Coffee Cup Travel Style

My degree collection focused on travel bags and accessories. Ive always wanted to branch out to more non-handmade textiles based products, such as the umbrella, welly boots, coffee travel mugs etc. Today, the first step! The travel mug.

I found these awesome travel mugs last month. Id love to stock up on them, but i cant really get them back in my case! I wrestled with the fabric to get it inside the tumbler for over an hour - so not sure if this is actually a sellable item! Although it is something i could sit with infront of a movie or something :)

Im quite pleased with this. Im using it for our road trip tomorrow. It also has a matching market bag, as you can see pictured, although this product is still in development so thats why you only have a sneaky preview :)

It also goes with the Matching Lunch bag, which ive uploaded a photograph of again!

The tumbler gets it test run this week!

The lunch bag i created in October/November! This matches the bag, the tumbler matches the bag.. and yet the bag is incomplete!

Make it! Handmade Revolution

This week? Make It! A huge fair which im super excited to see. The equivilent i would say is the handmade kinda zone of Top Drawer, London.

Here i am again with the lovely Clara from CYarnHut, and Rachel Rainbow.

And heres a little CYarnHut bear i couldnt resist! He now lives on my coat alongside my Kayleigh OMara Lion :D

Okay - Fave Makers

Uppdoo.

This awesomet little bag company, which is unfortunately out of my budget, was awesome. You buy the leather outer shell, and you can change the inner products. Im almost annoyed i didnt come up with this awesome idea and im totally planning on making something as awesome as this!

Heres a great picture from This Little Port which shows it in use, and with some extra bags. i completely love it!

 Little Wren. 

Maker of Candles and also cute little earrings, but my favourite are these intial necklaces. Awesome hey? Click here to buy one of these necklace from her Website!

And Lastly, Foe & Dear.

Rachel has one of these rings and they are kinda completely cool! Her stand has a lovely feel to it too, with the use of book pages, mirrors and little glass dishes. Click here to buy one of these rings.

Graphtec Vinyl Cutting

So my uncle being the gadget man that he is, bought a graphtec plotter cutter. Its the ce-6500 i beleive, and i have a little bit of experience using our plotter at University, we cut onto vinyl, transferred onto glass, weed out the pieces we dont want, and sandblast. Remove the vinyl, you get an awesome design. 

Now that i realise how super easy and cool this machine is, im almost annoyed that they had us bringing in glassware, electrical tape and a craft knife, to do our intial designs the hard way. Can you believe we wrapped our glasses in tape and drew on the curved surface, only to try and cut out with a knife. this is SO easy!!

After about a week of not being able to do anything with it, i finally cracked it. We used this lovely matt black vinyl and i created this pair of pinking shears, and then the dreamcatcher. I know its a bit cliche but i do love it!

Portobello West Vancouver

Today, i visited a local art and design fair. this is my first visit to one of these in Vancouver, so im only used to nottingham (great) and felixstowe (awful) craft events. I didnt know what to expect, but the fact that the first 50 people get a goody bag was enough to get me there at 8am. 

First of all - its a snow day. Awesome! My first experience of snow in vancouver. And its not slush. COOL.

This lovely stand belongs to my friend Rachel. Her business is branded as Rachel Rainbow, and its handmade goodies for little people, but i totally love them. Her newest products here are her shrink plastic earrings and brooches, which i cant belive she had never really experimented with before i showed her how fun they are! ..And also the dreamcatchers. Im quite sure, she did sell out of dreamcatchers. They are completely lovely.

Another little closeup of her necklaces. They have magnetic closures, handpainted beads and handmade tassels too!

You can find more about Rachel Rainbow by..

Visiting her Website - RachelRainbow.com

This is the stand of C Yarn Hut. I have been following Clara and her lovely little makes on instagram since may, when i knew i was coming out to vancouver. im shocked yet flattered to say she actually recognised me from my instagram and came up to say hello before i had even seen her! then of course we had to get a photograph :D

Its so nice to meet other makers. I met so many lovely people today!

You can find out more about CYarnHut by clicking here!

Sewing a New Lunch Bag!

Ok - new project - operation lunch bag.

Because im out and about, i need a lunch bag! 

And i might aswel teach myself how to make one.

Remeber that lovely leaf print i created onto Linen? No? Okay - click here to jog your memory on that one, see you in two minutes.

Okay here we have it. Ive sourced some of this cool thermal fleece stuff which basically looks like tin foil on fleece. I quilted it to the linen, to create an interesting puffy effect, and also i didnt want it to get bunched up inside somewhere, so this is my easy way out of that situation!

All the Layers

My lunch bag before i sew up the sides!

Da-da! Finished. In the background you can see the calico mockup version i made. I made the finished one wider and taller too, and changed the position of the handles. the quilted lines are super wonky. but i kinda like that!

Museum Of Anthropology

This week we visited the Museum of Anthropology, which is situation in UBC Campus zone.

Its reallly awesome, although there is so much stuff you almost dont know where to start...

I particularly liked the knitwear they had featured, so i attempted to copy up some of the designs on Illustrator when i got home. Here are some of my initial drawings!

Granville Island Tea Company

I am still in love with Granville Island! And the one place that caught my eye especially is the Granville Island Tea Company. What an awesome little establishment.

Anyway, i really wanted to be able to print the logo onto some fabric, but i wanted to print the tin too so the logo has to be kinda small. This is alot of detail for this carving block, as i cant find any of the pink ones still!

The drawing..

Halfway through carving..

The Result! Okay - not enough detail. back to the drawing board!

Halloween - The Tsawwassen Pumpkin Competition!

So this week, its halloween - YAY! Something ive heard canadians go kinda crazy about, so im excited to expereince that.

Tsawwassen Mall held their annual pumpkin decorating competiton. the rules quite clearly said you could decorate your pumkin in any way! So here is a little insight into my 'design'

First, 'carve' your pumkin. dont cut round the top like a traditonal pumpkin, cut it like this!

You'll then need to scrape out all the insides and make the edge there a bit thinner too so the frame is less chunky. I would recommend choosing a pumpkin which isnt too small, and also if it has a sprout thing out the top which you can pick it up with, that would help too!

Next, you print your gravestones. I just found this image on pinterest, whacked it into microsoft word, and used the text tool to make the names. Simple! I also made a mini version for the dog, and found some bat shapes to print too. They are all stuck to cocktail sticks!

For the inside, its hard to see, but i cut a black fence just from card and a craft knife, and there were cocktail sticks on each end of that too.

The 'grass' is spinach leaves. Yup! or any foiliage you can find. Branches might have looked quite awesome in there too.

 Okay, you can see it a little clearer here, the inside. See how i shaved the framing edge down? it doesnt catch your eye so much now. I also pierced two holes in the roof to string my skeleten man. i found him in the dollar store, he actually had a glowstick inside him too!  I bought cheap glowsticks and placed them behind the fence, which gave this creepy glow as you can see!
I then painted the outside black with poster paint. I was recommended poster paint by the local art stop, but as you can see, it completely peeled. i have no idea why! But anyway - i guess it kinda added to the effect. It was just annoying to transport as i didnt want more flaking off really!

The design was finished off with some sequins pinned on and a 'The Haunted Graveyard' banner to name to piece. 

here was my competition! I am happy to announce that i did win the price for this and got $120 to spend in the local art store! Well - that was worth the effort! Although you can see it peeled so much more here.

Back in Granville Island

Today, my auntie Lisa and I went back to Granville Island. I really love this place, though maybe its because everytime we go i know i can go to Opus, a huge and actually amazing art store that serves Emily Carr University. 

We had some Tea from Granville Island Tea Company - very posh! And of course some cake. We visited some beautiful studioes, and gift shops. I did a little christmas shopping too. 

I was really excited that i saw some bags by 'bookhou' in a little paper shop. I have been following the work of Bookhou for a few years now, they make simple screenprints and print onto beautiful natural fibres, team them with leathers, waxed cottons and chunky metal zips, as well as leather straps and copper rivets. This company really inspired me to start screenprinting and are always on my facebook news feed, i would say they keep me grounded, their products are quite simple but they are very effective.

Anway - ive had this company on my radar for ages. They are from Toronto, Canada. And here they are, for the first time i was able to touch and feel the beauty of these products!! On little Granville Island! Exciting moment for a designer maker. 

Bookhou! Exciting :)