hummingbirds

A friend/colleague of mine recently launched Stick Meon - a range of very cute removable vinyl decals. I'm not supposed to post about it till she updates her website with funky new product photography (some of which is courtesy of Auntie Cookie's pretty house) but I couldn't resist after putting up a little freebie she gave me:


Hummingbirds decals by Stick Meon



It's times like these I really wish I had a 'proper' camera. These shots could look sooooo much better.

front door

Another house themed drawing. This is how I picture the front door of my dream home looking:



I'm not such a big fan of this drawing because the colouring in is a little cartooney... but ahh well - give me that front door, those window boxes and that grey kitty any time :)

little village

Mmmm, I love long weekends. Especially when I have time to do some drawings. I haven't drawn in ages, and at the moment all I seem to be able to do is draw houses and bits of houses. I am a bit obsessed.


Sia's Little Village

I named this one for a lovely someone who likes anything with houses on it :)

It's not intended to be fabric, I just love that texture in the background of basically anything :)

bits & pieces

not much to blog about this week... my hunt for the perfect base cloth has been a series of ups and downs, but I got a phone call yesterday with much potential... so I'm excited. More on that soon.

Meanwhile some cool stuff to look at:

- Imelda has found an awesome Japanese fabric/homewares/zakka shop called Cocca. Check it out.

- Bianca has just released some cute notepads and stationery sets that you can buy here.

- And last but not least, Danielle from Of Paper & Thread has joined our 'yardage mafia' and has just released her first batch of hand screen printed yardage - yay :)

A token photo:

My more-colourful-than-usual desk. With Salsa the cutie keeping guard.

P.S. - Lots of Bulokku fabric is still available in the shop!

Couldn't resist...

I know it's borderline narcissistic of me, but I couldn't resist purchasing this gorgeous Peg Bear Salsa from Jhoanna of One Red Robin. It is just tooooo cute!! He will sit in my office and keep me company. I hope she makes some more of these cuties!!


Peg Bear by One Red Robin

Hey come to think of it, he makes a great form of advertising for my next shop update! I have a couple of rolls of bulokku in robins egg and burnt orange that I've been meaning to put up for ages now. I just wanted to get the new shop 'broken in' first. So the next update will be this Thursday at 9:00am Melbourne time!

Thanks to everyone who bought some of the fabric mix packs and also gave me some critical feedback on the new shop. I've now included a 'sold items' section like on etsy so people can see what they've missed. Any other suggestions - keep them coming!

xo

Good mail day

Often I find myself compulsively checking the mailbox 2 or 3 times a day. Even when I know it's too early for the postie to have come, or impossible for him to have come between then and the last time I checked.

But today when I got back home (after putting in my first ever pair of contact lenses - OMG so good!) I was finally rewarded with some much anticipated exciting mail:


These gorgeous prints from the yumi yumi etsy shop. Much much better in person - I need a better camera!!


Some much awaited swatches from www.pickhemp.com. Piles and piles of beautiful hemp/linen/organic cotton based fabric swatches. And decent prices too! Only problem is that the shipping costs might really blow the price out. Just waiting to hear back on that now. Fingers crossed!!

new homes

Firstly I just want to say a quick thank you to everyone for their lovely comments about house hunting. I feel heaps better about it today and we're back on the prowl. Meanwhile I'm having a great time focussing on my new internet patch o dirt: the new shop! Which I can now reveal the ever so secret location of:

www.laracameron.com/shop

I bet that wasn't too hard to figure out. I fact one clever chicken already did, and has signed herself up for a customer account already. So get in quick before she buys up the whole lot! hehe.

New shop & fabric mix packs ahoy!

Tomorrow morning is the launch of my new shop! I've done a bunch of testing, tried to break it in every which way, and so far so good! The main thing I was concerned about was two people trying to order the same thing simultaneously, like what used to happen on Etsy. And sure enough, the shop software would actually let two people check out the same single item at the same time! Gawd that was a recipe for disaster, so I've changed the code to fix that.



Anyway it'll be just a small launch tomorrow with a bunch of fabric mix packs. The shop will open at 9:00am and I will do a post here to tell you the URL :)

emotional rollercoaster

I'm feeling really bummed. I just found out we missed out on the place we liked. Only one party put in an offer higher than ours. I didn't realise how much I'd pinned my hopes on it till now that I'm feeling really really crappy. It didn't feel like this the last time we missed out on a place because we knew it really wasn't right - that time we felt relief.

I should look on the bright side - that we're actually in a position to be looking. But I just want that home, a place I can do things to, paint, change light fittings, nail things to walls. And floorboards. How much I desperately want a space with floorboards.

Okay, time to go gather some perspective. This zeitgeist movie/documentary is good for that. You definitely must watch it (trust me, once you get past the intro it gets very good - in fact you really need to watch the whole thing to get their point).

movin' shop

I've been a bit quiet on the blog front this week. First week post holidays has found me right back into the swing of things, and feeling guilty about a lot of unreplied emails. Sorry to anyone who is waiting for me to get back to you - I will do so soon!!

During work hours I've been doing some contract work for another studio (which I rarely do these days), but outside of work hours I've been doin' some other exciting things, one of which is building myself a new online shop!

Yes, Etsy - you have been a good friend to me ... I wouldn't have been able to do any of it without you ... but frankly I'm sending you way too much money each month, and your friend PayPal too, who charges me whatever they like to convert from USD to AUD. No more! I'm, going to love having full control over the design of my shop, not having to pay any fees, and best of all be able to list in AUD.

The other exciting thing that's been going on is more house hunting! We found another place we like and put in our offer (it was a silent auction type thing) on Saturday. We find out on Monday. I just have a feeling we might get it, because when i said to the agent "we'd be happy to let it go if it went for more than that" she replied (possibly off guard) "oh the vendor would be ecstatic if it went for more than that!" Okay time to stop thinking about it and exercise detachment...

On a non money related topic, here's a token photo to go with this post:


Some embroidery hoop fabric swatches I put up on my wall a few months ago. Yay for 3M hooks!

purse v 2.0

Despite the fiddliness of attaching the frame last time, I really enjoyed making the Japanese kit purse so decided to make another with some of my own fabric:



Thanks to the lovely commenter Michaela who directed me to this tute, I discovered that you can also attach purse frames with fabric glue. Which sounds messy and disastrous, but really turned out to be quite easy. Especially with aid of UHU all purpose adhesive, which is jelly like and quite forgiving in the early stages (eg you can shift the fabric around and wipe the glue off easily before it sets).



If I can get my hands on some good purse frames here (I bought the one above in Nagoya and it's much slimmer than any I've found online), maybe I'll put together some kits. With fabric, interlining, purse frame, pattern and instructions... what do you think?

little book & linen

Check out this gorgeous little book that Pete's mum made for me for Christmas. It reminds me of something straight out of a Japanese craft book - that sort of sweet, neutral & natural aesthetic that they've got going on lately:



The little thumbnails don't do it justice, so click to see a larger version and all the little handmade pieces inside (including "pilot Pete" as a little bub, hehe).

Kind of reminds me of this gorgeous Japanese linen site.

Speaking of, it looks like I'm back on the hunt to find another good supplier of linen/cotton linen. I love the linen I've been printing on recently, but my supplier has run out of the lighter, cream coloured one (used for Bulokku). It's really hard to find decent, natural looking linen. I want something with a nice slub in it and natural colouring... rather than all even, mass-produced looking and bleached/dyed. Hmm....

Hello 2008

Hello 2008. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have in store for me this year. I've been doing a lot of thinking and I reckon I'm definitely going to keep growing the textile production side of my business. Get into production of homewares etc and see how it goes. I've found someone who can possibly do sewing for me, and that is very, very exciting :)

It feels like forever though that I've had time to sit down and actually create some new designs. The last few days have been quiet, so I've had a chance to play around with some of the ideas that have been stuck in my head. I'm not 100% on all of them yet, but it was fun to sit down and play again:








UPDATE: just replaced this last pattern with the above - much better :)

little japanese purse

Nothing beats the challenge of trying to decipher crazy sewing instructions that are completely in Japanese. Luckily there were lots of diagrams included in this kit, which I bought from a craft shop in Nagoya (Leslie might be able to get you one):


It was an interesting learning experience It looks pretty similar to the picture, but I didn't take in enough of the side seams so the mouth is actually too wide for the closure. It does funny things on the side when you try to close it.


I'd also never tried this sort of embroidery before, but it wasn't too hard. Happy with how the birdy turned out.


Oh my god have many of you tried fitting one of these little purse closures? They are sooooooooo hard and frustrating to work with!! I dented mine quite a bit trying to press the metal closed around the fabric. The kit came with some thin rope that you stitch along the top edge of the fabric before fitting. It helped, but it was still veeery fiddly. Any tips?

2008 eve

Today we're gearing up for a 42 degree (107.6f) New Years Eve. I'm having my usual NYE dilemma where Pete and I have both been invited to different things, but really all I want to do is watch the fireworks. I've never seen the fireworks up close on NYE, and for once I'd like to.

We've had a pretty quiet holiday break so far. lots of playing scrabble and watching DVD's to escape the heat.


Pete randomly grabbed a handful of 4 E's from the bag - too funny not to take a photo.

I've been doing a heap of thinking about my business and where I'd like it to go from here. Thinking of new designs, products etc etc. One of the most inspiring blogs I have been reading lately is the Bookhou blog, of Toronto based Arounna and John. They make such gorgous stuff:


Bookhou design - see more of their work here.

I'd love to be making products/textiles with a similar feel to this. Which reminds me, check out this awesome studio tour with Lotta Jansdotter! (thanks to Make It for the link). Oh my god Lotta is such a sweetie! I was hoping she'd be a lovely, down to earth person just like this :)

farewell 2007

It's funny when you look back on the year that's passed and it simultaneously feels like time has flown by but that a gazillion things have happened. I just looked back at my blog archives and found this post from just March this year when I tentatively put my first batch of fabric up for sale and bit my nails hoping it would sell.

It feels like that was years ago, not just 9 months. Again I just want to send out a huuuge thank you to all those who have supported me in this venture throughout the year. All your comments have really helped to boost my confidence and have given me a general feelgoodedness that has permeated the rest of my life :)

It's also been great to meet sooo many lovely people this year. On Saturday Bianca, Marcel and I had a great time catching up with Leah from Hyena in Petticoats who was in Melbourne for a bit - we did some Brunswick Street shopping despite the horrible weather. We also popped by the Rose Street market and bumped into Justine who had made these awesome bags and cushions from my fabric (and some gorgeous Japanese fabric):







I was a bit like a giggling schoolgirl looking at them whilst Bianca snapped these pics :)

Anyway better run. Hope you all have a happy and safe Christmas and I'll see you in the new year!! xoxox

An amazing feeling of relief

You know what's a good feeling? Deciding NOT to buy a particular property. The last week has been sooo stressful with to-ing and fro-ing about a place that we really liked, going through the insanely stressful negotiation & organising process... putting everything else in life on hold basically. Thinking "is it worth what they're asking?? should we go higher?? this place IS a bit unconventional, is it really a good investment??". And then bring in Pete's dad, who has a look through and tells us there's structural problems, a leaking roof and a poor reno job done. And now just feelings of relief. We can just let it go.

You would have loved this place though. Converted commercial property with a funky rough exterior, huge living area, high ceilings, commercial kitchen, so many quirks. Perfect home office, so much space to splash my fabric around. But oh well. Some things are just too good to be true sometimes.

No wonder they wanted us to sign without a building inspection being done. Lesson learnt.

Okay so what's going on outside of my own head - oh that's right, Christmas!!! Time to go enjoy it :)

More press - Print & Pattern!!

Thanks so much to Bowie Style for featuring my moo xmas designs on the Print & Pattern blog yesterday, whoo!!



So much other stuff to blog about but so little time. And other very exciting/scary things are in development but I can't talk about them until they go through... hopefully soon!

Hope everyone is having fun preparing for the xmas break and aren't too stressed :)

xo

The local rag

This is a little bit belated, but I got into the local paper last week!


And there are four photos. Four!

All thanks to my friend Nishanthi who writes for them - thanks Shanny :)

Likes and dislikes

Well, I'm back from the rooftop market. The market itself was pretty good, with it's astro turf and market umbrellas and awesome views. Anna Laura was there and we had a nice chat, and there was some new stuff that I hadn't seen anywhere else before.

But what I didn't like were the scores of uber-cool hipster kids loitering around the bar making me feel intimidated, and the snobby bar man who was really condescending when I asked if I could get a granita that I could take away with me: "uh no... that would be illeeegal". I didn't realise it was alcoholic.

But what I do like, are these very very cute baby shoes by Evie Lala!




Such nice product photography too! You can snap them up here.

Everything on that site is gorgeous though and I love the site design :)

Meant to be

I love these Alex drawers from Ikea. Just like a mini plan chest but on castors (how rad do they look here!!). When I bought them I'd already measured the space and was pretty sure they wouldn't fit. But I really wanted them and Shannon was there with her she'll be roight attitude so I got them anyway.

And lookie lookie just how perfectly we managed to squeeze them into the space:


(I know, my studio is SOO not as sexy as you thought, right?)

It required some of Pete's tetris logic to figure out how to get them behind that bit of doorframe, but we got there in the end.

I'm really not in the mood to work today... but there's a rooftop market on in the city right now so I might run down and check it out!

Postal Service, you are letting me down

I'm not one hour back from my trip and I'm already stressed and upset. I come back to an inbox chock full of emails, and find that a few of them are about fabric orders that have gone missing in the post. Now don't get me wrong, 99% of the time packages arrive safe and sound (so don't start worrying), but to receive 3 emails at the same time about missing parcels was just too much for me to hear.

What I'd really like to know is, what is the correct etiquette when it comes to missing orders? What do shops usually do? I always resend the fabric if I have it (or another as a substitute) with no questions asked, but I'd love to hear what other people do. I hate the idea of an unhappy customer, so I'll do anything to make sure they're happy ... even if it means having to take responsibility for a crappy postal service or some nasty person who steals parcels out of mail boxes. Some shops put a "no responsibility taken..." disclaimer on my site but that just seems so cold and unfriendly and in the end doesn't make for a happy customer! Thoughts?

[update] Well, I feel better about the whole thing now - after talking to a few people and also reading the comments. All basically reinforcing what I already know is the right thing to do, which is to just take these losses as they come and replace any missing orders. Mum suggested to 'self insure' - which is basically to factor into your costs the possibility of one or two parcels going missing, so that it doesn't hurt too much. And I like that idea. Registered/Insured post in insanely expensive around here and just isn't an option.

Definitely Nap Time

Phew. It's the end of a long and exhausting week. Yes I know, I don't have kids that wake me up at 5:30am but I'm still tiiiiired. I've spent the last four days basically being a packaging girl and postal worker, and I'm so pleased to say that all orders are in the mail. My theory is that if I get to the P.O. before they open and am first in line at the door, then I can feel less guilty about using up one of the service counters for a full 20 minutes even if the line goes out the door, as it frequently does.

Anyway, what else has been going on around here? Ooh I got to meet some of the lovely girls at the recently opened Thread Den, and have already given them a bunch of my stuff - yay.



Thread Den is a retail space for vintage and local designer clothing and accessories, a sewing lounge with machines for hourly hire and lessons, and a hub for emerging designers in general. I think they will do well :)



What else? Oh last night was the Christmas Shopping Spectacular at Mikes which was a heap of fun. Lots of new people to meet, and plenty of white wine to keep me chatty (too chatty?) and give me a nice hangover to nurse today. I can't hold my liquor anymore it seems.

And then there's this awesome bag and lovely post by one of my favorite craftisans - Abby Jane of While She Naps, which I'm mightily chuffed about - Thanks Abby!


Tote bag by Abby Jane

And finally - time for a much needed break! I'm off to Sydney with a girly friend for a few days which should be so nice and relaxing. However I reckon the highlight of the trip will be catching up with Kristen who is going to take me to lots of cool places like Cloth. That should be very inspiring.

On that rambling note, I'm off! Thanks to everyone for your really kind words about the new fabric and for helping to empty my shop (mostly) yet again! I am always blown away by the support :)

oops!

I was sitting at my computer at 7:30 this morning doing shop-related calculations thinking - something's not quite right here. I've sold most of what I put up in my shop yesterday, but I'm only just breaking even with my production costs.

And then I figured it out. I only listed in my shop HALF of what I actually have! For example I entered 10 quantities (5m) instead of 10 metres!

So, to anyone who missed out on something they wanted, there's more in the shop right now! If you've already placed an order and you'd like me to combine shipping - just include a note to the seller and I'll send you a revised invoice (it'll only be $1 less, but hey :) ).

Sorry about that!

fabrics in the shop

The shop is now healthily stocked up with the new Bulokku print and some other old faves:



The Birch Forest has all sold out in a snap though. I really need to do something about that. Birch is printed from the same screen as Riverside Adventures which doesn't sell quite so well, so I think it's time to separate them!

I can either find another design to print alongside it (maybe My Little Town??) or, I can modify the Birch to be full width. I'd probably do this by increasing the scale of the design slightly and adding more branches at the top. But I'm not sure - would that design really work 1.5m tall?? Is a full width Birch fabric even useful to crafters? Would love to hear people's thoughts on the matter...