made by others

Friends Ursula and Anna have opened a gorgeous new art/design shop in the Southern Highlands. Called Made By Others - cute. And just look at that stunning space! They've been handpicking items from all around Australia and other parts of the world for what seems to be an eternity.

And is that a coffee machine I see? You can get mini cakes too. And I really like this statement from their blog:

By shopping with us you will not only be supporting Australian artists and designers, but we will be sharing a portion of our profits with people growing small businesses in other developing countries through Kiva microcredit loans.

So what are you waiting for? If you live in the area or just passing through make sure you stop off in MossVale and check out the great range of local and international design talent. And if you're looking to get up close and personal with my cushions they have plenty to choose from - more than you could poke at with a big stick.

Haven't been down for a real visit myself - but it's high on my list of MUST DOs.

Soon.

the first, the last, the best

ahhhhhhh.
coming back down to planet earth.
did the most amazing market event last weekend.
the old hope st markets, renamed finders keepers, found itself in a stunning new location at carriageworks in eveleigh, syd.


first time for me at this market, and my last one for the year. [i've finally and happily deleted paddington market from my saturday TO DO list - just wasn't working anymore].



if you didn't make it to this event you missed something really special. [note for diary: next one in May].
if you did you'll no doubt be feeling pretty lucky.
friday was opening night. i felt like i'd been teleported to another planet. this restored 19th century industrial building is now an arts centre and on friday night it was party time. the bar was open, the live music was brilliant and the throngs of people seemed totally oblivious to the muggy heat and a looming recession.
as one of over 80 stalls from independent Sydney artists and designers i was gobsmacked.
truly not expecting this mad, full on swirl of colour and movement and sound.
and somewhat starving because i'd stupidly, accidently put my dinner into my washing basket at home (instead of the pegs). tore the place apart looking for it. couldn't find it, left home with no food. i'll just have to get something there, i thought.
yeah, right.
not a single moment in the evening did i have to skip away from my stall. well, not till the very end.
and can i even begin to describe the torture of all the glasses of wine, beer, champagne that came and perched themselves at my stall while I chatted, did business with their owners. dying for just a sip of beer, a slug of bubbly liquid.
not sure how i made it through the evening.
adrenalin i guess.
fortunately the next day was quieter, cooler but still lots of happy shiny people and a great vibe going well into the evening again.



i had an awful lot of stock. by 4 on day 2 i was getting close to selling out and wondering how i was going to make it through the remainder 6 hours. fortunately i had backup, hand stitched fabric cards and other small things to fill the holes.




what a buzz.
just the 'bestest' market i've ever done.
thankyou to all who dropped by.
i'm going to sleep for a couple of days.

no real dogs here

there's someone in my family (hello scott) who thinks that all i do with my time is design and redesign my business card. soooo not true. in the nearly five years of being registered as a business i've only changed my business card design maybe 8 or 9 times. it started with the regular size and this spotty dog, which began life as one of my papier mache candle holders, back in my papier mache phase ..

then i decided to downsize vertically and dump the dog image. an acquaitance showed me photo of herself as a kid in a gigantic hat.. loved the image .. played with it in photoshop .. my new business card was born.

with the hat LOOK i loved the idea that the viewer had to imagine the dog at the end of the lead. but then i started designing and making products other than hats, as was always the intention, so the cute little girl in the hat had to go. i think the next LOOK was the square format with words only on the front and a sheep on the back. yep, still wasn't keen on the dog image idea so i thought, what about a sheep, might disturb and confuse people, that appealed for some reason. so i went with the sheep.
the sheep version was the only one i had made professionally into business cards, all the others, including my current ones, are printed out and hand cut and pasted up by me. madness. must stop that soon. the reaction to the sheep was generally very positive. but i got bored with that LOOK and decided it was time to go all out DOG ..

okay, so i lied, that white poodle is a REAL dog, it's bobby, my niece's very bouncy dog. handcutting this got a bit tedious and i thought it was too long for a business card. so bobby got shortened, chopped at the waist. and i turned him into a cartoon.

still not happy. decided to go back to the longer version and this time make it double as a bookmark.

mmmm... a little OTT. yearning for clean lines, simplicity. so back to photoshop.
and this is my current business card .. tiny, tiny little thing.. available in three colours.

i'm happy now.. for a while.