Magic Jelly

Sneak Peak

Here's a little preview of two new Gocco print designs I'm working on.  Both involve quite a bit of colour & detail, using four screens each, so I'm having lots of fun (make that headaches) working out the colour separations. One of them is going to be a 6.25x9.25" print made on the larger Arts Gocco & the other is a standard 4x6" design. Still a lot of work to do, but I thought you might like to take a li'l look at my progress!

Stay tuned...I'm putting together a Gocco photo tutorial when I make these prints, & will be posting it on my blog.

I've been lucky enough to appear in four Treasury lists on Etsy's front page recently. The latest was curated by the exceptionally talented Sonia Romero, who along with the equally amazing Marissa Lee has started an Etsy Street Team for printmakers called Printsy. So if you're an Etsy seller who makes original prints, or a printmaking appreciator, go take a look! It was so great to make it to the front page of Etsy in such good company - what beautiful prints.

In other news...I'm working on sprucing up my blog, so things will be looking a wee bit different around here quite soon. I'll also be announcing the May Giveaway in a few days. Don't forget, you need to subscribe to my mailing list to be eligible to win!

Oh! Almost forgot! Fellow Etsian & super-duper artist Andy Mathis let me know I've been included in decor8's list of favourite Australian blogs - how nice is that? I'm honoured! It's brought masses of traffic to my blog & lots of new subscribers!

And I'll leave you with quite possibly the greatest video ever to grace the pages of You Tube. It was brought to my attention by my best friend's partner Stevie who found it via Eartha Kitsch on Flickr. How have I ever lived without it? Enjoy! :)

Brimful of Interest, Excitement & Skill

Look at this great board game my friend Mark brought home for me from a secondhand market a few weeks ago. You're all invited to come around to my place on a rainy Sunday afternoon & we can sit on the floor & play Fairyland & have fizzy grape juice & ginger cookies. Hooray!

Well it was just a matter of time I suppose...it looks like I've been tagged by the well-preserved & fabulously talented benconservato & illustrator extraordinaire Racheal Anilyse. I won't tag another 7 unsuspecting bloggers, but here are my 7 random or weird facts about myself:

1. When we were kids, my sister Jo & I used to have a cardboard box with a human skeleton, a scary black wig, & a bunch of spiders (that escaped from our bugcatcher) in it.
2. Jo & I used to play a game we called The Chocolate Nun. I'm not sure there were proper rules, but it involved hand signals somehow...& I think one of us wore a cape.
3. As a child, I was obsessed with the trappings of bureaucracy & made my own stamps & forms. I glued homemade library cards in the backs of all my books.
4. Ironically, this obsession was later quelled by 12 witheringly boring years spent working for the Tax Department.
5. My family nickname is Weanie Beans & has many, equally embarrassing, variations - Beanie, Beans, Queenie, Queena, Kreenie, Reenie...& my Mum's personal favourite...Beans On Toast.
6. I'm a neurotic perfectionist. People deliberately move my fridge magnets a fraction of an inch, just to torture me.
7. I have slept through the room adjoining my bedroom being ransacked by a crazed burglar, & a speeding car careening through my neighbour's living room wall (the resulting evacuation attempt by the Fire Department, due to a gas leak, didn't stir me either).
   

So there you are! 7 things you didn't really want/need to know about Magic Jelly! Jot them down...if I ever become famous, they may crop up in Trivial Pursuit.

In other news...Dick & Dora have featured me in their blog...thank you! They also have an Etsy shop & make fab jewellery! And Fric de mentol included one of my Benediction collages in an Etsy Treasury list that made it to the front page. Hooray! Thanks Julian for getting a screenshot for me (a bouquet of parsnips is forthcoming) - it appeared in the middle of the night here in the Southern Hemisphere, so I would have missed it. Fellow Etsy sellers Anna Laura, Sherry Truitt & Salmon Street Studio also kindly let me know about it - thank you! It's so nice to see such a great collection of artists make the front page - it was an honour to be among them!

Finally, thanks again to everyone who took part in my giveaway - the winners' prizes are all in the post & on the way to their letterboxes.

Toodle-loo for now!

And the Winner Is...

Hooray! Time to announce the winners of my Super-Duper Mega April Giveaway!

I've drawn the names from my Mailing List for the 4 prizes, but 1 of the people hasn't replied - eek! Shows how important it is to keep your mailing list info up to date! I'm going to draw another person's name if they don't respond in the next 2 days, so stay tuned...

The winners (so far) are...

Lili Wilkinson (goodie pack)
Cosy Up (Snap! print)
Jen Vecc (goodie pack)

As for the bunny Haiku...wow it was hard to pick a winner - they were all so great! Drumroll please...the winner of the Jack Rabbit print is...

Ashley aka Le Petit Monstre with her poem...

Jack Rabbit stares off
sees much to both love and fear.
It's a jungle out there.

I thought it was really touching in its simplicity - I particularly love the line "sees much to both love and fear" - beautiful work Ashley! Congratulations! Not only a talented artist, but a poet & bunny lover too!

As I said, it was really hard picking just one. I wanted to give a few more an honourable mention...

The lovely Anna Laura for her ode to vegetarianism...

chicken, pork, beef, fish
who eats rabbits anyway?
they look better alive!

Goodfeets with a lovely little springtime revery...

green spring leaves unfold
lying in the grass, she sighs
a rabbit is born

And he also linked to his favourite bunny song... I don't know where he found the time or energy to write bunny poems since I just read in his blog he recently made 24 collages in 2 days!!

And finally, Treet submitted this enigmatic little number...

Quietly I sit
Part of all the universe
You call me bunny

I'd like to send those 3 entrants a little something too, while I'm in a prize-giving mood.

Wow that was fun! I think I'm going to have to hold another contest soon... Thanks for your entries! :)

My Favourite Circus Fonts

I collect fonts of the Circus/Sideshow/Carnival/Wild West ilk. I tirelessly trawl the depths of the internet to find them.

Here are 12 of my favourites, & I've spared you the trouble of searching for them...

• Big Top
• De Louisville
• J F Ferrule
• URWWood Typ D
• Cast Iron
• Circus
• Pointedly Mad
• Armenian Circus
• Hoedown
• Romantiques
• Coney Island
• Abilene FLF

Eine Kleine 90s Musik

The 90s weren't so great...I'm happier now.

The music was pretty good though. There's so much I would have liked to include but couldn't find...The Auteurs...Denim...Momus...Durutti Column...Underground Lovers...

Oh well, this will have to do for now!  :)

Super-Duper Mega April Giveaway!

I have been so totally remiss when it comes to my "monthly" giveaways...I think I've only had one since I started my blog last October! Today I'm making good on my promise & launching a Super-Duper Mega Giveaway with not one...not two...but FIVE different prizes to make up for the months I've missed. And I promise to keep up with my monthly giveaways in future!

Here is the little swag of prizes I have to giveaway...

Prizes 1 & 2 are packs of Magic Jelly goodies (value approx. $20 each)...they each contain the following...

• Sunday Morning 3.5" cork-backed drink coaster
• pack of 5 1.25" button badges (assorted Magic Jelly designs)
• pack of 5 Jelly tags
• a little bag of vintage plastic trinkets & ephemera

Prize No. 3 is a 5x7" print on canvas panel called Snap!
& a pack of 5 Jelly tags ( value $18). Prize No. 4 is one of my Fox & Flowers limited edition Gocco prints & a pack of 5 Jelly tags(value $15).

To win one of these, all you need to do is subscribe to my mailing list - that's where I'll draw the names of the winners. If you'd like to leave a comment or email me with your preferred prize, I'll keep that in mind if I happen to draw your name. Easy!

The 5th prize is an extra special one...an original Mixed Media piece called (rather unimaginatively) Jack Rabbit. It's an ink drawing on tea-stained Hahnemuhle paper, on a collaged background, mounted to brown kraft card (sheet size 6x6"). This is an original - not a reproduction - & is worth $85 (the winner gets a pack of Jelly tags too).

Picking a winner of this one is a little bit different...rather than just drawing a name out of a hat, I'd like you to write a Haiku about a bunny. Either post your little poem in the comments or email it to me & I'll pick my favourite!

I'm announcing the winners in a week's time, so you have until Wednesday the 9th of April to sign up to my mailing list & submit your Haiku if you want a chance to win the bunny! :)

Majaba
For all you Etsy people out there, Juln's site Majaba - where you can easily view your shop & item hearts, & check out your views - has just been updated , so keeping track of your views is faster, easier & more reliable than ever. Julian has tweaked the View Counter so you can now check all of your pages, no matter how many listings in your shop, & he's working on further enhancements & features to be announced soon! He's also offering advertising space for Etsy sellers now - Majaba receives about 12-15,000 hits a day at the moment, & it's increasing daily! So if you're interested in advertising, take a look here.

In other news, I'm collaborating with Julian on some very exciting top secret projects...so stay tuned for more about that later!

Just Finished!

Pan Drives a Volvo

Ink & Pencil drawing & Collage. 6x6"

He's looking a little sad or wistful... I really love the mellow colours of the vintage paper strips.

Poetry Appreciation Day

I hereby declare Friday the 28th of March to be Poetry Appreciation Day in my cozy little corner of the blogosphere!

Here's one of my favourites...Bluebird by Charles Bukowski...what's one of yours?

Autumn Makes Me Dream of Road Trips

Magic Jelly in the Press!

Magic Jelly has made a few media appearances lately, so I thought I'd tell you all about it!

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by The Sunday Age, who featured my Li'l Mary drink coaster as their weekly Object of Desire. I was so excited & bought a whole stack of copies for my friends & family - yay! Later that day, my friend Mark slammed my fingers in the car door. Anti-yay.

Thanks to Made It, my drink coasters also made an appearance in last week's edition of Central Magazine in Sydney (thank you to Bec from Made It for emailing me the pics!).

Aaaaand...my coasters are featured in the April edition of Home Beautiful, which is very exciting indeedy!

If that's not thrilling enough, one of my fellow Aus Etsy sellers, the fantastically talented artist Anna Laura, contacted me on Tuesday to let me know the lovely Jodie of Meringue (maker of the most fabulous wristlets) had spied my coasters on Channel 7's Morning Show as she was rushing out the door. Luckily, Melbourne's half an hour ahead of us, so I had about 5 minutes to spare just in time to tape it. If it wasn't for Jodie & Anna Laura I would never have known about it - thanks girls!

Unfortunately, there's no video clip available to show you, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I have a couple of weird, fuzzy screenshots.

End of Summer Already?!

Yep, one more week & we're into autumn...it feels like only yesterday that I was "celebrating" the New Year with a poorly-timed bout of the flu (is there a good time to get the flu?)

Anyway, I thought I'd better dust off my blog & post something. Do you like my cigar boxes? I picked them up at a local market. Graphically & typographically you just can't beat old cigar boxes for pure excitement! I have plans for them...

As usual, I've been really busy & my poor old blog has been bumped to the back of the queue, but I've just been working on my gallery - not quite finished yet, but nearly! I also haven't forgotten that my monthly giveaways haven't quite been monthly (sorry!), so early this week I'm launching a Super Duper Mega Giveaway with four different prizes including Li'l Mary coasters and a couple of one of a kind creations that I've made especially for the giveaway.

Doesn't that sound grand? You do need to join my Mailing List to be eligible for the draw though, so go sign up!

It's 3.00am & I've eaten too much raspberry licorice - time to go! Enjoy your weekend!

PS. Hello to the people who found me via the Sunday Age!  Just going out to buy my copy now - so exciting! :)

A Collage a Day

In an effort to kick start my creativity for the new year, I'm committing to making a collage a day for at least two weeks.

Take a look at my enticing box of papery goodness...old letters, receipts, maps, books, some gocco test prints of mine, & other miscellaneous bits & pieces. I've also cut up a nice little pile of 6x6" card blanks ready for my first collage in the morning. Can't wait to start!

I created a Flickr group that anyone is welcome to join who'd like to get busy with scissors & glue. No need to set strict parameters for yourself if you don't want to - it's all about having fun - so come & play!

I'll post the results in my blog as well as upload them all to the Collage a Day Flickr Group.

Yay!

I Love Paper

10mm wide strips of vintage paper, waiting to be collaged. My friend's comment when he saw me painstakingly cutting them: "You're insane".

Happy (Belated) '08

Well here we are, a week & a half into 2008 already & I'm only just getting around to wishing you all a Happy New Year. I do have an excuse...hot on the heels of Christmas, I came down with the flu & today has been the first day that I've felt halfway human again.

So anyway, please accept my best New Year greetings in the form of a big ol' wobbly bowl of yellow custard & jelly - appropriate, eh? :)

In other news, I was featured yesterday on the modamuse design blog & got such a lovely write up, I'm flattered, thrilled & giddy - all at once. Thank you Modamuse!

I've been playing around with scissors & glue (no glitter - sorry) putting the finishing touches to my extra-special super-duper combined Dec/Jan giveaway. I'll be announcing it as soon as I've finished making the prizes, which should be in the next couple of days.

Don't forget, to be eligible for the giveaway, you need to be a subscriber to my mailing list - okay?

See you in a few days with the giveaway announcement & some updates to my Etsy shop!

Happy (Belated) Holidays

I really really wanted to make an extra special Christmas post on my blog, but alas, last minute wholesale orders & Etsy craziness meant I didn't have a minute to spare.

Sadly, I missed out on doing a December giveaway!

Never fear, I have a special New Year's giveaway planned with two prizes to make up for the non-existent Christmas one.

Stay tuned for the giveaway announcement in the first week of 2008!

Do you like my little wooden cowboy puppet? One of my grandmas died when I was three, & years later, my mum gave me a Christmas stocking my gran had bought for me, & this little guy was one of the toys in it. He's one of my favourite possessions & hangs near my desk so I see him everyday!

Not specifically Christmassy is this fabulous Little Audrey cartoon...but it reminds me of Christmas.

Just show me the hard-hearted curmudgeon who can resist dancing cupcakes!

PS. To be eligible for my monthly giveaways, you need to subscribe to my Mailing List!