Saturday, October 31, 2009

Christmas tree bling (felt style)

I've been making Christmas decorations these past few weeks and have come up with two sets! All are made from felt, ribbons, embroidery floss and buttons. No patterns, just straight from my little head.

Fancy deers and critters for Woodland Christmas.



Dead kitties and broken hearts for Emo Christmas*.




These are the main sets but I've also made some variations of each (different colours, ribbons etc). Once I get my Etsy store up and running, they'll be available on there. For Tassie people, they'll be for sale in Pocketspace in about a week. YAY!

* For extra authenticity, I was listening to the soundtracks from New Moon and True Blood while making these :P

Monday, October 26, 2009

Recent handmades

After a bit of a hiatus, I'm back to sewing again! Here's my latest.


Bettina the Snow Bunny.




Doorknob charm with Deer head. I'm in the process of making some cheery Christmas decorations with animal heads like this on circles of cream felt. Chris says they look like gingerbread so that's a good start! I'll post pics once I have a set of three (Deer, Squirrel, Bunny).

And while I'm here, all crafty people should think about donating a handmade softie to Softies for Mirabel - a lovely event organised by Meet Me at Mikes. Check it out and make something huggable for a child in need!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Newcastle Young Writers Festival 2009

After Sydney, we headed up to Newcastle for four days - a two hour train ride north of Sydney. We'd been planning to attend the Young Writers Festival for quite some time. Chris spoke on a few panels (including "So I Married a Struggling Artist" which was about having a relationship with another creative person. Lawrence Leung was even in the audience!) and did a workshop on the last day. Outside of these events we went to lots of panels, exhibitions etc and to the Zine Fair on Sunday where we had heaps of fun selling comics and toys. We also stayed with our very generous friends Adam and Kimberley on our last two nights (note the view from our fancy hotel on the first two nights). All in all, it was a busy, cold, wet but nonetheless fun trip to Newcastle. We got to know some really cool people and that was by far the best part of it :)


Hello Newcastle! The view from our "executive" apartment hotel. Needless to say we did not like this hotel. It was clean and all that, just too "executive" if you know what I mean. No soul to the place. Newcastle however, was not as bad as this picture! It is an industrial town but it's slowly getting there. It has some lovely buildings and great initiatives like Renew Newcastle happening.


Hello Zine Fair! This was a super event. Chris sold over 40 comics and I sold all my Babushkas :D At least 1000 or so people came through the multi-level carpark the Fair was in. This is the event we came for.


Our stall.


A more favourable view of Newcastle from our stall.


Our stuff! Note the lovely Teal coloured comic (top centre) printed on the amazing Rizzeria printer.


Leigh Rigozzi had a stall next to us.


The super talented Pat Grant and Chris.


David Blumenstein!


Chris doing his workshop on creating a comics likeness (at Staple Manor).


The fabulous Rizzeria printer. We loooooved this machine.


Zine exhibition at Staple Manor.


Pat Grant's work.


Chris's poster with missing zine (a good sign I think!).


Indian lunch on the last day of the festival. Right after this we headed back to Sydney on the train. Lovely peoples here (clockwise from right) - Pat Grant, Patrick Alexander, Chris, Ben Hutchings and Rebecca Clements (with the little hat on).


Sydney street right off Oxford Street. I took this for the Jacaranda trees and their purple blossoms. I'm thinking about getting a tattoo of this type of tree as it played heavily in my childhood.


A huuuuge doll in the window of a shop in Surry Hills (right near Route 66).


A fan waiting for the bus.


Jump horsey, jump!

And there you have it, that was our trip away! Now it's time to plan for a quick jaunt to Melbourne in December to attend the opening of Tango, a new anthology of Australian comics. Fingers crossed we'll get to see Jarvis Cocker while we're there.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Sydney October 2009

Ahoy there! Feast on these hand-picked favourite pics from our recent trip to Sydney! We headed up north primarily to attend the Young Writers Festival in Newcastle but decided to base ourselves out of Sydney for a few days first. Last time we visited Sydney (mainly for business, I had to work) it was an awful trip so we wanted to right those wrongs! I discovered that Taronga Park Zoo had Red Pandas so one of the best things we did was visit them :D We cruised the Harbour first and then caught a cable car up to the top of the zoo. We saw lots of other animals at Taronga but these are a few of the highlights from the city and the zoo. (Esty, we MUST take you guys to Sydney when you come down).


Rockin' the Opera House.


Aw YEAH.


Most people don't realise how close the bridge and the Opera House actually are.


The road to fabulous pancakes in The Rocks. Bridge at the end of the street.


On the zoo cable car. Sydney Harbour in the background. Note appropriate t-shirts, worn especially for the zoo. Nature Love with Squirrels for me and Where the Wild Things Are for Chris. Forgive us, we're a little geeky :P


View from the zoo entrance.


Gorgeous giraffes!


Leopard Seal show. AWESOME. It was so freakin' hard to take this picture! The seal was incredibly fast.


Elephants!


A Fennec Fox. I was super excited to see this little guy. I was obsessed with this animal when I was a kid. They are cool!


Meerkats. So. very. cute. And quite tiny too.


RED PANDA!!!


RED PANDA!!


Eeeiiiiieeee!!! RED PANDA!!


Sleepy Wombat in the Nocturnal House.

Stay tuned for Newcastle post!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Breakfast with Beci Orpin


It's not too often that either one of us wins something but today our efforts of getting up early (on one of our very few Saturdays off) were justly rewarded. We ventured out to the AGDA's Breakie with Beci at the Botanical Gardens and ended up winning the lucky door prize! We got a fab Beci Orpin bag filled with lots of cute goodies! YAY!



Cards, Poketo wallet and a super cute kitten badge.


Birdie and bunny badges!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Collectors!

We just got back from Sydney and Newcastle yesterday. It was a tiring but fun trip. I have heaps of photos from Taronga Zoo, the city and Chris's workshops in Newcastle which I'll be posting in the next few days. It is FREEZING in the study right now so I want to spend as little time as possible in here. BRRRRRRRR!

Our segment on Collectors aired last Friday. We were really stoked with it (we even got recognised twice in Newcastle the next day!). Here's a link to the bit they did at our house. There is another section with Chris at the studio doing an interview with the hosts but you need to watch the whole episode to see it. There should be a link on the Collectors page that will allow you to do this. I think it may only be available to Australian viewers though. If you do watch the whole episode, we loved how they began it :D