A new pattern and a great coffee shop!

If you are heading to Glenelg in Adelaide anytime, you might want to check out a great coffee shop/ concept store I found....more about it in my newest post.

Enjoy!

A freebie download for you!

A new post

 

See you there! 

Custom beach towels - great for gift giving

As you may know, I have created a new blog. I used Wordpress this time, and am still working out how to do things! 

There are some features I miss from blogger, like the blogroll and 'follow the blog', but hopefully I'll work out a good way forward with that. 

If you have any hints about that, I'd love to hear!

In the meantime, I'll try and remember to post here when I do a new post.

Here is my latest....

http://www.thatsgraphic.design/custom-beach-towels-gift-giving/

Design process for Vintage Flower Pattern

 

Take me there.....click here

New Blog Alert!

As I mentioned in my last post, there was a new blog on the horizon....well it has arrived....it can be found here
www.thatsgraphic.design

A new blog on the horizon!

Yes, it's been over a year and my poor blog has been sitting idle.

There is a reason....I've been putting all my spare time into developing another arm of my business which hopefully will take me into semi-retirement...that's my plan anyway for the coming years.

I started 'surface pattern designing' in January last year. Which is designing patterns (digitally) and loading them onto all sorts of products such as homewares, apparel, stationery, etc and selling them in a few Print on Demand marketplaces. I'm loving this process, but it's a lot of work and takes a bit of strategy and social media to then promote the products I have available.

Anyway, I have been working away at a new blog which is nearly ready. It will be a blog to showcase my designs and give sneak peaks into new designs, but I will mix it up with the other things in life that I enjoy as I had done through this blog.

So, stay tuned, I'll come back and let you know when it's live!

When I started on the Surface Pattern Design journey, I created an Instagram account, so you can find me there and see what I've been up to https://www.instagram.com/thatsgraphicdesign/

In the meantime on the grandies front, we now have 4 with another on the way in May...wow, where does that time go.

Here they are..

 

Bye for now

Office Makeover

Wow, I've been missing in action from my blog since Christmas. A lot has happened in the past couple of months.

I love the time between Christmas and New Year as everyone is in holiday mode and it's a good opportunity to get things done around the house. My project was to paint my office where I run my own business of website development and graphic design. As part of my graphic work I design brochures and business cards etc, so have always had things on show of what I had produced. This has been good for clients as they can see at a glance the quality of the product and what can be achieved. However, I've decided to just showcase that differently now so took down the display boards and got to work!
The large display board covered over the wood panelled wall, an even though it's coming into vogue now, I wanted to paint it black and then have my logo cut out of compressed aluminium. I was happy with the outcome. Here are the before, during and after shots.

 Above: The right of the photo shows overhead shelving that we replaced with new cupboards.

For those interested I put a video together of how the cutout logo was made. Our son Daniel did it with one of his machines in his workshop.

My ZAZZLE STORE

Another project that has been taking up all my spare time is creating designs that I then place on all sorts of product which are then available for purchase through the Zazzle store. 

This is so much fun and very addictive! Some of the products you can customise with an initial or name as well, so it's great for gift giving. 

Here are a few of my designs.

 

Below is a design I put together with various coloured stripes with overlaid sewing stitches. There are a few colourways available and various products. Would make an ideal gift for sewers and quilters etc. Some things you can customise with an initial.

 You can visit my zazzle store here

*If you purchase anything from the zazzle store, be mindful it is an American site, and even though your product usually ships within a few days of your order, it does take a few weeks for it to arrive in Australia. 

Hope you don't mind me showcasing some of my products, but that's where a lot of my spare time has been spent of late!! 

Family

Here are a few recent grandies pics!!

  

Above: Brooklyn looking all grown up now she can sit up.

Above: Family time down by the river.

Above: Luca and Owen getting being creative.

 

Above: Chocolate face....getting spoilt at the bakery!

That was a long post!! 

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

 

Family photo shoot

Hope all you fellow bloggers had a happy Christmas time with your loved ones.
We had a hot one here in South Australia (42 deg C). We had our immediate family for lunch so we did the presents in our under cover are outside then moved inside to eat...much more pleasant with the air con!

Oldest grandchild Owen, helping little Brooklyn open a present.

A few weeks before Christmas we had a family photo shoot done at one of our son's place. We had 800 photos to choose from...wow! It was a perfect overcast morning so perfect conditions to take photos! Here is a small collection.

Hope you can enjoy some R&R over the coming week, I will be. We have 2 more  family get togethers mid week, so our Christmas continues! 

Cupboards and Tea Towels!

I don't know how many times I've said in the last few weeks....'why didn't we do that years go'!  In one of our spare bedrooms we have always had a mish mash of furniture eg a single bed, wardrobe, tall boy, chest of draws, filing cabinets and a couple of other stand alone little bookshelves and things tended to get dumped in there too.....SO we decided to get some built-in installed across one wall. WOW, has that made a difference. We had great delight in having a big cleanout of the room and sold off quite a few of the furniture pieces. We have built-ins in our own bedroom but it's been great to now spread out a bit into the other one as well now as there is heaps of room!

I'm pretty pleased that I now have room to house my shoes neatly in 2 rows per shelf.
We even have empty drawers and shelves!!!

I was excited to receive my parcel from Spoonflower last week. I have started dabbling in designing fabric and to test the waters with colours etc, I designed some tea towels. I did 4 designs to a yard, so that means the tea towels are a good size.
I was really happy with how they turned out. After washing the fabric, I cut them up and sewed the sides.

 

Below: Cut up and ready to hem the sides.

 

Below: Job done! 

I did do some other designs but I can't show you as they are for Christmas presents!

I had fun last weekend, doing a bit of shopping....nice to be able to buy some pink things!

 Over the past year, I've really enjoyed reading Di Morrissey's books. She is a great Australian author. Her latest book 'A Distant Journey' is one that I'm having trouble putting down...hence its a thumbs up from me.

 

I'm excited to have one of my best friends back in blogging world after a break. You may remember Jo from Vintage Lane Stitches....she has started blogging again on a new platform and under the name of Hillsview Homestead....Please go visit, I'm sure you will enjoy her posts.  

 

That's all for now

 

Flowers

Nice to go around the garden and pick some flowers. I've brought them into my office so I can see them all day!