Producitvity of late (Finally!)

Hello,

I've been a bit naughty and havent posted anything for more than a week! Makes me feel bad. What makes me feel worse is that I've had this post in my drafts for almost the past month and FINALLY getting around to posting it.

So here it is, my first long awaited productivity update! What have I been up to in the past few weeks? Lots! Lots of making and designing and crafting and sewing. Some stuff for myself and other things in preparation for Parramatta Lanes. Seeing as this is my first Productivity update I'm still figuring out how to write it out I think this will mostly be photos and little blurbs about the photos sort of segment.

Firstly things that I have been making for the Parra Lanes Festival. 

So like I have mentioned in THIS previous post, I will be having a stall at the up and coming Parramatta Lanes Festival! So very excited but also a little freaked as it's my first time selling my things. But I'm sure it will be a good learning experience. Here are some things I have planned for the markets. Your opinions and feedback would be most helpful.

Things that will be for sale include these little hand-bound notebooks.

Also these cute repurposed jars. Sustainability is big these days.

Drafting some possible packaging ideas for the markets.

Designed myself a logo for my 'brand' for the markets. I think it might be too cute but that's fine. just want something to put on a little business/contact cards. Thoughts?

Then some other personal projects.

And of course not studying this semester has given me some time to work on some other side projects for myself and my friends. It's nice to just be able to go and make something cos I can.

Made a batch of tiramisu the other week and packaged it up to give to my boyfriend as a treat for work.

Hand painted watercolour card for a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed 1st birthday. Got into water colour during an Illustration elective I did at uni 2 years ago. Brings me back to my childhood.

Present package: Made coordinating bag, wrap and card for a baby shower.

BUNTING! Some of my friends call me the Bunting Queen. Made about 4.7m of bunting for my friend Ben.

And packaged it up nicely for him. Did I mention I liked packaging?

Also designed, inked and framed this typographic birthday message for my friend Keni

That's all the recent stuff that I could find on my SD card. I thought I might put up some of my intern work on another post before this one gets too long.

If any of you internet people would be kind enough, I'd love some feedback on my stuff. Especially on things for the markets. Do you have any suggestions on what else I can make. ALSO Christmas is approaching and wanted to make somethings for the holiday season, Anyone got suggestions? Most helpful!

I know I am slowly easing my way back to blogging and not quite at the readership as I used to be but hoping to have some reader interaction would be very encouraging for me, so if you could be so kind. Also what are your thoughts on social media for The Jolly Cottage? I am hoping to get a Facebook page happening. Will maybe sort that out this week.

Gee I ask a lot of questions, my apologies. Anyway I hope you enjoyed seeing what I've been up to. Hopefully won't be too long before I post my next Productivity post, then I can show you what I do for work!

Till next time,

Julie

Workspace + ANNOUNCEMENT

A little peek into what I'm up to (kind of) and evidence that I am actually up to stuff despite my lack of posts about it all. Also evidence of all the mess I make when I make stuff (more mess than actual stuff sometimes). My super exciting announcement is at the bottom of this post. :)

my craft desk in my room

this one didn't auto rotate

all packed up on the coffee table, there is more on the other side.

yes, that is Clag

yes, I have a dumb phone which is slowly dying on me

GOLD

So yeah, making mess in my room, the dining table, the family room etc. Hopefully will be worth all the work. These are for a bunch of different projects but mostly for my own personal stuff. I will do a "Crafted" post with finished things later on so stay tuned for that.

ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

So I am very excited to share with you all that I will be having my first market stall at the Parramatta Lanes Festival with the help of the Prospector Store! I will have a stall in the "Suitcase Market" trading under The Jolly Cottage*.

Take a journey through the hidden lanes of Parramatta and discover delicious street foods, pop-up bars, live music and art installations as traditional urban spaces are transformed into playgrounds for the curious (and hungry!).

Over 4 great Spring evenings I'll be out selling my wares to the world!! So come down, come in, come by and say "Hi!" (I'm a rhyming genius). Buy something even! All the locations are still being sorted and yet to be announced but I will be sure to keep you all in the loop.

When: 17 & 18 and 24 & 25 October

Time: 4:30-9:30pm

Explains all the mess I'm making. Not enough mess I think though, lots of work to do still. So I hope to see some of you blog readers there, even if its just to make my stall look popular. Might make a special blog discount password! So be attentive, you won't want to miss it.

For more information just follow this link to the Discover Parramatta event page on thier website.

And check the Prospector Store here and there because it's awesome.

Till next time,
Julie

*thanks Ben for helping out with the name!

DIY must try: Himmeli

So I do a lot of surfing the net and saving images and bookmarking pages and pinning things. So here are some things that I want to try out now, some time in the future (or possibly not get around to doing however unfortunate).

First up.

Himmeli

Himmeli is a Finish tradition where they hang intricate, hand-made, straw mobile over the dining table to promote a good harvest. These traditionally geometric mobiles can look quite modern and geometric and have been recreated by designers for general decorative purposes. Here are some examples below (which I just pulled of Google Images). 

A traditional himmeli made from straw.

A collection of mobiles and ornaments by Melissa of AMradio. You can by her things from her Etsy shop Hrŭskaa.

One of my favourite things by Melissa are her brass himmeli mobiles like these awesome hanging planters.

A himmeli pendant light by designer Paul Loeback.

I stumbled across these beautiful mobiles after watching a tutorial on how to make on the KIN Comminity youtube channel. You can watch the tutorial below.

It looks so easy to do, I just want to make some to decorate my room and to make for Christmas. Bring a little of Scandinavia into my house (I miss Sweden). If any of you internet people try this out let me know and show me!

Till next time,

Julie

Culinary Exploration: Strawberry Shortcake

So, thought I might start a monthly/weekly(?) Cooking thing. Gee I'm great at English.

Anyway, I like to bake and it's something I don't do often. Would also like to cook a bit more too so now I hope to try and get my self in the kitchen as often as possible and post it up online. Take some WIP photos and the end result (because I just like taking photos of food :)

ANYWAY! Last week I decided to bake Strawberry Shortcake, the recipe of which I found on the Sorted Food (these guys are awesome, follow them on Youtube!) website.

I was hoping to make some easy mini quiches but my mum didn't buy the puff pastry I requested the day before so I couldn't. I also couldn't be bothered walking down to the shops to buy some. SO I thought I would bake something else.

Mum just bought two big punnets of strawberries and wanted to use them somehow and decided on this shortbread recipe as it seemed quick and easy.

I didn't have enough butter so I just halved the recipe.

Cute little heart-shaped tin from DAISO! Only $2.80 #winning.

and into the oven

 it took FOREVER to cool down

TA DA!

Yay for fresh strawberries!

Also made a little cupcake sized one with the left over dough and packaged it all up for my boyfriend because I'm awesome.

Also made some choc chip cookies and some brownies for my friends fundraiser. The guys from my Industrial Design course who are graduating this year are trying to raise some money so they can put on their end of year design exhibition and had a stall at my university's open day on Saturday. Unfortunately I totally forgot to take proper photos. This is all I got.

 Hope you enjoyed the post. If there are any recipes you want me to try let me know.

Till next time,

Julie

I'm BACK! ~ update & announcement ~

And here to stay, at least for a while.

Hi blogger and the internet at large!

Haven't been here in a while. How have you been? What have I been up to since my random blog post over new years you ask?! LOTS!

But before I go into all that, I SWEAR, this time I really will keep blogging!! It's taken some time but I am finally living up to my New Years Resolutions.

1. Focusing on my crafts
2. Get back into blogging

So it has been a slow start to say the least. But I am FINALLY here to take my resolutions seriously, also things have started going in that direction with little nudging from me throughout the year.

But right now I actually have time to myself, at home to craft and to BLOG! 

So *drum roll for my announcement* from now on expect me to blog at LEAST once a week! If not more. Internet you have to keep me to this otherwise I might fall through.. and we don't want that.

Not only will this mean I will be back and documenting my work, making sure that I have something new to post up every week but also get's my work out there and hopefully, just maybe, at the end of this crazy adventure I can live off crafting and selling my wares.

I also hope to do a catch up series of all my travels and what I have been up to this year to get the internet back up to scratch of where I'm at. Next post will probably go more into detail of what I am actually up to these days but until then stay tuned!

- Julie

New year and resolutions

Greetings from Vienna!

Anyway, just wanted to quickly say that my new years resolution this year is to get back into my crafts. Only being at uni part time I'm going to craft like crazy, open up an etsy shop and start selling stuff at markets. Just like what I wanted to do when I was in high school.

I dont normally do new years resolutions but this time i really want to take this one seriously. Kind of decided that I want to do craft for the rest of my life. I knwo i do design and as mucha s I like it I want to get back to my roots. Sure i can incorporate my design schooling into it but crafting seems to be the only thing i keep coming back to and now that im in the latter stages of my degree i'm starting to think about what im going to do after. Craft, Its what I do Its in my blood.

As Part of this I want to get back into blogging again. Blogging used to go hand in hand with my craft. I guess its a way for me to keep track and stay organised. Ah this post is getting long.

Also need to post photos up too! wish i have photoshop on my laptop. I think im going to have to upload things unedited. which i guess is good but yeah. SO MANY TO SORT THROUGH.

I'm going to stop here. till next time. :)

- j

I've been on Hiatus

Why do you ask? Because I am in SWEDEN!

Yes I am currently in the home of Ikea abroad on exchange! How exciting right? Anyway I have been terribly busy with uni work (I'm taking masters subjects - why did I think that was a good idea?!) and busy being a tourist and partying hard. All terribly tiring and time consuming.

I will update on what I've been working on all semester when I'm done but in the mean time I thought I might share this awesome video of Phil Cuttance. He make AWESOME organicly geometric (contradictory I know but when you see you will understand) lightshades, vases and even tables as part of his Faceture series. 

Just watch the video.

Till I find the time to make another post.

HEJ DÅ!!

Illustration assignments

one of my finals for this semesters. Will add more details after I finish these 3 other assignments... Kill me now (not really)

- Julie

Painting Gems

As much as I love Industrial Design, it's always fun to go and explore other things. Which is probably why I like to choose a bunch of different things for electives at uni as opposed to using those elective units to sub-major in something.

This semester I am taking Illustration 1 (click for a subject description). Our first assignment has a bit of a live brief in that we have an ACTUAL CLIENT! Whether our work goes to print is up to them. But yes we are illustrating for 2ser. Here are some photos of how that's going.

Need to do some illustrations for this local radio station literally just outside uni.

Workspace 1

Painting scans

Rearrangement on Photoshop

Workspace 2

So as you can see, the concept I'm working from is 'the gems of radio'. Still need to do a lot more painting. Have 2 other iterations of this concept to paint up. Mostly just playing with rendering techniques at the moment. Using ink and watercolour!

All in all I am quite loving this subject. So relieving and relaxing compared to everything else I have to do (which I haven't really posted about but might later). Can't believe I can sit and paint for hours and call it work. SO much fun! :)

Will probably update on how it's going sometime next week. Just over a week left to work on it! Till then!

Ciao!

Food & Photography

Two of my favourite things and they go beautifully together!

So my mum has been baking a lot the past month or so (probably because Better Crocker mixes were on sale). She does the baking and more often than not I am resident cake decorator. And so after each masterpiece (not really) I take photos and post them on facebook to make my friends jealous.

I just felt like collating all the photos and posting them up so I can share them all here.

Enjoy!

(from most recent to oldest)

Leche Flan (creme caramel)

Pavlova

Devil's food cake

Pavlova

Chocolate Fudge cake w/ cream

Mum's birthday pan CAKE

Chocolate cake or some kind w/ sprinkles!

- Julie

NEW URL

Also for those of you who are yet to notice..

My blog has a new URL!

juliesdesignadventures.blogspot.com

I thought it would be a bit more appropriate for the purpose of this blog being a design blog. Hope to be able to show more projects and process on here for a more professional... thing (biggest mind blank)

Anyway have a GREAT Easter everyone! Here is an origami rabbit I prepared earlier :)

- Julie.

Setting up shop

So I don't know if you know but I've been crafting since forever and have always wanted to be able to make and sell my own stuff (and hey presto! I do a design course, go figure).

Anyway I've always made little things out of felt (images below) for friends and family back in high school half because it cost less to make birthday gifts and I could cram it the night before (like my assignments!). I've always been pretty pleased with what I've come up with. In saying that, I've never made anything more than once.

After seeing so many of my friends and people I know go into business for themselves selling their own things over the years I keep asking myself "Why aren't I doing that yet?". And to be honest I have no real excuse. I mean I am quite involved around and my non-uni project list is greater than my study workload (6 external projects vs. 4 uni assignments). Sometimes I wonder if I'm procrastinating this small business venture of my own  by doing all these other things?

I think it's because I've never had anyone actually hold me to account for getting it done. On the one hand its a big time commitment and I'm not even sure it will fall through so I guess I don't bother? All these other projects have immediate response sort of thing, generally because they are for other people. The most annoying thing is that I know I can do it and that I have the potential. People have been telling my that for YEARS but I haven't really lived up to it or at least to what I believe I am capable of. Maybe I should start planning to get back into it?

Anyway I leave you with some of my little felt creations.. If you think I could/should do something with it I would love to hear/see some support. I do have a small break in my semester coming up, might be a good time to start something!

The owls I actually have made twice but as you can see they turned out completely different. 

And then there's all the paper craft I do too! Geez, I wish I could only do one thing sometimes so that that would be all I do and I could just focus on those things.

Eugh, anyway I need to go back to working on this assignment for my Masters application..

Julie.