Not So Secret Santa

Last Saturday the BrisStyle girls swapped Christmas Presents. We knew a little bit about 'our person', favourite colours, fave animals and those sorts of details.

I drew Margie from Marlier Designs. Her favourite colours were pink, turquoise and aqua. Her favourite animal was a butterfly.

This has been stitched on silk with my hand dyed silk threads, stitching is totally lots of tiny backstitch. It's something I've wanted to try for ages. I decided that these sorts of online swaps will give me an excuse to experiment. I was really happy with the finished effect of the stitching. It was good fun.

BrisStyle Get - Together

The BrisStyle girls got together this morning over coffee and cake. Our primary mission was to draw the winners of our 1st ever BrisStyle Blog Giveaway.












Bec (that's her standing) had the huge task of pulling all the names off the blog.









And the first winner was....









And the lucky last was...... Visit BrisStyle to see if you won.


















There was one other reason for our meet-up. We had our Not- So- Secret Santa. I received this beautiful pouch from Ali from Jellygnite



















Inside was this cute handmade, fabric covered notebook. I'm not sure if the pic shows it, but Ali has embellished some of the flowers by hand. Lovely!







I'll show some pics of what I made to give to Margie when I have doublechecked the url of her store.

Blog Giveaway

The BrisStyle members are getting into the Christmas spirit early. To win one of their fabulous gift packs all you have to is visit their blog and answer a simple question.

This gift packs include a selection of bags, jewellery, homewares and artwork. Enter now!

A Funny to Start your Day

Ros and Terry left this joke on the front counter. I'm guessing it came from the Sunday papers. If anyone knows for sure I'm happy to give credit where its due. In the meantime....

What more can I say?

New Etsy Listing

Justed added another Dyed then Hand Printed Fat Quarter to my etsy store







Looks like shibori.

Lots more views posted with listing

New Fabric in Etsy

I've just listed this new fat quarter to my Etsy store.










Its been Hand Dyed Fire Engine Red.

Then Hand Printed in Black Thickened Dye.





The Gold was applied using Painstiks, I used the Print Block as a Rubbing Plate.

More shop photos

Alan has been playing around with our old digital camera lately. He prefers the old one. Think Box Brownie of digitals. He's trying to work out all things he can do in Photoshop. When he can get near the computer.

Here are a few he took of the shop.

Its actually nice to see it through somebody else's eyes. Of course I've rearraanged everything now.

The Crafers' Way 63- Blogs for Everyone

I write a weekly Craft Column for a local paper. I share it here for bloggers or you can view online at www.northlakesmessenger.com.au


I could easily spend my entire day on the computer trying to keep up with all the latest craft stuff but I would never get any work done. I can justify the occasional hour or two browsing through blogs, all in the name of research. Here are a few of my latest finds.

http://brisstyle.blogspot.com/ this site is local. Brisstyle is a cooperative group of artists, crafters and artisans all living in Brisbane, who sell their wares on Etsy. This site will keep you up to date with all the artists’ latest products and news. Keep an eye open for their planned Christmas Market. If you like to support local talent this is a site for you.

http://scrapmatters.com/wordpress this site will link you with a heap more scrap booking blogs. There are quite a few ‘non related’ advertisements on the mother site. I find these a bit annoying especially if I’m on the home computer and they are chewing up my limited downloads. Once I moved onto the linked sites they appeared to diminish. Most of the sites I looked at had tutorials on traditional and digital scrap booking.

http://thriftycollageartist.blogspot.com/ this site is very user friendly. The author is a Mixed Media and Art Journal Artist. You will find quite a few tutorials and a daily freebie. At a quick glance the tutorials were easy to follow.

http://1ststeptosewingsuccess.blogspot.com/ the web address is correct, be careful to type in the right ‘s’. The author is a retired sewing instructor who states that her blog is to encourage sewing using common sense. Gotta love that. I enjoyed this site and saved it as favourite. I might need it.




www.yarntomato.com/crochetblogs this is a web ring of blogs that concentrate on crocheting. The linked blogs cover the whole gamut, from traditional through to the new wave of crocheting. If you enjoy crocheting pop over to have a look. I’m sure you will find some inspiration.

Photo courtesy of Lilly Cottage – Old Petrie Town.

Etsy - New

I got my act together and listed the Jeans on Etsy. The jeans, images and postage sheets were all in the same place at the same time.


The first pair were ECO DYED first. When i saw the way the colours swirled around I immediately thought my frog stamp would be perfect. I had cut it ages ago but hadn't used it.















I thickened the dye and started printing. The frogs appear on one leg only. They seemed a little 'flat'. When the print was dry I used an almost dry brush to add some gold fabric paint. When that was dry I brushed on a little more of the thickened dye. This method gives the frogs a bit more depth without sparkle.

The second pair were dyed specifically with the vine print in mind.





They were ECO DYED first then printed with thickened dye. For this pair I wanted a little more oomph, so the silver fabric paint is more obvious than on the frogs.




The Handprinted Jeans are so much fun to make.

Online Classes

I have started doing some online classes. Currently I have listed classes on Hand Dyeing and Hand Printing Fabric, a couple of Cross Stitch Charts and two of my Stitchery Designs. You can find them at CraftEd Online or click on the box in my sidebar.

These are more convenient much less expensive way to learn a new skill or craft.

I'll let you know as I add more.

Also keep an eye out for some new listings in my Etsy store. I had planned to list them next but just remebered that the images of the items are on the computer at the shop. Guess it will have to wait until tomorow.

Etsy - Brisstyle

I've just added the Brisstyle link to my creative people sidebar. These girls are all have Etsy stores and are all from Brisbane, Qld Australia.

When you've finished here pop over and have a peep.

Handmade Expo

The first Handmade Expo at Ipswich yesterday was a wonderful success. The organisers did a brilliant job. There were 87 stalls with over 2000 people visiting during the day.

Didn't get a chance to take any photos as I was busy all day. These photos were tken during my practice set up.

These are my new variegated stranded cotton threads. I think they look like a box of Japanese sweets.

And these are my new medley packs. I'm off now to list a couple on Etsy.

New to Etsy

I've been busy get ready for the Handmade Expo at the Ipswich showgrounds tomorrow and I have only managed to list one new item in the Etsy shop.

These are new. Variegated Stranded Cotton Threads. Each skein is 16 m long.

I have other colours so keep watching.

Repurposed & Hand Dyed

Here's a sneak peak of some cushions I've been creating. I'll get some listed in Etsy early next week.

This is one made from my hand printed fabric. It will eventually have a matching footstool.

These next three have been repurposed from some vintage tablecloths. I left my mother with 2. One on and one in the wash. How many tablecloths does she need.

Now I just need to plan a visit to my 6 Aunts, the inlaws ......

New stuff

Boy! what a week!

I've been busy trying to keep up with Etsy. I've listed a few more items but really they are just replacing ones that have sold.

I've also been trying to do all the stuff that one needs to do when you join a team. Intially it seems quite time consuming but I always try to focus on the big picture and I know that it will all be worth it.

In amongst all of that I actually did some dyeing today. This is a photo of some threads both variegated and (I don't want to use the word plain) normal. They are actually a bit messy. I needed to take them off the paper towel ( checks for colourfastness) as they weren't drying and hang them up. hopefully they will dry overnight.

It doesn't matter how many times I do this I still get a buzz out of the colours.

And I'm always still amazed at how the dye colour works across different threads. The bottom thread is rayon, the top a silk.

Gotta go. Alan is cooking tonight and just came and gave me the 5 min warning.