New Supplies from the US

My friend Orla just went to San Francisco for a well deserved holiday. The fantastic thing about it was that I gave her €100 before she left to buy as much paper as possible. I am able to buy American paper here but it costs between €20-€30 per 12" x 12" pad, it's also possible to ship it in from the US but the import tax and shipping makes it just as expensive. I knew I would get value for money but what I failed to factor in is that Orla is the best bargain hunter I've ever met!

She bought some beautiful sheets from Graphic 45 which is very pricey here, which is exactly what I asked for. Where she really excelled was getting pads that were $20 reduced to $5, and a few of them! The most impressive paper was a pad of 360 sheets for $20, and it's really beautiful paper. She really paid attention to the paper and patterns that I love, and shopped accordingly. We estimated that she got €260 worth of paper for about €100. I'm delighted with my stash, but now I'm daydreaming of winning money and flying over to buy paper, stamps, embellishments, dies.....sorry I got lost there.

Now that I'm making way more cards these days I've had to speed up my system. Firstly I pick out loads of paper I want to work on and then guillotine them into 5" wide strips(the width of my cards), I get 2 of these per sheet with some leftover. I then cover a large amount of blank cards with this paper using my glue gun, cropping off the leftover piece. When I have a stack of about 50 covered I then use the left over scraps to embellish the cards, going through them in themes of colour so I'm working with the same papers all the time. When I get new stamps I stamp them out on blank paper and keep them in a box, so that at this stage of the card making process I just have to go to the box rather that spend time inking up. This method of production line working has really helped speed me up, and also saves on wastage as all my scraps are used up on the cards.

Doing a favour

Yesterday my friend Orla from Farapinalia came over and I took some photos of her beautiful handmade clothes on some 'models, ie friends of ours. Thanks ladies for being such troopers, I always feel weird when doing portrait photography as people need to be directed a little. Although these days everyone is watch America's Next Top Model, picking up lots of pointers.

Sustainable Materials Exhibition opening

Orla Redican - Ev+A Dress

Marianne Kenny Modelling Nice Day Designs Dress

The opening for the sustainable arts exhibition was on last night, and there was a fantastic turnout. I was so busy running around talking to people and making sales (woohoo!) that I nearly forgot to take pictures. I heard really great feeback from people, saying it was one of the best shows they had seen in the gallery for years. I know this sounds awful but usually in group shows half of it is filler, but in this show there really wasn't any. There is an amazing mix of artists working in every discipline, from fashion, ceramics, sculture, painting, weaving, jewellery, performance and mixed media. There were some familiar faces too,Orla Redican from Farapinalia made this fantastic dress from the old Ev+A sign that had been lying in a skip. My ex-flatmate of 5 years Mark Halpin showed his wonderful illustrations of found tiles. I got to meet the lovely Missy Bonkers while I was drooling over her beautiful clothes. There were also handwoven mats made from found rope by etsy seller Conscious Crafts.

Mark Halpin- Drawing on Found Tiles

Missy.Bonkers Beanbag and cushions

Conscious Crafts -Recycled mats

Other highlights for me was the performance art piece where I guy was doing clay sculptures on his head, very playful and facinitating. Another artist has beautiful cutlery made from found metal and wire, I wanted to take those home, if I had money I would have bought them, they were stunning. I also really loved the mixed media paintings that had loads of found toys and knick knacks in them, they were a riot of colour and you could look at them all day long.

I'm delighted to be part of such an amazing show, it will continue for 6 weeks, and there will be lots of workshops from the artists. More details of which I'll poost about as I hear them. A big thank you goes out to Diarmuid Neilan for organising this fantastic show, I'm sure it's been a lot of hard work. Also I'd really like to thank my beautiful model Marianne Kenny for being stunning, and very patient in those high heels.

New Limerick Talent

I should really stop making drunken promises to people that I'll help set up their Etsy shop! Only kidding, this is my good friend Orla Redicans new shop Farapinalia. We have been working together for years at markets, and before that she was my boss in a pub I worked in. I really proud of her that she made this step, as only a year ago the task of sending an email was a chore. She doesn't claim to be an online expert yet but she has come on leaps and bounds. I have her a hand taking photos and listing her first few items, and basically showing her the ropes on Etsy. At the moment she has a beautiful selection of childrens and adults crochet hats. But she is a multi talented lady and will eventually have a selction of bags, jewellery, silk scarves, and most impressively she make amazingly cute rain macs out of oil cloth material.

Return to the Sunday Market

It looks like I'll be going back to the Sunday market this week. Not in my usual incarnation as all my clothes are in Kilkenny, but I will be selling my pocket mirrors and handmade felt brooches at my friends stall. I will also have a selection of my buttons and ribbon up until the Christmas season starts and I'll replace them with yummy handmade Christmas decorations. I'm still deciding whether I'll make Christmas cards this year, as last year it took up a huge amount of my time for not much money. I might just make a small selection of xmas themed 1950s pinup collages.
So if any of you are looking for me down at the market head towards the gluten free cake stall. I would also highly recommend her merangue it's to die for!!I won't be at the stall myself as for the next few months I will be surgically attached to my sewing machine, but Orla will be there to answer and questions or queeries.

Bedford Row,Limerick City
Sunday 12-5pm

Baker Place Gig and Market Tomorrow

I'm going to be selling my clothes at a gig tomorrow night in Baker Place in Limerick city. It looks like it's going to be a really good night. It's the launch for the second publication of local magazine Crude. There is going to be live music and I'm sure it will to be packed as their last event sold out. I know it's really late notice (I only got the call last night), but if you're around the city you should check it out. It starts at 9pm, the cover chrage is 6 euro, but this includes copy of the magazine. Also selling there will be Maria of Mia Designs who used to sell her rockin clothes at the Sunday Market on Bedford Row. And also Orla Redican of Crunchy Granola, of the bedford row market, and she will be selling handmade(and very reasonably priced) jewellery.