Fruits of todays labour

Gee it doesn't look like I did much does it but it took half the day to print about 300 tags with 5 different saying or what ever on them mind you there were kids and cups of tea and looking at the net and having lunch and talking with family and pushing ruby around the court yard on her bike ect I have to another 400 tags tomorrow but in red this time if there is anyone that would like to do my printing for me tomorrow just let me know.
I am my own worst enemy really when it comes to printing jobs, I like to get them done asap after getting the actual order so that I don't have any surprises and not be able to get them done fast enough who would have though I would turn out to be so efficient about stuff .

Today's printing Activities

Today is going to be Tag printing day I have just gotten another order, over 600 tags this time.
I spent all last night cutting them all out on my little guillotine and today type setting and printing day.
I actually enjoy the whole process of a new job even the repetitiveness of cutting paper in to little individual tags and printing one tags at a time, I just have little tea break here and there and once you get into the rhythm of it with your ipod plugged in you just get into it, I have actually caught myself singing and dancing while I print and everyone else in the room staring at me in disbelief ! oh well if it what I have to do to get the job done i will do it and everyone else can shut their eyes and wear earplugs I say !! hehe!

New Markets in town

I don't know why I didn't blog about this earlier but if your interested in having a stall get in touch with these guys really fast as applications close tomorrow I think, just follow this link and have a look http://handmadehobart.blogspot.com the market is going to be held over 2 day the 28th and 29th November from 11am till 4pm both days at St Marys cathedral hall on Harrington street Hobart.

There is another Christmas market I heard about In Hamilton, just past New Norfolk, I am waiting for a email back about it when I know more I will post info for you all!

String & where to get it in Hobart.

I have a confession to make!
I am in love with string, Twine, Rope, cord what ever you call it I love it and the best place I have found to get it is Karen Wagners Garden Design shop in Warwick Street in Hobart, Karen has lots of different types, colors,thicknesses and lenghts you are bound to find something you like. there I have done it I have let the cat out of the bag you all now my secret supply of beautiful string just dont go buying it all leave some for me okay !!!

Love getting Mail

I think everyone loves getting stuff in the mail, especially me ! and especially when you know you have something wonderful coming your way.
I have been waiting for these little beautie for a couple of days now and they arrived yesterday,I was lucky enough to win a pair of these and have been waiting patiently for them to arrive they are made by an Aussie jewellery maker Challencharms, she make lovely bracelet and earring and other lovelys .
go check out her blog then follow the links to her etsy and Madeit shops you won't be disappointed www.challencharms.blogspot.com

Little book of letterpress,

The Book will be published at the beginning of the year and will be released in June 2010. I just thought I would share a few of the photos of my work short listed to be included in the book.
Charlotte rivers has published many books related to the graphic designs and it is truly an honour to be invited to contribute some of my work.

AND THE WINNER IS!!!!!

BonTons IS THE LUCKY WINNER OF A SWEET LITTLE BLUE TEAPOT ORIGINAL LINOCUT PRINT.

I will contact you shortly to get your detail so I can post off you prize

A humongous thank you to everyone that entered my give-away and left such lovely encouraging comments I luv Youse All !

This give away was so much fun I think I will have another one just before Christmas and I will give away some of my Christmas stuff or even something non- Christmas if you have any favs that you would like to win let me know and I will consider it

Thanks again
And a big congratulations to BonTons

we're Baaaaaaaaaaaack!

yes we have been away for a couple of days, we decided that considering Allan had a couple of days off because of the Hobart show, we would took the opportunity to go see some people and places we have been trying to see but just never seem to be able to get away long enough to do so. we had a lovely time driving up to the north west coast of Tassie, everything is so green and alive now after all the rain we have had here over the last couple of months we are now completely out of drought now in Tassie I can't say the same for mainland Australia though. I cant ever remember seeing the midlands so green and I have been travelling this road all my life it is truly a surreal experience.

So we packed the car and drove, stopped at Campbell town for coffee fix at Zeps then continued on, half way between Campbell town and Perth we got a flat tyre ...great! Had it changed in Minute, ruby wanted to get out of the car and screamed her lungs out when we said No, oh well that's ferals for ya! so tag team tyre changing and we were off again.

We decided to drop into Launceston on the way to pay a quick visit to Cocoon homewares and The ruby Pear, what wonderful stores and even more wonderful store owners. I now have prints stocked at The ruby Pear and have some collaborative work now in the pipe line with Coccoon very exciting stuff.
Off again to mums Farm at Dulverton It was nice to get to where we were going and to just rest
so quiet and peaceful, we slept like logs that night!

Next day off to see Dads in Devonport and to sift through boxes of my stuff still stored there, saw my cat freddles there, dad adopted him when I moved to Perth Western Aust a couple of years back, he is such a beautiful cat I miss my freddle deddles. I can't take him back now as much as I would like to, Dad has become very attached to old Freddie and he had become his little mate so I figure it is best to just leave them be.

Off to Pick Christopher up from school and then over to Penguin to my mate Kathy s for dinner and a catch up I haven't seen Kathy for about 9 months, it is always great to catch up we also seem to just pick up from where we left off, the kids got to catch up our kids have practically grown up together and they are like Kathy and I, it doesn't matter how long between visits they just pick up and get on with the friendship like they had never been apart, it was then time to go back to my mothers for the night.

Spent the next day doing nothing really Chris had a birthday party to go to, Ruby spent the afternoon with nanna on the farm and Allan& I got to do some shopping and went out for lunch ALONE!!
One unplanned thing we did was drop into the Antiques Emporium in Devonport I hadn't been in there before and it was incredible you walk in and you are just dazzled by the amount of stuff in this place, John the owner leases out space to antique dealers about 40 in total and there is so much wonderful stuff in this place it is mind blowing , you really must take a look if you are ever in the area you could easily spend a day there going through everything. We got taking with John and we worked out that John and I both grew up in the same area of Devonport and that I more than likely rode my bike past his house everyday as a child , funny really as I don't recall ever seeing John he was saying he is a 5th generation Devonport person I didn't know whether to be impress or feel sorry for the guy lol
Anyway he collects books and was saying he was looking for someone to print some book plates for him, a total of over 5000 book plates noice ! I seriously have to get the platen into a home and get it running I don't like the ides of doing 5ooo two plate book plates on the adana.

Let hope the garage gods will shine on me soon and drop one from the shy into out yard !!

Picked Chris up from his party exhausted from running around and back to mums to ruby and tea and then bed .
Sunday we are going home yipee It is nice to go away for a while but home always looks and feels the best ,there is nothing like sleeping on your own bed and laying around on your own couch.

Sorry there aren't any photos this time around I know a bit slack really but I just didn't happen this time around I took only a couple of photos of the Canolia flowers just out of Campbell town the yellow was so bright i had to take a photo it looked so beautiful with the contrasting blue of the sky !

P.s Just a little reminder my teapot give away end at 10 midnight tonight Australian time so if you would like to be part of the fun just go to the give away blog just below and enter before your time is up and good luck I will post the winner tomorrow

I also would like to say thank you to Rachael of challencharms for the lovely give away that I actually was lucky enough to win, I found out yesterday when i got home, I cant wait to see if I get the earring or the bookmark!!

sneak peek for Luisa

I have had a busy day printing and I finally got around to printing Luisa's camelia and brussel sprouts amongst other prints i have been putting off
I just need to add a little colour now and they will be done
sorry about the picture quality Luisa I will post another ,better one once I have it coloured

MY FIRST GIVEAWAY !!!

I have decided to have a give away as a little early Christmas pressie and a thank you for adding yourselves as a follower to my blog .
I have been thinking about doing this for sometime now, here on my little o'l blog but didn't really know how to go about doing it .

I am thinking everyone already on my list of followers and anyone that adds themselves and leaves a comment on this post will go into the draw to win one of my teapot prints.
So when you leave your comment let me know which of the teapots you would most like to have and where it will live if you do win it, the last bit is just because I am a sticky beak!!!
hmm I think that sounds pretty fair ? yup!

You all have till midnight next Monday 26 October to enter and I will pull a winner out of Rubys new Loz & Dinny bonnet on Tuesday

So everyone remember to leave a comment to be in the running!!

yippee I love giving pressies and sending packages in the mail.!!

Seeing the funny side

I have notice recently that my sense of humour is coming through in my work. I have to admit my sense of humour can differ quite a bit to most people but I do on occassions strike the right note.

It is a wonderful feeling when people look at what I do and get the funny side, I guess I just like to see people smile and it is nice to know that what I find funny, others do as well
I find these tags rather sweet personally, I hope you all do as well!

Making do

I am more than sure that if any old printers saw this they would not be amused but I guess we all resort to experimentation in times of need ! The secret to keeping the type from moving is tape and lots of it but I do not advise people to do this in their lock ups
This lock up is so far from perfect, it isn't even on the scale of nearly ok.
Please do not use this post as a guide to proper method of locking up type in a chase, I would never consider ever using a lock up like this in an electricity driven machine or even in a woman powered table top machine for a long run this was just an experiment .
I hope this explains a few things to concerned readers that are in the know !

Christmas crazy

I do believe I have gone a bit Christmas crazy . what I mean is I am normally the one that doesn't like to think, speak, consider even pretend to like the silly season but this year it has started 3 months in advance.
I have been designing and printing christmas stuff for markets for the last couple of weeks, but getting the coasters finally the other day and my order of natural card and envelopes I have gone it to making overdrive. So as you can Imagine the work area has turned into a not very organised space to a complete catastrophy and it is likely to stay this way until I feel like I have enough stuff for all the upcoming Markets and as all you who do the Markets know the big question!, how much is enough !!!!!! argh !!!
anyway here is some photos of the caos that is my house right now and some printing I finished yesterday. hope you all like them.

new stuff

The Very Hungry Catapillar

This is a drawing ruby did this evening of The Very Hungry Catapillar I thought it was too cute to not share with everyone.

Feels like my birthday

Today truely feels like my birthday, I have gotten so many great print related things I feel like I am in heaven. might seem a bit mundain to most people but new books, paper and coasters really do it for me and the biggest thing was Allan gave me his Apple Macbook pro because he finally upgrade to a newer version I am now dreaming of all the graphic design software I could buy and have no idea how to use !

The christmas / wedding spirit

Todays printing has involved printing christmas related tags and wedding note cards.
The images I have used are original printers blocks some 40 years old, maybe even older.
I especially like the wedding couple nice clean lines and prints extremely well.
The card
i have used is 100% recycled cardboard the black ink looks really classy on it and the impression looks lovely .

The wedding note cards are printed on an old fav, antique white 100% cotton rag paper, these would be great for rsvp cards, thankyou cards, save the date cards I have left them blank for when I/if I get an order then I can personalise them with handset type, they will look very special with the crisp printed type.

The Market

What a lovely day I have had today, got up early and went in to the market with Luisa from Danceinmygarden while Allan & Ruby went on a shopping date together to give me some Me time.
It was kind of strange going to the market and being a shopper not a stall holder usually when i am there I feel like I am in a bit of a whirlwind but today I got time to have a good look around at all the stalls and have a talk to everyone that I never get around to normally oh and I got to spend money!
I know there will be at least a couple of people that will be having a little laugh at the photos after me saying that I was going to hide my little Babushka doll and only get her out to say hello and then hide her again ,but as you can see I melted when I saw Ruby playing with her putting her to bed between my zippie purses and rocking her to sleep.
I am really happy with my purchases I bought my little doll from rosie at Notions I first saw them on her blog and that was it I had to have one .
Two little zippie purses from Marita of Loopee Designs, Marita uses the most beautiful fabric in her work and fell in love with her wares when I first met her at the Blackmans Bay market.
Last but definately not least Rubys bonnet, I have been eyeing these off for ages and once I saw them at the civic homespun market last month I decided roobs would look adorable in one so today was the day, Loz and Dinny are fabulous and make the most beautiful clothes for little ones and another fav of mine is the little loot bags.