Screenprinting Fun

Sadly a family party means I can't go to Northside Makers' screenprinting workshop in two weeks (if you're quick you might get my spot), so to make up for it I've been having a screenprinting party at home.



What can be done with three dozen screenprinted W Class trams?



1. Make cards







2. Make kids' teeshirts



The cards and teeshrits are going to Olive Grove tomorrow morning, and I'll have more cards at Borders Carlton on Monday night. If you can't make it along to either and desperately want to get your hands on something, I may be able to pull some cords (like on a tram, geddit?) for you.

Shopgirl

The best job I ever had was working in a shop.

It was a teeny tiny toy shop on a side street in Islington, London, a lot like Small Dreams on High St Northcote. On weekdays it was staffed only by the manager, the same age as me, and myself. We'd bring in our books and knitting and get some "real work" done in between assembling dolls houses and help local mums choose more toys for their spoilt children. It was less a job and more being paid to hang out around pedal cars and marble runs.


(Note: this is not the shop I worked in.
For some reason our shop was closed down due to not making any money?)
Five years later and I'm about to start working in a shop again. Rather than hiding my knitting when a customer walks through the door, I'll say hi and go right back to whatever crafty project I've brought along with me that day.


(That's a Sydney Road tram. I'll be making a lot of 19s from now on.)
That's because I'm going to work at Brunswick's golden craft co-op, Olive Grove Studio. Have you been there before? Out the front there's a shop chock-full of arty crafty fashiony wonder made by co-op members (including Finki and Polly Pratt), with a huge bench for screenprinting, cutting or any other craft you can do standing up. Out the back some of the co-op members have studios where they work full time to make handmade their livelihood. Me, I'll still be doing most of my work at home in between looking after Not-So-Little-Anymore Jack. But I sure am looking forward to my shifts in the shop.


(Not-So-Little-Anymore Jack on a recent holiday)
This is a massive step for this WAHM, one I never would have imagined when I decided to have my first market stall 11 months ago. I'm a little - not quite 50% - terrified of the commitment and flim-flammed about it for months before applying. All things considered this does feel like the right time for me to make Mrs Beckinsale more solid - 'seize the momentum' as Rob Sitch says in The Hollowmen.

Why not check out Olive Grove this Sunday during the Sydney Road Street Party? The roots stage is right outside the shop meaning you can listen to The Lamington Drive Orchestra or Shambelles (love those names!) while browsing the shop.

I'll do my best to pop along, if I can grab an hour away from frantically sewing and screenprinting and gluing and everything else that must be done yesterday.

Presents for me, me, me

After my book spree I've got $115 left of birthday money. For someone without a disposable income it's incredibly luxurious to have triple-figure dollars all of my own.

I've just had a visit to Etsy to check out a gorgeous US$100 bracelet by The Broken Plate Company which I've had my eye on. It's gone! That's one expensive temptation gone.


So what else can I spend my moolah on? What have you seen lately at a market or on Made It which you'd buy if you had $115? I'm open to suggestions!

(Edited to add: I was whinging to myself about my birthday being after Northside Makers Market - what good is that? Then I realised we've got another in three and a bit weeks. Hurray and Eep!)

I'm in Frankie!

I've said a few times that the reason I love being on Made It (as well as Aus$ pricing) is that it's a much smaller community and therefore much easier to stand out.

For example, last month one of my W Class Cushions was featured in Made It's 'Homely Handmade Homewares' email roundup.

The editor of Frankie received the email, liked the cushion, and asked me to send one in for a photoshoot and giveaway. And now, because I've got a Made It shop, my cushions are in the March/April issue Frankie (out today)!

I've provided a gorgeous geometric W Class Cushion as a giveaway prize. Check out Frankie to find out how to win! Or read the really tiny print in the scanned page above. Or leave a comment and I'll tell you what to do. ;-) I don't know when it's drawn and assume the winner is selected randomly. If it were up to me I'd make people compose poems about trams and give the prize to the longest poem.

I spent ALL of yesterday taking photos, updating my Made It shop, putting together a more focussed business blog (so that people interested in my cushions won't be reading about my overstretched underpants elastic), registering a Facebook group and creating a 'hub' for my domain name so that when people visit www.mrsbeckinsale.com they'll be able to find my shop, blog and fan page. See, I had provided my domain name as the sales info for Frankie, but this morning I've obtained the mag and found out they only put a link to my Made It shop. All that work for naught! The best I can do to compensate is update my Made It shop header so it clearly lists my URL where people can find the blog and fan page.

Incidentally, I feel very self-conscious creating a 'fan page' for my own business. Surely that implies I'm the leader of my own fan club? I've only done it because I know the majority of people don't read blogs regularly and, let's face it, the majority of people are on Facebook. I figure it's a tool for helping people who are interested in my stuff but don't follow blogs keep up with new things I've added to Made It.

I've never even seen Twitter and don't want to know about it, so that section of the interwebz is as yet untouched by Mrs Beckinsale. I'm technologically up-to-date with 2008 and that's good enough for me.

Lots In Store

I've just done a massive Made It shop update with lots of pretty things to browse (and even buy).


I should have even more new things in about a fortnight - be excited!

Birthday Weekend

Went to Artisan Books on Saturday and spent my birthday money on these:


Inspirational - almost don't want to read it so I can have the ideas myself and use them commercially.


Aspirational - I hope to some day make something as beautiful as these books.
I was given a bench vice and power drill, which I have big plans for.

I started making my Volcano Arts six needle coptic bound book kit but was greatly hampered by my cheap Birch screw punch, which seems to have not-very-sharp drill bits plus the internal spring disconnected halfway through the 45 minutes it took to make a total of 12 holes in the covers of the book. That's not something I can take apart and fix, I'm going to have to send it back. I really wanted to see how much of a mess I could make of things by using my power drill to finish the holes off, but we were trying to get Jack to sleep at the time. The holes are done, more or less, with several unwanted greasy thumbprints on the embossed white paper thanks to fiddling with the screw punch. Hopefully I'll find time to figure out the stitching this week.

Spent today with my siblings and uncle playing Dungeons & Dragons. Being a Valentine's Baby gives me the prerogative to spoil everyone else's Valentine's Day. No, we had a lot of fun and ate waaay too much junk food. Thankyou to my family for indulging my whims! I had a marvellous day.

Quickies

1. What a lovely day was had at Northside Makers Market! Lots of my Victoriana fabric badges got snapped up but I'll add what's left to my Made It shop some time this week. There's a tonne of photos here. Applications for March 13th's market are now open.

2. I read a wonderful article (The Art of Craftivism) yesterday in The Guardian about London anarchist ceramicist Carrie Reichardt. She's got an Etsy shop full of vintage decorative plates which she's updated with ceramic transfers. Be warned - if you're easily offended these are not the plates for you. Here's one from the tamer end of her range:

3. One of my favourite makes-you-think bloggers Meaghan examines the value of low-volume crafting and the way Etsy pushes crafters to transform their unique crafts into mass production line models. I highly recommend following her - she's had several blogs but Oh Meaghan is her current one.

Image from 100 Cafe Street

4. One more week to get through before life returns to status quo, being me and Jack at home together. Two more afternoon shifts in the CBD, two days in Sydney, one day of Hubby T being at home because he's got 38 days of annual leave at his disposal, one Saturday and one Sunday, being my birthday. Even with the mini-holiday and birthday celebrations I'm still looking forward to next Monday when it'll be Business As Usual once more.

Northside Makers Market Saturday 6th February

I always wait until Finki's posted her day-before-the-market post and copy & paste it into my blog. Lazy!

Check out all the stallholders over at the Northside blog.

Once again there will be free balloons, and craft table activities for the kids, as well as badge making, a sausage sizzle and a face painter from 10:30 - 2:30.

Northside Makers Market

Saturday 6th Feb
9.30am - 2.30 pm
251 High St, Northcote

Official Badge of the Victoriana Society of Victoria

I haven't had much - any - time for new stuff for tomorrow's Northside Makers Market, but I had to use a sheet of printable fabric for a custom cushion order and at $5 a sheet I can't let any part of it go to waste. Hence I have produced Victoriana fabric badges, lovingly mounted on fabric-covered business cards.

There are badges for Victorian-themed crafternoons...


...Badges for Victorian-era dress-ups...


...And badges for solving Victorian mysteries.

(If you were wearing one of these I'd be your Watson any day.)

Really, can you go on without one of these?

See you at Northside Makers Market! This time we absolutely 100% promise a sausage sizzle.