, half in pink and half in blue, and Lisa made amazing owls and kitties. Above: Jarrad and I are happy about how awesome we are at screenprinting.



It was so much fun! I had been worried that four people would be too many, and that Robert and Jarrad would be left out, but it was really a perfect number for a very efficient operation.



The plan is to back these with patterned fabric and stuff them. I am going to have to buy some more fabric (oh no!) because the colours are so bright and they need to be matched just right.

I can't wait to do this some more!

mum's dolly

I made this for my mum, for Christmas. It was really fun to make, especially the embroidery! The fabric is another precious Japanese one, with little goose families. The back is a red apple pattern. I love pink and red together! The pattern for the doll was quite simple so these would be good to make and sell, I think.

Here are two long-overdue Christmas presents (I know, I know) for two little girls who are big fans of my comics. Having kids as readers is the best. They read your work obsessively and are starstruck by your presence, even though you just had your comics printed up at Snap and sell them for $5.

The kitty was the first plush I made and I think it shows. A few tries later, the bear has a lot more resemblance to the picture in my head, but it's still not quite there. Oh well, I am learning so much every time I turn on my sewing machine! I would really like to become fast enough (and develop a good enough pattern) to make a few of these to sell. I even used some of my precious Japanese fabric for the dresses-- oh dear, cutting into that stuff is agony! But the more I use up, the more I can buy...

banana bread

I have been making this delicious banana bread on the weekends. It's really easy and satisfying to make, it's pretty healthy, and it's a great snack to have on hand. It's also good to take a slice to work for morning tea-- it lasts for days. You can find the recipe here. I have been experimenting with replacing the white self-raising flour with wholemeal. The first time I tried 100% wholemeal, which was a bit much-- the bread was dry and chewy. Last time I used 1 cup white and 3/4 cup wholemeal, which was a nice compromise.