Hot cakes, Bah Humbug and other Kuberstore news.

Over the past few weeks I've been experiencing a phenomenon that I thought I'd never see again - my Etsy shop has been on fire. Figuratively. I've been filling a glut of orders that has seen me buying not one but three new rolls of packing tape, and I'm expecting another delivery of shipping boxes today. I haven't seen anything like it since those heady pre-GFC days in 2008 when I was sitting at work watching those thrilling 'Etsy Transactions' emails coming in and panicking because I didn't know how I would fill them all in a timely manner! This time my main concern is running out of the particular plaster I use - I bought the last three available kilo jars from Barnes two weeks ago, and the next shipment isn't arriving until January. Eeek! (I think I'll make it. Just!)

I do know what started the rush - one of my items was chosen as a feature image on Etsy's 'Home and Living' browse sections page, heading up the classification 'ornaments'. I've been making my little cast pine cones for a while and never (before this year) thought to list them as a set of hanging decorations - silly me, as it turns out, because this year they'll be adorning Christmas trees in Switzerland, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, all over America (including my first order from Hawaii!) and within Australia, too.

I've mentioned before that I love Christmas... I love trees and decorations and wrapping presents and making cards - and it just gives me so, SO much joy to think of these little pine cones arriving at their destinations, being unwrapped and included in someone else's festivities. I feel humbled and grateful and delighted and excited every time one of those 'Etsy Transactions' emails arrives - a buzz that has never, ever gotten old! These 'hot cakes' moments are rare, and thus treasured.

New in my Etsy store this Christmas are my 'Bah Humbug' plaster coal decorations, which have also been selling quite well at the markets - people seize upon them as a Secret Santa gift for someone who is, perhaps, less than enthused about the festive season. Referencing that story about naughty children receiving coal rather than gifts in their Christmas stocking, these painted hanging ornaments are cast in a mould made from a stone I've had since I was little. I kept it because it had two little sun-shaped fossils on one side, and the fossils came out excellently in the cast result. Hooray for Pinkysil!

Market news... I've been enjoying doing the markets lately. At the breezy Green Heart Fair at Carindale a roving photographer took what could be the nicest pic anyone's ever taken of me and my stall - generally I turn out looking a bit uncomfortable and gumby-esque. Here I am:

The BrisStyle Bazaar in the Whale Mall at the Queensland Museum was a busy day - and a great spot for a market as it nabs lots of passing trade and is protected and coolish. Plus the lights under the huge whales cast the most incredible electric blue and yellow shadows!

You might see on the left of the photo above that my new painted cast plaster necklaces have made their market debut. Followers of Kuberstore on Instagram have had a blow-by-blow account of their development, and I'm pretty excited about how they've turned out... stay tuned for a blog post about them soon.

I'm currently using up the last of my plaster to make a few final pine cones... my last market for the year is this coming Saturday at Brisbane City Hall - this special (and final!) BrisStyle pre-Christmas market has the extended opening hours of 9am until 4pm, and I'll be there. Perhaps you will be too?

There will be more markets...

Hi there. It's been a long time. Like many of the people whose lovely blogs I follow, lately I've dropped off the blogging radar in favour of the immediacy and gratification of Instagram. It's quite the addiction, isn't it? I've been busy, too, and I'd really like to tell you all about it, but this week I am preparing for a market. It'll be my first in quite a few I've got lined up for the rest of the year, and I'd love to see you there.

Brisbane City Hall. 9am - 3pm. There will be painted eggs and there will be wall hangings, there will be plaster gumnuts and some nests, and there will be me, if you would like to say hello!

I will be just inside the door of the first room, where the tantalising smells from The Shingle Inn will taunt and tempt me all day. Do drop by!

... on finding something, and using it.

I found my rotary tool a few weeks ago. I'd had it for years, but never figured out what all the various attachments were really for. When I was making things out of corrugated iron I'd tried it out on the rough edges but found that it didn't work how I expected, and then I thought the extension arm thing broke, so it was packed away and put on the shelf of tools-that-might-have-been-good-but-weren't.

I'd been restocking a few of my watercolour eggs, and in the process of watching how the pigment settles in different ways according to the density/texture of the plaster, had suddenly wondered how engraving into them would go. I dragged out my rotary tool and gave it a whirl. It wasn't broken - I'd merely forgotten how to put it together, and with C's help the extension arm thing was reassembled. After a trip to the hardware for a new set of Dremel engraving/carving bits, I was set.

I had in mind a new style of hanging egg decoration - something jewel-like and intricate, with bits of worn gold and silver patina, a dark watercolour wash with splashes of messy bright colours over the top. Something a bit unlike anything I've done before - 'tarnished bazaar'.

Sorry about the manicure. What can I say? You should have seen my fingers after I'd used them to apply the gold and silver Rub'nBuff. Yuck.

 I kept the engravings simple.

This 'dotty' version ended up being my favourite. Adding a bright colour over the top of the engraved areas made it really shine.

Here they are, varnished and be-ribboned and ready for market.

I had a small batch ready for last weekend's BrisStyle Indie Market in City Hall - my first market for the year - and they will soon be landing in my Etsy shop, too.

Here's to rediscovering forgotten power tools! Now, about that bandsaw wrapped in a sheet under my desk...

... on little bits of signage.

I'm just about ready to pack everything up for tomorrow's BIM at City Hall. You know, every time I'm preparing for a market I find something that I can do better. Each market I've done up until now has seen me scurrying about at the last minute sorting out something small but vital - pricepoint signage.

These folded cardboard signs have worked well in terms of angle and size, but as they've been taped together at the start of the day and then thrown out at the end, I've been having to re-create them each time. I can only fit three to an A4 page so I was going through lots of card. Plus they have a tendency to blow away. I liked the look, but as I've got at least three more markets to do before Christmas and I'm almost out of card, I wanted to sort out something less disposable. Enter C and his mad saw skills. Bless the man, again.

He rummaged about and came up with a piece of timber from a pallet, and chopped it up into lots of triangular prism shapes for me. A once-over with some sandpaper and they were just as I'd imagined. All my pricepoints fit easily onto a single printed piece of A4 card...

... and they certainly won't blow away! They tone in nicely with my old wooden display items and my little wattle forest, and my shredded paper egg display nests that are also making their first appearance at tomorrow's market.

Is anyone's market setup ever 'finished'? I feel that each little thing I improve upon contributes to a better display, but I don't know whether it's ever going to become a static or finished thing... and that's good!

... on finding, keeping, and other excitement.

Excitement comes in funny forms around here, sometimes. One recent burst was a result of a delivery of recycled shredded paper from Ecocern. It was some days late, having been misdirected from Sydney to Perth, but seemed none-the-worse for its WA holiday. Not so hot on the carbon miles, however!

It came in a large tightly-rolled bale, 20 kilograms of it. As it wasn't available in Brisbane I found two other BrisStyle girls to share the costs with, and once unrolled, each share filled a huge (wheelie-bin sized) garbage bag. I've got enough shredded paper to last forever, as you can see by my little foot in the photo below. Mountains of it. 

As soon as the paper arrived, I just had to pull a bit off to try out an idea I'd been chewing over. I wanted something to display my large hanging egg decorations in at the markets, and I had in mind a messy shredded paper nest on a sanded branch sitting on my linen tablecloth.

That's a work-in-progress photo, but you get the idea. A couple of those will almost certainly work a lot better than my previous paper-bag-with-the-top-rolled-down technique, which was admittedly only a temporary fix!

So, now to begin preparations for the upcoming markets. The next City Hall BrisStyle market is on the Saturday-after-next, on October 12, and I'm currently making a batch of my large natural-toned eggs. 

Dry, trimmed and sanded, these cast plaster eggs are ready to be drilled.

Once they've had their little metal rings glued into them and the glue has cured for 24 hours, it's time for the eggs to be painted with their base colour.

Maggie Beer's fruit paste containers make excellent mixed-paint pots. Thanks, Maggie!

Now for a most exciting happening. I did a happy dance in my seat (you know the one) the other day when I received news that my application for the next Finders Keepers market here in Brisbane had been successful. I'll be occupying a debut stall site on the veranda of The Old Museum, so let's all cross our fingers for calm weather, or I'm sure Kuberstore will be taking flight (in many, many pieces) out over the RNA showground! Weather predictions aside, I'm so delighted to have this to prepare for, and I'm sure the next six weeks will simply fly by. Eeek! But HURRAH!