Coffee n' craft.............

Tomorrow is the next coffee n' craft for Northside Makers

It's being held at C.E.R.E.S over in Brunswick so If you're in the neighborhood, feel free to join in.
It's a great opportunity to just sit, craft and drink coffee together.


Bring along any hand held project your working on.

Sunday 17th January,
CERES Environment Park
at the Cafe cnr Roberts and Stewart Streets, Brunswick East, Victoria
(Enter from Blyth street near Merri Creek)
1pm to 3pm

*The park is a great place for hubby and the kids to entertain themselves whilst mum sits and crafts, so feel free to bring the family too.

Another design challenge met.................

Crafty Sue over at Divajools has done an inspirational job of fulfilling the task at hand for this months design challenge.

Look at these beauties.

With 'turning Japanese' as this months theme, Sue hit the oppies and found this sad, faded eighties necklace, begging to be revived. She was mainly drawn to the little wicker beads and how well they would fit in with a cherry blossom inspired piece she had envisaged.


So home it came for a little magic touch. Sue re-colored the wicker to a vibrant cherry, and teamed it with some gorgeous beads and chain for.......... da-da-da-DA.......

This fantastic finished result!

Thanks so much Sue, for sharing' the steps in your design process too. It's great to see how it evolved from some faded and forgotten beads into the fabulous end result.

What a transformation!

Challenger number two...

The lovely Beccasauras has met the monthly design challenge with flying colors.

With 'turning Japanese' as the theme, Bec's taken a fabulous oriental fabric and whipped up this little number.

Matching lining and all...... Great taste lady.

I'm 50 % done on my piece for this month.....how's yours coming along!

Yet another.......

Another non black contribution to the ethical clothing pledge.

This time I reconstructed a beautiful purple cotton dress I had bought from Supre' and still never worn.
Again it had spaghetti straps.....I don't know why I do that to myself!.....so it was only ever going to be worn over a wider strapped singlet. But then you get weather like we have had lately and you just can't stand the thought of having to wear two tops to get the desired look.

So off came the straps, and on went a coordinating purple cotton print (from the stash) for a thicker strap.
I placed the pattern on the original dresses neckline so I could maintain the gathered detail, and altered the upper back piece of my pattern, to have more of a scooped almost racer back effect.

I've used this pattern 3 times now and still.....it's not quite right. Just needs 1.5 cm added to the shoulder strap and it'll be perfect. So one more top from this pattern I think. Gotta get it right!

* Please excuse blurry photo's taken by holding camera up high and hoping i got myself in it.
web cam is on the blink.

The first challenger....

I bet little miss Betty Jo, was the first to put her hand up in class and answer all the questions...cause she sure has been the first to put her hands to work and create the cutest new brooches as part of this months design challenge....

Aren't they gorgeous, and very Betty Jo indeed.

Boy o' boy....I best get my thinking cap on!

Turning Japanese............

Some inspiration for the January design theme .......whatever form it may take!

Sterling Japanese maple tree pendant : By Wire girl

Robot thank you card by: Boto designs
Green origami flower ball by: Julzbooks
Japanese tattoo platform wedge by:Virtual exchanges
Red Bamboo mural decal by:Single stone studios
Kawaii sakura tee shirt by: Namu
Cherry branch plastic ring by: Tiger Lily designs
Sake cups by : Pottery by Jolene
Harajuku girls via: Japanese street fashion

Enjoy!

I've also created a little button for the challengers. So if your taking part, your welcome to pop it on your blog too.

I'm not very technological with html codes etc, so just copy and paste it and link it back to this post: http://finkihandmade.blogspot.com/2010/01/monthly-design-challenge.html
so peeps know what your taking part in.
Jay xx

January's design theme...

It's time for the monthly design challenge to begin.

Thanks to random org.com the lucky number chosen is number 2.

If we flick back a post or two the categories reveal that number two is........

Turning Japanese

1: Planes, trains and automobiles

2: Turning Japanese
3: Weird science
4: Birds of fancy
5: Music and dance
6:Graffiti
7:Wild west
8: Fantastic Flora
9: food, glorious food
10: Seeing circles
11: It's hip to be a square
12: Steam punk
13: Technological
14: European travels
15: The great vacation
16:I see red, I see red, I see red....(or whatever color we choose this month)
more...
17: Space....the final frontier.
18: Circus
19:Romance
20:The animal kingdom
21:Our furry friends

The challenge is open to everyone and can be interpreted any way you see fit.

Inspiration may come in the form of bold geometric prints, feminine blossom designs, quirky 50's gadgetry and tin toys, calligraphy, shoes, tacky vintage cosmetic advertising, propaganda posters and more.

Take that inspiration and turn it into anything your heart desires.
Jewellery, clothes, quilts, sculpture, painting, pencil cases, toys, furniture, stationary or even a cupcake!
Your only limited by your own imagination.

Send me pics of your finished works, no matter how great or small, by the end of January and we'll have a bloggy exhibition of all the fantastic craft submitted.

I can't wait to see what wonderful things are created this month.

Ethical piece no.2...............

Yay I'm so excited to have completed my second piece of clothing following my ethical clothing pledge.

It was a booby tubey type halter dress, which was lovely and all, but I felt a bit like mutton dressed up as lamb. There was no way I'd wear it with out a bra and it sure looked naff with my bulky nanna bra straps hanging out.

So on the chopping board it went and got transformed into a new top.


Complete with pin tuck detail.



I'm enjoying this new challenge so far!

Back later tonight, with January's design theme after we do our first round of selections for the next Northside Makers market...Yay!

First selection.....

We'll be sitting down tonight to select the first lot of stallholders for our next Northside Makers market on 6th February.

So if you haven't popped in your application yet.......quick stix!

The Ethical clothing challenge...................

Inspired by Jennie's commitment to the ethical clothing challenge, I have decided it's high time I put a little 'E' for effort into the choices I make with how I dress.

Of course there are the usual choices to be made when buying clothes, like can I afford it, does it fit, will I get the wear out of it....

But I have never included thoughts like, is it ethical, fair trade, handmade or organic.

Having spent over a year doing markets, I'm confident to say that I can buy handmade accessories and home wares to fill my home. (and I do...)
But....I cannot say the same about clothes. Sure there are clothes makers out there, but not for plus size. So as much as I'd like to support handmade in the clothes department, I haven't been able to find many, that do a size 20.

Seems as though I might have to be the one who does the making. Which is o.k Just makes me all the more determined to get a clothing range happening for us bigger girls that is hand made local and fabulous.

Of course that's just a pipe dream ...... one day.

For now, I can indeed follow a few rules pertaining to the ethical clothing pledge to get myself sorted for a year of ethical fashion.

So, created by Isis over at Isis Made, is the Ethical clothing pledge.
I plan to follow the pledge for at least a year. If all goes well...it may continue on.

The basic rules are:

I pledge to only wear clothing that is one or more of the following:
1. Pre-loved
2. Handmade (preferably by me)
3. Reconstructed
4. Made with ethical / environmentally friendly materials
5. Made by a company with strong ethical policy & workers' rights

To add to the challenge, I'm going to try my bestest to make colored clothes...GASP! (mum will be so proud!)
I have just ended up a job with a plus size company that whilst fabulous in design, have filled my wardrobe with black, black and more black clothing. Whilst classic and timeless indeed, I do crave the bohemian and Moroccan prints i see and adore Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry fabrics.

So I will also pledge to fill my wardrobe with color....

My concern like many when taking this challenge is what to do about undies. Lucky Isis has got that one figured out too.
Firstly a few ethical makers who do under wear and a great tutorial on making your own. Very funky indeed!

So I'm exciting to become reacquainted with the old sewing machine. It will help fulfill my 2010 resolution to make more time to sew for me and will also start the process of teaching me to take the time and think a bit more about the choices I make when shopping.

Oh, oh, oh....I almost forgot.
I already made my first non black thing today.

It's hot hot hot in Melbourne today and I just wanted something colorful, light weight, and summery to wear. So instead of rushing to the shops for a quick fix I turned to my fabric stash and made a new top with some batik I had.

Not a great photo, but I had to document the beginning of a great pledge.

I'll be back tomorrow to draw the first theme for my monthly design challenge, so don't forget to send through any ideas that you'd like to be included.

Monthly design challenge.........

Inspired by the competition Curlypops had last year of inviting peeps to design her alter ego superpops, I'd like to present a monthly design challenge for all the crafty peeps out there.

What inspired me about Cams competition was how you could have 30 amazingly crafty individuals work on the same brief and come up with entirely different things. All of them so unique to the style of the maker.
Sort of reminded me of being back in my art class at school. When the teacher would lay 3 white pieces of crockery on a white podium and have a class of 30 draw it.
Each and every one was so different.

Illustration by Dave Walker: Via the cartoon blog.

Another motivating factor for this challenge is the common interests a lot of us have. Which is wonderful....but due to our loyalty to each other we tend to drop our idea of doing a flying duck thing because we saw that Jan did it, or we drop our idea for a caravan thing because we saw that Mary did it. Even when we know our duck or caravan may well be entirely different to our friends....they are our friends and we don't want to A: steal there thunder or B: seem as though we are copying them.

So I'd like to crush all pre misconceptions of whose idea it was to paint the tree first...... take away the fear of being labeled a copy cat for crafting an owl.......... and invite you all to join in on a monthly design challenge, invite you all to do the same thing.

In effect this will display how we are all so different, even if when given the same brief. How we can all celebrate a love of the same topics with such a unique angle.

You can interpret the chosen theme any way you like. Into a bag, a book, a cushion, a painting, a t-shirt, a necklace......you can sell it, gift it or display it on a shelf.

You can do January themes and skip February's if you like, or you can do them all. The rules are pretty loose on this one.

Email a pic of your finished work and at the end of each month I'll have an online bloggy exhibition to display the works of that months participants.

Your all invited!

Edited to say you can view this months selected theme by clicking 'Here'
and you can add a badge to your blog to let others know you are joining in, by clicking here...