Gocco Success! HOORAY

Wow. What a highly thrilling moment!
Apparently the problems I was having burning a good screen was a mixture of moisture in the paper, and excess carbon. This was collectively solved by ironing the photocopy (regular iron with no steam) covered with a sheet of baking paper to remove excess carbon. Simple as that. I had two dud prints at the start and I was off to the races. Apologies for ordinary photos with this post. I struggle to get things right with the light in my studio...



I'd read that it was important to be liberal with ink...and I was!



It was SO TRUE about being liberal with ink. I printed about 100 of these without even the slightest hint I was running out of ink.



I ran out of SPACE to put the prints before running out of ink! Guess those Gocco card drying racks might have been a good investment after all! I spent a bit of time worrying about my cat coming to investigate when the tables in my studio looked like this!



What an awesome little unit. I'm so glad I didn't flog it off on ebay when I had ordinary results last year. Want to know more about gocco? Read about it here or there!

Gocco Long Weekend

I was horrified to note that my last GOCCO experiment was the Queen's Birthday LAST YEAR. Gasp! The good news is that I did purchase some more supplies around Christmas...but have not yet found (made?) time to actually continue my experiments. I couldn't possibly let another YEAR go by without progressing so I decided to use the Queen's Birthday THIS YEAR to dabble once more.
I pitched a cross-continental collaboration with my very talented friend Christina who lives in Canada: a series of quotes (her words and my designs), printed using Gocco, onto postcards. She held up her end of the bargain and gave me lots of inspirational words. My deadline of 31 January 2011 made that awesome WHOOSHING sound as it whipped by. My excuse? I went to the Australian Open! OK that accounts for the week of January 31, the other five months? I got nothin.
SO given I still have not had a decent print from my Gocco, I thought I'd tackle that challenge before pitching my designs to her. One of her suggestions was a series of cards that say simply "hello friend".
So here is what I will print on Monday:


Birdy has no legs coz I plan to draw those later. Cheating with one screen, you see.

And I like this one too:


I am going to try to keep this to one screen too: block around the spider and then draw the thin web strand after.
That is, if I can burn a good master. Fingers crossed!
I'll keep you posted. I promise.
PS Thanks to Lara and Nic for their tips re: Gocco from my last post...A YEAR AGO! Yikes.

Holy Hiatus!

How many blog posts have I started with apologies for being a tardy blogger!? Way too many!
ANYWAY I meant to post this pic after the last Muddi Market in Wagga back in December 2010...OOPS! My sis-in-law and I scored these AWESOME vintage skirts made by Janine from Middlemost Clothing.
Seriously. How rockin' is THAT!? Janine has acquired the most succulent stash of vintage fabric and makes them into awesome skirts, dresses and accessories. I love crafty chicks making groovy stuff, especially in areas like the Riverina where all we can do under normal circumstances is drool about this stuff after seeing it online featured by designers doing markets in Melbourne and Byron Bay!

A while back I put together a very inexpensive but highly personalized gift for my crafty little friend Charlotte who turned 7. Hmmmm...more than a while really, because today is her 8th birthday! Anyway I bought a little packet of coloured beads and some clear butterfly beads for the whopping total of $4, removed the rather gaudy packaging and put them in a small cello bag, and then got out the trusty prismacolour pencils and the kraft paper, did a bit of scribbling...and stapled it to the bag to seal it up. Waa Lah! Insta-gift. She loved it.
Front:

And Back:

I'm big on packaging to personalize otherwise inexpensive gifts. I made these gifts for 2 little girls last Christmas. Super easy: The felt daisies came from Papoose Felt (their range has the most heavenly colours)...I stitched the button to the circular piece of felt. I then stitched the felt daisy to the hair clips. Then I hot-glue-gunned the button with circular felt to the felt daisy. Done! Soooo quick n easy. And while hot glue guns are not perfect for everything, they sure are perfect for glueing felt together. Works a treat.
I cut two slits in the craft paper to mount the goodies, enter prismacolour pencils and scribbles once again. Another $2 gift!

This one below is a brooch. I made it the same way as the hairclips, i.e. stitched the red felt daisy to a brooch back clip (you can get them at Spotlight) and then hot-glue-gunned (is that a verb?) the button to the daisy. Considering Matilda is not even 1, I thought I had better add some sort of "dont play with pins" disclaimer!

Muddi Boutique Markets

Wow time whips by when you are in a creative frenzy!
This weekend I'm off to Wagga for the Muddi Boutique Markets.
I'm excited to be part of this market which is very new, but has already gained a lot of momentum. They did a very fun write up about yours truly too, you can check that out here. Whenever I do a new market I love to bring in a new product. It keeps things interesting for me and hopefully keeps my range of products varied for the lovely peeps that come and visit me at craft shows.
So this week I finally managed to get a photo of me in my new peg apron for the cover of the pattern...I'm not sure if my neighbour saw me posing in front of the fence in the back yard with my camera on a tripod!


In addition to selling the kits to make your own brooches, I thought I'd sell a few of the ones that I have made already. I felt the brooches needed a little bit of extra care with packaging to make them a more appealing gift, so my trusty laser printer and huge stash of stationery collected over the years allowed me to whip this together:

Its a handy way to use the plastic bags that I used for my greeting cards in Canada....they had to change size to accommodate Aussie printing specs so I have a BIG stash of those bags. Now I have a good excuse to make about 2,000 brooches. Yikes!

Upcoming Markets and New Apron Designs

Usually this time of year I'm thinking about what markets to do before Christmas. I thought I'd shake things up a bit this year and do something local, which is not all that easy considering I live in Bathurst. Anyway lucky for me, this year the Bathurst Arts Council is putting on an event called Arts Alive 2795 to showcase community art in the region, and I've decided to be an exihibitor. Thats not until November 20/21, but I need to GET BUSY anyway.
In the meantime, I am lined up for the Muddi Boutique Market in Wagga Wagga (not really local but I do get to visit my folks which is a double bonus, and given my sweet mother Mazzy usually travels to help me where ever I do a market, I'm sure I can convince her to come along to one in her home town). I DIGRESS!
So in order to remain stimulated I decided to add a new product for the upcoming markets...Apron patterns! Not just any old apron pattern though, a PEG APRON pattern so you can look cool hanging your clothes on the line and your pegs will never get rusty or dirty ever again!

I've had a peg apron that I made a few years back and its been great, but I always felt it was a bit bulky. When my neighbour commissioned me to make one for her, I thought there might be a market for these. Anyway this new shape is awesome, I'm really happy with it.

And while I was at it I decided to make another apron, whenever I do a craft show I think to myself how handy a little apron would be to house cash notes (bum bags just arent cutting it for me any more!) and I was so excited about the shape of this little number that I thought what the heck, make a pattern and see how it goes? It could be even worn over jeans just for the fun of it. They are SO easy to make. And anyone who knows me knows of my blue daisy obession, how groovy is this fat quarter from BIG W! WIll wonders never cease.


And Bathurst is looking lovely this time of year, despite it SNOWING yesterday. Yes, you heard correctly. SNOW. In SPRING?

Melbourne Getaway

OK so admittedly it was back in August (I've been a TERRIBLE blogger) but back in August my guy & I visited my fave Aussie city for a few days. Four in fact, which was no where near enough, but enough for me to capture the following pics:
Hooray! Finally I got to visit the ever so lovely Lara and Teegs from Ink & Spindle at their studio. These girls remain a huge inspiration, and their fabric continues to make me drool. More pics to come of the goodies I picked up from them! xo

My old trusty canvas Connies got replaced with a ridiculously over-the-top glittery pair with a tiger skin print at the South Wharf DFO...they were way too shiny to be photographed, these are the old ones!

We stayed here and LOVED it - right in the heart of the city, it was a great spot. A beautiful bunch of flowers bloomed for us during our stay. Nice touch!

We stumbled on Hosier Lane, which I'm sure would be a well known spot if I was a local...but instead we found it by surprise and I was blown away by the incredible graffiti art that covered every square inch of the bricked laneway...here is a small teaser (I must have taken 100 photos there!)


And I loved this tin can sculpture:

The first week back in Bathurst we declared we were in a PMF. That would be a Post-Melbourne Funk.
Perhaps that might explain my blogging silence. :(
Thankyou, Melbourne, for the inspiration, and according to the locals giving us the best weather Melbourne had seen in weeks!

Kits and Patterns for Kelani Fabric Obsession

Living in Bathurst and having a full time job makes it a bit tricky for me to do craft shows that start mid-week (even the weekend ones are a challenge for me!) so I am grateful when a fabulous fabric house like (the very appropriately named) Kelani Fabric Obsession offer to stock some of my patterns and kits at a show they are doing. Kelani have a stand at the Craft & Quilt Fair from July 22 - 25 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre and will be stocking my "wonky" softie patterns and kits.
I needed another photo for the kit cover so I went to my usual spot at the local fernery (I must look positively mad doing my photo shoot in there) but its the most reliable light source in town on a rainy day like today!

I took a pair of scissors to my sacred fabric stash to make the kits...I love this fabric from Sprout Design, and its a terrifying concept to not be able to get more!

It was hard to use this fabric designed by Bee from the ever-so-fabulous Ink & Spindle, another piece that can't be replaced....oh noooooooo!

And this little guy has fabric from Ink & Spindle and the drool-worthy CLOTH...I am getting a LOT better at not being the dreaded fabric stasher.