Puka-Puka :: Contemporary Mobiles

Drawing on her training as both architect and jeweller, Sydney designer Nina Still creates unique and contemporary works of art. Her mobiles are kinetic sculptures that are the fusion of both her background disciplines. The name Puka-Puka is perfect for Nina's organic inspired creations - it's Japanese for 'an object gently floating in space'.

Nina says she was sick of working behind a desk as an architect so she started to make mobiles as a way to connect with nature. Inspired by camping tips and communing with nature both on the land and under the sea, Nina describes her creations as "meditative artwork that creates shadows, moves and sings in the space".


Puka-Puka's beautiful new range of Polka Dot mobiles are designed for modern nurseries... I just love those little floating felt balls and I can see them in many spaces, not just babies' rooms. I'm thinking my office/studio might be a good place!

Images: Puka-Puka

For more beautiful mobiles, visit Nina's website, blog and Puka-Puka on Etsy.
.

Read more...

I Spy :: The Little Shop of Handmade

I was just checking out the Finders Keepers blog (applications are now open for FK Brisbane), and I came across a feature on one of my lovely stockists: The Little Shop of Handmade. I haven't been to the shop, but it looks so sweet - just like Bec the owner.

When I looked at the photos I saw some familiar faces...


I think it's a bit like when you go out to the park you can always spot your own children a mile off!

Images; Finders Keepers

Go on over to FK to read about Bec and her great little shop and see more photos.
.

Read more...

Pipped at the post

As a blogger, does this ever happen to you: you visit one of your favourite blogs to find out that they have just featured something you were about to post about?

It's happened to me now 3 times in the last few days...

Last Monday when I wrote about Tin&Ed I'd been looking at some great shots of their workspace on the fantastic Where They Create, and was intending to post about this fabulous site. Then on Friday Holly posted about it on the always lovely and inspirational decor8. There goes that one.

Images: Where They Create
(top: Tin&Ed, above: Printink)

Also on Friday lovely Lucy from the wonderful Australian design blog, The Design Files, posted an interview with awesome paper artist Benja Harney. I'd spent a few hours a couple of nights before looking through Benja's portfolio and reading about his creative process and career. Being a lover of paper art, I was really excited to have found Benja's amazing body of work and started putting together a post for this week. Ah, too late now. Be sure to check out Lucy's interview and look at the incredible work Benja's done.

Images: Benja Harney

This morning, on my first port of call, The Design Files, there's a profile of Tinker, Australian textile designers/printers. I had a lovely chat to Nadia of Tinker at Life Instyle last month and absolutely loved their new range of fabrics and homewares. Unfortunately they only had samples at the show and none of them were for sale, otherwise I would have been showing them to you in my home! Naturally Tinker was added to my list titled 'must blog about', but I'm too late. Too slow. Head over to The Design Files to see images of the Tinker range. The colours and patterns are to die for.

Image: Tinker (Printink)

Of course I could always just go ahead with my blog posts this week, but it makes me feel a bit 'me too' when they come hot on the heals of 'the biggies'. On the upside, it does make me feel like I have my finger on the pulse. There's always an upside isn't there!

Has this happened to you too? What do you do?
.

Read more...

Friday already!

It's Friday again already! It's been a busy week. We got the second lot of Sweetie wholesale orders packed a few days ago. It was a really nice feeling to see this:


I'm looking forward to getting on top of more things this weekend, like finally getting the Sweetie Beans panels (I have make a decision on the name too!) cut, photographed, and onto my website and shop. I also have some new products to finalise and test too - including new kits that I want to have ready for Stitches and Craft in Melbourne in early May. I haven't sewn anything for a while, so I'm going to enjoy testing and refining my patterns.

On Sunday my friend Julia and I are heading down to Canberra for the day to check out Handmade - a market that I've heard so much about. I'm looking forward to a leisurely drive with lots of girly chat... two mums without their girls for the day. And after me saying last week that it felt like autumn was here the temps have been back in the 30's (celcius that is), so it's back to summer. It looks like a glorious weekend ahead.

What are your plans?

See you Monday. Enjoy!

x
Lisa
.

Read more...

New wallpaper by cloth

I recently fell in love with the beautiful new hemp rugs by cloth, and you may already know I'm a big fan of Julie Paterson's work because of previous posts.

As evidence, check out our dining chairs (all six are different)...


and our bedroom (two cushions, the lamp and the round ottoman)...

(my images)

So you can imagine how excited I am to see that Porter's Paints has continued it's Designers for Porter's series to work with Julie. Let me show you the range.

Images: Porter's Paints

I've blogged a lot in the past about my love of wallpaper, and I have been on the verge of committing to Orla Kiely's teal flower blossom design for so long now. But I think cloth's 'scribble' (the last image above - but in the buff colour way - and 'looking for water', the top image) have just tipped Orla off number one spot on my wish list. They'd be so easy to live with wouldn't they?

If you guessed that I'll be paying Porter's a visit on the weekend you'd be right!

So. Love. It.
.

Read more...

White House

No words required... I don't think anything I could write about this stunning house would add to the visuals.

Image Source: Living etc.

.

Read more...

Semi-Permanent Sydney

On Saturday I went to the Semi-Permanent event in Sydney (thanks David for the ticket!). Given that I am a huge fan of Jessica Hische - you can see my previous posts about her work here - I was excited to hear her speak. Jessica was sweet, charming and funny and spoke honestly about her career to date, work and creative process.


And she showed us her tattoos, including the one below and a CMYK one on her forearm, which was extra cute/funny when she told us that her boyfriend has a RGB tatt... because he's an online designer. Sweet.

Image: Jessica Hische

I also saw Tin&Ed's presentation, which was so inspiring. Tin Nguyen and Edward Cutting are Melbourne based designers who work across various disciplines, including graphic design, illustration, collage, photography and motion graphics. They were fun, wacky and entertaining and seemed to have a wonderful rapport and collaborative relationship. It was interesting to learn about how they approach their work from new and innovative angles. With a client list that includes The Australian Ballet, Nike, BMW, Visa and MTV-UK, and as the 2009 winners of the Qantas Spirit of Youth Award for Visual Communication, they have the world at their creative feet.

Image: Tin&Ed

Tin&Ed spoke about the creative process involved in a job they did for Visa - from initial concept roughs through to the 3 day set up and shoot of the installation. It involved suspending computer terminals, keyboards and various other technological hardware from the ceiling by fishing wire.

Side on there's not much sense to be made from the hanging pieces...


but from the front...

Images: Tin&Ed

There were 12 speakers over 2 days, and I'm disappointed now that I didn't get to attend for longer. I find it incredibly fascinating and inspirational to learn about the creative process and drive of designers across many different disciplines - next year I plan to attend for the full 2 days in Sydney.

Semi-Permanent is coming to Brisbane, Aukland, Melbourne and Perth soon, so if you are into design I'd highly recommend going along.
.

Read more...

Eat Pray Love

Like many women I loved this book. Have you read it? The film is due for release soon, but I have to admit that I'm not a fan of Julia Roberts. At all. She always seems like she's.... well, Julia Roberts. So that's something I'm going to have to get over before/if I see the movie.





I like the trailer (I am trying really hard to get past JR) and I thought this would be a nice uplifting way to end the week. Have a lovely weekend. See you Monday.

x
Lisa

Read more...

Japanese Washi Tape :: Mini Bunting Tutorial

After I returned from my first trip to Japan with a mountain of gorgeous washi paper tape I started to make mini bunting out of it. The tape is now quite readily available online so I thought I'd make a quick tutorial for my mini bunting. It's fast and fun and with all the colours and patterns available you can make lots of different variations.

You'll need: Japanese washi tape and embroidery floss, or waxed thread, thin string, or similar.

Start by choosing your colours and cutting lengths of tape. The length will depend on how big you want your bunting flags to be. Mine vary in size, but they're roughly about 4.5cm (or about one and 3/4 inches). Cut your tape twice that length. There's no need to measure them though - half the charm is in the variation of size.


Cut a piece of embroidery floss to the length you want your bunting to be and lay it out in front of you.

Take a piece of tape and place it sticky side up under the floss. The floss should be about half way down the tape. Carefully fold the tape over the floss making sure the edges line up. It's easier than it sounds and if the edges don't align the paper tape is easy to lift up so you can try again.

If you are making a double width flag place a second piece of tape next to and underneath the first one so that they overlap slightly. Fold the second piece of tape over.


Cut a straight edge along the bottom of the flag then cut a triangle up into the center. Or if you'd like triangular flags cut up from the center bottom to the top corner on both sides of the flags.


Mix up the colours and patterns when making your flags. With this design I like to space the flags unevenly apart and vary their size for more interest. But with triangular flags I think a more even approach is better. But experiment, mix it up and have fun.


When your bunting is the desired length hang it up using a couple of pieces of washi tape. Easy!



If you're looking to buy some of this gorgeous tape you might try these 548 results from an Etsy search.
.

Read more...

Loving :: PicClick

How cool is this?!... PicClick is a new way to search Etsy. I find it so tedious looking through pages and pages of search results - often hundreds of pages. PicClick shows you all of the search results on one page. You can also use it to search Ebay too. But beware, it is a little overwhelming! My search for "vintage aqua" turned up literally thousands of results... all on one page.


Found via How About Orange.
.

Read more...

Print & Pattern Book

The postie arrived a couple of days ago with my copy of the fabulous Print & Pattern book. It almost made up for not having an internet connection for nearly 3 days. Compiled by Marie Perkins, aka Bowie Style, of one of my fave blogs Print & Pattern, it's a visual feast featuring both well known and up and coming designers, including a number of Australians.



I bought mine from the Book Depository in the UK, who offer free international shipping, and it arrived in 3 days! It was less than $29... which is almost half what you'd pay for it here in Australia. Gotta love that.

If you're after books, don't forget to check out Booko - it searches both Australian and international sellers to give you the best price on a particular title including shipping to Australia.

I've been dipping in and out of Print & Pattern for the past few days, and I've recently finished The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver - which was a great read. Have you bought or read any good books lately?
.

Read more...

the red thread :: Featured

I've had a couple of lovely mentions in the press lately, which is always exciting. In the essential style section of today's Sydney Morning Herald there's an article about vintage style for children. It features the lovely Jane and Katy of KatyJane, who I blogged about last week, as well as a few paragraphs about my Sweetie Petites and Children's Portraits.


Also, the current issue of Australian Homespun features my Chalkboard Eggs.


Right next to my egg is a photo of Laikonik's graphic and bright hand painted eggs. Kasia creates a new range for Easter each year - you can see them all in her online shop.

Read more...

First the fridge...

now the internet! I'll be back as soon as I can get online again. It's a bit tricky to blog from my phone!

Read more...

uimi

With the weather starting to cool down a little bit and the leaves on the trees beginning to change my thoughts turn to layering for winter. I love our Sydney winters, which are so mild compared to a lot of places... but still cold enough to wear layers and snuggle down at home.

With those things on my mind I bought the most gorgeous big, soft wrap/scarf from Feeona of uimi, my neighbour at Life Instyle the other week.

Feeona designs and makes all uimi's lovely knitted scarves in her Melbourne studio, as well as sweet beanies, booties and blankets for babies. They are made from merino wool and organic cotton in a beautiful soft and neutral palette.

All images from uimi.

The stockists list on the uimi website is bound to be growing very soon if the attention they were getting at the show is anything to go by. And deservedly so, uimi knits are absolutely gorgeous. Now I just have to wait for the temperature to drop some more before I can wear my scarf. I have a feeling people will get sick of seeing me wear it!
.

Read more...