Miss Minnie

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!

 

Happy Australia Day to all Australians celebrating Australia Day this weekend.   I BBQ'd drank beer and made pavlova so I think I did my bit?  I hope you all enjoyed your long weekend. 

It's all in the title..

Wow! if you want to see a huge spike in your stats put the word money in your title..
I have been having a play with this great site called BigCartel thanks to Miss Meshell (please go and check out her new blog and update your readers) who put me on to it.  It is relatively easy to set up. I only swore at the screen once which is pretty good for me :-) You get 5 products free so if you aren't moving a lot of stock it might be a good option for you but even their pricing isn't bad and it looks like you can customise it a fair bit if you are a wizard master of CSS/HTML/code vodoo or are sleeping with someone who is.

I can be found here.  Yes, one lousy shot.  Don't get me started.. have you ever tried to photograph resin?  it is a nightmare, even harder than writing your own Bio for a market application! arggg.  Needless to say I won't be doing the South Perth market because I missed the deadline because I couldn't do the above.  I know, don't you start.

Good news on the market front though, I contacted a new farmers market about the possibility of adding local art/craft to the mix and they were positive about the idea.  So, locals?  how many of you out there would be interested in a 8.30am to 12.30am Saturday market in Mt Claremont?  if you are let me know, the more the merrier.  It would be great to be up and running for Easter and Mothers Day.  Nothing is confirmed and it might not come off but it would be great to know who would be interested in joining me. 

let's make some... money!

Ok, classes, craft classes, art classes, creative classes.  What kind of classes would you like to take?   I know some great people who teach classes, others about to teach, and some who would love to go to classes.   So tell me, local Perth people, what kind of classes would you go to? 
Do you want once a week for six weeks?
All day on a weekend?
What was done well or badly at your last class?

You tell me and I will see what I can do to make it happen?

Daily pendant..

I wear my own work everyday.  Is that wierd?  I find it hard to describe when people ask what I "do" so this way I can just point.
Miss Minnie likes to get in on the action as well.

Don't panic, she is wearing a second but don't tell her :-)

Want to see more of my fantasy shop project?  There is this group of old shops that would make the most perfect combination of shop, gallery and cafe.  They have recently been cleaned out of all the junk that was against the windows for the last 20 years and now you can see inside them.  I took a stack of photos the other day and early this morning, when I couldn't sleep anymore I photoshoped on some signage.  I want to call the group of them the "Cupcake Collective" and the stores themselves would be called "Look, shop" and "Look, gallery" and "Look, latte" which is a play on the "see spot run" childrens story.   The idea is that the main store would stock all our work, the centre space would be a gallery with a teaching space in the centre and the end store would be the cafe.  The shop has all this shelving already and this totally retro wallpaper which I would leave but would get some Aerosol artists in to create some flying ducks up the wall... it is such a great dream.  The stores are located on a really busy road 10 minutes from the city it is such a great idea.  Better buy a lotto ticket?

new project

I have seen this new project here.  I choose the word "Look" as my word.  Tomorrow I will going "looking" for letters :-)    Here is what I saw this morning without even knowing :-)

Bestest news!

I have 29 pieces, yes 29 pieces of resin for sale in a shop!  a real life shop.  Ok, it is only a consignment boutique but that is good because I get paid after a month and can pull my stock out if and when I want to.   I was in the shop about 6 months ago wearing a piece and the owner commented on it so I promised to take some stock in.. ANYWAY with a cash flow crisis looming I decided to give it a go.  I need to place an order for new supplies to get stock ready for the next round of markets and that is about $AU800 arggg!  I took a big brave breath in and just went for it, luckily she remembered me or my stuff really and was super excited.  She was even letting her customers serve themselves while we went over all the pieces I had.  Fingers crossed.  I wasn't even that anxious when I was talking to her

Speaking of resin, do your remember me mentioning last year that I was working with the incredibly talented Miss Ali J? well, her incredible illustrations set into my resin are for sale in limited quantities on her etsy shop Aussie Patches, go and check them out RIGHT NOW and have a look at her beautiful art, especially Reindeer Girl that I am buying!
   I have really enjoyed this collaboration and I love how her girls look under resin.  I can't wait to do more of these.  Please go and visit them.

..kindness of strangers...

The other day as I was driving off I noticed an Ipod in the gutter on the road opposite my place.. I parked, jumped out and rescued it from the next car!  I thought it was more than likely from the house full of boys behind it.  I popped it on their front steps as there was nobody home.  I figured if it didn't belong to one of them or their friends they could give it a good home, they are students after all.  Later that night we had a power failure so I went to join the neighbours out in the street, one of the boys returned home in the middle of it so I went across to check that they had found it before the power went out.  ANYWAY, long story short, it did belong to one of them and he was so excited.   This box of chocolates arrived this evening while I was out walking the dog, isn't that sweet?  I lost my mobile before Christmas and it was handed in to the local newsagent so it just goes to prove what goes around comes around hey?

 

My local Ikea is closing and reopening in a you beaut new store on February 14, how romantic!  so, they are getting good at marking down

damaged stock to shift it quick.  I had set off to buy this Mikael add on piece at $99 to make my new paperwork desk for my renovated studio.. I had sent the Spam Man off into the store while I hit the bargain basement part, for two reasons*.  I found two units! marked down to $40 and $45!!!!! luckily he hadn't bought it yet so I ended up with what I wanted plus another bench that had great legs for $85! yay! all I need is a new top to attach the legs to and I have a great new desk.  ANYWAY, sorry for the second long story, the point of all this?  well I had to show you Max "helping".  Turns out this is one cat who likes flatpack furniture.  He was all over it.  Really strange as he rarely shows ANY interest in anything I am doing :-)  got it all together, yes there are a few screws and things left over... :-)

**interested in the reasons?  1. the cricket is on, so asking the Spam Man to drive me to Ikea is stretching things, so I was trying to make it fast.  2.  I had my second ever vertigo attack in ikea eleven years ago so don't really like going into the store. 

resin requested prior to Christmas!

   

One of my lovely readers requested one of these pieces LAST YEAR! I have to go through my emails to remind myself who it was, but I just wanted to quickly assure you that I won't let these go to the shop!  I will try and get them up on Etsy tonight or tomorrow. 

new room inspires new sewing..

very exciting..

big boxes of seconds and first waiting to be delivered to a recycle boutique for sale along with the infamous bags :-)

gotta shift some stock to pay for more supplies for the next round of markets starting in March.  Wish me luck.

How does a day go from this?

Last night...

This morning, post vertigo attack...yes, my first for the year.  I was bending over the bathroom sink scrubbing the mold from the grout on the sink after vaccuming the house and spending the last three days working like a slave... Just goes to prove that my feeling that I was born in the wrong century is right.  I should be sitting quietly doing needlepoint waiting for my Mr Darcy :-) 
Maybe all that activity over stimulated the balance organ in the ear and that is why it happened?  who knows.  It's annoying, dissapointing, frustrating? yes, all of the above.  Looking at my records, I had one on Jan 27 last year and the next wasn't until May so I could be lucky? :-)

getting there...

Thank you Feli and Alicia! it has been INCREDIBLY hard work but I am over the worst of it really.  There is still one wall needing painting but I have run out of paint.. I am trying to get away with buying the minimum.  We were given the paint that I used on the floor and skirtings, the majority of walls are the left over  from when I did the Spam Man's study and the feature wall I bought a litre only.. It isn't as dark as I wanted.. I am going to live with it and see how it looks once the room is finished.  There will only be a desk (new) to move if I change my mind and want to repaint it.  Yes Alicia I did find quite a bit of stock!  I am taking a pile of it down to a local upmarket recycled clothing boutique that expressed an interest in my work ages ago.  I will leave it there for a month and then put what ever is left up on Etsy, I promise :-)  I hope you all enjoy your weekend.  See you next week, let me leave you with some extra pics from my photo a day project that I took today..
   

a new way of looking...

This is a truly amazing site.. an empty craft space.. Feli and Alicia, you have seen it, you know how much stuff was in there.. well now it is all in the corridor or in the Spam Man's study opposite :-)  I ripped up the crappy old carpet, painted the concrete and tomorrow I will finish the walls.. THEN all the stuff goes back in... :-) that will be when the real fun starts.  I decided to look at this room differently.  Instead of looking at it and going it is too small, I can't work in it, it's too dark, blah blah blah I decided that I could pretend that it was a studio space in a great building surrounded by lots of inspiring artists and I was lucky to have the space at all!  So over the next few days I will be setting up a sewing area, a proper desk to do paperwork at and arranging the stuff on the shelves in an efficient way and I promise, I WILL NEVER LET THE ROOM GET OUT OF CONTROL AGAIN.

Welcome 2008, a nice fat looking year...

   

The first week of my "photo a day" project.  Not sure how it is going to pan out but I thought I would just point and shoot and see what happens.  The first two days in this lot were close to 40' which is funny because they look cooler but they were hideous.  The only good thing about that kind of heat is my resin sets fast.

I am finishing up a custom job from last year so I have broken out the resin again.  I am also trialling a new type of resin that hopefully doesn't yellow but apparently takes longer to dry.. :-).. yes that means I will have to wait longer and have to finish a couple of days before a market rather than the day before! should be interesting.  Moulds/molds are also back on the agenda, I have to recast anyway because I didn't care for the others well so they are pretty stuffed. 

Tomorrow I will be back in the studio/craftroom/study/big room full of stuff to try and "tidy" it yet again.  I can't function the way that it is but I will get there.  Big plans for the year ahead.  I have done pretty well with my resolutions so far.. I will be posting more often this year.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend.