Hello! Just briefly dropping to let you know that one of my favorite clients, Floozy are running a competition to win a Harvey’s seatbelt handbag. I have one and love it! Its a good size, its indestructible and O so sexy. All you have to do is drop by the blog and comment on why you would like one… mmmm thats not the hard huh? I would comment.. but i have one already and think other people deserve it more.. so comment! Let me know if you win!

While I was climbing a mountain in the weekend an article showed up in the “Mainland” section of the weekend paper. Some sneaky writer googled ‘Christchurch’ and ‘blog’ to find out what “others” thought about Christchurch. It was an interesting article. BEST of all though, was he found my post written for design*sponge and I was “quoted”. My blathering was also in the “big text” section of the article outlining a few shops around town.

Apparently due to that wee block of text Dusk had increased visitors to the shop. Not sure about the others. But its very exciting non-the-less. He he… quoted. Tickled I am, tickled.

In other news I went to the Ellerslie Flower Show on Friday afternoon. Here are my snaps of my favorites.




Big Rhino. He was rather magnificent in the evening-after-rain light.

Don’t ask me why, but the heads – I really liked.

The temperatures have started to drop and Autumn is in the air. Woolly socks, scarfs, hats and jumpers. Malieka now sleeps under her wee cushion. For added insulation.

Reporting from Christmas Land in Te Puke. We have driven up to a warmer, wetter climate. Kylie’s Mum and Dads place. There is a big tree in the living room with a Christmas village and railway tracks complete with a Christmas train. There are lights outside on the trees and shubs with Santa’s sleigh being pulled by reindeer on the roof.

Today I have put together some of my favorite tutorials for christmas tree ornaments.. or ones that can be used for that. Some I would love to make for the tree next year. This may be the last post before the new years, busy holidaying. Wish you all a Merry Christmas and Wonderful New Years… I am off to the beach! Been hankering for some swimming for awhile… Love a NZ Christmas!

1.Christmas Birds 2. Pom poms (for garlands and hanging off the tree.. plus little “flowers”) 3. Dragon Boats 4. Circus theme Christmas Tree decorations on “design sponge”, the very cool topper on “once wed“ 5. Fabric pom pom garland (could use for anything) 6. For the knitters, little sweaters (thanks to buzzy bee) 7. Mini Terrariums

Little note to add: Twentycentmixture has just put together a really nice list of ornament ideas and Tutorials!

O and I was featured on Studio Home! Yay! Thanks lots Julia!

The new “granny flat”, what we call the semi detached houses here in NZ, has spacious rooms, is warm, clean and sports a teny tiny kitchen. We are now happily ensconced in our little home. I took some piccies, its not over designed or crazy pretty, its just home, i have not made it inhumanly tidy for your benefit either… sorry!

Due to the lack of any patches to plant our veges and not being able to NOT garden, I have started a “bucket” garden. Tomatoes and a range of veges are now either plants or seedlings.

Business Blatherings were promised in the title, i will provide! I sold quite a few prints last week, more than i expected. Some were through felt, some custom orders. After buying up more supplies I am waiting on one more thing before I do another update to hopefully get more sales.

I have been wanting to “do the figures” for awhile now, yeah kinda did a rough one in my head and went “that’ll work” and went on and put some products up. Silly me! Kylie helped me with the appropriate spreadsheet (not too good at those) and yip, the prices will have to go up. Which left me wondering if people will still buy (i guess we will see!) Also left me really thinking about what would genereate that extra income that would give me some extra padding ontop of the website work I am doing. I have been brainstorming and have some ideas I am really keen to get off the ground, nothing ground breaking or anything, just fun and “creative” (i am beginning to think this word is so small for something so broad, so its hideously over used).

For the marketing side there are lots of things I having going on… for the blog I have made a wee sign up form on the right side of the home page, this will collect email addresses so I can email people updates on shop products, new collections, specials, coupons and stuff like that. Optimistically maybe this will happen once a month, at a guess, the emails will happen as fast as this little side business grows and changes.

So thats it for now, stay tuned.. i have a giveaway coming up as soon as i get some more paper…

Well it might not be “officially” spring yet, but the flowers are sure fooled. The unusually warmer weather means more flowers, more walks, more bike rides and less pollution from chimneys! Pretty happy all round really.

Another thing thats got me all excited is my new printer. I fired it up end of week last week and have been busy printing off possible prints to sell. I have all sorts of tentative plans so mostly going to try lots of different shops, ways of marketing and just go from there. I will be selling more than photo prints too. I hope to start selling prints of paintings and illustrations also. There is even the possibility of combo-ing with a friend at lyttleton markets.. maybe.

The last few weekends i have been attending a weaving course at the arts center. I got to borrow a four shaft loom and generally had a good time playing with different weaves and learning to read the patterns. After being a little disappointed with how i didn’t enjoy using a rigid heddle loom that much through another course i did last year, i was happily surprised that i enjoyed this one so much… we did a “sampler” playing with different patterns to create different effects. Here is a little closeup of the unwashed slightly wrinkly piece:

I hope everyone has a good week! My guy is coming back for good tonight, he has been working overseas for the last year or so. I have been getting him back for one week every two weeks, but its still not the same. So excited about him coming home for good… so we will be hectic getting ready for our USA holiday in the coming days, followed by coming back home from the US and setting out to move in together and starting to build a house. So grown up! Ha ha.. anyways, here are some more spring photos, heres wishing everyone a fabulous week!

I got an email from Millie yesterday passing on a “crafty call of help”. She has a friend who needs some help. Here is a section of her email:

“I’m passing this on, on behalf of my friend Kate. She works for the Eating Awareness Team in Christchurch – they are non profit service that provides support and counseling services (among other things) for people with eating disorders and other food and body image issues. As an organisation they are really struggling financially and are currently finding seeking funding extra difficult.  So they have decided to take action and have an art & craft auction to try to raise some funds. Basically they’re seeking donations from people for goods/services/lessons/whatever else anyone might like to donate that is remotely arty or crafty, so the criteria is pretty broad!

As you are all talented artistic ladies I thought I’d just put it out there and some of you might be willing to donate something to the auction and/or spread the word through your crafty contacts and blogs.”

So I figure this is the perfect motivation finish those crafty things you lost interest in because of a. the colour, b. the use was no longer there, or c. they plain just wouldn’t suit the giftee/or you. I am also going to give her some prints of my photos. Something easy and I hope someone may find pretty on their wall! Maybe even some of those really cool second hand finds that have that crafty feel to them… that are gathering dust waiting for a purpose… mmm can I give them away yet??

So get in touch with via this website link: http://create4eat.wordpress.com/

www.cactusclimbing.co.nz

Phew! I was pretty stoked when I go this job, thanks to an old flatmate I got a meeting and then the redesign job for one of the coolest New Zealand outdoor equipment manufacturer labels. I’m not just saying that either. (I have a cactus backpack, 5 years on, it still looks like a good solid backpack and its been everywhere…used while studying, biking to work… everything, the reason i like, the zip is still working and the fabric isn’t fraying. Usually this happens to my bags within the year)

So I was designer and project manager for this baby. A few hair tearing moments, mostly when it came to things completely out of my control, programming, hosting and what not. But its done and I am really happy with it. Its a Joomla and Virtuemart website for those who would like to know.

We have been about a month in the thinking, planning, designing and making. This has been my occupation in my evenings and weekends. Inspired by Tim Burtons film “The Corpse Bride”. Mostly this design was an act of self indulgence…

What to expect from her in the next month or so:

• An “about me and contact” link at the top
• A shop! It will start on etsy then i will have my own. Mostly my photography, but i would like to sell website “stuff” eventually.
• A resources area for links to other sites divided up by categories ect.
• Wallpapers and free photo downloads
• A few more tweaks on the design.
• many more links, in “Link Love” she needs beefing up!

In the mean time let me know your thoughts. Not sure if I like the blue anymore. But I NEVER like my designs after i have finished them. So I tend to ignore myself.

Goodness me I am chuffed twice in the space of a week! I have been mentioned as the featured photographer for the month through another site (because of mychillybin) Endemic World, an online New Zealand design shop that is very cool (i’m not just saying that either…. it IS cool)! Here is the article, below is my little “cutting” for prosperity….

Blogs become bit of an online scrapbook, almost need to scan the one or two certificates I got at school. They never cease to amuse me now I am big and grown, I only ever got two that had any significance, one was when I was five, it was the art award (trophy and everything) I had a particular love for the “Art Table” full of boxes, and tape and pens… SOooo much fun. The other was a “top of the class” maths certificate in sixth form, I feel like that was more my poor tutors and parents achievement because I was bottom of the class in forth form, no certificate for that one…

I have decided to start playing with advertising on the bloggity blog, mostly because when clients ask me what they are about, I will be able to answer from experience. After awhile I may remove them. But we will see!

Quick update on that…. I have added, the google text ads, i am skeptical about these ones, i “think” people maybe screening them out, also its not really much to do with the function of the site (naf). But the google search, I thought might be good for convenience, happy for feedback on that one. If it earns money or not, not sure. But i did like the idea of using their very good search engine. ALSO i have made an amazon store. The returns on this are meant to be tiny! One womans blog i read, whose site is CRAZY popular only earned enough points to buy a single book after a whole year. Clearly not going to earn anything much for me The main purpose for it, is to act as an easy way for me to show what i am reading and like. When i say its easy, it really is. The Amazon estore was a breeeeze to setup.