Colour outside the lines

ambette at MarkIt @ Fed Square

2011-10-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

After selling online for the past not-quite-2-years, I've decided to take the plunge and finally do a market stall. I'm throwing myself right into the deep end and going straight for the big fish.

Crazy? Maybe!

I'm really looking forward to doing it and seeing how it goes. I think one of the downsides to selling online is not being able to gauge the customer's reaction to your product (unless they they leave feedback), so I think it'll be a worthwhile exercise even just for that.

One of the things I've found a little difficult in preparing for the market, is trying to figure out how much stock of each product I need to make. I've been told by people who have done MarkIt before that 'you will sell a LOT', but that's kind of a 'how long is a piece of string' piece of advice. I've had a look at pictures from past MarkIts and the place looks like it gets pretty packed. So I've worked out roughly how many items I could sell if I was being 100% optimistic (which I admit is a pretty arbitrary figure anyway) and then added some more to that so if by some miracle I do as well as I hope, I won't run out of stock. To work out what proportion of each product I should make, I did a Facebook survey, and I'm basing my numbers roughly on that.

The Facebook survey estimated that roughly 55% of my products should be iPhone cases, which makes sense to me, given that every second person seems to have one (plus they're at a lower price-point), then Macbook sleeves (22%), iPad sleeves (18.5%) and Kindle cases (3.7%).

Colours and styles are even harder to predict, but I'm just going to go with a variety and hope for the best.

I'm starting to plan in my head what the stall should look like, but because my products are quite boxy/flat shapes I'm still trying to work out how I can put it all together with varying heights to make it look more interesting.

Also, thrown into the mix, just to make life more interesting for me, I've just accepted some full-time temp work until the end of the year (starting tomorrow), so now I'll be doing all of this outside of normal work hours. I predict much caffeine will be consumed in the next 5 weeks.

Anyway I hope to see some of you Melbourne people on the 27th! There will be lots of other great stalls there, and it's going to be just in time for Christmas shopping (I can't believe I've just mentioned the 'C' word - where has the year gone?!).

Tutorial: Correcting white backgrounds on product photos using Photoshop

2011-07-12T02:28:00.001-07:00

How to fix your photos!

Before After

Have you ever taken a product photo where the angle and focus were all perfect but your nice white background has come out a weird shade of blue (or some other colour)? I know the way to avoid it is to get your white balance right before taking the photo, but what if it's too late and you just want to salvage the photo Sometimes there's only a small bit of discolouration on an otherwise good photo - seems a shame to have to re-do it.

I have to be honest, I'm not a super-awesome photographer, so I don't know all that much about setting white balance. I usually just set it on auto and hope for the best. There's been more than one occasion where a slight blue tint has ruined a photo.... or so I thought!

I've written a bit of a tutorial below on an easy way to use Photoshop to eliminate the dreaded blue tint from your white background. Hopefully you get something out of it if you're struggling a bit with keeping the ol' white background white.

Just as a disclaimer - I'm obviously not a professional photographer or photoshopper, so I'm sure there are probably other ways to do this, but this is just what I've found works well for me and I thought I'd share. Also unfortunately this tutorial isn't going to be much good to you if you don't use Photoshop (sorry!).

Tutorial:

* It might help to click on the images if you want to see a larger size. It's a bit hard to read the text at their current size.

Right, so I picked out a bit of a doozy to use as an example. Most of my photos don't turn out like this (honest!). This photo has a few problems:

Firstly, the background is pretty obviously not white.
Secondly, there are some dark patches in the corners that I'd like to even out a bit.
Thirdly, there was a dark patch in the bottom right (due to a busted camera) which I've already gone over roughly with the clone stamp, but it's left a bit of a patch that's slightly lighter than the surrounding colour.

So, what I generally use to fix background colour is the 'replace colour' function, which you can find by going to 'Image' and then 'Adjustments' from the drop-down menu. 'Replace colour' is all the way down the bottom.

Once you have the little toolbox thingy open, you'll notice that when you wave your cursor over the image, it's now a little eye-dropper.

The next step is to take your little eye-dropper and click it on a part of the background that appears blue (or discoloured). Once you do that, you'll see that the colour box next to the 3 blue sliders changes colour to what you just clicked on. If the blue tint is so slight that you're not sure if it's just your eyes playing tricks on you, I find it handy to compare that box to the grey colour surrounding it. Once the colour is right next to the grey, it seems to jump out at you if it's got any colours it shouldn't.

So once you've selected your colour, slide the 'Saturation' slider all the way over to the left. That will remove any colour and leave behind only shades of grey. If your image is like the one above, you might find that doing this will not immediately remove all the blue from the background. If this is the case, when you've removed the first lot of blue, click 'ok' then go back into the 'Replace colour' function again. Repeat the desaturation process on all areas of blue until the entire background is colour-neutral.

To even up the light and dark patches, it's basically the same as removing the blue, except you use the 'Lightness' slider instead of 'Saturation'. If you want, you can lighten up dark patches at the same time you desaturate them. That's usually what I do. Once you've eliminated all the discolourations from your background and evened up the light and dark patches, you should end up with something a bit like this:

For me, the background of the image is still a bit grey. At this point you can do one of a few things:

If you're happy with the amount of light on your actual product, but it's just the background that needs lightening, go back into 'Replace colour', select the background with the eye-dropper (which by now should all be pretty much the same tone) and just lighten it up a bit. The only thing to be careful with here is if your product has light colours, because when you select the light background, anything else that is the same tone will be lightened along with the background. You could also play around with the exposure if you feel like the whole image is a bit under-exposed.

If the whole image needs brightening up, you can try adjusting the brightness, which you can change by going to 'Images', then 'Adjustments' from the drop-down menu, and select 'Brightness/Contrast'. Just play around with the sliders until you're happy with the result.

After all is said and done, you should end up with something that has a nice clean, bright background.

This photo certainly isn't my best product shot by any stretch, but when you compare what it was like originally to what it's like now, it's a damn sight better!

Hope this was useful to you! Happy to answer questions if you've got any.

I need your opinion

2011-06-22T01:16:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about putting an ad on a decent-sized design blog and have been putting together some graphics. I think it'll look something like the images below, but I can't decide which one is the most 'clickable'. Which one do you think I should go with? Is there anything you think I should add to it?

Edited: This final design (bottom right) I just added to the options. It's a cleaner font than my logo, but I've changed it a bit so it looks more like my original logo, and a bit less boring than the design on the left. What do you think?

Any feedback would be fab!

Gift Certificates

2010-12-16T01:49:00.001-08:00

Well, if you're anything like me and leave your Christmas shopping right till the last minute and then realise that you haven't got nearly enough time to order something online and have it delivered by the 25th, a gift certificate might just save the day.

I've now added a range of gift certificates to the shop, which should help out.

You'll get a nice pdf gift certificate emailed to you, that you can either print out or forward to the recipient (handy if you live in another state or country!)

See my shop for more details!

House & Garden!

2010-12-12T19:03:00.001-08:00

If you were to go and buy House and Garden magazine today and turn to page 49..........

....you might find something a little familiar in the top right-hand corner....

YAY!!! How cool! One of my laptop sleeves made it onto the glossy pages of House & Garden - it's so exciting!!

They contacted me a while ago and asked for some photos for the January issue, but I didn't even realise it had been released until a friend called on Saturday because she'd stumbled on it as she was flicking through her H&G mag.

I can't stop looking at it!!

Scam!

2010-11-25T18:28:00.000-08:00

Friends of ours have recently had a baby and my man decided that because the father is a Kiwi, he'd buy the new bub a Wallabies teddy, just for a bit of a dig. My man thought it would be nice to personalise it, and thought it would be nice to have the surname and year of birth embroidered on the back of the jersey. So off he went to a place that does custom embroidery thinking he'd get the jersey nicely embroidered.

What came back was the jersey with a dirty big emboidered patch sewn onto it, covering up half the back of the jersey.

Guess how much this simple little patch with no graphics cost my man?

FORTY BLOODY DOLLARS!!!

What an absolute scam! My man no longer wants to talk about it, because he knows he got absolutely jibbed.

Operation: Secret birthday present

2010-11-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

I recently became quite good friends with a guy, "T" (a friend of a friend of mine), who has come over to Melbourne from the UK to do a year of his engineering course abroad.

When T found out about the laptop cases I've been making, and that I have some screen-printing capabilities, he got quite excited. T's girlfriend back home had her birthday coming up and had recently bought herself a new 13" Macbook.

T asked me if I could help him make a really special personalised birthday present for her. Awwww! How could I refuse a request like that? So of course I said I would help, and we started on the collaboration.

T was to come up with the design to screenprint, as well as decide on the materials and colours. I just helped out with a few design and sewing logistics. He decided on pale blue cotton duck-cloth for the front, and hessian for the back. We also decided that the laptop would be held in place with a flap, secured by elastic.

So T came round one night after soccer, cut out the stencil and we printed the fabric pieces. I have to admit I was pretty impressed with how the design printed on the blue duck-cloth came out.

I took over the process from there, working out which interfacing to use to achieve the desired stiffness, and how to go about putting it all together.

I ended up using Vilene S520 on the blue side and 2 layers of Vilene S320 on the hessian side, with a layer of medium-thickness wadding on both sides as well. I was generally pretty happy with the level of rigidity I got with using the S520, but it did cause a few problems with trying to get it nice and flat after it getting all crushed up in the 'turn it inside out and back again' process when the lining was sewn in.

It did take a hell of a lot of ironing to get it relatively flat again, so I'm not sure if the S520 would be a good choice for future use, or whether I just need to try different combos of interfacing in a different order to get it right.

Anyway, all in all, I think the special birthday present went down with the recipient rather well. I thought it was quite touching how thoughtful the gift was and how much effort had been put into it. It was quite nice to have been a part of it, really!

A somewhat wordy post about the happenings of ambette (part 1)

2010-09-16T19:01:00.000-07:00

Holy moly it's been a while since I've blogged! Not because I haven't been doing anything, more because I've been pretty busy.

There are lots of things to fill you in on, but I think I'll start with the most recent first:

The Finders Keepers markets:
Well, what a great day! They were without doubt the best art & design market I've been to in Melbourne - I loved them! The only problem I had was just the feeling of being so overwhelmed by such awesomey awesomeness, that I couldn't decide what to buy and as such, ended up going home with hardly anything.

My plan was that I would collect the cards of the designers that I might like to buy from and go home to browse their online shops at my own leisure. I had assumed that everyone was like me and had some form of online shop that they surely sold their wares from. Not so. When I got home I excitedly laid out all the cards and made a list of everyone's websites in anticipation of the online shopping bonanza that would surely follow.

To my disappointment, when I further explored the websites, most of the designers at the market either did not sell online (only listing their bricks and mortar stockists), or did not have the full range of their goods that I had seen at the market. Oh the humanity!! Needless to say, I spent a good half hour kicking myself that I hadn't checked first that the designers did in fact have everything available online.

Let that be a lesson to all you artists and designers out there - I'm sure I'm not the only one who did this, so you're losing sales by not having a full online shop, and also for not making it clear to potential customers that your lovely goodies are only available on the day of the market.

Anyway, I did manage to buy a couple of things. I got these fab earrings from Madz has Runaway

I loved her range of jewellery, and found it quite difficult to choose.

I also got these extremely cool earrings from Made by White. They are so retro-awesome! Ironically, the only people I bought from actually do have a decent online presence.

Georgie Love:

I have some rather exciting news, which is now a few weeks old, but it's new to you guys! A selection of my laptop sleeves, iPad sleeves and iPhone cases are now available through Melbourne-based Georgie Love. If you're not familiar with the site, it's run by Sally Morrigan, and sells a pretty decent-sized selection of handmade items by Australian independent designers. Pretty handy with Christmas coming up!

On a related note, since I was asked to stock some of my items on Georgie Love, Sally and I have been communicating solely via email. On the weekend I thought it might be nice to go introduce myself to Sally at the Georgie Love stall at the Finders Keepers markets, and meet her in person. I introduced myself as Liz, and was preparing to explain further that I was the maker of all the 'Ambette' items on her site. She initially appeared to know who I was, so I didn't clarify. About halfway through the conversation I started to wonder if she really did know who I was, but by this stage I felt a bit awkward about asking if she knew who I was, so I said goodbye and ran off after she gave me a lollipop and told me about a sale they were having.

Anyway, I emailed Sally today and explained that the weirdo on the weekend who spoke to her as if she knew her was in fact me. Turns out she did think I was a customer, who expected her to remember me from my order history. Haha! I felt a bit silly, but I've learnt my lesson - even if someone seems to know who 'Liz' is, in future I'll leave no room for confusion!

Playing with my banner on Illustrator:
The other day I was looking at my banner and for some reason decided I was a bit bored with the green. I had a play with a few new colour-schemes (they're a bit easier to see if you click on them and view at full-size).

I definitely don't like the bottom one as it's too hard to read, but I don't mind the first couple. I think they look quite summery, and I was thinking of occasionally changing the colour scheme of my banner just to keep things interesting, but I'm not sure if I should stick to the current scheme for the sake of consistency and branding. What do you think?

Right, I've got more stuff to talk about, but this blog post is already getting pretty wordy, so I might leave the other stuff for the next post (I promise the next one won't be 3 months away!).

We have a winner!

2010-07-17T23:39:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay, folks - I got completely caught up in weekend activities and forgot to draw the giveaway. Oops!

I'm sure you've all been on the edges of your seats all weekends waiting for the announcement, so without further ado, the winner of the felt iPod case (determined by random number generator) is......

UniqueDichroic - Congratulations!! I'll be contacting you shortly for your postal address and choice of case.

Thank you so much to all the entries - they all certainly gave me lots of encouragement and motivation to keep going. I really appreciate every one of your comments!

I got an award!

2010-07-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

I got a lovely and unexpected surprise to have been passed the Versatile Blogger Award from fellow Melbournian, Kristina from Inaluxe! What an honour to have this award bestowed upon me by someone whose work I admire so much. Thanks Kristina - I'm a big fan!

By the way,for those of you are unfamiliar with Inaluxe, here are a few of my favourite examples of her work:

I just love the colour palettes she uses - they're vibrant but calm and soothing at the same time. I also love the clean look of her prints - they're neat, but quirky at the same time. Be sure to check out the Inaluxe shop on Etsy for more goodies!

Now, onto the award!

The Versatile Blogger Award's rules are - you must say 7 things about yourself and pass the award on to some of your favorite blogs and let them know.

So, here goes:

Hmm, gosh this is hard!

1. I learnt to drive a tractor before I learnt to drive a car.

2. I'm fussy about which magnets get to go on the fridge. My fridge is a work of art - no ugly magnets please!

3. I have played field hockey for about 20 years and have never missed a season.

4. I am strangely drawn to the colour red. This was a crazy obsession when I was about 5 years old. I had red everything!

5. I cannot wait until I can quit my science job! I spend every day dreaming of expanding my shop and running my own creative business.

6. My favourite drink at the moment is pear-infused vodka with dry ginger ale. I highly recommend it.

7. I used to hate my ears when I was younger, so much so that I once attempted to superglue them back. I don't recommend this. I have since grown into my ears, thankfully.

Now comes the part where I pass the award on to some of my favourite blogs. Unfortunately I can't give one to Inaluxe since they've already been awarded it, so here are my awardees:

Nicole Mallalieu: You SEW Girl! - The first blog I ever read, and my sewing/bag making idol/one-stop-supply-shop.

Cabin + cub - I really enjoy her blog, plus all Valerie's goodies, I want! She's also lovely and leaves lovely comments on my blog regularly!

Pocket Carnival - I adore Penny's cuter-than-cute illustrations, and I love hearing about her design processes and progress. An inspiration!

Summersville - I'm in awe of Lucie Summers' textile design prowess, and her blog is a very enjoyable read, too.

Girl Startup - We're both on a similar path, so I can really relate to her blog posts on the ins and outs of starting up an online shop selling bags. She designs some of her own fabric which she uses for making her bags. Well worth checking out.

Cicada Daydream - Michelle of Cloud 9 fabrics has a great blog which I always enjoy reading. It should be pretty obvious by now that I have a soft spot for textile designers. I live my life vicariously through them.

The Crafty DIY Bride - Even though I'm not planning a wedding (or even close to being engaged!), Mel - a fellow scientist in the same building as me - writes a beautiful blog, full of inspirational eye-candy and helpful crafty DIY tips.

Thanks again Kristina+Inaluxe - you made my day!

Blogaversairy giveaway take 2 - K.I.S.S

2010-07-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

Keep it simple, stupid.

I fear I may have made the process of entering the blogaversairy giveaway a little too involved. The fact that there was a grand total of zero entries suggests one of two things:

1. The entry process was too complicated
OR
2. Nobody wants one of my iPhone cases, not even if it's for free.

I'm sincerely hoping it's the former of the two - otherwise I'm going to be stuck with a bunch of iPhone cases that I can't even give away let alone sell.

So I'm going to make it a little bit easier for you to enter this time.

I've been feeling a bit lazy and unmotivated lately when it's come to the creative business. Perhaps it's the short sunlight hours and grey winter Melbourne skies, but I've found myself coming home from work and not leaving the couch.

To enter the giveaway this time, simply leave a comment that gives me some motivation or encouragement.

So, what will you win?

Your choice of one of these new iPhone cases. They're made from lovely rich German felt, and closed by a pair of sturdy snaps.

Don't have an iPhone?

Everyone knows somebody who has one! They'd make a lovely gift for your tech-savvy friend or relative. Alternatively they'll fit an iPod touch, or they can be used as a little pouch for whatever will fit in...

Leave your entry in the comments section. Don't forget to leave an email address so I can contact you if you win!

The winner will be announced on Friday July 16th

Blogaversairy week giveaway

2010-07-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

Today is my first blogaversairy - yes, a whole year has passed since that fateful day when I wrote my first post.

A year ago, I was learning to sew, had no idea about blogging (not that I'm much better at it now), knew pretty much nothing about product photography, wasn't even close to having a shop of my own and my first sale was not to be for another 6 months.

I've learnt a lot in the last 12 months. Not just about how to do things, but also about myself - what I enjoy and what I don't enjoy, as well as realising just how much I can do when I put my mind to something.

Looking back on it all, I'm feeling pretty good, so what better time than now for a giveaway!

I'm going to do a few giveaways in the next few weeks, but I'm feeling like making things interesting. For the first of the giveaways I want to hand a bit of creative control over to you guys.

Suggest the next giveaway theme:

To win this week's prize, I want some crazy/creative giveaway themes. The most creative suggestion will win the prize, but will also be the way I run the next giveaway.

Just to give you a couple of examples of what I mean, your entry could be to suggest that the way to enter the next giveaway would be by doing something like:

* Suggesting an alternative name for my shop
* Coming up with a creative way to get my shop name noticed
...etc

Get it?

The above two above examples aren't particularly creative, but I'd like to see some really original suggestions. The crazier the better!

- Bonus points if it involves people sending in photos of some sort.
- Bonus points if it incorporates getting my shop/blog name 'out there' somehow.

So, what will you win?

Your choice of one of these new iPhone cases. They're made from lovely rich German felt, and closed by a pair of sturdy snaps.

Don't have an iPhone?

Everyone knows somebody who has one! They'd make a lovely gift for your tech-savvy friend or relative. Alternatively they'll fit an iPod touch, or they can be used as a little pouch for whatever will fit in...

So, leave your entries in the comments section below (don't forget to leave a way for me to contact you if you win). Enter as many times as you like. I'll decide which one is my favourite entry on Sunday July 11th.

I've been interviewed!

2010-06-16T19:15:00.001-07:00

Lara from Harvest Textiles has done a student profile on me! Click here for the interview.

Make sure you have a look around on Lara's blog - not only does she run some really excellent classes on screenprinting and toy-making, but she also sells a range of truly gorgeous hand-screenprinted clothing for children under the label Little Harvest. If I had kids, they'd be decked out in Lara's stuff.

Thanks again Lara for the interview. I hope to see you again at another screenprinting class in the not-too-distant future!

Yay! New products!

2010-06-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

I have one brand spankin' new iPhone case in the shop! I'm quite excited at the prospect of putting some new things in the shop. I've got 4 colours of felt and about 10 different coloured snaps, so it looks like I've got a lot of different options for colour combos. I may be asking for some opinions in the not too distant future.... Anyway, here is the first of them:

New iPhone pockets coming soon

2010-06-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

The felt has arrived, the snaps have arrived, and my new labels have arrived. I've roughly worked out colour combos, so all that's left to do is hit the sewing machine!

Oh and also, I just downloaded an app for blogging from my iPhone, so this the first test. Hope it works ok!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

*Edit: The app seems to work pretty well. The only thing it doesn't really allow you to do is format very well. I don't seem to be able to change the font apart from the size, and can't change text colour or change to bold/italics/underlined. Also can't change the alignment, so had to edit all these things from my computer. Seems like it might be handy for at least writing drafts on the run, and especially good for when you want to use photos from your iphone, but can't be bothered uploading them to your computer.

Doodling in front of the tv

2010-05-31T06:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was kind of doodling while I was watching tv and just trying out a couple of things I've just learnt about Illustrator. Anyway, it wasn't intentional, but it ended up morphing into another pattern:

I suppose at least when I don't feel like sewing, it's good to still be able to do something a bit productive at the same time as watching tv*.

Anyway, I don't think I'll be able to give up my day job just yet - my patterns need plenty of work - but I'm enjoying doing something a bit different. I think for my next pattern I want to come up with something that will fit in with what I've got in the shop at the moment so I'll be able to get it printed at Spoonflower and actually use it on something tangible. Ooh, that would be neat to make something with my own fabric!

* Don't ask me what was on the tv..... I don't remember!

A question for surface designers

2010-05-26T00:33:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I was making a repeat pattern in Illustrator today and got to the end to check that the repeat was seamless, when to my annoyance I noticed a faint white line vertically and horizontally (where the edges of the repeat were) when I used my swatch as a fill. Naturally I thought I'd mis-aligned something so I went back and checked everything. Everything was lined up correctly, and the square I used to crop the edges was exactly the same size as the artboard, and I centered it properly using the align tool.

It left me scratching my head a bit....

So I used the swatch as a fill again, and zoomed in a few times and zoomed out. I noticed that the lines were only showing up when I zoomed out to a certain size, but never when when I was viewing at 100%. I thought I'd check even further, and converted it to .jpg. I don't seem to be able to see any of the lines in .jpg form so now I'm wondering why they're showing up?

I even re-booted my computer, thinking it was maybe a temporary problem with the program, but it kept happening after the re-boot.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Playing with pattern

2010-05-25T03:24:00.000-07:00

Well, today was a day spent at home sick in bed, but it was not a day entirely wasted. Since I didn't feel like sitting at the sewing machine, I thought I'd get back to playing on Illustrator and really nut out how to do a repeating pattern properly. Well, I'm happy to say, I've finally figured it out! I can now do a straight repeating pattern, a half-brick and half-drop pattern and I can do them quickly! Yay!

I haven't attempted other variations yet, but now I know how to do it, I've got lots of ideas.

I call this one 'Yellow Chicks'.
The chicks are quite a bit bigger in their actual size, but this is a little bit shrunken.

So, obviously it's a pretty simple pattern, but I just wanted to get the technique down-pat before I start playing around with more complicated patterns.

I'm really happy I eventually got round to nutting this out! Yay!

New iPhone case

2010-05-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of adding a range of iPhone cases to the shop, and thought I'd have a go at making one up this afternoon. I wanted a really simple, quick design, so I made it up out of a piece of felt I had lying around, and secured the flap with some press-studs that I bought ages ago, but have never used.

I'm pretty happy with it as a prototype. It's quick and easy to make so might be a nice addition to my shop as I've been needing something in the lower price range that also fits in with my recent tendency for making cases for Apple products.

Anyway, I haven't re-invented the wheel, but here it is:

I think the only thing that really needs to be done to improve it, is probably using slightly thicker felt. This one was made with felt that's approximately 1.5mm thick. I think I probably need to go with 2mm felt just for the little bit of extra reinforcement. I'm a tiny bit worried that after multiple openings and closings, that the press-studs might eventually rip out from all the force placed on the felt.

Anyway, I think I might order in a little sample of thicker felt and see if it works, then I might bang a few out and put them up in the shop to see how they go. It's quite exciting to work with felt - it's so nice not to have to worry about linings and raw edges. It's really the lazy person's ultimate material!

and the winner is....

2010-05-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

Technobimbo!

Congratulations! I'll be contacting you shortly for your preference of fabric and postal address. Thank you to everyone who responded. You've all been very helpful, and I'm taking all your suggestions on board.

The result was generated by a random number generator at random.org (see screen cap above). Sorry about the smallness of the screen cap - I couldn't seem to make it any bigger. Anyway if you can't see it, the random number generated was '1'.

The end of all things....

2010-05-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

....custom

I think I've just about made the decision (for the moment) to put a halt on custom orders. While they have made up around 1/4 of my sales so far, I've decided they suck up way more time than they're worth.

I've had quite a few enquiries about custom orders lately. Often when I tell people I charge an extra $10 for a custom order, people seem to balk at it and change their minds because they find it too expensive. But really $10 is extremely cheap and I should charge a lot more for a custom order. I tell people the extra $10 is for extra materials and labour, but after you've subtracted the cost of additional materials from that, you're really only getting about $6 for labour. These are all the extra things I have to do for that extra $6, just to put it into perspective:

1. Extra correspondence. I usually have to send about 2 or 3 emails (sometimes more) to the buyer. Often it takes some email ping-pong to work out exactly what they're asking for - specific colours, plus often I won't be given the specific dimensions of their laptop eg. I might be given the width and depth measurements, but not the thickness, and I have to send another email to get that information.

2. Drafting a new pattern. I have to take the measurements of their laptop and re-size everything. It's not just a matter of tacking on a few extra cm, or taking a few extra off. I have to scale each part of the laptop sleeve by a percentage, so that's a bunch of extra calculations. For example, I have to work out how big to make the coloured canvas section, how big to make the flap, where to position the elastic loops and buttons so that everything is the same proportion as the original laptop sleeve.

Once all these calculations are done, I then have to mark all the pattern pieces out on paper and cut the pattern out.

3. Stress. I tell people to allow a week for me to make it for them. I fit this in around full-time work, plus a few sporting commitments, and when I have a custom order deadline, it feels like homework. Sometimes I come home and I just want to have a glass of wine and watch tv. When I have a custom order, that takes priority. I'd much rather make products when I feel like it and have them ready to ship when I get the order, rather than rushing around trying to get something finished in time. Also on the subject of stress, usually I don't have something the same size as the customer's laptop, so it stresses me out that I can't check the fit before I send it off to them. So far everything has been fine, but I still get worried that I mis-calculated something and it won't fit.

4. Extra photos. Even though the custom order looks pretty much like the original design I'm basing it on, I still take photos of the actual product for the customer to look at. I'm generally not as stringent with the quality of these photos, but they still take time. With the items I stock in my shop, I have stock photos of all my items so I don't have to take new photos every time I re-list something that's sold.

5. Setting up a new listing. Granted it doesn't take as much time as writing a listing for a new product, but it still takes time to load all the photos and copy the listing from the original.

6. Packaging and posting. Often the custom laptop sleeves are an odd size. I have a bunch of mailing envelopes I use to post the 13" sleeves so when I sell one of those I just grab one from the pile, package it up and off it goes. When I've got a custom sleeve which is bigger than what I usually send, it means a separate trip to the post office to try to find something big enough to post it in. This leads onto the final point....

7. Underestimated postage costs. My 13" sleeves are on that knife's edge, weight-wise. They're really close to 250g, which is the upper limit if you want to send something internationally for $9.30AUD. Often I'll forget that the custom sleeve is bigger and therefore heavier and it'll tip the total weight over 250g, which adds another $6 onto the postage. Usually the postage has already been paid for and I'll have to absorb the extra cost. There goes the extra measly $6 I made for making a custom order in the first place.

So, after weighing all this up, I've decided that all the time I spend doing the above things would be much better spent sewing up stock for my shop, or developing new products or coming up with new designs to screenprint. My shop is not going to develop and expand if I keep spending what little time I have to do all this extra work on custom orders that don't really pay off.

Ahhhh that's a weight off my mind!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway which ends on Wednesday! The winner will be drawn by random number generator. Enter by leaving your opinion in the comments section for your chance to win a little zippered purse.

I need your opinion - giveaway!

2010-05-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

I've recently been working on a new design for the iPad which is soon to be released in Australia. Basically it's just a simple pocket, made from hessian, with an original design screenprinted onto the front.

I've currently got 2 variations on the design. As per the green one, there's a band of colour at the top of the sleeve (it doesn't have to be the same colour as the design on the front, but that's just what I ended up with this time). With this design, the iPad sits down in the sleeve a bit further, and the edge is somewhat protected by the coloured strip around the top.

With the other variation (like the yellow one on the left), There is no strip of colour at the top, and the edge of the iPad sits flush with the opening.

The red one is essentially the same as the yellow one, but just in a different colour.

So, what I'd like is your opinion:

1. Which variation do you like better?
2. Do you think I should have both variations in my shop, or just stick to uniformity?
3. Are there any particular colours you'd like to see on them?
4. What do you think would be a fair price for these sleeves?
5. Are there any other comments you'd like to add?

Comment below for your chance to win one of these cute little zip purses! The winner will be determined by a random number generator on Wednesday May 19th, so get your entry in before then!

** don't forget to leave some form of contact details so I can get in touch with you if you win!

19/5/2010: Entries have now been closed and the winner drawn. Congratulations to Technobimbo! The winner was determined by random number generator at random.org. Thanks to everyone for participating.

Vote for me in this week's Etsy voter

2010-05-07T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is a quick post just to mention that my laptop sleeve is one of the items in this week's graduation-themed Etsy voter.

I'd be ever so grateful if you think my sleeve is worthy, if you could give it a nod in the form of a vote. That would be wonderful and if you do, I'm sure karma will be kind to you.

I have another blog post coming soon about what I've been up to lately - stay tuned!

Time management

2010-04-07T23:27:00.001-07:00

clock by Seth Thomas,
available at thesundaytimesmarket's shop

Trying to build up an Etsy shop can be difficult when you work in a full-time job. After working all day, and then coming home to domestic life, it's sometimes quite an effort to make yourself get up off the couch after cooking dinner or doing the laundry, and go do some more work. It becomes even more tricky when you have other activities like a sport to fit in (I play hockey which takes up at least 4 hours during the week with training and games, plus I play indoor soccer on a Sunday afternoon).

Quite often we find ourselves with short blocks of time in which to get work done, and it's really easy to fall into the trap of saying to yourself 'oh, I've only got half an hour, it's hardly worth starting something now, so I won't do anything until I have a decent chunk of time to get stuck into it.'

Now, I'm a master of procrastination, and always seem to avoid things until the very last minute, and I'm very much the kind of person who finds it hard to get going on something - but, I was given a valuable piece of advice which has actually been working for me lately quite well (and that's no small achievement). The advice might seem pretty obvious, but it's actually all about a change in the way you think, and it's been such a huge help to me mentally.

Basically the advice is:

If you only have 5 minutes, do something for 5 minutes.

I know - ridiculously simple, huh? Basically what it means is if you don't have a big block of time to get stuck into your work, just do some small things that can be done in that time. For me it's things like making fabric-covered buttons, cutting lengths of elastic, cutting out pieces of interfacing etc, so that when I do have time to get stuck into something, all the small annoying things have been done already. I think the way it works is by breaking a seemingly large task down into small, easily achievable tasks, it's not that hard to get started if in your head you're saying to yourself 'oh, I'm just making some buttons for a few minutes - that's easy'.

This approach can also work when you do have a decent block of time, but are finding it hard to get started. You tell yourself you're just going to make a few buttons or cut a few bits of elastic, and hey, all of a sudden you're getting stuck into your work!

So, if you're finding it hard to get going, try picking out some small easy tasks and start on those and tell yourself it's just for 5 or 10 minutes and see how you go!

Bolivia - salt flats and desert. Day #1

2010-03-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Some of you may know that I went to South America last year and I've finally gotten around to editing some photos and putting them up on Flickr. Even though we've been back home for over 4 months (where the hell did that time go?!), I thought it was about time I did a bit of a wrap up of the trip and shared some photos.

So I think I'll do a few blog posts this week dedicated to the South America journey. The posts won't be done in the order we travelled, but in the order I've been editing and posting photos.

Today's topic is the Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) & Bolivian desert trip we did.

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So this tour was one of the top things I was interested in doing in South America. I'd heard some really good things about it from a few people and had seen some amazing photos, so I was determined for it to be on our itinerary. Ryan and Rem had no idea what it was all about, so I had to convince them it would be really cool. I think in their minds they had visions of just driving out onto some really flat, salty land and going 'Oh cool. More salt.' I think in the end they were really glad they did it as it exceeded their expectations and wasn't all just a lot of flat, salty land at all.

We travelled to Uyuni from La Paz on an overnight bus. Most of the trip was ok (as ok as an overnight bus trip can be), but the last few hours were pretty uncomfortable. We went off the sealed road and onto a dirt road which was bumpy as all hell, and the bus became freezing! Had to get out beanies and goose-down vests for the last part of the ride. I was also busting for the toilet, but unfortunately the toilet on the bus was impossible to use due to the bus lurching around all over the place, and throwing its passengers a foot into the air.

We got into Uyuni shortly after sunrise and were greeted by a hoard of tour operators trying to get business. Tourism is one of the big industries in town, so the competition was high and the touts were aggressive. I think their plan of attack was to wear people down until they gave in.

In the end we decided that to get this particularly persistent guy off our backs we'd agree to go check out his operation. We were surprised that they actually had a pretty decent set-up and seemed pretty reasonable so we decided to go with them.

We had met a Swiss couple on the bus who we found out were also wanting to do the 3 day tour ending in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, so we teamed up with them for the trip.

Before heading off, we had to get our exit stamps on our passports in case the migration office at the Bolivian border into Chile was closed. You can get an exit stamp on your passport and then you have 3 days to leave the country. We did it in Uyuni because we didn't want to risk being stuck at the border.

We headed out of Uyuni towards the first destination, which was the train cemetary. Basically it's where a lot of old trains have been left to rust, and for some reason it's on the standard tour. I think it's basically just because it's a pretty random sight and there are plenty of interesting photo opportunities.

Our next stop was the salt-flats, which really are just that. It's a big, vast, blinding expanse of white, salty plains.

Basically this, for miles on end:

We took a bunch of silly photos, mostly involving us jumping in the air, like this:

We moved on to a little village which seemed to sell a lot of tourist trinkets carved from salt. I also observed this bus, which I was a bit glad I wasn't on:

After the brief interlude at the trinket town, we headed for a salt hotel, where we had lunch on tables and chairs made from blocks of salt. In fact the entire building was made from blocks of salt.

We took some more photos after lunch, and attempted some perspective photos, which didn't work out as well as we'd hoped. Ryan gave up and tried to make salt angels, but much to his disgust the salt was hard and uncomfortable, and his attempt at a salt-angel proved fruitless.

From here we went to Isla Incahuasi, which is this 'island' in the middle of the salt flats, covered in cacti (some up to 1000 years old). It's a really bizarre sight and you can get a really cool view if you climb up the top.

We took some more perspective photos, and then Ryan and Reto practised their dragon-style kung-fu. As you do.

We paused again on the edge of the salt flats for a group shot, before continuing on to our accommodation for the night....

Our accommodation was very basic, but was actually one of the comfiest beds and best nights sleep I had on the whole South America trip. The rooms were made of salt, including the bed base and the bedside table. Even the floor was rock-salt (which wasn't too pleasant on bare feet).

After dinner that night, the owner's kids (and half the kids in the neighbourhood) came and gave us a little performance. They were really funny - all embarrassed and checking to make sure nobody was watching through the window. After they sang for us, we gave them a few coins, but then Evelyn busted open a packet of lollies and all of a sudden pandemonium broke out. The kids went crazy and luckily we had some spare lollies because one kid wasn't quick enough to grab and almost missed out. The poor bugger was on the verge of tears until we found the back-up supply! I suppose kids are kids in any country!

The best things in life are free

2010-03-08T17:16:00.000-08:00

If you've been admiring my little cosmetic zip bags from afar (or even if you haven't but you like winning stuff), you now have the chance to get one for free! Hooray! Everyone likes a good freebie.

There's a giveaway over at NurseryLove where you can win one of my cosmetic zip bags (your choice). Pop over to the blog, read the review and find out how to enter.

Pretty new things

2010-02-23T04:03:00.001-08:00

Yay! The Lumix is back from the hospital! I was very pleased to get it back until I noticed it was leaving a dark spot in the bottom right-hand corner of all the photos as you can see from this un-edited photo. I checked the lens to make sure it wasn't something that could be wiped off. Unfortunately not. Looks like I'm stuck with editing out the spot in photoshop for the time being. Damn.

So if you're not familiar with how much of a different editing photos makes, you can see the difference between the top photo and the next one (post-editing). I didn't do anything fancy (apart from getting rid of the spot, which wasn't all that fancy anyway). You don't realise how big a difference a bit of editing makes until you look back at the original and go "Er, yuk! How did I ever think that looked nice?"

Basically the thing that made the biggest difference to these photos was warming up the tone, followed by upping the exposure a tad, plus a tiny nudge up in saturation and contrast, and possibly a touch of brightening (depending on the need).

I'm beginning to feel like I'm starting to get the hang of this photo business. Still have to improve on consistency a bit, and definitely learning that the more shots you take, the better. Sometimes you think you've taken pretty much the same photo, but the difference can be subtle enough to matter.

So the next few are shots of the new laptop sleeve colour-scheme. I think I almost like this one better than the first one. It's a bit sunnier and brighter.

I think I liked how I did the photos a little better in the first one (in red and navy blue) though.

I need to get cracking this week and get some new stuff into the shop before my review on the NurseryLove facebook fanpage. It seems like a pretty good fan page, so hopefully I might get a bit of through-traffic to my shop. I want to have plenty of things for them to look at!

It's in the genes

2010-02-22T03:44:00.000-08:00

I just received a really cool email from my aunt. Apparently my interest in sewing and fabric addiction is in my genes!

She said:

".....I don't know if you realised ...but you have a fairly long family history of interest in sewing! Mum's mum [my great grandmother] was a tailoress in Melbourne!

I have often wondered what inspired me in my interest in fabric and sewing as mum didn't know how to sew...but was a fantastic repairer. I also don't know if you realised that I have a fabric addiction and have boxes and boxes!!! and I still can't stop buying fabric!"

Wow....

Sometimes I'm just blown away by how much genetics counts for how you turn out. I also really love finding these things out about family - it's such a great link to your past.

It's definitely something I'm becoming more interested in the older I get. I find myself curious about my great grandparents, and great-great grandparents. What were they like? Were they anything like me?

I'm actually lucky enough to have a family history book put together by an aunt (the sister of the aunt who sent me the email), which is full of personal accounts from the time of my great-great grandparents (most of which is recounted by their youngest daughter, who recently passed away, aged in her 90s). I only got around to reading it properly a few months ago. It is a bit strange looking at the book and all the black and white photos of people who have long-since passed away, and seeing parts of your own face staring back, and reading similarities between their personalities and your own.

It's something I've often thought about doing for future generations of our family - writing a series of personal accounts and memories of all the people in my family. I think it would be lovely for my children (if I ever have any) to be able to read about their ancestors, right back to their great, great, great, great grandparents.

Anyway, back to my aunt who sent me the email. It's funny because I've often been told that I look like her more than anyone else in the family, I have the same cooking style, interest in making things, and now apparently we both have a fabric addiction! I wonder how much more like her I'll become as I get even older?

The reincarnation of a Coles shopping bag

2010-02-07T05:00:00.000-08:00

While out at a leisurely breakfast on Saturday, Ryan and I were chatting about laptop sleeves and designs of a more unisex nature. It was suggested that hessian might be a bit more of a manly fabric than cute floral ones, but I didn't really know what it would be like to work with, or indeed where to get it.

Well, we had to stop in at Coles on the way home for some dinner supplies, and on the way in, I happened upon exactly what I was after!

It was the perfect size, and not only that, the Coles logo was not emblazoned on the front, but only the sides, making it perfect for my new project!

Well, the shopping bag got well and truly destroyed in the process, but was eventually reborn as.......

Ta daa!!!

All I can say is that Coles had better not discontinue these shopping bags as I have absolutely no idea where to get the hessian from otherwise!

ambette - now with added facebook!

2010-02-05T02:29:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie - I've just started up a facebook fan page, so if any of you are on facebook and would like to be a fan, you'll find it here.

I'll be updating it with new items in my shop, plus other new of what I've been up to with the shop, and whatever else I decide to add to it. It's a work in progress.

Anyway, it's good for those who want to stay up to date with what's happening without having to search specifically for my shop or blog. Any news will turn up in your facebook feed as a brief update - great for all you busy and important people!

Fruits of a weekend's labour

2010-01-31T02:21:00.001-08:00

This weekend was spent at the Ink & Spindle studio with Lara Davies from Harvest textile studios, getting my hands dirty. Ryan, Jess and I (as well as Amber and Lien who we met there) had a great time learning to screenprint, and we were all pretty chuffed by the results.

Cutting out the stencils

Everyone hard at work

Jess brandishing her cutting instruments

A lightbox is now one more thing on my list of stuff to buy

Ryan and Lara discussing the finer points of screenprinting. I'm so lucky to have a boyfriend who's genuinely interested in one of the same things I am! :)

The studio

Ryan's repeating pattern

Ryan's ducks after the second layer. How cute are they?!

My repeating pattern... haven't thought of a name for it yet.

My Rainy day half-drop pattern

The combined result of everyone's efforts

Well, I was planning to do a much wordier blog, but I'm buggered!

Thanks, Lara for a great weekend!

Liz does the happy dance!

2010-01-30T06:13:00.000-08:00

OMG, somebody bought something I made!

How about that!

and it wasn't even someone I knew that bought it!

Spanner in the works

2010-01-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

Damn.

Ryan's Lumix camera that I've been using for product shots has broken (due to getting sand in it in Sth America) and it might take up to 4 weeks to get it back (assuming it's worth fixing).

Now I'm stuck with my Pentax which I've had for almost 5 years, so all the colours will be different, plus the screen is nearly impossible to see in sunlight.

Grrrr!!

Just found these

2010-01-27T21:29:00.001-08:00

Just found these on Etsy - what a cool idea!

They're wine-glass coasters which also double as a wine-glass tag. Neat! These beauties are from Dimmalim Home If only I had furniture worth protecting!

A weekend of.......

2010-01-27T19:08:00.000-08:00

SCREENPRINTING!

I'm so excited! Jess, Ryan and I are off to do a weekend of designing and screenprinting fabric with Lara Davies from Harvest Textile Studios in the Ink & Spindle studio.

I can't wait to get my hands dirty, although I'm a tiny bit worried that I might have no artistic talent and end up with a bunch of fabric fit for submission to Regretsy. What I'm really hoping is that at least one out of the three of us ends up being super-talented at it so I end up with some unique custom fabric for the making of bags.

I'd better remember the camera so I can take some photos to put up and show you guys.

So..... I joined Twitter

2010-01-23T04:29:00.000-08:00

Not quite sure what to make of it yet...

http://twitter.com/ambette

Tweet Tweet!

Some goodies from my Etsy travels

2010-01-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

I've been spending a bit of time* on Etsy since opening my shop (*checking my shop about a million times a day), and apart from developing some obsessive behaviour, I've come across some people making some really cool stuff.

Being that I've now got a glass of bubbly in my hand (ok, it's on the coffee table - I'm not really that good at typing with one hand), and feeling a bit jolly, I thought I'd share some of the things I've found.

Beautiful coaster set and notebook from Cabin + Cub. There are so many things in their shop that I want!

These mugs remind me of physiology pracs at uni, and the milk jug is so cute! I also love the skull mugs below - again with the physiology and they're also just so cool! These are all made by Urban Soule who has the most awesome ceramics (among other things), and now a follower of my blog - Hi! *waves*

Finally, there are the earrings I bought yesterday from Flaunt jewelry:

I just couldn't resist...

Finally!

2010-01-17T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well, I've finally put some things in my etsy shop! It's taken a while to finish things off, but I got around to doing a photo shoot yesterday. I'm pretty pleased with the result (for a first go), though I might start doing some photo editing in photoshop in future (time was starting to wear on and I just wanted to get the damn things listed).

Anyway, here are a few of the things in my shop. Let me know what you think!

Pencil case - coloured leaves

Cosmetic zip bag - serene

Shouldercross - Little Bugs

Quito

2009-09-23T04:32:00.000-07:00

We´ve been in Quito for 3 days now and leaving for Otavalo today. Unfortunately I don´t have any pictures to show yet as I somehow managed to leave my camera behind and I won´t see it for another week and a half when Sandy meets us in Peru. Dammit!

So the first day in Quito was mostly a write-off we made it till about 2pm and thought we´d have a little siesta and ended up sleeping for 5 hours in the afternoon. I think we were all a bit knackered from the 30hr trip and slight lack of oxygen due to altitude.

The second day was much better - we wandered round the old town which was lovely (much much nicer than the rest of Quito). We got some ok coffees (not quite Melbourne standard, but better than the nasty instant stuff we´ve been drinking).

changing of the guard

In the afternoon we took a bus trip to Mitad del Mundo (the equator monument). The monument is supposed to be standing right on the equator, but turns out the French got it wrong by a couple of hundred meters, but decided to leave it there. We got all the obligatory photos: jumping over the equator etc. I did a handstand over the line which turned out pretty well (after a few failed attempts using the timer on the camera).

Mitad del Mundo (Equator monument)

Yesterday was a pretty epic day. We thought we´d see how we were going with altitude by climbing Rucu Pichincha (which is almost 5000m above sea level - Quito is around 2000m, I think). It was a pretty hard slog. You can only manage about 20 steps uphill before you feel like you´ve run in the 800m final and have to stop to catch your breath. So it was very stop-start. We almost made it to the summit, but we got surrounded by thick clouds which made visibility pretty difficult, plus up the top there were hardly any footholds and we were trying to scramble up sand which was extremely tiring. It also got really cold and my fingers felt like they were about to freeze off, not to mention it was starting to rain. So we did the sensible thing and turned back. I was pretty glad, I can tell you.

The summit, obscured by clouds

some pretty scenery along the way

close to the top, almost a 45 degree slope, covered in sand

Sam got altitude sickness on the way down and looked like death warmed up. I didn´t feel great either - I got the characteristic pounding headache, but wasn´t vomiting like Sam was. I think it probably hasn´t helped that I´ve managed to pick up a cold and am not feeling 100%. Hopefully I´ll get over that soon.

Anyway, we´re off to Otavalo today (home of the famous textile market - YAY!!)

Until next time....

Adios!

PS for more photos, go here

Five minutes of relaxing..

2009-09-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

Sitting down on the couch with a Friday beer for 5 minutes of relaxing, before:

Packing for 8 weeks overseas.

Cleaning entire house in anticipation of house-inspection next week.

6.30am flight tomorrow. 28hrs of flying.

I feel tired already.

........but extremely excited!!!

Visual goodies

2009-09-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today I thought I'd introduce you to one of my favourite artists, Yellena James.

I stumbled across her art about a year ago and absolutely loved it straight away. It's such a cool combination of whimsical, modern, edgy... I don't really know what to call it, but I love it.

I bought this print (above) at the start of the year, as well as a couple of others, but wouldn't you know it - I haven't had them framed yet! I really have to get them done before Christmas.

I think I might hang them in my sewing room, since there's not a lot of arty inspiration in there yet.

It should be pretty obvious by now that I like my art fairly abstract...

Some of her stuff makes me think of an underwater scene and reminds me of the scuba diving we did in Thailand. Mmmm diving.....

I think I want to buy some more of her prints.....

Father's day

2009-09-06T06:40:00.001-07:00

It's funny how today can start out like every other Sunday, and then give you an experience so surreal you're unlikely to forget it for a very long time.

Tonight Ryan and I were going to dinner at a friends' place in Brunswick. We thought the invitation was for 6.30pm, so were still getting ready when Ryan double-checked the invitation and realised it was for 6ish. By this stage we realised we were running a bit late, so Ryan volunteered to duck to the bottleshop around the corner from our house to grab a couple of bottles of wine while I dried my hair.

About 10 minutes later I'd finished drying my hair and Ryan still wasn't back. I thought maybe he hadn't left as soon as I'd started drying my hair, or maybe he'd spent a while deliberating over which wines to get... or maybe he'd gotten into a conversation with the guy at the bottleshop. I was mildly annoyed because we were already late and I was ready to go.

Another 10 minutes passed and I started trying to work out how long he'd been gone for. I thought I worked out that he must have been gone for at least 20-25 minutes... that can't be right...check the watch again. I started to get a bit anxious and then realised he didn't have his phone on him. I paced up and down a few times then went downstairs - surely he must be walking up the driveway by now?

I looked out the door. No Ryan. Then the sound of a siren close by. That sounds quite close. But again, it didn't really register because we hear sirens all the time around here. Nothing could have happened to Ryan - he just went around the corner to get some wine. He didn't even have to cross the road or anything, and I didn't hear car crash noises or anything that would make me think anything had happened.

I went downstairs again, because I was getting really anxious by now, and looked down the driveway. This time a figure comes sprinting up from the dark, and it's Ryan. He ran up to me, covered in sweat and blurts out that he's just been giving CPR to someone on the footpath for the last 10 minutes, he thinks he broke about 4 of the guy's ribs, that the ambulance is here now, and can I call our friends to let them know what's happened and that we'll be late. He said he's going to go back and to come out after I've called our friends.

So I went out onto the street, and a few doors up is an ambulance and a fire truck with its floodlight directed down to this middle-aged guy on the footpath, with about 3 ambulance officers and at least a couple of emergency firefighters. Ryan's got his arms around some poor girl (Claire) about my age, and I find out it's her father. They'd been driving home after what I can only assume was a father's day outing and he'd started having a fit in the car. She pulled over in our street and the first Ryan knew of it was hearing a gurgling noise and the girl calling for help.

The ambulance officers have the guy hooked up to a heart-rate monitor and are giving him CPR and shots of adrenaline. He's got the manual ventilator tube down his throat so you can clearly see his face, which is deathly grey and his eyes are open and glazed. We're all watching on, and watching the heart-rate monitor, hoping for some kind of heart-rate on there each time they use the defibrillator. It seems like a really long time that this is going on. I think they tried the defibrillator at least 3 or 4 times while I was watching. At this stage I'm pretty sure the guy is unlikely to make it, and then a really weak and erratic heart-beat shows up on the monitor. We all stand around, intensely watching the monitor, willing the beats per minute up. It makes it up to about 39bpm and slowly climbs to about 45.

Eventually he seems to stabilise at around 49bpm and they decide it's time to move him into the ambulance and take him to emergency.

At this point, we're still late for dinner, still don't have the wine.... what do we do? It seems trivial to walk off now and buy wine for a nice dinner, but what else can you do? Ryan, still shaken goes home for a shower and I grab his wallet and continue on to the bottleshop around the corner. I walk in, dazed and realise I only have $30 in cash and since it's not my wallet, don't have any access to eftpos or visa. It takes me forever to calculate which 2 bottles I can get for under $30 and I think the woman behind the counter must have thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn't do basic maths.

So I end up driving to our friend's place and Ryan and I had a bit of a talk about what happened. I asked him how he went with remembering CPR. Turns out he'd never done a first aid course and didn't know CPR at all apart from what he'd seen on tv.

I think it's fairly safe to say that he'll be getting his first aid certification pretty soon after we get back from our trip.

You really never know when you might need it.

So I think this is a timely reminder to brush up on your first aid knowledge. Do a course, or a refresher course if you've done one before.

I'm really proud that Ryan handled things as well as he did, and even though he was completely shaken by the whole experience I'm fairly sure that if something like that happened again he'd be a lot more confident in dealing with the situation.

I really hope the guy is ok and lives to see many more fathers days....

St John's Ambulance

Threadbare

2009-09-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

Argh! I hate running out of thread! I can't believe I only bought one reel of the navy blue. I'm beginning to realise that 100m of thread doesn't go as far as I thought.

I'm really going to have to make a list next time I go to Spotlight. I tend to go in with a fair idea of what I need to get, but as soon as I get there I'm like a deer in headlights.

I end up standing in front of all the thread for about 10 minutes with my mind blank, and I can't actually remember what I needed to get. I get distracted by all the other colours....'what if this isn't the right shade of green... is it this one?....no, I'm sure it's this one....better get both....ooh, that's a pretty colour!.....etc'. Usually I end up walking out with a bunch of colours that don't match any of the materials I have, and then don't get enough of the colours I actually need.

Oh well, looks like I'm making a trip to Spotlight tomorrow.

Running out of thread (or any supplies) mid-creative frenzy is up there with my least favourite things about sewing. I've come to realise I'm developing a list of favourite and least favourite parts of bag making, which I thought I'd share.

Least favourites:

Cutting out pattern pieces. I'm not really sure why I don't like this part. I think it probably has something to do with being so far from holding the finished product in my hand.

Pressing seams flat. Usually because the bag is already an awkward shape that doesn't fit on the ironing board or Elna press, and I don't have a sleeve board. I think I'm about to overcome this though, by buying an oven-mitt and just shoving my hand inside the bag with the oven-mitt on. I'll let you know how it goes. Either it will work really nicely or I'll end up with some sort of third-degree burns. I'm hoping for the former.

Peeling back/trimming excess interfacing. This always seems to take about 3 times as long as I think it will, and due to the extreme shortness of my fingernails I tend to have a lot more difficulty than most.

Turning straps in the right way after sewing the seam. This is always just tedious.

The bobbin running out halfway through something and not noticing until you go to cut the thread that it ran out 20 stitches into whatever you were doing. This usually happens when you think you've done a particularly neat job with topstitching.

Attaching snaps. I had a bruise on my thumb for a couple of weeks from a unfortunate mishap with a hammer and snap-setter.

Zippers. I don't know why I dislike them so much. I know they're not that hard to do, in fact, I've done a few pretty sucessfully and they weren't all that painful to do. For some reason they always seem like a bit too much effort so I find myself avoiding them. I have to stop being lazy.

Sewing the gap closed in the lining. Sometimes it can take me weeks to do this part. Usually it's because I just can't be bothered because the bag looks so close to being finished that I can't wait to start using it and showing people so I just use it with a hole in the lining. Sometimes I tell myself that it's in case I notice a mistake and have to change something, but usually it's just laziness.

Most favourites:

Topstitching straps. I get some good speed going on the sewing machine and it makes me feel like some kind of sewing pro, plus there are no curves so it's easy.

Pressing on interfacing. I like that feeling of when your material goes from feeling kinda flimsy and floppy to something with a bit more substance.

Attaching magnetic snaps. I like this because I'm confident doing it (not that it's difficult), and I like opening and closing it about 20 times, like someone with OCD , after I've attached it because it gives a satisfying 'snap' sound.

Backstitching the lining to the facing. I don't really know why I like this bit, but I do.

Pulling the whole bag through the hole in the lining. I like to call this bit the 'birthing' for fairly obvious reasons. You think it's not going to fit, but then a bit of pushing and squeezing and it somehow makes it through and you end up marvelling at how it fitted through a hole that small. I also particularly like this part because it means that I'm almost finished and can run downstairs to get my 'oohs and aahs' from Ryan.

Showing people what I've made. Well that pretty much goes without saying, doesn't it.

The collaboration

2009-08-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

Right, so I promised some pictures of my friend Chrissy's art that made me think her style would suit being printed onto fabric. I found these pics online and didn't think she'd mind a bit of cross-promoting.

I think that her use of clean lines and bold colours lends itself really nicely to translation into surface design. I really love the little alien figures too - they're quirky but cute.

Man I can't wait to do this - it's so exciting!

Rumour has it that she may be illustrating a children's book in the near future. Pretty talented huh?

Love Hate and Amy Butler

2009-08-30T07:24:00.001-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with Amy Butler.

I love her because she makes awesome fabric designs that I could only dream of coming up with. There's barely been anything she's done that I haven't instantly liked. Kudos, Amy.

The problem is, well - I really like her...... but so do about a zillion other people. The market is absolutely and completely saturated with people using Amy Butler fabrics. To the point that despite loving her work, I absolutely refuse to use any of her designs in any work I do. Point blank refuse.

This problem is not solely with Amy Butler either. I remember loving J oel Dewberry's 'Sparrows' fabric instantly when I first saw it...... and then I saw it everywhere, and now I'm completely turned off it. Maybe I'm a bit pig-headed about being a tiny bit original, but as soon as I see other people using a fabric I really like I instantly find myself all ho-hum about it.

And so I scour the internet for stuff I haven't seen before. God, I spend hours trawling for stuff that I both like and haven't seen anyone else use. Of course I haven't found too many of these fabrics because I'm quite stringent with what I'll let into my fabric stash. Even the ones I previously liked can fall out of favour with me. Not so good when I've got a couple of metres of the stuff sitting in my box.

So, in order to get some original fabric that I like - what better way than to get some of my own made?

I've suggested a collaboration with my artist friend Chrissy. She does some really funky modern stuff that I love and would really lend itself well to textiles or wrapping paper. I'll have to see if she'll let me put a picture of one of her works up on here so you can see what I mean. Anyway I mentioned a collaboration the other day and she seemed really keen! So, with our powers combined - her artistic talent and my sketchy knowledge of creating repeating patterns in Illustrator, I'm hoping we can come up with something cool and get it printed on Spoonflower. How awesome would that be?

...and the steam train rolls on

2009-08-30T00:31:00.000-07:00

Well I've been a busy girl this weekend, but I now have something pretty to show for it. This one is a (late) birthday present for my friend Sandy.

It's basically the same as the last one I did (with obvious differences in colours). The only difference is that I've improved the internal pockets. On the last bag, the pockets were a bit shallow and flimsy, which made it a bit of a struggle trying to put things in the main compartment because the pockets were gaping all over the place and catching whenever I went to put my wallet in (I gave it a test-drive on the weekend).

I gave the lining a layer of heavy woven iron-on interfacing to give it a bit more structure. I also made the pockets a bit deeper and gave them some interfacing also, and I also ran another line of stitching to secure the pockets a bit more at the sides. It seems to have done the trick, although I'll have to get some feedback from Sandy when she's used it a bit more. I'm still thinking of pulling the lining out of the first bag and re-doing it. Depends on how annoying I keep finding it.

I'm also going to have to get much faster at making these things. I managed to take almost a full 12 hours to make the bag (there were a few net-surfing breaks though..). I've found that all the extra interfacing means it takes a lot longer to make, particularly trimming all the interfacing from the seam allowance. I've realised that I really really have to grow my nails (at least on both my thumbs) as being a habitual nail-biter, my nails are always short and stubby which makes it really difficult trying to peel the interfacing off the material. If anyone has any great tips on how to speed this process up I'd love to hear from you as it's really slowing me down. I'm thinking of shaving a few millimetres off the interfacing before I attach it to the fabric so it at least makes it easy to start peeling it back.

I'm also loving these antique brass oblong rings and accompanying slide-adjusters from Nicole Mallalieu Design. I think they're a bit more understated (in a good way) than the shiny-shiny silver ones.

I also need to come up with a name for the bag... I was thinking the 'Excursion' bag since I designed it as a travel handbag, but I'm not sure. My pattern has 'shoulder bag' written on it, but that's a bit bland. What kind of bag does it look like to you?

Mission complete

2009-08-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

.....Presenting Baggie Bagaloo!

....Ok that's just its pet name (and a very silly one at that). I'm thinking I might call it something a bit more sensible like the 'Excursion bag' or something seeing as I designed it specifically as a travel handbag.

I have to say that I'm really quite pleased with myself. I designed the bag, drafted the pattern and made it (with only minimal unpicking) all by myself, and it all fitted together beautifully! I'm really quite chuffed with my first Ambette bag. I think I might just go admire it again for a while......

Ok, I'm back.

The rest of these photos aren't really necessary, but sometimes I just like to play with the macro function on my camera and see all the little close-up details. I like how the macro function gives nice crisp clear photos. Perhaps it appeals to the scientist in me - kind of looking at something under the microscope...

...*runs off to admire bag again*

There really is something quite satisfying about creating something of your own, isn't there?

Work in progress

2009-08-24T07:42:00.001-07:00

When it comes to me and creativity, I'm a bit like a steam train: slow to get started, but once I pick up speed I'm hard to stop. This definitely rings true for starting new projects. I spend ages in the planning phase and it seems to take forever to actually sit down and start doing things. This has been particularly true of late - between working full-time, playing hockey, planning the big South America trip, and still trying to have some sort of social life, it's easy to just sit on the couch and veg with a glass of wine.

So I have my friend Adelia to thank for giving me the kick up the bum I needed. She's just gotten into sewing/bag making, and she was telling me on the weekend about all the sewing she's been doing and I realised I was getting behind the 8-ball a bit. Not to be outdone, I decided to get started on a bag that I might use for the impending trip.

I spent a bit of time tonight drafting the pattern. Basically the criteria was that it had to be an across-the-shoulder adjustable strap bag, which had a flap (good pickpocket deterrent), and wasn't too big and cumbersome, but also big enough to carry a few things like camera, wallet etc.

I cut all the pieces out and interfaced them with heavy fusible woven interfacing and wadding, and got as far as making the body and the flap. I also decided on two magnetic catches on the flap rather than one so it would sit a bit more nicely. I think I'll also use the antique brass oblong rings (pictured on top of the bag) for the straps and slide-adjusters.

I also need to have a bit more of a think about what kind of pockets will be handy on the inside - any suggestions are welcome as you may think of something I've overlooked.

Anyway, now that I've started the project I can't wait to get it finished. I'm also hoping to give the design a good road-test while I'm overseas so I can tweak the pattern when I get back and hopefully make a few more, either for Christmas presents or to finally put up for sale in my very empty Etsy store.

Time for some photos

2009-08-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks to some prompting from Sandra of Pepperberry & Co, I finally decided to take some photos of some recent purchases and things I've made lately.

These earrings are the ones I got a couple of weeks ago from the Rose St Artists Market. Aren't they awesome! This is also my first attempt at photographing products a bit more professionally. The 'lightbox' is pretty amateur though as you'll see a bit further down.

This one is me, wearing the scarf from the Rose St market. Apparently some of the proceeds go to helping educate women in Cambodia, so not only do you get a nice scarf, you're helping people out as well. Nice! I also have a soft spot for Cambodia, having been there back in 2006. Believe me, they need all the money they can get when it comes to education.

...And just in case you were wondering what that artwork was behind my head, here it is in full. This one's my pride and joy. It's a signed limited edition print by Josh Agle (otherwise known as Shag). It's called 'welcome to your beautiful new lifestyle' and was given to me for my birthday by my awesome boyfriend.

Here's another one (also given to my by my boyfriend) called 'Alligator'. I got this for my birthday a couple of years ago and I love it!

These are some pics of a couple of bags I've made recent(ish)ly. The one on the left is a Nicole Mallalieu 'Baguette', and the one on the right is just a laptop sleeve I made for my laptop, which ended up being the wrong dimensions and is now just a 'whatever sleeve'.

This is my extremely amateurish and makeshift 'lightbox'. I'm going to make a proper on one day, but this was all I had on hand today.

Basting the edges together on the baguette, prior to sewing in the gusset.

This is the Elna press I bought on ebay

....and finally, my creative space!

Heaven is....

2009-07-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

....the Rose St Artists market.

I was like a kid in a candy store. Almost everything I laid eyes on extracted little squeals of delight. There were sooo many cool and unique things that Jess nearly had to hold me back. In the end I settled on a pair of light blue rectangular earrings and a mustard-yellow scarf.

I'm going through a bit of a phase with the mustard-yellow, which I tend to do with colours. Everything I see in that colour I want to add to my bower-bird collection. I also have a particular shade of green, and a kind of blue that really takes my fancy at the moment. I particularly like all these colours letter-pressed against a white background. Eeeeeeee! (that's my little squeal of delight).

I hadn't been shopping in Fitzroy for a while and I'd forgotten how much cool stuff there is over that way. I think I'll have to go back in the not-too-distant future. I'm quite lucky that Jess has pretty much the same taste as me, so we both drool over the same things like funky jewellery, pretty paper (LOVE stationery shops) and attractive packaging. Brunswick St is a haven for all these thing.

In other news, I finished the 'baguette' bag. It turned out really well and I'm quite chuffed with it. I think my sewing skills are improving! Pictures to come....

Passport? Check. 2 months off work? Check. Flights to South America? Check. Excitement? Check!

2009-07-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

The flights are now booked and paid for. Time to start getting excited!

This will be the longest and most epic trip I've been on so far. The longest I've been on holidays was the 6 weeks I had in Europe and that felt like a long time. The only problem is that it doesn't really seem that long on paper when you're planning out the route. We also had the added problem of miscounting on the calendar and had accidently made the trip 9 weeks long instead of 8 and so had to cut some things out of the itinerary to get it back down to 8.

So the trip is roughly as follows:

Quito (Ecuador)
Otavalo (Ecuador)
Banos (Ecuador)
Cuenca (Ecuador)
Fly to Lima (Peru)
Overland from Lima to Arequipa via Huacachina/Nazca lines
Arequipa/Colca Canyon/Chivay
Cusco
Inca trail/Machu Picchu
Lake Titicaca (Peru/Bolivia)
La Paz (Bolivia)
Salar de Uyuni (from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile) 3 day/2 night 4wd tour
San Pedro de Atacama to Salta (Argentina)
Iguazu falls
Buenos Aires
Back to Melbourne

Only 8 weeks to go!

Note to self: Increase blogging frequency

2009-07-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

Oops! I really didn't mean to let it get so long between posts.....

I actually did some crafty-type stuff on the weekend, however most of it was helping my friend with her first purse (*polishes halo*). I did manage to get the pieces cut out for my new bag, but only got as far as attaching the interfacing and wadding. It is my mission to make it resemble a bag by the end of tonight. It's my first attempt at a bag with a curved gusset, so I'm a little bit nervous about things aligning properly, but I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and get stuck into it.

I also made it to the Camberwell Rotary market on the weekend.... I didn't find much, but did notice that there was a very small percentage of people who sold handmade stuff....opportunity I think!

I'm also keen to get to the Rose St artist market soon. My friend Ayan always seems to find the coolest jewellery for peoples' birthdays there, including an awesome pair of jigsaw puzzle earrings that I'm currently wearing.

If anyone knows of any other cool markets that are worth checking out, be sure to let me know.

In other news, I've been checking out other crafty bloggers blogs. Sandra from Pepperberry & Co has a highly attractive blog with an interesting story to boot. I heard about her through Nikki Mallalieu of You SEW girl fame. Apparently she got really enthusiastic about sewing, did a class with Nikki, quit her job and started up her own company....or so the legend goes. I happen to think that's rather brave, and so I use that sometimes as a bit of inspiration. It's also reminded me that I have to do some design work on my blog because it's looking a bit visually boring at the moment. My banner is soon to come.

Anyway, I thought I might finish with a few random facts about myself which I have copied and pasted from my Facebook profile:

1. When I was a child I had an irrational fear of volcanoes and quicksand.

2. Until I was 15 I had never been to the beach in any season other than winter.

3. Until I was 21 I had never been in an aeroplane. The second plane I went in, I jumped out of (skydived), and my third flight was a trip to Perth (my first commercial flight) which cost me $90 return (thanks Virgin!).

4. I hate misplaced apostrophes, and secretly cringe when people use 'there', 'they're' or 'their' in the wrong place. I also hate text language and fully spell out text messages.

5. I learnt to drive a tractor before I learnt to drive a car.

6. When I was 5 years old I was obsessed with the colour red. I had a red school bag, money box, lunch box, swimmers (I even bought the exact same pair when I grew out of the first ones), pencil case, barbie doll clothes, toothbrush, dress....etc etc

7. I have never broken any bones or had any cavities in my teeth. I credit growing up near a dairy with this.

8. I work in a stem cell research lab, but dream of designing handbags and fabric.

9. I did piano lessons for 5 years but never learnt to read music properly.

10. My Grandmother sent me to ellocution lessons for 6 years, although you would never know it.

11. This week I am trying to learn Spanish while I'm at work in the lab. So far I know how to say "it is not acceptable for me" and "where do you want to eat tonight?".

12. I can say the alphabet backwards without having to think about which letter comes next. This resulted from me proudly announcing to my Dad that I could say the alphabet and Dad being the smart ass that he is, said "I bet you can't say it backwards", So I practiced until I could do it. I bet he wasn't expecting that - ha!

13. My first crush lasted from kindergarten to grade 6.

14. I'm fussy about which magnets get to go on the fridge.

15. I have a rather long tongue and can touch past my nostrils and can also touch my chin with it.

16. When I got my first tape recorder a couple of friends and I decided to start a rock band called the "Wildcats". We only knew the words to Christmas carols so that was what we sang.

17. I have chewed my fingernails ever since I can remember. Occasionally I will make an effort to grow them once or twice a year and make everyone admire how long they've gotten.

18. My eyes have stayed the same colour since I was born (dark blue).

19. I have a freckle above my lip that my Mum told me was a 'beauty spot' when I was in first grade. Nick Kousoulos used to tease me and call it a pimple, but I was too embarrassed to call it a beauty spot because I worried he would think I was full of myself.

20. I laugh at inappropriate things. If hell exists, I'm going there.

21. I am really shy and most people mis-interpret it as being snobby.

22. I hate peas.

23. I can still remember 2 dreams I had when I was about 3 years old in vivid detail. I also have a recurring dream about maths exams which I have once every couple of weeks.

24. I have an almost photographic memory but am shocking at remembering people's names.

25. I always have an escape plan. I imagine hypothetical situations and figure out how I would escape from them. Usually it involves an intruder breaking into my house and whether or not I would run or belt them with my hockey stick. I also have escape plans for for deadly pandemics, alien invasions, and armaggeddon style asteroids.

Well, I'm off to start sewing in the gusset on the bag *fingers crossed!* Also if you read this blog, be sure to say hi, otherwise I'm going to be feeling like I'm talking to myself for a long time.

First post

2009-07-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is. The first post.

I'm at work and am meant to be doing cell-counts in photoshop right now, but it's just so damn boring. It's funny that whenever you tell someone that you work in stem cell research, they go 'oh wow, that's SO interesting - you must love your job!'. Usually I don't have the heart to tell them that it's not quite as exciting as it sounds.

So anyway, back to more crafty stuff.

I was reading Nikki Mallalieu's blog today and remembered I'd signed up for a blog account a few weeks ago but hadn't done anything about it..... and - voila!

This whole crafty thing of mine started about a year ago when I had an idea (which has since fallen to the wayside) and started to play with Adobe Illustrator. This re-ignited my arty-crafty spark that's been dormant for a while and I got all excited. I'd been feeling for a while that my job in science wasn't really fulfulling my creative needs. My friend Jess introduced me to Etsy and then I suddenly wanted to open an Etsy shop. I'm not quite sure what led me to want to make bags, but I vaguely remember one day realising that I had a real thing for fabrics and I figured that I quite liked handbags too and that surely they couldn't be that hard to make (haha). So I opened an Etsy account, designed a banner for my shop and then started working towards the goal.

I enrolled in Nikki's 'better bags & purses' class at the start of the year. I probably should have enrolled in the 'bags for beginners' course, but at that stage I had 5 months till the class started and I figured I had plenty of time to get up to speed by then. I should have known myself better. When I started the class, all I'd ever sewn was an apron in Yr7, a few pillow-slips, and I'd had a crack at an Amy Butler bag pattern. I didn't even know what topstitching was. As a result, I was a wee bit nervous when I started the class that I'd be out of my depth. Anyway, I needn't have worried - I started off with an easy bag and ended up finishing off an intermediate one by the end of the course. Sweet!

Since then I've been madly collecting fabric, coming up with some ideas, and setting up a little sewing studio in our study. I've realised that I really must buy an Elna press since it took me at least half an hour to iron on all my interfacing on the weekend. God it was tedious.

I did a cute little laptop sleeve on the weekend. All went reasonably smoothly until (at about midnight) I got to the final step of sewing in the lining. I obviously wasn't thinking clearly, because I sewed the lining in the wrong way round (argh!). At that point I gave up and went to bed. I haven't gotten around to unpicking it yet.

I think tomorrow I'll post some photos of the studio set-up, and a few of the things I've collected just to break up the wordiness of this blog a bit. Stay tuned.