New tags + Don't forget my Giveaway!

I've been doing some more Christmas tags. They are a bright and cheery red.

I'm finishing them off with the red and white twine I bought from Kikki K a couple of weeks ago. I had these in mind when I bought it.

Don't forget I have my very first giveaway happening over here. These red ones are a bit bigger than the others on the giveaway.

Come over and have a look. Follow for 1 entry, post about it on your blog. Come back and leave a comment about your post for a 2nd entry. Let your followers on Twitter know and/or your friends on FB, come back and let me know for a 3rd entry!

Entries close Sunday 5th December at midnight (Eastern Aust Daylight Savings time). Please make sure you leave your email address so I can contact you when you win.

Sorry to anyone overseas, this giveaway is for Australian followers because Christmas is so close, but I'm planning another giveaway in January for my blog's anniversary.

Have a safe and happy Christmas everyone!

New Design

I really love the colours in this one. It's a fairly simple design but the element of repetition makes it interesting.

Haven't got a name for it yet. Any ideas?

Frankie Magazine 'Spaces' - finally got it

I finally picked up this great mag/book yesterday. Have you bought it yet? It has some really interesting spaces like the illustrators studios in an old pencil factory.

I started reading it on the train this morning.

My Creative Space and Christmas giveaway

It's been a while since I've posted a 'Creative Space' piece. I have been doing a bit, trying out new designs, making things, lots of bits and pieces but nothing really concrete yet. You've seen them regularly when I've done individual posts about what I've been up to.

This Creative Space is a bit special, for me anyway. I made it to 3000 page views on Tuesday. Because of this I thought I'd offer a giveaway of one of my designs. We are fast approaching Christmas, so I've made some Christmas tags. You could use them for your Christmas presents or perhaps to decorate/dress the table.

{Christmas Tag Proof in green and complimentary stripe}

The tags have a complimentary stripe AND because I liked the design so much, I did them in 2 colours, green and blue. The sets include 10 Christmas tags and 10 matching striped tags.

That means you could win yourself 40 tags and you can decide how you want to use them, together like I've displayed them, or as individual cards. I'll even send some extra ties to you, just in case you want to use them as separate tags.

To be in the running and have 3 chances to win:

1. Be or become a Follower of 'designed to a T'.
2. Post about the giveaway on your blog and come back and leave a comment about it.
3. If you Tweet or Facebook, let your followers and friends know then come back again and leave another comment.

I need to get them to you before Christmas, so the giveaway will finish on Sunday 5th December at midnight (Eastern Aust Daylight Savings time). Please make sure you leave your email address so I can contact you when you win.

Good luck everyone and thank you for following and your support in my (almost) 1 year of blogging.

Sorry to anyone overseas, I'll need to keep this giveaway to Australian followers because of the time frame but I'm planning another giveaway in January when I reach my blog's anniversary.

You can see more fantastic Creative Spaces at Kootoyoo here every Thursday.

Enjoy and have a safe and happy Christmas.

New additions to the holiday house

I thought I'd show you some of the changes at the house. There's a few handmade ideas in these pics also, possible products for jane on jane st.

TYPOGRAPHY

Janette from My Sweet Prints got my mind working when I saw her great ideas using typography as her Art. For the spare bedroom's decor, which I suppose is 'technically' influenced by the beach location of the house, I've done a simple 'life is a beach' saying in an Ikea frame, finished with a sketch of a nautilus shell.

The font is scriptina and the shell is a clipart file readily available from the internet. The font, shell and border are in a teal colour.

Thank you Janette.

BTW the shells are from a little gift shop in Port Macquarie, can't remember the name of the place though, sorry. They are sculpted from balsa wood. Very cute and they fit in so well with what I'm trying to achieve in this room. The bedside table is looking a bit crowded at the moment, but this will change when my Bulter's table arrives from Whiteport.

I've always loved text in art and I'm a HUGE fan of vintage advertising and film posters. Art.com have some fabulous vintage artworks/posters. I was a regular user of the site for inspiration and images when I was doing my design study over the last few years.

My favourite is the Alfred Hitchcock 'Vertigo' poster. I saw it recently on a television show I was watching, can't remember what show it was, but as soon as I saw the print, up went the shout, 'That's my print!'.

Another frame I've done is this one, 'Nothing in life is to be feared....It is only to be understood'. A quote from Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie. I think it says a lot just with those few words. 

The quote is complimented with a background character from Zen calligraphy. I chose Zen because of the philosophy behind these beautiful characters....

True creativity is not the product of consciousness but rather the "phenomenon of life itself". True creation must arise from mu-shin, the state of "no-mind," in which thought, emotions, and expectations do not matter.

The Ikea frame had a creamy coloured matt, so I flipped it over to the white side as a temporary measure. When I get a chance this week I'll go to a framing place and track down a red one. I think it is a bit too bland at the moment.

FURNITURE and ARTWORK

The space at the bottom of the stairs is now filled. 

My search took about 18 months, but I finally found another kang table to suit (console table, they call them 'kang' but I'm not sure what it means). 
The Ikea frames and prints are mounted on shelves (another Ikea wonder) and are complimented with some smaller frames that I've filled with shells, seed pods and starfish. The backing for the starfish is just a medium weight sandpaper. Simple but effective. (Sorry, that photo didn't turn out very well, so I haven't posted it.)

I've had the rattan travel bags for about 4 years now, and they've been lonely up until now, sitting on the floor in the corner.

There was some red 'Circles and Squares' Florence Broadhurst wallpaper left over from the wedding pressie I made Kylie C, from My Flying Ducks, so I grabbed a piece of leftover mdf and covered it using some spray glue.

I collect old chinese calligraphy brush sets and have used a set in a red case to add some more red to the corner. Last thing to do when I can find and purchase a ceramic or stone urn, is to use the 'free' bamboo pieces I 'obtained' from a flower arrangement at work about a month ago.

Well, they were only going to through them out!

Christmas Cards - TICK

First cab off the rank - Christmas Cards. DONE

Last week I revealed the Christmas Card design I'd been working on. Well, they're finished.

The design looked much better as a small image, so I've gone with A5 size (folded) on ivory card with a pearl finish.

I just need to find an appropriate phrase for inside, which I'll print on a transparent paper and this will be glued to the fold. I'm finding it hard to come up with something I'm happy with for the greeting.

Somehow 'Merry Christmas' doesn't sit well, especially if you've gone to the effort of making the cards yourself. They need something special.

Any ideas??

Paper Design draft

It's a gradual process getting some designs together.

The problem is, I have so many ideas going on in my head, I never really now which way to go.

This is the one I finished today, 'Filigree'.

 
Another I have been working on but still haven't refined it yet is 'Hummingbird'. I'll show you that one soon, maybe...I'm not entirely happy with it yet. Not sure where it fits in with the themes I'm wanting to do for 'jane on jane st'.

I'm a bit of a sucker for fabric giveaways now...aren't I?

Yep...I've found another one...so if you are interested in Rosalie Quinlan fabrics head over here to Retro Mummy for a giveaway from the 'Sweet Broderie' story. Very pretty!

{Image from here}

A handmade Christmas this year

You have all inspired me so much this year, so Christmas will be a full-on handmade gift giving bonanza.

I've started with this fabric covered notebook for my boss. The fabrics I won over here at 'It's all about the fabric', arrived a little while ago, so I've covered the notebook with one of those pieces.

Michelle over at Paper Tree Design has given me some ideas for gift tags here. I'm using unbleached card and found a fabulous little bird stamp set at Kikki K. I'll do my own little stamp of a Christmas tree for him to sit in, so I can stamp it in a different colour.

Thea at Thea & Sami, my inspiration for all things screen printing, got me back on track with the skills I had years ago when I worked for 2 different screen printing businesses, and the girls at Harvest Textiles are also an inspiration. A big thank you especially to Thea who has been most gracious to anyone who visits her blog.

I printed my 'Grassdragon' print in repeat here on about 2 mtrs of fabric a little while ago, so I'm going to make that into some place mats for someone.

I've even completed my Christmas Card design today. The design will stay as a black print and I'll do it on either silver or gold card. I'm thinking silver. Then that would lend itself to the colour theme for this year. 

I have a different colour theme every year for my wrapping. The last time I did silver about five years ago, I had a regal purple to go with it.

I've been thinking about who 'Follows' and who I 'Follow'

My blog title is 'designed to a T, a blog, a creative blog, a DIY blog, my thoughts...sometimes...in a blog'.

This is one of those 'my thoughts...sometimes...in a blog' post. I don't do many of these, because I know I can ramble on and on (and on and on). So this is probably the longest post so far for me.

I follow about 89 or so blogs and subscribe to about another half a dozen. I try to read something from each of them, but really don't have the time to read everything.

They are all blogs I find interesting for one thing or another. There are a number I read regularly.

19 people follow my blog, that I know of, others might subscribe also. My blogging life started in January this year, so nearly 12 months ago, after I started reading 'My Flying Ducks' by Kylie Challenor, a young lady I know and respect for various reasons. And there is still only 18 followers.

I started a 'Twitter' account a few weeks ago and have 21 followers already. So why has it been easier to get Twitter followers?

This is when I got to thinking. Who follows my blog, or yours for that matter, and how do we make our blogs something other people want to come back to time and again.

Now I'm not a particularly bloggy person yet, because I guess I'm still quite new to it all, but gee I've enjoyed all the comments people have noted on my posts. So to all of you, thank you. But I think I need your help.

I'm not so sure about the 'I'll follow your blog, so come over and follow me' type comments. I've read a few posts on some blogs recently that relate to 'blog etiquitte', so I'm not entirely sure where these types of comments sit with the blogging public. I know I've posted a few comments here and there that haven't been published by the owner, and I've wondered, 'What did I say wrong?'

To me this blogging world, is a world where I can get absorbed in what you are all doing, get new ideas, find out about what's happening, hear about the little ups and downs you have, find out where and when you will be showing your wares and best of all make some new friends.

I didn't know a lot about what I was doing when I first started, and have gradually started filling in the gaps. For example, I have set up my email properly now to answer you when you leave a comment. This is important to me to solidify that connection/friendship with the blog world, and it wasn't until Thea from Thea and Sami 'answered' some of my comments via email, when I realized I needed to do that also.

So that was my first step to improving my blogging life.

Where do I go from here? How do I improve my blog and have it as something others want to read?

Of course I'd like to have more people following, but I really started it as a way to document projects I was doing. I love creating and making things and it was the feedback I was after about those projects and designs I was working on. I wish I could do it all the time, but I have a fairly demanding job, so I'm only on here every now and then. At the moment it's only about once a week, maybe.

Because blogging has helped me renew and highlight my creative side, I'm finding I want more people to know about it and hopefully they might have a go. The blogosphere has opened my eyes to how much there is 'out there in the ether' that is handmade, made with care and love, and how many of you really want to make a change to our throw away culture.

So I thought, maybe I should let you know who I really am and why I'm doing this. I'm a little bit different to a lot of blog owners I follow, in that I had my boys quite young. I was 18 and 22 when I had them, so I'm over that 2 children under 5 scenario.

I'm slowly working my way to moving into that other universe of mine, the one where I don't have to be employed, the one where I can have a life too. I made a change in my work life a bit over 2 years ago, and boy did it make a huge difference. I spent time doing some creative study and tried to find an avenue that fitted me, in the end I realized I'm good at making things.

So 'jane on jane st' came along. It'll be a while before I am ready to launch the 'jane on jane st' store, especially considering I still haven't focused on what it is that I want 'jane on jane st' to be. I have too many ideas and projects I want to do and no time to do them.
So, can you help me? What should I be doing differently to attract more readers? My concern is not following blogging etiquette.

Anyway, I thought for today, I'd give you a few insights into who I am, other than, designed to a T and jane on jane st.

Watching my boys grow up to be thoughtful young men has been a joy. We've had our ups and downs through their teenage years because of the circumstances around their Dad and me breaking up. We can't always see each other, and that's tough for me, but I know they are there if I need them. There were times they could've killed each other, but they are great mates now.

I love reading. I devour books and subscribe to numerous magazines. I recently finished (very quickly) the 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' series by Stieg Larsson. If you haven't read them, you should!!

Might come as a surprise to those of you who have read my blog before...I love Japan. I love the art, the culture, the history, anime and so much more. When the boys and I were in Kyoto we went to the Anime Museum.

I love driving, cars and self drive holidays. Every second weekend (well mostly - sometimes it's only once a month) I drive to the family holiday house at Pacific Palms at the mid north coast of NSW. It's so restful, and it's where I do a lot of my creating.

 I always have and always will believe you can never have enough cushions!

My business card reads, 'designed to a T...colour you can live with'. This is something I truly believe also.

So the last little thing about me for this post, because there is a heck of a lot more, is...I dream of one day having a studio similar to this.

Something open, airy, filled with light and with heaps of room. A hideaway just for me.

Maeve Issue 3 is out now!

Issue 3 is now out....but...the lovely girls at Maeve are having to pass the baton on to someone else to keep it going!!!!

Here's a little excerpt from the email subscribers received....

Anyone interested in providing a nurturing home for her is welcome to submit a tender for her purchase... BIG or small .. all offers welcome. She needs a home and needs it now ! .. in order for the new owner to get a move on with issue 4 !

I do hope someone will love and cherish her. It would be such a shame to have this publication disappear.

My Sweet Prints Giveaway

Thanks to Tina over at Rubies' Place I found My Sweet Prints.

Janette, is a graphic designer and illustrator. She has some fabulous ideas and her prints are just beautiful. 

Her Giveaway is because she has reached 200 followers. Congrats Jeanette! But she's not just offering one of her prints as a prize, she's giving away 2 of your choice from her range.

Head over, have a look and good luck if you enter.

New test print - Art Deco

A design I'm thinking of for an Art Deco range for the new 'jane on jane st' products.

This will probably end up being a paper product, with a few other styles to compliment this one.