Simone Quentin de Manson - Christchurch Website Design » Photography

A formal Introduction to “Made Happy”

Simone — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 04:01:27 +0000

Click to visit the site

A bit of an experiment I am running at the moment – is having two blogs. I know that its well documented that you should have only one. I think these people assume we all have one main passion and interest and they most certainly overlap. Sometimes my interests MIGHT overlap, but really, sewing, fibre and art don’t really mix with geeky old web design. When it comes to getting good visitors to my business blog – ones that have been searching for banana cake really are not the people I am after.

In the interest of keeping my life simple – all of my old posts will stay on this blog, but from now on my physical world the latest crafty project or sharing links and photos – these will be done on the other blog – called “Made Happy”. I chose the name after alot of thought and brainstorming and it felt pretty accurate. The design is super simple. I have lots of design in my life – infact I am still trying to redesign this site! I thought I would like it all pared back to basics so that photos and content took center stage. Enjoy having a look around I have written a few posts to start on. You will still get web design related information here and whatever is happening in my business’s world.

Feed the designer: inspired by Laurent Nivalle

Simone — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:13:59 +0000

Not long ago I signed up to a website that sent pretty pictures to my inbox once a week. This morning I follwed their link to this post with photos taken by Laurent Nivalle. I have downloaded a few pictures for you to see, but you should really head over to the other post to see the whole lot together they are such a nice nostalgic story. I am hankering to play with these colours and effects.

By Laurent Nivalle

Go the website here: http://www.laurentnivalle.fr/
and blog: http://laurentnivalle.blogspot.com/

As for my music of choice I have another old school album for you from my student days. An album by a christchurch musician Bic Runga. I am currently listening alot to her first album “drive” and the more recent one “birds”

Would you like a video? Here ya go.

Have a great week!

Photos and things

Simone — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:28:03 +0000

The weeks have been full of activity and projects.
Below is a picture I took on the way up to a party at a lodge close to Craigiburn Ski field.

This is my favorite shot and one of the first on the day (always the way) I have been hankering to go back and try and duplicate only this time with a tripod!

Here is one of the closeup shots i always go for:

Here is some yarn i am thinking of knitting into a lacy scarfy shawl.

I have been knitting, sewing even embroidering! But have yet to take pictures. I went on a bit a craft bender after I unravelled some socks that didn’t fit. So before starting those again i wanted to do some other things that have been looming and boy have i been loving the light relief!

As for light relief, those on facebook saw this little face I couldn’t resist taking a picture of.

Why I got out of bed

Simone — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 01:17:31 +0000

With the cold and dark mornings I am finding myself getting more and more interested in reading my book in bed and not pulling myself out from under the covers of my warm snuggly bed! This morning as I put my rather dull book down I looked up and saw sunlight peeping through the blinds, beckoning me to emerge from my cocoon for a walk. I am SO glad I did. Life of luxury I live sometimes. I am aware of how decadent this is, and for what its worth I am living it up…. Speaking of decadence I better get back to paying for it. Hope you all have a nice Tuesday.

Kylie’s Birthday Weekend

Simone — Sun, 23 May 2010 03:36:01 +0000

My wonderful man turned 32 last weekend. What did we do? Lots of things. I made us cake, we ate yummy food and we ran around taking photos. This weekend I am a little sick. But I did want to finish sorting out the photos. What seemed like we just missed the good stuff when the mist rolled in, on Saturday night was for me, a great trip out with many cool photos. The following Sunday morning we went to Godley Heads. The cloudy cold weather was a feature. This saturated the colours and made the sea look so blue! We ALL know how much I love blue!

Clouds rolling in over Christchurch. 15th May 2010

Things to do this week, update Ravelry! I have so many crafty projects of late that need logging in somewhere. I’m also very excited, i signed up for the vintage purls winter sock club! Bit of a treat, but I need something to knit while I spin up all my yarns for my next knitting garment craze I feel coming on. I have a bunch of great websites to design this week that had to get pushed out to allow for copious amounts of napping and cups of tea, while i did work – rested – did more worked – rested… I felt intensely guilty for not being a busy working person but sometimes your body just says . NO. Sleep now. Mmmm sleep, might have another nap this afternoon.

Art on Sunday

Simone — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:00:45 +0000

I have finally been painting again.

In my spare evenings I plop down on the table and paint. I decided to paint on corrugated cardboard; because its free, because its not as hard on my paintbrushes as canvas is, because you get to paint on random sizes and because its on free stuff I don’t need to be precious about it. This is my finished one. I have another almost finished. Its quite fun painting on bumpy card.

I went to spend a lovely lunch time with Gretchen and her kiddies the other day, saw some of my prints on the wall. That was nice to see. Buy them here.

Hope you all had a lovely Sunday and have a great week ahead. Love the little hands in the above photo and the bits here and there.

Photos on Friday

Simone — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:33:39 +0000

With all the people subscribing to the wee newsletter and comments for the free prints I have been looking at my rather large collection of photos a little more than usual of late. I found these pretty shots from back in my film days and just love how the colours seemed to come out “looking” old (taken in 2007). I might go out with the film camera again in a couple of weekends. See what shows up. I do adore pictures in bush with walking tracks, I guess thats why I love my tramping so much!

On another note I have been listening to alot of podcasts lately and reading the occasional blog post, plus whatever help/info docs etsy send out. I am becoming more and more impressed with the amazing talent and dedication people have. All i have done is put up a few products to see what happens, this took quite awhile and I started to think.. how could this actually work financially? Crunching numbers writing down ideas, trying to FOCUS on one or two instead of becoming bogged down by the possibilities. I’m telling you, it messes with your brain! So to the people out there developing those beautiful products, worked your butts off to make it happen enabling yourselves to generate that income… full props to you! Your friggin amazing.

My competition for some free prints is still going so sign up to the newsletter here or comment on the post and you will
“be in…. to win” (sorry, i apologise)

The Carrington Hut Tramp

Simone — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:13:42 +0000

Last weekend I went walking with the better half and some friends to the Carrington Hut in Arthurs past. Pretty much 4 hours up a river valley and back again. Organised as a social trip, pancakes were eaten, other walks were explored and I am finally admitting my four hundred dollar boots were a really bad, expensive decision as I hobble around with yet another Achilles injury. Wrong size and shape… walking on a river bed will make any boot thats not quite right, become completely obvious! My camera bag also came apart, just before a river crossing! Phew! Just in time to leave in a safe place whilst water was navigated. This batch of photos have all sorts of wacky effects. Why? Why not, one has to at least TRY these things. All in all I had a great time!

Canterbury Anniversary 2009

Simone — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:35:03 +0000

Sheep, cows, big machines, chickens, alpacas and whatever else the rural community needs to show, sell or eat.. Yup we have our “show” this weekend. I spent most of my time looking at the sheep, getting caught by sheep that were herded to the show grounds and trying to get an alpaca to like me.. I like alpacas, their yarn is so lovely and soft to spin.

One day I will have a little farm with sheep, alpacas, chickens and maybe a jersey cow or a horse…

The food tent was YUMMO, went in the tent with ice creams. We very quickly saw that it was necessary to finish the ice creams and eat other foods, so we halted our progress and finished off the ice cream as fast as one can eat something that cold. Then drank and ate all the samples we could find, I left the tent feeling quite full and a little bit tipsy!

Lots of photos on flickr! Oh and big thank you’s to those who have brought prints off me thus far! Its very exciting, wasn’t quite expecting such a lovely supportive response! Yay you guys!

Its time to sell!

Simone — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:09:07 +0000

The talking about this is over! As you can tell by the little buttons on the home page. I now have two little shops. One using Etsy (for all you foreigners!) and one for my New Zealand compatriots using Felt.

I brain stormed how best to go about selling these prints, or at least getting you all to even notice, the idea of a sale was pretty obvious. Everyone loves a bargain (or is that just me?). So grab one of my lovely prints for just $5 each. I have all sorts – for all sorts in there, so treat yourself or they would make a great Christmas gift. I even made them into a size you can easily buy a frame for.

I have all sorts of schemes afoot, so sign up to the blog, or my facebook page and you will be kept in the loop.