jewellery storage

A while ago I found this old broken cupboard door and have been using it to pin up photos and things. But now it's much more useful. I just put some nails in it to hang up my necklaces. (I culled about half my collection first.)

I've been searching for a storage solution for my necklaces for a little while now. They've been jammed in a drawer in individual plastic zippies for a few years, but I usually forgot about them there, so I never tended to wear much jewellery as a consequence. I'm sure I'll be wearing necklaces much more often now that they're on display. And they're much easier to choose between.

I was planning to make a jewellery tree, but I much prefer this, plus I didn't need any new materials. Yay for being creative with stuff you already own.


Speaking of jewellery, I'm a little in love with an Etsy shop called Moth House. Particularly these three pieces.




And especially particularly the bracelet. My birthday's coming up in a couple months...

reorganising

I'm reorganising our space. No longer will clothing, materials, dressforms and such take over the house, hurrah! I joke, but it really does make a big difference to me. As a place to live for Tim, Ellie and I, our unit is a nice size. Not huge, not tiny, just kind of perfect. As a place to live for us three, plus a clothing studio, it's crowded and a bit ridiculous.

Since we've moved in two years ago, I've always been distracted and haven't devoted much time to interior design. Besides that, we have so much stuff that we don't use or need, and I hadn't gone through it all properly before. I'm doing it now, and it feels so good to get rid of things. I can be a bit of a hoarder, but I can just as easily decide to chuck a thing if it takes me more than three seconds to decide. I'm a firm believer in only keeping things you love (or, turning things you don't love into things you do) but I tend to know instinctively whether something is/can be meaningful to me.

Everything has been going to charity or to Reverse Art Truck.

I'm on a ban from buying any clothing to reconstruct, because I've still got two huge tubs worth of the special pieces I wanted to keep for my personal stash.

I love love arranging things, so I'm having a great time making our place cosy and quirky and nice. So far I've only finished with my desk area, so I'll show you that.


Featuring two of my favourite op shop finds everr.

This vintage green magnetic board with a cute leaf border. This isn't the best place for it, but I'll figure out another spot for it later. I just like looking at it.


This little wooden bear whom I've named Oxford. Oxford, meet the Internet.

powering through

I am sitting here in the midst of reorganising my studio once again, to make room for the industrial overlocker I bought. My old domestic one broke. My new Bernina Activa has been having issues as well for the past month or so. I took it to the local repairs place and was told there was nothing wrong with it, but there obviously was.

So I trekked out to Nick Ciancio Sewing Machines in Footscray after a recommendation and a phone call that assured me they knew what they were doing. They fixed the Bernina on the spot - there was a piece of thread stuck around the take up lever - and I put in my overlocker for repair.

They had one old industrial overlocker for sale that they'd fixed up and I bought it, sick of dealing with domestic machine issues and feeling that I'm ready for that next step. Nick patiently showed me how to thread it, gave me a go, and explained the differencial feed to me (which I'd never really understood until then). Both Nick and his son were very helpful and competent. I also appreciate that they're a small family business and that they specialise in restoring old machines that other dealers won't touch.

It's being delivered today.

This is just one of the issues that have been stopping me from getting Heidi & Seek moving as quickly as possible. There always seems to be something cropping up and getting in the way, and instead of powering through and keeping to schedule, I get frustrated at all the things that aren't going as planned, and that makes me more distracted. I feel like I know where I need to be but it just seems so far away. I've considered quitting once or twice, but I truly don't think that would work. This is my only option because it's the only one I want.

So here I go, trying to move past the distractions and finish making my patterns so I can get moving.

cutting down on spending

I've been working on a Mod Podge craft project for the past few weeks, doing one bit at a time while watching True Blood or Grey's Anatomy online in the evenings. It's not the finest craftsmanship, but I'm happy with it all the same.


I bought the drawers second-hand from the Camberwell market ages ago and started painting it red. I wasn't feeling that so I used found papers to decorate the drawers instead. The top left and right are layers of vintage pattern paper. The diamond blue pattern was part of the packaging for something I bought. The blue is from the cover of a vintage book we were going to give away, and the bottom drawer is covered with pages from another vintage book.


It's going to be a totally new thing for me to actually have desk storage. Not sure how I'll best use it yet.

I've just realised how much I've bought online in the past couple of months. Books and stationery and tape and things.

mouse pad from My Favorite Mirror

tape from Nothing Elegant

Pricing Your Craftwork from Fishpond

lacy bird bowl by Prince Design UK

And that's only a portion of my purchases. I thought I was doing well because I carefully considered each purchase, and nothing I bought was a waste, but that's not good enough for me. In the interest of saving money and reducing environmental impact, I want to do better. I've been reading a book called Budget Wise, Dollar Rich, borrowed from the libary like a good little saver.


Looks a bit spammy, doesn't it? Despite that, it's really helpful. Now that Tim isn't working (for money, anyway) I'm paying the large bills, so I've made a budget for Heidi & Seek and for home. It's all well and good to make a spreadsheet with the best of intentions, but although I've done that in the past, I haven't enforced what I've written down or monitored how I was doing. I've never been in much debt, and I always pay off my credit card during the interest-free period, but I've never consistently put money aside for savings either. Except when I was saving for a holiday, but that was different. Single life living at home with your parents is so different.

Anyway, my plan of attack now is this:

• I withdraw in cash a certain amount at the start of every week, and must only use this to pay for things. Just before I withdraw the next week's allowance, I put the leftovers of the previous week in a jar. Any additional money I get, like gifts or random cash goes in this jar too. My motivation for keeping my spending within my allowance is seeing this jar's contents grow. It'll pay for extra more expensive things, or is there if I feel I deserve a treat. I might allocate 20% of the jar to 'treats' and the rest to savings, and then deposit it at my bank when it gets big.
  
• I've made my allowance quite low because I want to try to make do. Since we're vegetarian our meals don't have to cost much. Our pantry is full of things we keep accumulating but don't seem to use, so I want to see how far I can take what we already have and only buy the basics week to week. They will easily fit within my allowance.
  
• I'm doing a similar thing with Heidi & Seek, because sometimes I can get carried away with buying supplies or whatnot. Some months my expenses are sky-high and some months it's very little. I'm setting a monthly allowance for Heidi & Seek, except at the end of the month, the money left will be topped up instead of taken out, saved and completely replaced.
  
• For Heidi & Seek purchases that I don't need immediately, like certain books and equipment, I'm putting aside some money each month into a linked online account, and I can only buy them when I have enough in that account.
• Then of course I've made the standard annual tables of bills and other required expenses, but there's not much I can do about most of those. I cut my mobile phone plan from $50 to $20, and I'll see if there are cheaper options for the rest, too.
  

The good thing about this cash system is that I can see how much I've spent that week without having to keep a tally (although I'm being anal so I'm doing the tally anyway). And I can still buy the things that mean a lot to me, but not just 'when I feel like it' and not all at once. I have to save up and to really consider where I want to spend my money.

Do you budget or have system that works for you?

o-check, stationery and focus

Those in Melbourne can now find my work at Incube8r. 321 Smith St in Fitzroy. Hoorah!

With setting up Incube8r, catching up on accounts, organising my space and uni, I feel like I haven't been on track with Heidi & Seek for a while. I haven't been keeping up with my non-schedule, mostly because other things were the priorities, but also because once I feel I'm in a rut I kind of give up and just want to escape making things (self-sabotage?). It doesn't make for good productivity.

So I've decided to give up uni for the forseeable future. It's a Bachelor of Arts degree with an English major and I'm not far off from completing it. For a while I've known that the career path I want doesn't require a uni degree, but I kept on keeping on because it's useful to have one. But it's not working for me. I can always go back if Heidi & Seek fails horribly. I'm an optimist, though. The concerning thing is that I think I'll still be overloaded without uni, because I'm still doing my pattern-making course and looking after Ellie.

I keep coming up with new ideas: new venues to sell at or new products to make. I suppose that makes me impatient. I didn't understand until now that spreading myself too thin means that I won't be great at anything. I need to focus. So for now, I'm going to be exclusively working on clothing for Etsy, Incube8r and the odd wholesale account (except for in my spare time, when I can make what I like).

I've been fixing up my taxes the past couple of days, and I had to use the floor and another chair for more working space. It was terrible ergonomics. I realised that one thing that's been affecting my productivity is my desk space. It's small and unorganised and easily gets its surface taken over with papers and bits. The clutter makes my brain cluttered. It's kind of strange how you just end up with a set-up that doesn't work for you in your space and since you've had it for ages you don't even realise.

I found a wooden box I'd been using to store fabric and used it as a shelf. Going vertical means I have more surface space, plus I've pushed the box right to the wall, where the desk used to end a couple of inches away. And before you think it, yes that couple of inches makes a difference!


I'm starting to envy those with a pretty white Mac computer - I think the black is out of place here. If only I could decoupage it...

Anyway. I'm going to confess something: I'm a big stationery freak. I used to spend all of my pocket money on stickers and pens and notebooks. I still get a thrill from entering a stationery store, even a boring one like Officeworks.


I recently discovered these Bantex Ecoboard lever arch files from Officeworks and I am utterly obsessed. I filed the entire house's papers and important documents in 4 of them. The one pictured contains my tax information. I got rid of the chunky, messy archive boxes and suspension files to save space. I turned the suspension files into hangtags, which I'll talk about in a future post. The boxes might make notebook covers or something. I just love that they've finally made a folder that doesn't look like it belongs in a very uncreative accountant's office.

The reason I'm talking about stationery is because I went on a strange internet journey. Somewhere recently I found this amazing stationery shop on Etsy called nothingelegant, which stocks things from Asia. I went e-searching and found this whole mass of gorgeously styled, unique stationery and homewares from Korea and Japan. But all the sites were in Korean or Japanese.

I finally found a stationery company's website that had an English menu! Score! They're called O-Check Design Graphics. I traced their stockists to an Melbournian online shop, Notemaker. At this point it was late at night, but I couldn't pull myself away because this is the stationery I have been searching for my entire life. O-check is vintage-inspired, but not in a kitschy way, plus they are environmentally conscious. A lot of their goods are made from recycled content and natural materials.







I put about 20 things in the shopping cart, and then whittled it down to the weekly planner and the ruler - "essentials". I want to try making my own repurposed notebooks and things, because it's nicer to my wallet and more environmentally friendly to make them myself.

Notemaker is run by the same people who own The Source newsagent in Melbourne CBD. I haven't been yet but the next time I'm in the city I'm definitely going to pop in. I'm still wondering why I ever wasted my time in Smiggle, hoping to find something nice...

the non-schedule affair

I've been using the system in my last post since last Friday and it has been working perfectly. I'm really excited about what I can achieve with this. I can plan for things like markets and wholesale orders better, and try to keep new online listings a bit more consistent. That means I'm this much closer to making Heidi & Seek pay a full-time income.

I discovered that for me, five items per day isn't really 'starting small'. It's enough that I'm challenging myself but not enough to make me give up in a heap of frustration. It's perfect. I think eight things is the most I've made in a day, so for a while that was my goal for each day. I very rarely met that aim. It's too much to expect from every working day, so it made me feel overwhelmed and procrastinate-y.

I started back at uni yesterday. I'm doing fiction writing (which is half a day on campus) and couselling via correspondence. So I really have three and a bit days to work, rather than four, like I planned for in my weekly chart. I'm pushing myself a bit by making up the lost time and still maintaining my 'quota', as I've started to call it, of 20 items per week. It has been harder to meet today, because I've been flat out making up for lost time yesterday. I suppose it's okay to have just one day a week as a 'work your ass off' day. I am very motivated by wanting to see all those boxes coloured in, weird as that may sound.

I'm setting up a space at incube8r gallery on the 12th of August, so lots of my stock will go there, plus I'm working on a wholesale order. I'll still list a few things on Etsy in the meantime though, just as soon as I can fit in a photo shoot! Here's a look at a few of the things I've been making.


By the way if anyone in Melbourne wants a copy of the upcoming Handmade in Melbourne book, they're available from incube8r, hot off the press for $29.95. I haven't gotten a copy yet but will soon!

One more thing: I was included in a post about refashioning over at The Transit Lounge blog, check it out.

an little organisation tip for non-schedulers

source: Flickr by oclaire

Originally posted here (but changed up a bit for the blog).

I'm quite a procrastinator, so it has taken me a long time to get to this point. (Well, I'm not really sure what 'this point' is, because I've gotten much better since I started Heidi & Seek, but I still procrastinate.) I find that I'm a big workaholic when it comes to being online and promoting that way. But when it comes to making things, I've built it up in my head that's it's maybe more effort than it actually is, so often I have to use some strong willpower to get away from the computer, head over to my studio space and start making.

I've tried making timetables to schedule blocks of time, but I can never stick to them. I guess they just don't make me feel very in control. They don't cater for creative types like me, where sometimes I get an idea and just want to run with it, regardless of what I'm 'supposed' to be doing at that moment. So lately I've been working without particular goals, and not getting very much done consistently. I have spurts of making and spurts of procrastinating.

So I made a little notebook to help me instead. It's filled with weekly charts of blocks of time that must be completed by the end of the week. I don't schedule time, I just have a weekly goal that I can work on at any time. I colour in each block as I complete it. So far it's working better than any other system I've tried. Here's how to try it for yourself.

1. Firstly, work out how much time, on average, your items take to create. Then place them in a box, using Word or Photoshop or whatever you prefer. It might look like this, for example:
2. Work out how many of these you can realistically complete in a week. Then subtract a few, because we're going to start small. I worked out how many days a week I have to work on my label (4), then how many items I want to make each of those days (5). I'm using a conservative estimate to start with because I don't want to feel too overwhelmed. That's 20 items per week. That's my goal. Yours will probably be different.
   
   
3. Put all the blocks in rows and columns on a page each. (I printed three weekly charts to a page to save paper, then cut them out). If you want to work four days a week and make 3 items a day, and your items take about 25 minutes to make, your chart will look like this:
   
   

   
   I've purposely not written the day dates at the top of each column, beacuse I don't want to feel 'behind' if I've not done all the day's work or too boxed in, just that I have to make some more by the end of the week.
   

4. Paste the chart into a notebook with a week to a page, and write the week dates at the top of each page. For each item I make I will colour in one block, until all the blocks on the page are coloured in, hopefully by the end of the week.

5. I've come up with a reward (mine is a visit to an op shop or second-hand market), which I may only happen when the week's blocks have all been filled in. I can then 'cash in' my week's chart for the reward.

I'm treating it like homework. If I've been slow making during the week, or even if I have to take a day off to do something else, I have to catch up by the end of the week and make sure all those blocks are coloured in. Whenever I have a spare however many minutes, I'll make one thing, and these will add up. This is why I recommend you don't try to push yourself too hard when you're starting this. If it seems too overwhelming you might give up.

Make it fun! Use a cute font for your charts and colour the blocks in with your favourite colours. If you're using a plain notebook, dress it up by making a collage on the front or covering it with fabric. I haven't decorated mine yet, but I'll post it when I have.

The benefits of this method are:

• It encourages you to set goals. Most successful people set goals for themselves.
• You can track your progress in a fun way. You can see exactly how you are or are not meeting your expectations of yourself.
• Writing how much time it will take puts the task in perspective and makes your creating seem more achievable. Sometimes when I have an hour or two to spare I don't think to make an item because it seems like a bigger committment. With the blocks you can see right there that it's really only about a ___ minute committment.
• It's not just for makers, you can apply it to any project if you can accurately estimate how much time it will take you to do, then break it down into small pieces.

studio sorted

I was featured on Indie Art and Design (www.indie.com.au) today! Check out the post here. Big thanks to Carolyn.


I have finished organising my studio and it's inspiring me to go make things already. Too bad the rest of the house is still a mess. But, one thing at a time. The best thing is that I didn't buy anything. With everything sorted I can see what I really could use, so now I can keep an eye out for second-hand pieces I need.

I picked up another two sets of these awesome vintage filing drawers from Tim's mum, which were hanging out unused in her attic.



These two stacks don't really work for me. I'd much rather have another set of wire drawers instead of the big tub, and a narrow dresser with lots of drawers to replace the right side. Drawers are so much easier to access, plus I can organise the contents so that when I pull the drawer out I can see everything at a glance. Really helps with matching colours and patterns.

The little green box is actually a tissue box I repurposed to file my garment patterns, which I make from interfacing. Yes I know I'm supposed to make them from card, but I like that they can all fit in this box - which I might cover with something pretty. All that's there is a basic t-shirt pattern, with long and short sleeves in a range of sizes, plus patterns for my yoki tees, which I haven't made recently because they're time-intensive. I adapt the basic patterns each time I make something, or work on it as I go along.



As I was sorting my fabric and clothing, I came across this darling little cardigan I bought from Thailand, which I love but looks terrible on me, and I hadn't the heart to part with it. I decided to 'frame' my inspiration poster with it. Now I can enjoy it without needing to wear it.


I picked up that vintage book, 'The Awful Dressmaker's Book' from a little second-hand bookstore off Gertrude Street, as well as a sewing shortcuts book and a sew your own wedding book. The mannequin I got from Camberwell market and painted. Not sure I'm feeling the black now, but I suppose it could be worse!


The black pot is for an indoor plant that we never used for its purpose. I lined the inside with a few layers of scrap fabric, so my tools don't get damaged. The ceramic 'sew' tags are from mudcakes on Etsy - they were my first Etsy purchase I think, way back in 2006. I tied them up with black ribbon and hung them on the pot. The tree print is from littlestflower on Etsy, and the stones are from Ikea forever ago. The little figurine is a tiny carved wooden bird, which I claimed from my dad's things.



Huge wire basket for shipping supplies. Next to it is a gorgeous vintage sewing machine I picked up at a garage sale on the weekend for $5!


So I didn't really need another sewing machine, but it might come in handy and it makes me giddy just thinking about the fact that it's mine. Waiting until I get a bigger studio so I can put it on display when not in use.

Right. I'm off to make things.

more to-do than done

My to-do list:

• Make more 'buy ethical' badges
  
• Finish sorting fabric & store it, so it's not taking up half the living room floor.
• Organise my offcuts into boxes/drawers/shelves - sleeves, applique pieces, cuffs, necklines, etc.
• Figure out if my studio furniture is working and if it's the best use of the available space. If not, replace/alter/move it around.
• Finalise new hangtag design & finish making the batch.
• Clear my desk & find a home for everything
  
• Organise papers into filing cabinet, to be picked up soon (thanks Jess!)
• Find a home for all blank paper and notebooks and things.
• Donate the next 5 shopping bags of clothing & fabric.
• Take a pile of stuff I can't donate to my local recycling centre.
  

I'm recovering from the flu, but I can't quite relax. I've been organising myself - writing down plans when I can't fully execute them. I have a bit of a one-track mind sometimes. Until most of this is done I won't be able to focus on making.

I've been reading a book called Sorted! The Ultimate Guide to Organising Your Life, and I'm finding it's helpful. I like that it's recent and relevant and Australian. So far, one idea from it that I've found useful is that I need to slow down and devote time to being organised regularly, instead of saying I'm too busy. I'm too busy not to be organised. Another idea is to work out how many of something I actually need (like t-shirts for example) and keep at that number. Meaning if I get a new one, one has to go.

I'm finding it pretty easy to let go of things, and make decisions about what I keep and throw. I think that my 'buy less' ethic has helped that. Yes, I like getting new things, but only if I feel they'll add value to my life and if I adore them, hopefully for a long time. I know that I if I don't love or need something, it doesn't matter to me. If it's just stuff, it can go. I can hardly remember the things in the 16 shopping bags that went earlier this week.

I'm having to resist buying more storage boxes and furniture. I think there's often this urge to get all this new stuff to organise yourself, when that just may add to the clutter you're trying to get rid of. I'm going to wait until I've gotten rid of the excess, then see what's left behind and what the best way to store it is. It's taking a lot of willpower to get this finished, but I'm excited about the result. Change is good.

Half my studio, a month ago

The 'after' picture will come later.