Happy Halloween!

Boo! I'm off to watch (not so) scary movies and eat chocolate afghan biscuits fresh out of the oven!

my creative space

This week has progressed from yellow week to yellow & purple week. I realised two things at once. Thing 1: that I've pretty much run out of illustrated coinpurses & pencilcases, and need to replenish my stash before my markets. Thing 2: polka dot & stripey purses are the cutest! The purple ones are a purple & white polka dot. I'm eagerly awaiting my Spoonflower order which contains red polka dots. Yay!

As I'm sewing I chuck completed goodies in a wicker basket, which I then turn inside out at night time. Go system!

Also working on a frog card, and I've been cleaning - I have framed prints for sale when I do market stalls, and I like to use recycled frames from op shops (I get scared new frames are made of the Tarkine or some such). This joyful little framed tellietubbie is an op shop find - I think my mum actually found it (thanks mum). Nice.

To see more lovely, crafty creative spaces, check out Kootoyoo.

pretty little things

With a few tweaks the little deer card from yesterday is ready, along with his friend the fox. I think these ones are pretty cute! They feel like a little candy store. More on their way - next up will be a bunny & a frog.

Available
on Madeit in $AU,
on Etsy in $US.

And another clutch - I feel like I've not been keeping my online shop stocked very well, but I'm getting there! It is almost Christmas, after all... need to stay on my toes!

yellow week

Last week was blue week, this week is yellow week... I've been making lots of cute little purses - fabric ones which you can see above, and some illustrated ones with the yellow & white polka dot fabric. So bright & cheery!

I'm also working on some new cards - you can see a sneak peek above. Hooray for stripey yellow paper goods! My card making process is now a lot easier thanks to some friendly tips from Bec @ Little Shop Of in Carnegie, who also now has some new goodies in stock!

daylesford mini break

Chris and I headed off over the weekend for a much needed little holiday! Hooray! So exciting, as we've both been working, working, working lately. We camped at gorgeous Mount Franklin which is about 8kms outside of Daylesford... it was just exactly how I imagined the perfect campsite (and there is a toilet)! It was so beautiful when we arrived, warm & sunny, so we just chillaxed at the campsite for the evening.

Mount Franklin on Google Maps
Mount Franklin on Parks Victoria (camping info)

When we woke up on Sunday it was chilly! I opted us out of a breakfast around the camping stove, so we scooched in to Daylesford... we had a quick look around the railway market, then breakfast at Himalaya Bakery.

Then... we went to Lark! So exciting. I've been wanting to visit since the shop opened a month or so ago... it's so cute! You can see how cold the day was from the look of those clouds! You can see photos of the shop on the Lark website... it's like a little candy store of handmade goodies!

I was tempted by lots of things, but managed to limit myself... Viking Card by Herzensart, and a copy of World Sweet World.

Hooray for Daylesford mini breaks!

my creative space

This week it's back to the sewing. And everything is blue! As time goes past (is that the best way to say that? as I get older?) I sew increasingly large batches of things at a time. In the long run it's much faster, I know I used to spend far too long doing a few coinpurses at a time, matching the linings, fiddling around... no more! Now I'm super-organised Penny! Hooray!

I really like my new deer-person - he made his debut on my fabric design, and now I'm drawing him everywhere! He may also make an appearance in my forest series of prints. (How do I know it's a he? 'Oh my, what big horns you have!')

For more inspirational creative spaces, check out the list on Kootoyoo.

Shinzi Bento Boxes

Since my recent (4 or so days now) obsession with making and eating Bento boxes, I've been looking for the cute little bits to go in them. Kawaii sauce bottles, zakka mayonnaise containers, so on. I really do think the Shinzi ones take the cake. His website's in Japanese, but pretty pictures!!!

There is a version of the Shinzi Katoh website in English - it's not as cute as the Japanese version, so the rest of the links go to that site.

I love these onigiri cases. So cute! I think I'm looking for one more like this.

My favourite section is Pinocchio. Have you ever seen a more adorable illustration of Pinocchio? Alice is pretty cute too!

Happy looking!

bento + plates of fabric

This week I've been making lots of Bento to eat. Mmm. I love cute food! And now that it's so nice & warm and (sort of) Summery all of a sudden, it's nice to eat healthy salad-y food. That looks cute. Did I mention I like cute food? More at my vegan blog...

These little piles of fabric are for the next clutches I'm working on. Cute! A little bit like this clutch, but these will be for sale! When I've made them. Which I should do, now.

hooray! the winner is:

Hooray! Thanks so much for all entering my giveaway and giving your thoughts on animals...

The winners are: Cath from Chunky Chooky, and Fiona from Fiwee! So, please email me your addresses for fun things in the mail! penny [at] pocketcarnival.com.au

I'm going to look over your comments tonight and hopefully work on something fun that's not sewing! Yay!

fabric shopping fun

Today was a good fabric buying day! These are from Patchwork on Central Park... I never leave there empty handed. Today was no exception, little snippets of polka dots and strawberries were purchased. Pretty!

I also had a good op shopping day. Obviously some lovely person had donated a bunch of fabric since I was there last, I found this gorgeous brushed cotton with a vibrant floral pattern, sweet leafy blue cotton, and how pretty is that doily? Answer: very.

I also got these two super cute polka dot plates... I've been coveting Susan from SpinSpin's red polka dot market plate for awhile, and I know these green ones will work just as well at my stall! And how can you go wrong at 99c each! Underneath is a little preview of the fabric I was designing yesterday. (It's not going to be for sale though, sorry!)

my creative space

Something new I'm working on... it's a bit secret, but I'll give you a hint. It gets printed and I will sew it into things. Really, my creative space today would be the computer screen, but I tried to take a photo of that and it went all funny-looking.

See lots more creative spaces here.

lovely new clutches

I know I have a shameful number of blog posts that have a title beginning with 'Lovely New...' But I can't help it, I do think these clutches are lovely! And they're on Etsy.

I especially love Susan from SpinSpin's new alphabet fabric. Hooray!

blogtoberfest giveaway!

I've been making lots of coinpurses & pencilcases in this pretty ginkgo leaf fabric. The fabric has been languishing in my stash for awhile, but I realised the scale works really well for the small things I make!

So, you could win one, plus some badges, plus any other little fun things that I happen to lay my mitts on when packaging everything up.

There are two prize packs for two winners!

To Enter:
All you have to do is leave a comment telling me which Pocket Carnival animal is your favourite.
Is it Monkey, Bear, Frog, Kitten, Fox or Bunny (or something else from my shop?)

You can enter until Saturday 17th Oct.

Just 1 entry per person please! And also, remember not to leave it anonymously.
I'll post world-wide! So everyone can enter!
Hooray! This info may help me with a fun new project!
Thanks for entering! The giveaway is now closed!

notions handmade

I love getting parcels in the mail. Who doesn't? Today my lovely postman (and yes, he is lovely!) brought me this gorgeous little package. I was lucky enough to win a giveaway from Rosie of Notions. Hooray! Thanks Rosie! Everything was bundled up so nicely, and inside...

Two of the sweetest pinback badges I've ever seen! I love Alice in Wonderland, and I think the Knaves on this fabric are so gorgeous (if anyone knows where I can buy this fabric, please share!) And the tail on the White Rabbit... so cute!

Rosie is in the process of setting up an online shop, but for now you can:
Visit the Notions Handmade Blog, or
Visit the Notions Handmade Website.


(P.S. - stay tuned, I may have a little giveaway of my own coming soon!)

some days...

Some days... you just need a little something extra to get through the day. Thank you, Mr. Chocolate Block, for being so very delicious. And full of caffeine. And thank you, local IGA, for selling this stuff. (And for pricing it at almost the same price as regular Lindt, to make ethical buying much easier!)

blogtoberfest day 10

So, I'm not sure about you all, but Blogtoberfest is proving harder than I thought. Sure, a blog post every day is okay, but keeping it interesting? Especially when honestly all I've been doing much of this past week is sewing. Today I packed it in and gardened instead. We have a scrotty looking front courtyard area where our recently deceased lemon tree used to be - today I weeded and weeded and discovered an old glass pill jar, half a beer bottle, some pieces of roof tile, various plastic toys, and our neighbours water pipe (thankfully in not a disastrous manner). We then planted a couple of native plants... hopefully they live happier lives than our lemon tree pal.

I took 'before' photos, and will show 'afters' when the plants are looking happier!

We also planted tomato & eggplant... hooray! You can see the tomato in amongst my magic mushrooms. I love home grown tomatoes so much. Exciting. Also, so excited that there are two consecutive warm days this weekend. Starting to feel like Spring.

my creative space

This is a busy week for me, and I think I've finally just realised it's going to be busy until after Christmas. Go team, go! I'm sewing much more than usual (I have a couple of exciting new wholesale orders, more on this soon!) This is my table, earlier today, finishing up some linings. The little piles are all colour coded per the thread I needed to use - from left to right the piles are yellow, pink, white, orange, red, blue & teal.

The only ones now left with unsewn linings are teal, so hooray for almost finished! And yes, that is a Yellow Pages under my sewing machine, I know, it's very classy.

Now I'm taking a tea break, turning things inside out, and working on some red clutches. More red photos soon.

To check out other lovely crafter types creative spaces, check these links on Kootoyoo! Much inspiration.

Lindt Macarons...

One of the best things about being self employed is super flexible work hours. Today I was not working at all productively, and was sewing at such a slow pace that I would possibly need to charge 10 times my usual prices (slow indeed). With impeccable timing I got a let's-go-for-coffee text message, which was most excellent! My cousin Alice and I headed off to the Lindt cafe... this is what I brought home for dessert. Two macarons; one passionfruit, one dark chocolate (both decidedly un-vegan). Delicious.

Update: in a case of what seems to be some sort of vegan karma, these Macarons gave me a very upset stomach. Eat at your own risk. Back to regular Blogtoberfest scheduling soon.

mailbox and table

On my kitchen table: We rent our house, so I've never been too concerned about completely ridding our garden of various weeds and creeping plants. Every once in a while I hack a bit off the jasmine vines, but they always come back. This year, I suppose because it's been colder far later than usual, the jasmine took a little while to flower. But here it is, nicely filling my kitchen with pretty perfume.

In my mailbox: I couldn't help gloating at Chris last night that I got 3 packages in the mail yesterday and all he got was a bill (well, we both have to pay, but it had his name on it). First up were two little packages. I know Dave Sedaris has been around for awhile, and is rather popular, but I hadn't read any of his books. This review by Karin Elizabeth inspired me, and I found a super cheap copy on Ebay. Hooray! I've already read a fair chunk, and whilst my reaction didn't mirror Karin's, I'm enjoying it - it's just a nice, easy read.

I also got this super sweet little icecream ring from Leakhena on Etsy... cute! Icecream & a ring, how I love it.

In my mailbox: an amazing bundle of goodies from superstar Helena! This is just a little snippet of what I got, there are prints to frame, a bag to use, and gorgeous wrapping paper for when lovely people request gift wrapping from me. Hooray!

You can see Helena's goodies on Etsy, or check her super cute website.

On my table: a big pile of almost finished goodies. Just waiting to have their linings sewn up. Maybe I'll wait until the pile is so big it keeps falling over before I do this. It's the little things.

delicious

Yesterday was another family, baking style day, which included baking massive quantities of these yummy cookies. Chewy, nutty, vegan choc chip cookies. Yum! You can view the recipe at Vegerati (my other blog).

Also, if I'm not blogging here any day of Blogtoberfest, there will be a post at Vegerati!

Pictured is my recipe book... I'm a bit of a cooking snob and can never follow recipes, I always think my adaptation will be far better (and probably easier). So, recently I've started writing all my recipes down. It's great! Although as you can see I write down the ingredients, and almost never the instructions, so it can be a bit hit & miss trying to recreate them.

today i...

Spent a lovely afternoon at my Grandma's house, eating little cakes and chatting. And avoiding sewing... hooray for Grandma aiding my procrastination.


This is what was waiting... so many unmade pencilcases. I did at least iron them, that's a start!

Happy Blogtober!

It's Blogtoberfest! And, I'm going to try really hard to stick with it, and do 1 blog post per day. I've already fulfilled today's quota with this delish Walnut Bolognese recipe at Vegerati, but here are some pretty work in progress pics for you to look at!

Two pretty clutches made with recycled / vintage fabrics & some of Lara's fabric - the front is discontinued Bulokku matched with vintage canvas blind fabric, and the back one is gorgeous Ink & Spindle Birch Forest fabric (buy your own here!) with some beautiful vintage cotton with a print of leaves.

They have undecided fates... I like them too much to do anything yet! For now I am content to just keep them on my table and look at them.

And these are some very sunny Summer-y clutches I'm working on... I love this fabric, it's actually from an (unused) promotional tea towel I found in an op shop, so pretty! I think it's going to go with some more of the vintage canvas blind fabric - it doesn't quite work with denim.

Off to do a little more work and possibly work on a new art print... see you tomorrow for day #2 of Blogtober! I promise that not all of my posts this month will be work in progess shots...

You can see who else is participating in Blogtoberfest here.