Teddy Bear's Picnic (Sans Bears)

A while ago I made a new product for my Turning Trixie market offerings. It's a little picnic set which includes a bottle bag, two placemats that have a handy little pocket and loop for your cutlery and napkin, and some dandy mismatched cutlery. The two that I've made so far are from an old curtain, and it's all just a bit cute.

On the market day I had a bottle of wine as part of the display - I went all classy. I was going to take some new photos today of the sets to put on here, but I've run out of class (wine) so I'm just going to stick with the market pics.

{Photo by Naomi}

And after you're done picnicking, the placemats handily roll up and can be carried in the drinks bag. See the handiness! See the multi-functioning item!

{Photo by Naomi}

I also went on a little op-shopping trip the other day, and I scored. SCORED. There are some days when you just happen to be sitting somewhere, playing with your fringe and wondering if maybe you should part it on the other side, and suddenly you're struck with the overwhelming need to go to a particular op-shop.

Sometimes it doesn't pan out. Sometimes you drive hell for leather to that op-shop, only to find stained 80's clothing, hundreds of white shirt buttons, the ubiquitous Kamahl records, and hostile volunteers who just won't smile, however damned hard you try.
But sometimes it DOES work out. And they're the days that make that instinct worth following. The days that, for example, you spend the princely sum of $23.50, and walk away with 4 dresses, a cardigan, a jumper, a piece of fabric, 2 doilies and 6 tablecloths.

Suffice it to say, I'm a pretty happy, tablecloth-laden kid.

Mad Like A Hatter

For the month of October, Stitch 'N' Bitch are holding an exhibition in the gallery at the Wonders of Wynyard. The theme is Mad Hatter's Tea Party and it promises to be all sorts of craftacular brilliance.

I haven't mentioned it before now, because I left my entry until the last minute to do. The. Last. Minute. I finished it today (started it yesterday), and the exhibition is being installed on Monday. I hoped that if I didn't mention it, nobody would notice the tardiness *peers around suspiciously*

I've made a few little top hats, similar to the hat that I made for the March Made With Love. The original intention was to make a plethora of hats (man, I love the word plethora) and have them arranged on a cupcake stand.

Original idea: fail. It turns out that I didn't have a spare week to make a dozen hats. So, I just ended up making three, and hoping, again, that nobody notices the difference.

To see other madly-inspired projects, go here and here. Oh, and here. And check this out while you're at it.

Wayside

Now, I know that I’ve been fairly absent lately – both physically and mentally. The monkey in my brain is struggling to keep up.

The reason is because of some extra work that I took on – the graphic design work for the Bloomin’ Tulips Festival in Wynyard. For my New South Welshman friends, think Blue Mountains Winter Magic Festival with more flowers and less hippies. The work meant that I had a pretty hectic schedule for over a month, and a lot of things fell to the wayside in the meantime (like sleep, regular meals, a social life… you know, the usual).

The work itself was fun, challenging, occasionally traumatic, but overall a great experience. Posters of my design are scattered throughout the north-west and tourist information centres over the state, my ads have been in the paper and online, and I’ve even done program and ticket designs. My Mum’s pretty proud of me.

I did the design for the Mayoral Ball poster and other assorted paraphernalia. The theme was Mary Poppins, so I went with the whole chimney-sweep dance thing. I always loved that bit in the movie when I was a kidlet, and may have even danced around the lounge room in the mistaken belief that I was every bit as footloose as Bert.

I also did the poster for the festival itself, which ended up being the most challenging. The brief was to come up with something that encompassed the entirety of the festival – balloon animals and all.

My favourite design that I came up with, and that I’ve been getting the most comments on (cue swelling of head), are the designs for the cocktail party. I came up with a cocktail party duo – a guy and gal ready to get their party on. The posters are displayed alternately throughout shops, so that people walking around will see one in one shop, and then the other half of the couple in another shop. I love my couple.

This is the first time that I’ve done graphic design for quite a long while, and was the cause of a fairly public freak-out at the beginning of the process, but it’s finished now, and all in all I’m happy with the results.

Now I think that I may just have a nap.

Getting Out Of My Head

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Ok, so, after having had my little whinge/flip out/existential crisis in a public forum yesterday, I'm feeling a bit better today. I spent a while last night taking deep breaths (of caffeine and nicotine), and wondering why the hell I was getting so worked up. And why I hadn't thought to buy more cigarettes after work.

Something that a friend and I had been discussing the other night came to mind - that sometimes it's too easy to get stuck inside your own head, and I think that's never more true than if you are a creative kind of kid. Being creative constantly forces you to challenge yourself, whether you're aware of it or not. You're thinking of new and innovative ways to do things, new designs, old ways to do new things, new ways to do old things, and your mind is constantly ticking over with all of this and more.

Add to that the usual concerns about how you look/think/sound, and you could end up a big bag of crazy. Like me.

Something, however, that calmed my fraying nerves was reading other people's blogs. There's something in the air at the moment - a lot of creatives seem to be going through exactly the same thing, and getting too much inside their own heads.

So I say - let go. Be the little free-range creative that you know you are. Sure, being creative can be stressful as hell, especially if there's a deadline. Or dinner needs to be cooked, the washing STILL hasn't been done, and you seem to have lost one of your kids. Or you have to attend work, and you've used all of your allocated brain power there, and now you're just running on standby.

This is what makes creating so satisfying in the end. It's why we do what we do. Because it's stressful, it's challenging, and when it works, it's euphoric, and we can be smug as much as we like.

Because we made that.