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!

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!

Holiday catch up

Also some of the stuff I did in the holidays after my last Christmas craft post. Pretty much just Christmas craft and things actually at Christmas (i.e. my cards and Christmas eve baking!)

So I finished painting and colouring my cards and FINALLY cut them all up!

20 self designed, handmade Christmas cards.

Little accident spilling a glass of water!!

The paper started curling!! *GASP* Don't worry I made spare cards.

Handmade envelopes with self designed address plates

I don't have a proper photo because I am silly and didn't think about that till after I posted and I cant be bothered looking for my spares to take a photo right now. So I am just borrowing a photo off my friend Rachel who took this and posted it on online after she got it.

ANWAY MOVING ON TO CHRISTMAS BAKING!

Our playground (my cousin & I)

We decided to make some gingerbread cookies.

YAY!!! Gingerstars :)

I really wanted to make a gingerbread house so I convinced my cousin to leave me some of the dough so I could make a mini one. Also decided to make a gingerbread man out of the leftover dough.

DECORATING! :)

CONSTRUCTION! This was actually really difficult because I couldn't be bothered to make actual icing so i was just using nutella to stick it all together.

YEWWW! Finished house!!

All snow dusted! With mister ginger bread :)
Pretty good for my first ever gingerbread house, no?

AND the back of the house

We arranged and dusted the gingerbread stars too! :)

And to give you a sense of scale... look how tiny it is! It was SO CUTE :)

Anyway, so that was some of my Christmas. Hope you enjoyed!

Julie.

AWOL

Now I know I don't update very much but I am starting to think I really do need to update this blog more especially as I get closer and closer to the end of my degree. Had Shane from http://thedesigndivision.com.au/ as a guest speaker at my ID Directions lecture on Friday. He is a graduate from my course (BD in Industrial Design, UTS) from a couple years back and told us what he's been up to.

I thought it was quite a great talk. Really makes me want to go and peruse my own little design group with a friend that we've been planning mostly just for fun. But one of the things I got out of it that I could start doing now was to build my online presence.

And SO I have decided to come back to this blog! I Hope to post once a week to update on what is going on. What I am doing at uni and anywhere else I happen to be working, designing, creating. I am looking forward to a great year! Not to mention that I am GOING TO SWEDEN ON EXCHANGE! :)

And I will leave you with some of that I have been up to so far this year (not much). Mostly photography, not as much design/creative stuff as I would have liked but better than nothing right?

Tangled installation at Sydney Festival First Night '12

I GOT A NEW FLASH! (belated gift (Christmas) from my parents)

I restrung the fairly lights in my room again 'cos I  was bored.

Painted apples on my nails, also because I was bored.

Made some cookies because lets face it, who doesn't like cookies?

Screen printing some commissioned bunting for O-Day at UTS!

What 44m of handmade bunting looks like. :)

Then uni started again. Some drawing exercises from my illustration class.

Random photo of Sydney from the water on a cruise I crashed.. hehe

My first set of homework for uni (also for my illustration class)

Made some dinosaurs for the guys from Wong Fu Productions (at thier Sydney show!)

And to end with some home made tofu/tapioca thing I made earlier today. Otherwise known as TAHO! Also because I just like taking photos of food.

Hope you (whoever you are) enjoyed this photodump. There should be more to come. Might do a dump of my work from last year. At least the stuff that never made it onto here during the year.

Here's to a great 2012!

Julie.