let the light shine

it was a pretty uneventful week and the weather was kinda miserable here. rainy, windy and cold.
the weather has made it soooo frustrating trying to get decent pics that i finally decided i had to bite the bullet and get some studio lights.

well the finally arrive and turned out to be money very well spent !! i'm still working out how to use them to get the best effect but i'm loving them.

there were some new rainbow toys in the works.

and i managed to get some sewing done, nothing too exciting just more bags to pack my dollies in when they go in the post on their way to their new homes.

my pin cushion (well one of them) was formerly a prototype for a small octopus. since sewing pieces together is my least fav part of making amigurumi i decided having to sew 8 legs to anything would make me cry so these guys never made it into the store.

the old and the new

i've been spending some time working on new designs and playing around with some old ones.



little poppy on the left is the newer version of my foxy gals. funny how leaving off something as simple as the eye circles changes their faces completely.  i'm liking the simpler version so there are a few more in the works.

little alicia can be found here

and little poppy here

and i found a cute little silver bunny so i could resist using him as a prop just for fun :)

carving it up.

after another round of hair pulling and frustration over moo UK cards ** i was trying to work out ways i could get my business cards and swing tags/labels printed and came up with the bright idea of getting stamps made !!

long story short i decided to carve the fronts myself and found an incredible australian company to do the text stamps for the back.

seriously the people over at think it ink it are amazing. i ordered on a thursday morning thinking i'd have it the next week. they had it finished and in the post THE SAME DAY and it arrived bright and early the next morning ready to go !!

all you need to make your own stamps are carving tools -i got mine here and a rubber stamp block -from here  the block was so big i've been able to cut it into several smaller pieces.

a few tips i learned along the way:

• the red tool (pictured above) is weird and i'm never going to work out how to use it properly LOL
• remember you have to draw out the stamp in reverse (backwards) from the way you want it to look when finished.
• sometimes several small cuts are better than one big one
• to check how your stamp is going ink it up and try it out. this makes it easier to find any flaws that need to be carved away.
• for waterproof long lasting inks you'll need to buy solvent or pigment based ink.
• if you use solvent or pigment inks you need special stamp cleaning fluid to clean them.
• ALWAYS keep you fingers out of the way !!! only 1 minor (and very tiny) cut but it was my own stupid fault for moving my finger in front of the tool.

** and yeah i've heard that moo UK lets people know they've changed their printing format so you must have done it wrong but here's the kicker -i used THEIR predesigned cards- not my own designs and i was still getting miserable results.

if you're having problems with moo UK then try out moo US. the printing is great but it's more expensive and a long wait to get them here to Oz.

bulls eye bunny

the weather's been miserable here lately so i've been working on a whole new bunch of rainbow toys to help cheer up these dreary winter days. i'll be adding some bears (pics soon) and some more rainbow rabbits this time in girlier colours.

and i finally got my facebook page up and running here