Shelbyville

Toy boats from Paris

Last weekend we finally visited the exhibition that's been on my to-do list for months now. It's the wonderful Bateaux Jouets exhibition on at the Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour, and it's a lovely display full of super-cute toy boats from a whole other era. Originally it was meant to be finishing next month, but I believe it's been so popular that they've extended it until October. Well worth seeing!

Here's some pics from our visit:

I've been happily drawing/painting toy boats since our visit, so I'll post a couple during the week when they're completed...

Playing shop...

Last weekend, driving home after the Kinokuniya zine fair, DD said something funny to me in the car. We were chatting about the Kino zine fair, dissecting its good and bad points, talking about the cool people/customers we'd met during the day, discussing which products sold well and what might be some potential changes to the product line-up. You know, the usual post-market breakdown.

And then DD wryly says, "so have you finished playing shop for a while now?" and I giggled at his subtle joke and started to reply that the Young Blood markets were coming up next month, and then the TINA zine fair... and then it hit me, lightning bolt style... OMG, the grain of truth in his moment of jest!..

It IS just like playing shop - this whole market-stall thing is just the grown-up version of the game I utterly adored playing as a little girl, the one where I'd turn a corner of my bedroom into a "supermarket" and stock it with all the bits and pieces I spent hours and hours making: crayon-decorated stationery sets; papier-mache beads and boxes and doll-sized furniture; rocks painted as ladybugs; playdoh cakes, tartlets, and pizzas cooked in tissue box ovens; miniature pencil sets made from the worn-down stubs of old pencils and lovingly displayed in reappropriated miniature cereal boxes; books created from cut-out letters and pictures from mum's magazines, and so much more.

I was obsessive. I had price signs. I even had a little plastic shopping trolley and a Fisher Price cash register. You'd be amazed what could be purchased with a single bright yellow plastic 20c coin in my shop...

And as I sat in the car, looking out the window and reminiscing about the "supermarket" days, I had to laugh at myself and DD's unwittingly intuitive comment. Yes, the market stall is me playing shop, but it explains why I enjoy it all so much. Not just the selling, but the whole great, big process. The hours and hours spent in my room handmaking things, gathering and developing ideas for new products, sourcing new materials, reading design + art + craft books, being part of the greater creative community both locally and online...  It feels like something that has naturally evolved from what I've done all my life.

I read somewhere once that the things you spent your childhood doing are an insight into the career path you should pursue as an adult, because in the purest sense those are the things you truly love and are meant to do.

So if that's the case, then me and the (super)market stall were obviously just destined to be...

Something old into something new...

The past few months I've been playing around making some new products for the Shelbyville market table. I also spent a few hours photographing them, and recently uploaded some of these new products into my Etsy and Made It stores (finally!).

My favourite at the moment would have to be the cassette pack envelope set: 5 handcut + handfolded envelopes made from vintage papers, and packaged in an old cassette tape case. I love the idea of cassette case packaging at the moment, and I'm currently developing a few more items that can be sold inside recycled cassette cases...

 

The vintage papers I use to make the envelopes include everything from old atlases and street directories to comic books, architectural plans, sheet music and a whole lotta other old papers. Every pack has 5 different envelopes, and every envelope is unique.

Also recently off the drawing board (so to speak) are these little sets of envelope seals. Like the cassette pack envelopes, the envelope seals are also created from a mix of vintage papers. A little less than an inch in diameter, these handpunched envelope seals are essentially circular stickers - intended as a useful and sweet finishing touch to one's handwritten mail.

I've made up a few different sets, including ones from atlas paper, American + British road atlas pages, sewing pattern instructions, music sheet paper, comic book pages, and 1960s Sydney street directory pages (my personal favourite).

 

Just in time for the MCA zine fair a few weeks ago, I recently made up some Li'l Laundromatic zines which are a paper-based A6-sized version of the 'proper' Laundromatic book (on which I am still working on the final two pages. Nearly there now...!). Li'l Laundromatics are 22 pages long, full-colour, handbound, and each comes with a different fabric across the spine. 

Some very lovely friends contributed their writings - stories, memories and musings about laundromats - which formed the basis of the book. To these writings I graphically responded with a mix of photography, illustration and graphic designerliness to create a book that is a nod to this humblest (if not daggiest) of urban spaces. Some pics of inside:

And some photos of other new and new-ish products:

^ Lots of different embellished envelopes and handmade envelopes of varying sizes.

^ fridge magnets created from my ever-increasing collection of 'urban details' photography. I've roughly one hundred or so different images available now.

^ Set of 8 nudes stickers in a small glassine envelope (each set is different).

^ now there are 2 different sets of Red Shoe Girls badges. Set #2 introduces Carrie, Josie Abigail, and Sally.

^ And finally, the 2 very cute sets of Storybook stickers (each includes 8 stickers in a glassine envelope)

I've got a few more different products and things I've been working on, and hopefully over the next few weeks I'll get a chance to put these up into the Made It and Etsy stores too (please feel free to drop by!).

Now I just have to work out how to put one of those fancy widget things in my sidebar, the one that works like a tiny little Etsy shopfront...

Zine-a-rama

I've been busy in the studio these last couple of weeks - preparing stock for two upcoming zine fairs.

This weekend is the Canberra Writers Festival. On Saturday the festival is hosting an all-day zine fair at the Gorman House Arts Centre in Braddon, where Shelbyville will have a table alongside friends and fellow zinesters such as Helen + Emma and Tiny Paper Hearts. You can find more details here.
  

 
The following weekend is the Kino zine fair at the Kinokuniya bookshop in TGV, which is promising to be a really great day, completely packed with stalls of all kinds. More details can be found here.

Hope to see you at either of these events! Come and say hello if you happen to stop by the Shelbyville table...

Pi multiplied...

Now available in a multitude of styles! The Pi piece now comes as a magnet, pendant or brooch. So much choice!

All marketed out...

Oh yes indeedy, waaaay too many markets in too short a time space. Four consecutive markets this month, and I'm desperately in need of a break from all the constant "making"...
At least for a little while.

Today was my final market for the month - the Mister Market at Penrith Art Gallery with its 'macho' theme (to match the gallery's current art exhibition). I made one end of the table pretty much as masculine as Shelbyville gets (i.e. envelopes with cigar-band embellishments; nudes stickers; handmade bookplates in tobacco tins; vintage postage stamps; cassette tape cases filled with envelopes made from old atlas paper, comic book pages, and vintage British street directory pages and other 'blokey' found papers).
And to display my items, I had my wooden type-tray, the black metal drawers, and a myriad of old cigar boxes, not to mention the chocolate-brown corduroy tablecloth - boyish enough I thought.

Nice thing about today was the many cute little details... like the super-fantastic gingerbread men with their psychedelic icing + decoration. They started out at $2 a pop, but by the end of the day they were cut-priced to 50c each. I stocked up, and brought home a bagful of the multicoloured men. Yummo!

Chi Chi's stall featured these sweet little birdy pouches (second from the left) which I mistakenly thought were teletubby-like faces with eyepatches until I inspected them closer. Duuuhhh. The eyepatch was actually a wing, and those weren't ears, they were beak and tail..!

 

The random assortment of vintage ties, books and toys were all very cool, but something was a little strange about Mr Potatohead and his friends...

 

And this, my usual Shelbyville stall set-up. On the nearest corner you can glimpse today's new product - an edition of Nudes stickers created from my collection of life drawing sketches (but more about all the new products next post).

I was also much delighted to have some visitors today - Helen (Mr Universe 2008) and Emma (Mr Puniverse) who braved several forms of public transport to make it out to Penrith. The face-painting lady did a great job on Emma's new-look tiger face. Hope no-one gave you any trouble on the train home Emma...

 

And for the day's absolute cutest moment, check out this little girl doing her best Mr Puniverse impression - what a sweetie!

MCA zine fair

On Sunday the 25th May, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) hosted a zine fair as part of the Sydney Writer's Festival, and invited hundreds of zinesters to sell their wares in the grand Foundation Hall on the ground floor of the gallery building.

It turned out to be a big day (and more than a little exhausting). But sooo much great stuff all under one roof!
 
Here are some photos from the day:

^ The ol' panorama shot... gives a good idea of the size of the fair.

 
^ Plenty of people poured through the MCA's Foundation Hall, making for a nice + busy vibe.

^ Dudley and the little Redheads came out to play, and what a wonderful table full of beautiful goodies they brought with them! To see and read more about Dudley Redhead's zines and products, skip along to her blog: http://dudleyredhead.blogspot.com/

 
^ Helen and Emma also came out to play. Their new zine, Cloud Television, made its debut at the fair, alongside Helen's first zine, Diagram. Visit Helen's blog Bowerbird Blues to find out more.

^ My favourite stall-buddy, Jojo, who's now a deft hand at the whole market stall thing! Jo's Little zine was very popular at the market, and rightly so! It was the first zine I ever read, and still one of my all-time favourites :)  Little zine is available from issue #1 to #6, and the complete boxed set is alos now available - see Jo's blog for more info.

^ My Li'l Laundromatic also made its debut at the MCA zine fair. Essentially a miniature paper version of big-brother Laundromatic (see the original here) this little guy is A6-sized, full-colour, and is full of stories and pictures inspired by laundromats (who doesn’t love a good laundromat story??). Oh, and each Li’l Laundromatic is also individually bound with a different fabric over its spine.

So now that this is the second Sydney Writer's Festival zine fair in as many years, can we assume it's now going to be a regular feature on the Festival's program? Hope so.