Magic Jelly

It's the Little Things...

Way back in '07 I blogged about my childhood tin of plastic treasures that my sister & I called our Little Things Box. We each had an old toffee tin crammed with tiny trinkets that we treasured & traded - much like the tin Amelie finds. I still collect little toys & keep them in vintage cigar boxes.

Imagine my surprise & pleasure to be approached last year by the beautiful Chinese magazine Little Thing to do an interview for their section called Little Paper Magic in the very first issue. They kindly sent me a copy late last year, & I've only just taken a few pics to show you - particularly timely because the theme of this post is all things tiny...

Giveaway Time!
I'm holding a little giveaway of the collages on canvas you see above. They're seriously small - about 2.25 x 3.25" each & come with their own miniature easels.

If you'd like to win the collage on the right, featuring my little illustration of a Death's Head Moth, all you have to do is be a subscriber to my Mailing List - I'll be drawing a name randomly - & to win the collage on the left, featuring Li'l Mary puffin' on a giant stogie, I have devised a little contest...

Just leave a comment here on my blog letting me know you'd like to enter, & provide a link to a picture of something intriguingly small - something little, tiny, miniature, diminutive, eensy-weensy - you get the idea! If it's a photo or artwork of your own, great, but it can also be a link to something you found tinily appealing whilst browsing the internet, that's fine as well. I'll pick a favourite next Monday, & the winner gets the mini-collage! I'll draw the name of the Mailing List winner the same day too.

Can't wait to see your pics of little things!

New Gocco Work

EDIT: Last Wednesday was my 1 year bloggiversary! Yay me!

Here's the new work I've just finished for the Gocco Exhibition at the Here Gallery in October. It's all been bundled up & shipped off now. I made the Favourite Shoes print in an edition of 50 & it will be available in a boxed portfolio with prints from all of the other participating artists too. I get a set myself - can't wait! I think I might make a second edition of this design in different colours - I'm quite happy with how it turned out!

And here's the girl from a few posts ago that started as a sketch in my Moleskine. I've made two mixed media pieces on 6x12x1.5" canvas. I thought I'd show you the canvas sides too because I think they worked out rather nicely. I printed up a few extras on various types of paper to incorporate into some future pieces I'll be selling in my Etsy shop.

In other news, I was featured on Design Sponge last week as part of their Regional Roundup series on Australian designers. Hooray!

I was also approached by the fabulous ezine Design This Design That to take part in their Illustration issue, but I was so busy I forgot to send back the interview answers! I'm really disappointed that I missed out, because it really is a great issue, but I'm still featured in the Etsy Treasures section, which is nice. Go take a flick through- it's loaded with amazingly talented illustrators.

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!

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.

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!

N.E.E.T.

Isn't this nice? One of my Benediction prints is featured on page 129 of the December issue of N.E.E.T. Magazine! It sold a few weeks ago, along with the other nine I listed in my Etsy shop...but I'm just finishing off another ten which I'll list in a few days.

I updated my Etsy shop yesterday with some new Miss Ruby prints, & for those of you who prefer shopping in Australian dollars, I've just updated my shops at Made It & Mintd too.

Gocco Mania & Other Stuff

Etsy asked me to write a Gocco article for their blog, The Storque, & you can read it right here. Just a brief rundown of the plethora of Goccoed items available on Etsy, & some links to Gocco resources as well. Etsy also very kindly featured some of my picks (& one of my own Gocco prints) on the front page. I took a screenshot!

Now...aren't you all dying to know the answers to my 80s Pop Star Quiz? Yes? No? Maybe? Well here they are...

1. Adam Ant
2. Sara Dallin (Bananarama)
3. Clare Grogan (Altered Images)
4. Thomas Dolby
5. Limahl (Kajagoogoo)
6. Phil Oakey (Human League)
7. Simon le Bon (Duran Duran)
8. Steve Strange (Visage)
9. Plastic Bertrand
10. Gary Numan
11. Susan Sulley (Human League)
12. Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet)
13. Morrissey (The Smiths)
14. Paddy McAloon (Prefab Sprout)
15. Howard Jones
16. Stuart Adamson (Big Country)
17. Kate Bush
18. Toyah Wilcox
19. Nick Kershaw
20. Nick Heyward (Haircut 100)

Wasn't that easy peasy? Most people complained that it was too difficult, but the winner got a very respectable 12 out of 20. Extra nice is the fact that she is from Adelaide (like me) & is a super-duper terrific artist. Her name's Violet Cooper, & it was very nice to get acquainted with a fellow Adelaidean & artist...you should really go check out her stuff, her work rocks (as the kids say these days). Anyway, I sent her little prize of a coaster...may she use it to protect her coffee table from rings for many years to come in the knowledge that she truly is a Cheesy Eighties Music Mastermind.

In other news, I just want to draw your attention to the lovely Pamela Buckley who has a blog called Ophelia Golly. She bought one of my prints a few weeks ago & has just written the most generous & lovely blog entry about my work. I thought it was so great because she's written about how she makes up stories to go along with my photomontages & how she prefers to think they're real rather than a bit of digital sleight of hand.

I hope she doesn't mind me quoting her; this is what she has to say about my print Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep:

The story I put with it (almost within seconds of deciding it was real!) was that it was probably a photograph of a magician's children, and he insisted on the dove being part of the photograph as a silent signature of his profession. I am not making this up (well, I am making it up but it is something that I am not lying about believing when I saw it!) and I know that the imaginative talent of the artist was what was behind my suspended belief otherwise I never would have wondered over it at all. (I can also say that having just recently seen the Prestige might have fostered this idea just a little bit too...) But obviously the art is the magic!

I just thought that was so sweet! Thank you Pamela! Ironically, I sold my last 5x7" version of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep today. I'm happy (& grateful) that the entire edition has sold, but a little sad to wave goodbye to the last one. There are still a few left in the 8x10" edition though.

Whew...this has turned into a marathon post. But I can't leave you without posting this fantastic clip from the Jerry Lewis film The Ladies Man...

Do You Remember Blue Rondo a la Turk?

Well if you do, you might have a good chance of winning my little Guess the 80s Pop Star contest!

Here's a whole bunch of 80s singers as they've appeared in more recent years. Time is a harsh mistress, that's for sure!

It's pretty much a British/Euro-centric group, because that's the kind of music I was into when I was a youngun.

The person who guesses the most correctly wins a Christmassy little 'Winter Birds' drink coaster. If it's a draw, I'll randomly pick a name of those who drew out of a hat. Just email me your answers by Sunday please! I'll post the answers & announce the winner on Monday.

In other news, I was so surprised to see that I'd been featured in Etsy's blog, The Storque the other day.

Thank you saguirl for the article...what an honour!

Etsy Shop Update

I've been busy updating my Etsy shop with a few new things. Firstly, I've started listing my range of coasters which I'm selling individually for $6.00, two for $11.00, & four for $20.00. There are a lot more designs still to be listed, but there are four available so far, including the three above.

News travels fast, I just got a Google Alert that my Femme Fatale coaster has been featured on this great design blog Try this at Home. Thanks for the mention!

Aaaaand I've just listed four new pieces in my Benediction series, since the last lot have sold out, called Chloroform, North, Daily Habit & St. Cloud. I've already kept one of my Benediction pieces because I couldn't bear to part with it, & I'm going to have a really hard time waving goodbye to Chloroform - it's a particular favourite. But hey, a sale's a sale - can't complain!

I'll be back again later today to announce my November giveaway.  See you then!

Indie Art & Design Giveaway

Further to yesterday's post, the giveaway promotion has now been launched over at indie art & design

Go check it out for the chance to win this swag of Magic Jelly stuff!

Indie Art & Design Feature

I am very happy & honoured to be featured on indie art & design this week - a fantastic Australian art & design blog run by Carolyn. She has written the most thoughtful & eloquent critique of my work - thank you so much Carolyn! She's also organising a giveaway of some of my stuff, so stay tuned to her blog for further announcements!

It Never Rains But it Pours...

Wow! Another front page appearance on Etsy, this time courtesy of Splink, featuring my Gone to Earth Pocket Mirror. And thanks to joeyandaleethea for pointing it out to me. :)

Front Page! Yay!

It's always such a nice surprise to find my work in someone's Etsy Treasury list - even better if it makes it to the front page! Thanks so much to cookoorikoo for featuring my Fox & Flowers Gocco print.