Free envelope

I know I usually wait till Monday for the weekly free download but so many people seemed to love the last owl envelope that I have created another. Click on the image below to go to the full size version and print it out. Cut around the envelope shape and fold the four flaps over to create a square envelope with a space on the front for the receivers’ name.

Enjoy

This one was inspired by all the wonderful colours in the work of the various designers I've been looking at this week. I'm also trying to think warm as it is cold and rainy here this week.

Colour Crazy

Sorry was so busy yesterday couldn't get to post for the life of me.....................but today despite being also crazy busy designing catalogues for Rubbergob here I am.

Just want to tell the world about the wonderful Calico & Ivy here in Perth. Debbie has recently taken over the shop that sells the most beautiful fabrics, yarns, patterns, books and much other implements of creativeness for you crafty types. Here is a sample of the sort of stuff you can find at Calico and Ivy along with Amy Butler, some fantabulous Swedish heavy weight fabric and liberty prints.


Did I mention Calico& Ivy are the first people to stock our brand spankng new notebooks along with everything else from our range. Be sure to pop on down and have a look.



I'm getting really into the colours seen on some fabrics lately....I know I've been going on about fabric but there is such amazing design to be seen on fabric patterns and the mixing of them.

Then Mia from One hour craft told me about HeatherBailey fabric designer and amazing photographer by the look sof things (why am I the last in the world to discover these wonders) and there are those stunning colour combinations again citrus and sky blue. They just make you happy.

I usually get too excited about new design and colours etc to sleep so I may have time for another post :)

Ooh look what I found!

I spend way too much time looking at lots of inspirational designer, makers and illustrators online. funnily enough a fair few of them are Australian and girls too. So I'm sharing a few of my recent finds lately.

Bird Textile in Byron Bay NSW promotes sustainable design and a great eco ethos of producing things locally with a low environmental impact.




I am really into fabric at the moment and finalising some of our own design to have silkscreened.
On that note here The Cut Cloth are Perth girls called from the same family that design and produce their own fabric and create some brilliant products ranging from hats to cushions and this great bag. We met them at the George Street Markets in Fremantle last year and they really are the nicest bunch of people.


You can read Diana's Blog to find out what she is making lately, I wish I could sew like this.


I suppose I can't go without sharing some designs I've been doing for a friends toddlers bedroom. Based around his favourite book ( I think) Whale in a pail and his other mates Squiddly Diddley (I made that one up though) bob about with their old wooden boat and starfish friends in the wee ones bedroom.
I'm thinking about some new cards here..........anyone??

It's a great life...........and todays freebie notepaper dowload

Remember to check the end of the post for your free downloadable notepaper !

Isn't it just..................it's my day off with littlegob and we usually go swimming but today we hung out in the garden and I thought well I should really share it with you "gobbies" out there as my garden happens to be where a great deal of the inspiration for our stuff comes from. It's a really old garden, well for Perth it is, about 60 yrs old and contains the original hibiscus and mulberry tress and gum trees and Jacranda and on it goes. I need to add that it is winter here in Western Australia but check out those stunning blue skies. Oh and how about my $20 pirate wellies Janine's littlegob will be so jealous.

This is one of our old Jacaranda trees and my tin roof.
Our small Emmas Owl canvas in littlegobs room. These are available on the website $95 AU (without postage) but if you are interested let us know here you are and we can work out postage.
Drum roll please..........................This weeks freebie download...................for all of those who go to notebooks anonymous like me (I have way too many notebooks) and need to write down all the things they need to get, do, finish etc here is an A5 (half a sheet of A4) piece of designed notepaper with Emmas Owl (in blue) on it. Feel free to dowload, print and scribble away on, as usual don't try to sell them and I would love to know who downloads them and what exciting things you might write on them.............I'm very nosy. Just click on the pic below and it will take you to the large image, print it out actual size and snip around the outside dotted line for super duper notepaper. Enjoy!

I concur

At least that is what I think I do...

Anyway I will also raise a glass of red- although I am not yet in my birthday PJ's as it hasn't been mine yet- making me much, much younger.

Well done bird!!! ...... (by the way)....

plus one xx

PS Our cards also ventured into wedding invites today which is soooooo exciting. What an honour!

This is our life as a domestic goddess

If you ever wonder from looking at our cards why we sometimes seem a little............... frazzled, nuts, sarcastic, even a little bitter then this explains it all. We don't usually get into this sort of stuff but bird (Janine) emailed this to me and as I sit here in my ever so glamorous birthday pyjamas and really daggy dressing gown at the crazy hour of 7pm on a Friday night I couldn't think of a more apt thing to post.
For all you gals and guys for that matter well spent from a week doing everything mentioned below and stil having time to be a creative person I raise my glass of Fantabulous red wine to you and say we just had 500 hits on our blog in a day and a half and I thank you all for having the time to stop by. If anyone has any special requests for next weeks free download send me a note, all decent and proper requests considered.
cheers

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and
3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play
two sports
and either take music
or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must
take care of his 3 kids;
keep his assigned house clean,
correct all homework,
and complete science projects,
cook, do laundry,
and pay a list of 'pretend' bills
with not enough money.

In addition, each man
will have to budget in money
for groceries each week.

Each man
must remember the birthdays
of all their friends and relatives,
and send cards out
on time--no emailing.

Each man must also
take each child to a doctor's appointment,
a dentist appointment
and a haircut appointment.

He must make
one unscheduled and inconvenient
visit per child
to the A & E.

He must also
make biscuits or cakes
for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for
decorating his own assigned house,
planting flowers outside
and keeping it presentable
at all times.

The men will only
have access to television
when the kids are asleep
and all chores are done.

The men must
shave their legs,
wear makeup daily,
adorn himself with jewellery,
wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes,
keep fingernails polished
and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks,
the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches,
and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or
slow down from other duties.

They must attend
weekly school meetings,
church, and find time
at least once to spend the afternoon
at the park or a similar setting.

They will need to
read a book to the kids
each night and in the morning,
feed them, dress them,
brush their teeth and
comb their hair by 8:00 am.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information:
each child's birthday,
height, weight,
shoe size, clothes size
and doctor's name.
Also the child's weight at birth,
length, time of birth,
and length of labour,
each child's favourite colour,
middle name,
favourite snack,
favourite song,
favourite drink,
favourite toy,
biggest fear and
what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote them off the island
based on performance.
The last man wins only if...
he still has enough energy
to be intimate with his spouse
at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win,
he can play the game over and over
and over again for the next 18-25 years
eventually earning the right
To be called Mum!

After you get done laughing,
send this to as many females as you
think will get a laugh out of it and
as many men as you think can
handle it!
Just don't send it back to me.... I'm going to bed.

Where to start...............

This is usually the question I ask myself when i sit down at my desk, in fact when I get up in the morning. At the moment I seem to have too many ideas and not enough hands to do them all, though I presume I am not alone in this. The more I try to finalise the notebooks the more ideas I have so as usuall we will probably print as many as we can. They will have heir first outing at Upmarket that I mentioned in a previous post. Thank you again to Justine for inviting us and be sure to keep an eye out on her Blog for the interviews and other exciting news.

Here's a sneak of the notebooks we are hoping to have with us, come complete with cool little paper band, no plastic this time we are trying hard to be better to our world. Oh! if anyone has any preferences for the designs on our cards as notebooks please do let us know.






In case anyone is interested here are the bands that go around them...............it's just that they took me so flippin long to do this morning, thanks for indulging me




Also we are super chuffed to appear on the legendary Printpattern, a big fat congratulations to Bowie for getting a book deal and a huge thanks for making us feel like legends in our own lunchbox today, even the Rubbergob men and offspring were suitably impressed (as they should be).
Just wanted to share these beautiful sewn bird houses from the very talented Tamar Mogendorff, that I came across today that made my heart soften (rare moment). I want a wall full of these.

Make it with us!

I thought you all might like to have a go at making these owl envelopes. You can't see them very well on the pic below but you need to cut around the ouside dashed line and fold along the inside dashed line.It is a square envelope with 4 fold in flaps I think some people might call it and enclosure. It is a design we used for our Limited Edition Cards. You can click on this image to view the full size version which you are free to download and make your own envelope.

The only thing we ask is that you don't resell them or use the design for something else. you could even make a fabric envelope and patchwork the design onto the front, if you do this i would love to see it and you obviously have way too much time on your hands.

Today I'm busy trying to finalise quotes and production times for our notebooks, if only everyone else was on my timeframe! Here is a sneak peak at a couple of the designs, thoe of you who know me will know I have a serious notebook fetish, in fact I have too many and am constantly forgetting which one I wrote those important design job notes in................
so this is the book laid out flat featuring the Boobook owl or I might now call it the BookBook owl!



Right back to chasing printers.........keep an eye out for the next giveaway. Let me know if you did anything super exciting with the envelope............like propose!

Making It

It seems a lot of great people are out there making it and lots of it. Today I was sent a couple of great links by the lovely lass at Upmarket that I would like to share. Before I start be sure to put Upmarket in your diary, it's great to see so many makers markets coming up.

Firstly Spoonflower for those who have always wanted to print their own fabric, well that's me for a start. I have been tinkering with putting some of my favourite Rubbergob designs onto all sorts of fabric kit for a while now and should hopefully have some exciting stuff to share in the coming months.

Then there is How About Orange by Graphic/Fabric pattern designer Jessica Jones, this one contains a tutorial on creating a repeating pattern.

Here in Aus there is the oh so super Kristen Doran, I love the simplicity of design and type of fabric she uses.

Well I could go on but I better save something for tomorrow, I'm not doing too badly with my everyday blogging..........ooh and look out for us on PrintPattern or did I say that yesterday. For those of you that haven't caught this blog it's a must for people into surface design, stationary, illustrators and printed stuff!
Hapy clicking

Promise to be better

OK, I'm the first to admit it, It's been a while but it's not like we haven't been busy.
So from here on in I am trying to post everyday I may need all the support, love and attention I can get to keep me going. It will be a bit about new stuff I've been designing and a bit about the great talent that inspires me though I'm going to try and keep it local for a while.

So here goes, it's all about me today: We had our first professional photo shoot woo hoo and being glamorous is rather long and boring I have to say well the cards and tags and invites said so I was busy trying to quell their tantrums and keep them looking sexy for 2 hours.

Here's a couple of the new babies on fake grass


This the original blah in a different colour theme, thank you to Kylie at Morrison for the inspiration there.


And one of the tags, the australian snowflake eating reindeer bird! He comes in a card too I'm giving everyone one this year.


A big thank you to Emma from onehourcraft whom the cute owl was inspired by, for the fake grass. I realise looking at our designs the amount of people that they are actually designed around, friends children, friends, other creative types. I will do my best to tell the story around each one as it comes up.

See you tomorrow as promised!