winner!

And the winner is... Bunzi! Congrats! Bunzi can you email me with your details - pocketcarnival [at] yahoo.com.au

I used one of these random number generators to get the winner.

Sorry it's taken so long to announce the winner, I have been a little sick... in fact I don't think I have been this sick for years! Am feeling much better today though. I will start adding badges to my shop when my head stops spinning. Hope you're all doing well.

more badges

The initial stages of some more badges...

A work in progress! I think my favourite is the monkey with no face, I don't know if it's a bit weird though.

(The giveaway is still open - check the post below this one).

giveaway!

I like making badges - I just really like badges, they're a little piece of cuteness to carry around all day. This is a new type I've dreamed up, hand illustrated calico badges. They're painted and stuffed with a little piece of sturdy fabric and some toy stuffing.

So, to celebrate, I'm giving this little one away! Anyone can enter - all you have to do is leave a comment anytime until next Wednesday (27th August) and I'll pick someone randomly to send the badge to. Make sure you don't comment anonymously though as I'll need to contact you for your address. Too easy!

I'm excited about the new packaging too - this one shows the badge in it's little pouch with some not quite finished ones in the background.

drawing class pt 2

Had my art class again last night... it was really good, heaps better than the first class and I got lots of good ideas. I wanted to do my illustrations in ink, but my teacher Anna had lots of other ideas (I showed her my sketchbook) and I'm going to practise doing some of her suggestions.

Rather than simple line drawings I've been trying to do some shading and more work with a brush.

As you can see I need a little more practise still!

in the woods

I think I've developed a small obsession with drawing Wintery woods as a way to express my overwhelming coldness this Winter. I bought some new ink yesterday, some black ink and then on a whim this brown calligraphy ink. I'm glad I bought it as it turned out to be a much nicer colour dry than it is in the bottle. This is the first thing I've drawn with it...

I'm pleased with it however I got a little smudge of ink on the edge of the paper, which you can just barely see. This ink takes a lot, lot longer to dry than the other one I've been using, and I'm so impatient!

I found these two cute little hearts as well and thought they'd make nice badges - I had to paint them first as someone had helpfully written the price right onto the heart, and then I drew the little characters in ink & then varnished them a couple of times. I've added these to my Etsy shop.

Finally I just added these to my Dawanda store - a coinpurse and a clutch. The clutches are going well there, I'm pleased!

I was making some muesli - toasting some oats & hazelnuts in the oven. I always seem to burn my hazelnuts, and then suddenly I just realised they'd been in the oven for over 20 minutes and would surely be black! I ran to the kitchen and pulled them out of the oven and realised miraculously they weren't burnt, but in fact they were barely cooked at all as apparently my oven has just broken. Big sigh!

more ink

More ink - this time just playing around on the good paper, getting some ideas. I like the scratchy noise of the nib on the paper. Am off to go shopping for more nibs though - my teacher said to dry the nibs carefully after using them or they go rusty - did I listen? No.

the ink class

My ink drawing class last night was really fun! Most of the night we were playing around with using brushes, which was a bit like painting in watercolour (but in black & white). Toward the end of the night we started using our pen nibs which was my kind of thing!

First we used a big sheet of plain paper with our brushes, then I went onto this piece of card with my pen nibs. This is the best section of what I drew - as you can see by the little man in the middle I've even already started thinking of Christmas.

rabbits again

I bought this book the other day...

The Rabbits by Shaun Tan. I love, love, love Shaun Tan's art - his website is definitely worth a look. The Rabbits is a bit of a sad little picture book - the story is so simple & the illustrations so powerful, it's amazing. It's essentially an allegory about the colonisation of Australia.

This is one of my favourite illustrations in the book...

And finally, some new things in my Madeit store - one rabbit coinpurse and one patchwork clutch.

My drawing class starts tonight, I'm so excited!!

my little fox

I needed to make myself a new ipod pouch as I lost my old one awhile ago... I made three different coinpurses so I could choose one and this is what I chose.

The other two I made are both rabbit coinpurses - I will list them in my shop along with some more things soon!

Shopathlon

One of the things I like about selling on Dawanda is the little things they do to make you want to buy there - every so often they have a sale you can opt in to as a seller and they're doing a Shopathlon for the Olympics.

Every day at 12 - 3pm & 8 - 11pm Dawanda time (CET*) there will be a sale in a selected category - it varies each time. And if you buy something with a little Olympic torch logo in the corner of the photo from this category you get 11% off. Nice.

* CET is Berlin time - in AEST the sale will be 8 - 11pm & 2 - 5am. One for the night owls!

is this too pink?

No really, I'm not sure. I think I like it - it's a bit of a shocking pink though! This is some more of the corduroy my mum donated to me that she'd had hiding in a cupboard... thanks mum!

This time the best friends are The Rabbit and the Fox - Hand Illustrated Clutch at Dawanda. So freaking pink!

one of those days

I don't know what I've been doing all day and it's already 3 o'clock in the afternoon... ah well. I have so many things I need to do (like going shopping for supplies for my ink drawing class that starts next week) but I haven't done them.

One thing I have done today is listed this Best Friends Forever Clutch on Etsy (after what was practically a fist fight with the Etsy server when it took multiple attempts to upload each photo).

my favourite pen

I am sure I have mentioned this before, but this really is my favourite pen...

It's amazing how different a favourite pen makes you feel... whenever I'm without it my drawings don't work. I have at least 5 of these pens so I'm never without one - all black and extra fine (0.1). For me, this is a nice afternoon, sitting at my sunny little window drawing foxes in striped jumpers. And trees, lots of pine trees.

daffodils & a sale

I had a big huge clean of my house & in particular my studio yesterday (there's a funny reason for this which I'll share soon). I looked through my big box of purses and realised I had a whole stack of things I'd made ages ago, and which I've since stopped making. Therefore, I've put them on sale in my Etsy store and Dawanda store - the bigger sized applique coinpurses are all on sale, along with some different little things.

I know that Spring is coming when I look at these daffodils... it's just so cold though.

It'll be sunny like this one minute and then rainy and miserable the next. There's still 1 more month of Winter left. This is where I sit and sketch, in particular it's a nice spot for me to do the illustrations onto calico for the purses. (Sometimes I use my computer screen as a lightbox if I want to trace things).

Love Bunnies

Love bunnies coupling up everywhere...

I can't seem to get a good photo of these little guys today but a friend for Trevor the 2nd - I'm not sure what her name is, maybe Rosie. Still a-workin' on the template but I think I'm getting there.

And Love Bunnies - Lady Clutch at Dawanda.