The friday letter....H....

Oops, running a little late again this week. This time it's not my fault though - damn internet connection....This was taken a while back in Oamaru when I headed down there for work. I won't go on about Oamaru again - I spoke about it way back at the friday letter 'E'.

I love Jen's letter 'P' this week. Great colours.

Last day for international airmail from NZ today everyone, so if there's anything you like in my shop, you better be quick!

Pleased to meat you....

Finally, you can exhale....I am very excited to be showing off my first range of ceramics, a set of 6 plates called 'pleased to meat you....'

I am really happy with my designs, but have had a few problems getting the finish to the standard I would like. I'm putting that down to a combination of the firing and the fact that I'm new to this, so still need to improve my application technique. You can take a closer look at them at their very own flickr page or click on the image below.

The exciting news for you is that they're for sale! And due to the minor flaws, will be a bargain! I hope to have them in my etsy shop later today. In fact, I had better get a move on, because tomorrow is the final day for international shipping to everywhere except Australia.

I'd like to take this opportunity to say a few thank yous. These plates have been a long time coming. Thanks to mum and Elly for giving me feedback on my designs and helping with the shortlist. A massive thanks to Jesse for answering my many questions, and to Skinny laMinx for her brilliant tutorial. It's the work of these 2 lovely ladies that inspired me to try this in the first place. Oh, and a HUGE thank you to Leon who basically taught me photoshop via email to make this possible.From the mind of a vegetarian....
Who'd have thought....

**post note: turns out there was a problem with the kiln. I knew my technique was perfect. :P

Hold your breath....

6 hours until I can collect my first range of ceramics....

Thank you Aotearoa....South Island....

I'm sorry I can't be any more specific as to the location of this shot. It was taken on a drive from Alexandra to Christchurch, and all I can tell you is that we went up the coast, passing through Oamaru and Timaru. It was my first time to the South Island which is as breathtakingly beautiful as the rumours suggest.

For a photo taken out of the window of a moving car, I think it turned out beautifully, though I think the credit goes to the landscape rather than the photographer!

(I've changed the title of this weekly post to 'Thank you Aotearoa' because I think Aotearoa sounds nicer than 'New Zealand'. It's the Maori name for the country and, according to some, means 'land of the long white cloud'. See this article for other translations and pronunciation. This weekly post is intended to show the beauty of the country I've called home for the past few years).

the post age comes to an end....

For those of you who've been following the postcard swap between me and my good friend Elly, this is the final postcard. It arrived today with my BIRTHDAY PRESENT! Before you inundate me with birthday wishes, I should let you know that my birthday was three and a half months ago - Elly was just a tad late with posting. Isn't it purdy?! You can see all the postcards we sent to each other here.

In other news, light stitch is now in my etsy shop. It photographed really well, I think. And my plates are waiting patiently by the kiln to be fired tomorrow. Please come back and check them out later in the week - they're looking good already! (Please bring strange sense of humour, or at least a little bit of quirk).

Until then....

Light stitch....

At last!....

Yes, here is the bright idea finally. I originally made these panels for a cushion but somehow they've ended up stretched onto a canvas frames and they look brilliant (if I do say so myself).

The orange fabric is a remnant from my local fabric store. I'm not sure what it is, but it feels quite natural and has a lovely texture. The grey fabric is ol' faithful - yep, that black denim I seem to use a lot off (I've bought my fabric shop's complete stock). I screen printed the basic shape of the light bulb and switch and then machine stitched over the top using a combination of straight stitch and freehand stitching (no fancy embroidery machine here people!).

This is a Christmas present for someone, but I'm so happy with the result that I think I'll pop a set in my etsy store this week.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone!....

Eek!....

My decals have arrived! Of course, I was too nervous to even cut them out yesterday, but bit the bullet this morning. The next step is to apply them to my plates and get them fired next week. I'm nervous and excited all at once! Watch this space!

(All the decal excitement has meant my bright idea is on the back-burner for today. But in its hiatus, it's become even brighter. Fingers crossed for tomorrow)....

The friday letter....S....

Welcome to this week's friday letter. I assure you that this is a letter 's' rather than a number '8'. Would i lie to you?.... This week Jen has chosen a 'y' and you can see it here!

If anyone's stopped by to see what the bright idea is, you're going to have to wait until tomorrow I'm afraid. The photos just aren't up to scratch....

Until then....

What's the bright idea?....

You'll just have to come back tomorrow to find out....

Thank you New Zealand....Napier....

Well, with my time in NZ drawing to a close, I thought I'd share some of the beauty of the country I've called home for 3 years (on and off) with you each Wednesday.

Admittedly, today's photo doesn't show off the landscape, but it is a reflection of the Art Deco town I live in, and was taken at the Art Deco Weekend a couple of years ago. I took so many photos of hood ornaments that day, and this one stands out as the highlight. Everyone dresses up in appropriate fashion, and picnics on Marine Parade. The effort some people go to is fantastic.

Thank you Napier....

Mission accomplished....

Well finally, after being sidetracked with my bacon and egg cushions (posted below), I got back on track to finish my GRiD cushions. And they turned out so beautifully that I thought they deserved an outdoors photoshoot, so off we went the botanical gardens just around the corner from home. It wasn't all fun - Daniel took notes to studying for his final exams which start tomorrow (eek!), and after photographing cushions (to the amusement of a nearby picnicking family) I helped out with a little bit of engineering. urgh....

I've got another screen print in mind for this week. It's not quite as odd as bacon, but I'm pretty optomistic it'll work out well....

Breakfast anyone?....

Well, I was supposed to be finishing off my GRiD cushions but I just couldn't help working on my new cushions, the bacon and eggs pair. I'm REALLY happy with them....

They're screen printed onto black denim from paper-cut stencils, and I'll be doing each one as it's ordered so they'll all be unique. I'll be listing them on etsy this weekend, and they can be bought individually or as a pair....

Right, back to those GRiD cushions....

The friday letter....I....

Oops, running a little late this week, but its still Friday in some parts of the world right? So that means you won't mind if I backdate this post to yesterday.

This week is the letter 'i' (obviously) and comes courtesy of the sign directing tourists to the information centre. They must be getting busy now that the sun is out in this beautiful part of the land. And don't you love it when you capture a bird without realising at the time!

Jen's letter this week is 'a' and you can check it out here. It's a doozy! I love the alliteration of "alex's a on the ice" and will probably have it stuck in my head for the day....

Another sneak peak....

I've been working on some more cushions for the GRiD series. I'll have them up on etsy as soon as my internet connection returns to modern-day speed. (It's reverted to dial-up!!).

Always open to feedback....

The post age no.9....

This postcard is made from the selvedge of the black denim I'm using to upholster my chair (see the Pania print in the post below) and which I use for my GRiD cushions. It's so soft that it feels like possum fur.

I'm pretty sure this postcard swap is drawing to a close, if only because Elly stopped sending them to me months ago so the 'swap' part has pretty much fallen by the wayside. But in her defense, she has been very busy preparing for a group exhibition which opened on Friday night. If you're in Perth, Western Australia, you might like to check it out at 48 Watkins Street in White Gum Valley, until the 16th of November (12-6pm daily). Here's some of Elly's beautiful handmade brooches....

Hmmm, Pania revealed....

Well here she is....
And truth be told, I am undecided whether I'm happy with her. Never one to do things the easy way, I printed the second colour alone (not easy when the image is larger than the screen), using a stupid technique that I seem to have made up on the spot, resulting in the colour bleeding. So, once it was dry, I decided to hand paint some of the messy bits, only to find I'd mixed the colour slightly wrong so I needed to hand paint all the light colour. So now the light bits are a bit blotchy. And the dark bits are too think, so it has a plastic-y sort of feel. Honestly, why did I think this would be easy?!

I'm not sure if she's good enough to use for covering my chair. I've got her pinned up on the wall to contemplate. We shall see....

The friday letter....F....

Another photo from my recent trip to Wellington. I must admit, I spent a lot of time looking at fonts. Once you start it's hard to stop. Next week will be a return to local letters....

Jen's found a brilliant 'd' over in Minneapolis and you can check it out here.

It's been a productive day - ceramic designs made it to the printers, some Best in Show brooches were put together (new tartan styles in store soon!) and fabric was prepared for GRiD cushions. Brilliant....

Pania revealed!....

Well, not quite yet, but here she is with the first colour printed and the stencil for the second colour in place. A huge thank you to Jen for sending me a roll of freezer paper! I did end up finding some here, but it's so expensive. I'll be doing a lot of stenciling from now on, so stay tuned! I think I really want to show Pania off at this stage so you can see how much work went into cutting the stencil. It was painful (literally), but hopefully it all turns out ok.

I'll be printing later today so that she's ready to take to my upholstery class tonight. Exciting times! Stay tuned for the finished piece....

Anonymous postcard....the REAL finale....

Well good golly, imagine my surprise when I popped onto the Aroha Lamour website and found myself there!

Aroha Lamour were the recipients of my anonymous postcards (well, photos of them) over the past couple of months and found me out! It was great to find out that they'd enjoyed receiving my postcards, and on that basis, I personally delivered the original postcards yesterday and introduced myself.

If you head over to their site to check me out (and why wouldn't you?!), be sure to take a look at their other posts. Whoever takes their photos does a brilliant job, and most of the photos are taken in the shop, so you get a peak of how beautiful it is. And in exciting news, they're about to open an online store. Now THAT will be temptation....

Ceramics....

For a while now I've been designing some ceramic decals after being inspired by Jesse and Skinny laMinx. I'm very slow and somewhat inexperienced with Photoshop so the tedious part of the process has been converting my designs into the correct format to send to the printers. After a final push over the last couple of days, my designs are complete and ready to go tomorrow! I'm very excited and am hopeful they'll turn out well. I don't want to ruin the surprise, so this "hello?" is just a tiny snippet of what I have in store. Unfortunately, it'll be another 3 weeks before the results are available (all things going to plan), but I'll be sure to show them off!

A huge thank you to Jesse for answering all my questions about the process!

Oh, and swing by in the next few days to see how the Pania screen print turns out....