The move to my new home and new studio has definately been good for me. I'm really starting to feel motivated again, about my art and my business. I will eventually get around to taking photos, at the moment things are still a little too chaotic! I really need to sort out some proper shelving for my studio, all my product stock is just piled up in random boxes at the moment, not very pretty!
The house is coming along well, some great improvements already made and it's really feeling like a home now. I'm enjoying gardening very much, and have some nifty raised garden bed edging coming in this week for a couple of little vege patches, and I went a little crazy at an online vege seed store, so it's going to be exciting to grow things (I bought the PURPLE variety of everything! Purple carrots, purple capsicum, purple corn, purple colliflower, etc! Woo!)
I have finished a painting since moving, of the seeress Fidelma, calling down a vision for a celtic queen, and I'm half way done working on a painting of Cerridwen, both are for the next oracle deck I'm illustrating.
For the first time for a long time, I'm having fun developing some new products. I've got a bunch of really neat items I'm hoping to release soon. One of the first will be a new style of earrings, which will replace the current style. So if you have your heart set on one of the current earrings style, better grab them now, because they will be off sale soon replaced by the new type! Or take advantage of the current sale, to buy an Art Pendant necklace and get a pair of earrings for free!
That's all for now. I need to get back to work. Still many, many things on the to-do lists!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Winterfest, how I love thee...
Despite battling a disgusting cold last week, I made the effort to get to the medeival fair this weekend that I regularly vend at, Winterfest, and I'm so glad I did. I couldn't miss Winterfest, it's just such a wonderful event, and the folk I see there each year are becoming like an extended family, and this year particularly I had an absolutely amazing time. While I was still sniffling and coughing and a little woozy at times, the event itself was like a healing experience, just magical! The weather was more perfect than I could have hoped, clear sky and not a whisker of wind. I was suprised by many gifts from strangers, from random hugs to exclamations of me being beautiful to a breakfast of Fairy bread made just for me! I had my pixie ears on (having my wings out are just such a hassle, always getting caught on things! Ears are a nice neat, little, bit of magic to my outfit!) and just the look on kids faces and uncontrollable squeels of delight (and sometimes fear!) when they saw them was priceless. Hundreds of kids have gone home this weekend thinking they saw a real life pixie, or elf, and that makes me feel tingly inside :) Bitter sweet that I had to break the hearts of a ninja and a gorgeous panther man, and feeling triumphant for having run my stall all by myself (with a few appreciated helping hands here and there) and I'm already looking forward again to Winterfest next year.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
New home, new studio, new energy.
I'm writing from my new home, in my new studio for the very first time! Still surrounded by boxes, but progress is going well. I'm hoping to be back in business by this afternoon! It's all so exciting, the studio is looking great! Actually, it kind of looked better empty, but I blame that on my magpies collection of furniture that I seem to appropriate from where-ever I can for free. I have ex-high school science lab tables, kitchen side boards, steel work shelves, bedside tables, and not a one thing matches another... but it works, and if it aint broke... no point spending money and sending usable furniture off to landfill just to have a consistent interior design ;)
But it's still nice in here. I've got all my printers almost set up now (missing some cables, where did I pack those?!), and just a bit of unpacking left to do of stock and tools. I actually have a room in the house I will use as my painting room, and keep all the order filling and manufacturing type work seperate from my creative space, which is very exciting for me. My painting room actually looks a lot nicer, I kept my favourite bits of furniture for in there :)
We're still finding more things around the house that just don't work, which is a bit disappointing (air conditioning unit, TV antenna, some light fittings), but it is still a beautiful house to wake up to in the mornings, birds calling outside, lovely light, trees all around. I will be getting photos online very soon :)
Anyway, I'm just getting my internet fix for the first time in a couple of days, and then back to unpacking and finding homes for everything!
But it's still nice in here. I've got all my printers almost set up now (missing some cables, where did I pack those?!), and just a bit of unpacking left to do of stock and tools. I actually have a room in the house I will use as my painting room, and keep all the order filling and manufacturing type work seperate from my creative space, which is very exciting for me. My painting room actually looks a lot nicer, I kept my favourite bits of furniture for in there :)
We're still finding more things around the house that just don't work, which is a bit disappointing (air conditioning unit, TV antenna, some light fittings), but it is still a beautiful house to wake up to in the mornings, birds calling outside, lovely light, trees all around. I will be getting photos online very soon :)
Anyway, I'm just getting my internet fix for the first time in a couple of days, and then back to unpacking and finding homes for everything!
Friday, April 24, 2009
End of TFS contracts
I just wanted to post a quick notice to say that as of April 18th my licensing contracts with The Fairy Society are now all legally terminated and I am no longer affiliated with The Fairy Society in any way.
That is all.
That is all.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Redbubble quality let down, cheese and more
I'm just processing some photos off my camera for some one of a kind items and new things I'll hopefully be getting online for a website update today, and grabbed these photos that were on there as well.
First one, is a photo of the print quality of the Red Bubble t-shirt I just bought myself.
http://www.redbubble.com/ is one of those print on demand product services, and I thought it would be neat to make myself a kinda promo t-shirt with a bunch of my images on. I picked Redbubble over the others since I thought it had an Aussie branch, but turns out the shirts come from germany anyway, sooo....
But meh, I'm SO dissapointed with the quality of the print. I don't think I'll wear the shirt at all... For any artist out there that has designs up on Redbubble but hasn't ordered a sample themselves it'd be worth doing I think. I don't think I'm being fussy... it's all grainy and you can barely make out some of the images.
On a completely unrelated topic, me and David have been very busy lately, and going out a lot. Which means our milk, which the milkman brings each week, is not being used. So I've been making lots of homemade cheese lately. It's fun, and is really yummy, particularly for cooking (cannaloni, cheese pastries, etc). It's also super easy too. You just mix up some plain junket with the milk, let it set, then spoon it into some cheese baskets (getting the cheese baskets will be the hardest part!). Then the curds and whey seperate out, leaving nice, fresh cheese.
My cheese baskets are the Maltese style, so they have cute little patterns in them that make really pretty little cheeses-
And that's my random post for the day! Hopefully I'll have some website news later today!
First one, is a photo of the print quality of the Red Bubble t-shirt I just bought myself.
http://www.redbubble.com/ is one of those print on demand product services, and I thought it would be neat to make myself a kinda promo t-shirt with a bunch of my images on. I picked Redbubble over the others since I thought it had an Aussie branch, but turns out the shirts come from germany anyway, sooo....
But meh, I'm SO dissapointed with the quality of the print. I don't think I'll wear the shirt at all... For any artist out there that has designs up on Redbubble but hasn't ordered a sample themselves it'd be worth doing I think. I don't think I'm being fussy... it's all grainy and you can barely make out some of the images.
On a completely unrelated topic, me and David have been very busy lately, and going out a lot. Which means our milk, which the milkman brings each week, is not being used. So I've been making lots of homemade cheese lately. It's fun, and is really yummy, particularly for cooking (cannaloni, cheese pastries, etc). It's also super easy too. You just mix up some plain junket with the milk, let it set, then spoon it into some cheese baskets (getting the cheese baskets will be the hardest part!). Then the curds and whey seperate out, leaving nice, fresh cheese.
My cheese baskets are the Maltese style, so they have cute little patterns in them that make really pretty little cheeses-
And that's my random post for the day! Hopefully I'll have some website news later today!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Fun with Fonts
As much as they told me during my graphic design degree that I should only ever need 2-3 fonts on my computer (one serif, one sans-serif, and one script), I've always loved my fonts. I generally have anywhere between 500-1000 fonts installed on my computer at any given time. True I rarely use them all, but I like having them around just in case.
When you have that many fonts though, without a way to see what they are, you don't end up using them anyway. I used to have a font manager installed, but lost it moving to Vista, it just wasn't compatible! So for about a year or so now, I've been struggling with my font collection. Not happy.
Anyway, I've found a great new font manager, MainType. It works with Vista, and does everything and more that my old font manager did. It's really neat, functional, and intuitive, which is something that so many programs get wrong these days (do those designers even USE their own programs? Seriously!).
Basically what a font manager does is pulls up a visual list of all your fonts, so you can see what they look like. You can also install and uninstall fonts, a few other things. What I like to use them for is when working on logotype designs. The programs normally have a screen with the full alphabet showing, or a quick brown fox line, to preview the font (MainType has a few options there). But what you can do is type in whatever text you like, and it will preview the font in your own text. So, just say I'm working on a new Fairies and Fantasy logotype, I type that in and breeze down through my fonts list to find a font that suits the text. It makes things so much easier.
Anyway, MainType is a neat, simple program that does the job. The only thing I wanted to be able to do that I couldn't was flick a uppercaps/lowercaps switch for the preview text.
MainType is from http://www.high-logic.com/
They also do http://www.yourfonts.com/ which is awesome fun! You can create your own font from your handwriting! It's pretty cool stuff... of course my handwriting is too disgusting to consider doing it...
When you have that many fonts though, without a way to see what they are, you don't end up using them anyway. I used to have a font manager installed, but lost it moving to Vista, it just wasn't compatible! So for about a year or so now, I've been struggling with my font collection. Not happy.
Anyway, I've found a great new font manager, MainType. It works with Vista, and does everything and more that my old font manager did. It's really neat, functional, and intuitive, which is something that so many programs get wrong these days (do those designers even USE their own programs? Seriously!).
Basically what a font manager does is pulls up a visual list of all your fonts, so you can see what they look like. You can also install and uninstall fonts, a few other things. What I like to use them for is when working on logotype designs. The programs normally have a screen with the full alphabet showing, or a quick brown fox line, to preview the font (MainType has a few options there). But what you can do is type in whatever text you like, and it will preview the font in your own text. So, just say I'm working on a new Fairies and Fantasy logotype, I type that in and breeze down through my fonts list to find a font that suits the text. It makes things so much easier.
Anyway, MainType is a neat, simple program that does the job. The only thing I wanted to be able to do that I couldn't was flick a uppercaps/lowercaps switch for the preview text.
MainType is from http://www.high-logic.com/
They also do http://www.yourfonts.com/ which is awesome fun! You can create your own font from your handwriting! It's pretty cool stuff... of course my handwriting is too disgusting to consider doing it...
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What's happening these days...
So I've been really busy. This morning is the first time for a while I've just sat down for a bit of a break for weeks, so I thought I'd do a little random blogging to release some pressure from my busy head. Even though I should be clearing my inbox and finishing costumes...
So the last few weeks have been a bit of a blur. I've been working hard helping out with a play that will be showing for five nights at Newtown Theatre as part of the Short and Sweet festival http://www.newtowntheatre.com.au/Short_&_Sweet/Short_&_Sweet.php
I've been just lending a helping hand to David who's directing, and mostly getting the costumes together, which has been an interesting project. There are NINE costumes required for this 10 minute play, including secret service agents, delivery men, angels, and the devil. And since we basically have no budget... hrm, well I think I've done ok considering. I've sculpted a pair of 14inch long devils horns and created fur pants and cloven hooves for the devil, robes for the angels and more. We should be taking a group photo at dress rehearsal tonight, I'll see if I can post it here later.
On top of working on that, I've been vending at more markets, filling orders (without my helper monkey!), updating websites, and working on some big stages of my business plan, important behind the scenes stuff like contracts, database set up and so on.
My next big import shipment is due in about a week or two, which as usual I'm feeling totally unprepared for. My store room is going to become mighty cramped again all of a sudden, just as I had almost cleared some room again. Of course, this is the way it should work right? Stock coming in on time, etc. But it's nice to have space...
Speaking of space, David and I have been speaking with a real estate agent about a house we quite like, and are maybe interested in buying... yup BUYING! It is HUGE compared to the space we're in now, and even has a seperate studio building outside, and room to convert into a filming studio for David, wow.... Not to mention another 4 bedrooms in the house itself. At the moment we're living in a 2 bedroom townhouse, of which I've completely overtaken one bedroom and the large garage/basement space for my business.
Anyway, fingers crossed... We're still nutting it out ourselves, whether it really is in our afforable range, whether the area it's in is where we'd like to live, etc. But as for the space it has, and the house itself (VERY nice house and gardens!), I like.
Since I'm rambling, I also felt it was time to give everyone a little "cancer update", since I've been thinking about it and realised I've not mentioned anything for a while.
I've been thinking about it a bit because I HAVEN'T been thinking about it. I realised the other day I've basically forgotten last year happened, just pushing it away, trying to not think about it. In some ways it's best that way, because thinking about it (particularly chemo) still makes me feel queasy. Best just to not think about it at all.
There are some things I'll never be able to handle again after last year. Like buck wheat heat packs and crushed ice/lemonade ice blocks and the sensation of icey cold on my skin. All of these things I now associate firmly with chemo*, and make me want to dry retch. Also the sound of drip machine motors running. Bleeaah.
Otherwise I'm doing really well. In fact, a couple weeks time it will be the one year anniversay of my surgery, can you believe that? I'll be going in for scans then too, get a check up and hopefully an all clear for another 6 months.
My hair has grown a fair bit. It's about an inch and a half long now, and pretty much straight brown like it was before. I still get really tired easily if I push myself too much (like I have been this week!) and my boob still hurts all the time from cut nerves in surgery and the further beat up it got during treatment, cooking with radiation, etc, but the Dr's said I should expect that it will keep hurting for years... yay.
But otherwise, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal now which is nice.
So that's basically it. I'm enjoying getting things done again, wish I was painting more right now but have a million other things going on. Should be diving back into painting more again after the play is over next week and I've got my accounts from last quarter out of the way!
*The heat packs were used to heat my veins before chemo, the iceblocks I had to chew on during chemo to reduce damage to my mouth, and the icey sensation is from the freezing chemo liquid running up my arms.
So the last few weeks have been a bit of a blur. I've been working hard helping out with a play that will be showing for five nights at Newtown Theatre as part of the Short and Sweet festival http://www.newtowntheatre.com.au/Short_&_Sweet/Short_&_Sweet.php
I've been just lending a helping hand to David who's directing, and mostly getting the costumes together, which has been an interesting project. There are NINE costumes required for this 10 minute play, including secret service agents, delivery men, angels, and the devil. And since we basically have no budget... hrm, well I think I've done ok considering. I've sculpted a pair of 14inch long devils horns and created fur pants and cloven hooves for the devil, robes for the angels and more. We should be taking a group photo at dress rehearsal tonight, I'll see if I can post it here later.
On top of working on that, I've been vending at more markets, filling orders (without my helper monkey!), updating websites, and working on some big stages of my business plan, important behind the scenes stuff like contracts, database set up and so on.
My next big import shipment is due in about a week or two, which as usual I'm feeling totally unprepared for. My store room is going to become mighty cramped again all of a sudden, just as I had almost cleared some room again. Of course, this is the way it should work right? Stock coming in on time, etc. But it's nice to have space...
Speaking of space, David and I have been speaking with a real estate agent about a house we quite like, and are maybe interested in buying... yup BUYING! It is HUGE compared to the space we're in now, and even has a seperate studio building outside, and room to convert into a filming studio for David, wow.... Not to mention another 4 bedrooms in the house itself. At the moment we're living in a 2 bedroom townhouse, of which I've completely overtaken one bedroom and the large garage/basement space for my business.
Anyway, fingers crossed... We're still nutting it out ourselves, whether it really is in our afforable range, whether the area it's in is where we'd like to live, etc. But as for the space it has, and the house itself (VERY nice house and gardens!), I like.
Since I'm rambling, I also felt it was time to give everyone a little "cancer update", since I've been thinking about it and realised I've not mentioned anything for a while.
I've been thinking about it a bit because I HAVEN'T been thinking about it. I realised the other day I've basically forgotten last year happened, just pushing it away, trying to not think about it. In some ways it's best that way, because thinking about it (particularly chemo) still makes me feel queasy. Best just to not think about it at all.
There are some things I'll never be able to handle again after last year. Like buck wheat heat packs and crushed ice/lemonade ice blocks and the sensation of icey cold on my skin. All of these things I now associate firmly with chemo*, and make me want to dry retch. Also the sound of drip machine motors running. Bleeaah.
Otherwise I'm doing really well. In fact, a couple weeks time it will be the one year anniversay of my surgery, can you believe that? I'll be going in for scans then too, get a check up and hopefully an all clear for another 6 months.
My hair has grown a fair bit. It's about an inch and a half long now, and pretty much straight brown like it was before. I still get really tired easily if I push myself too much (like I have been this week!) and my boob still hurts all the time from cut nerves in surgery and the further beat up it got during treatment, cooking with radiation, etc, but the Dr's said I should expect that it will keep hurting for years... yay.
But otherwise, I'm feeling pretty much back to normal now which is nice.
So that's basically it. I'm enjoying getting things done again, wish I was painting more right now but have a million other things going on. Should be diving back into painting more again after the play is over next week and I've got my accounts from last quarter out of the way!
*The heat packs were used to heat my veins before chemo, the iceblocks I had to chew on during chemo to reduce damage to my mouth, and the icey sensation is from the freezing chemo liquid running up my arms.
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