Beth-Emily & Panelpop

You know when you get a great vibe about someone straight off the bat? Well in the short 15 minutes that I spent chatting to Beth-Emily and Tom in Adelaide at Bowerbird early this year, I knew they were lovely people.

So when they mentioned that they were coming up from Hobart for Design:Made:Trade I barely hesistated before offering them our spare room for a few nights and some delicious home cooked meals :)


Beth-Emily's gorgeous display at Design:Made:Trade

As a thank you for having them stay, Beth gave me one of her prints - one that I had been admiring on their stand. Apart from being spectacularly gorgeous, this was no ordinary print...


'Bird of Sun' Panelpop print by Beth-Emily

It was in fact a Panelpop print. An amazing, wonderful new thing that I had never heard of before.

The surface of a Panelpop is essentially a smooth stone-like substance. It is framed with reclaimed timber and backed with reclaimed polystyerene - materials that have essentially been rescued from landful. Photos or illustrations can be printed onto the surface, and the finished result is amazing.


Hi,
You have saved me from 2000 years of landfill.
As a token of thanks, I will stare diligently at your wall.
Yours sincerely, your Panelpop.

They're funny, too.


Beth's Panelpop print - reverse

I mean how awesome is that!? They even come with a little info booklet pinned on the back which tells you where your materials came from. The timber on my frame is "stringy bark rescued from John's old fence, Camberwell". The polystyrene backing is "saved from the Queen Vic Markets".

Panelpop are based in Fitzroy. Of course, Beth-Emily and Tom being the lovely people they are were more than happy to share how & where the prints had been made. Gotta love the mutual supportiveness of our creative community :)

xx

Design:Made:Trade

Design:Made:Trade. Best thing we ever did. Such a great event. Such great feedback. Everything came together almost perfectly. Interior designers and furniture makers asked for pricelists. This little girl's dream. Definitely a career milestone.

We finished up on the Sunday completely wrecked but on a high after a last minute flurry of sales.

Here's some pics I took of our stall:

The Ink & Spindle stall at Design:Made:Trade

D:M:T - Our little kids corner featuring the Allsorts Quilt Kit, reupholstered stool by Reissued, and Table Lamp by Wilkins & Kent

D:M:T: Our little lounge area featuring mid-century Fler Armchair reupholstered by Reissued

More photos of the show & our fellow stall holders over at the Ink & Spindle blog.

xx!

Reupholstering a little chair

I just blogged about this over at Ink & Spindle but had to share it here too because I'm just so happy with the result... but today Dana and I recovered a small child sized armchair that Sass bought for us from the Mill Markets!

Little armchair - before

Little armchair - after

Reupholstering the little armchair - in progress

It was somewhat disgusting work but sooooo worth it! Cuteness in armchair form! It's also nice to give my Little Forest print some love :)

This little piece will be coming along with us to Design:Made:Trade. Of course ;)

xx Lara.

Flora

I've found another market near my new home - the Boroondara Farmer's Market. And it's awesome.

Native flora from the Boroondara Farmer's Market

I would love to be able to buy all my produce from Farmer's markets or ethical/small scale producers. Just need to be a little more organised.

xx

Progress...

Two things we've done recently that make me very happy.

1) Printing some of our prints onto a canvas weight, so we can reupholster a lovely mid century armchair...


Flowering Gum in Red Orange & Stone on canvas


Flowering Gum in Red Orange & Stone on canvas

2) Sourcing some foot stools from the Camberwell Market, also to be reupholstered in some gorgeous fabrics for display at DMT...


Footstools from Camberwell Market, soon to be much more pretty

It's funny how long I've been wanting to do these things and yet we haven't had the time or finances to do so.Trade shows are good for that ;)

xx

Design:Made:Trade - yay!

Guess what? We're doing our very first trade show! Surely our business is legitimate and successful now that we're doing a trade show.

It's funny how much emphasis I'm putting on Design:Made:Trade as an indicator of Ink & Spindle's legitimacy. One would assume that I'd know that already, but... a trade show! It's the one thing we're yet to tackle, and what better place to do so than the spectacular Royal Exhibition Building.


State of Design Festival Opening Night 2010, photos by Tobias Titz (via The Design Files)

As you can imagine it's been crazy times in the studio again preparing ourselves for this, lots of newness, but that's what keeps us having fun I guess :)

xx

New beginnings

Proteas from Camberwell Market

So... I've completed my transition to the "wrong side of the river". Packed my stuff into boxes, handed in the keys to my flat, and moved into a very cute little single-fronter inhabited by a man-friend who most graciously made room for all my furniture and helped me hang pictures on the walls.

It was probably the smoothest, most stress free move I could have imagined and now that I'm settled in I'm just loving it. My commuting time may have increased to about 1.5hrs a day, but it's so worth it.

Of course another thing that's helped with my transition to the east is having Camberwell Market just down the road. Last Sunday I crawled out of bed at 6:30am, put on a gazillion layers and met up with Sass from Ask Alice just after sunrise. Sass is a Camby Market regular who knows all the stallholders' dogs. We ate hot jam donuts and I bought two vintage footstools for reupholstering and the cutest set of vintage beakers. Now home to 6 succulents!

Vintage beakers from Camby Market + Succulents from Rose St Market!

All in all a good start I reckon.

xx