DaWanda is probably my favourite of all the marketplace sites I sell on so I’m extra-glad about their new offer. All this week, if you buy from a shop for the first time, you’ll get 15% off your order!

Obviously, you can choose something from my shop, but you might be surprised how many of your favourite Etsy sellers are on DaWanda too, not to mention lots of Europeans who don’t sell elsewhere. Go have a look!

As an extra bonus, every order I get from DaWanda this week will get a free Cakeify postcard.

In other news, I am a bit sunburnt and my purse is a lot fuller after a lovely Saturday doing Bungo in the Back Lanes. We basically set up in the back garden of  GCM member Rosie and then sat around in the sunshine selling stuff. Lovely!

I won’t be doing any more markets until August so that gives me some time to play with new product ideas and build up my stock. I have lots of ideas too so watch this space.

So this is cool. Above is my handwriting made into a font by this free font creator. Thanks to Tizzalicious for the heads up. It came out pretty good, though when I write words in real life my letters are very joined up, which is hard work to figure out in a font. You can see this better in my signature, which you also get to add as part of the font. This is not my actual real life signature but how I sign my artwork. Do you have a separate signature for artwork?

Interestingly, when filling out the letters, I went straight from w to y, missing out x entirely and then did exactly the same thing with the upper case letters. I must have some subconscious fear of X. Luckily, I was able to correct them in Photoshop before uploading it. I might fiddle with things a little bit more to make letters a bit more even in size as a handwriting font would actually be very useful for me. Anyway, If you’ve got a printer & scanner, or a graphics tablet then you can have a go as well, and do let us see the results!

Also on the writing front, I have some Japanese fabric notebooks back in stock. I know lots of people love the fun bunnies (and so do I!) so now’s your chance to pick one up. Get them in the shop!

I did make my resolutions at the beginning of the year but it has taken me ages to post them up. I have been super busy with work and orders so far (including that gift above) which is a nice suprise, but means I have no time for making all the new stuff I have planned, booo.

Anyway, here they are:

1. Stay out of full-time employment as long as possible but at least until March 1st so I can have made it for a year!

2. Re-organise my shops and freelance site to get more sales/work opportunities. Pimp my design skillz a bit more.

3. Make at least 5 zines, 2 of which should involve some form of hand printing. I already have 3 half written so this should be easy.

4. Design 12 new fabric patterns, regardless of whether I get them printed.

5. Try out other forms of printing so as not to rely on gocco too much.

6. Re-start my Oddments blog in a more easily updateable way.

I will also post about my progress here. You will note they are all creative/professional resolutions and all ones that I actually want to do. Makes them much easier to keep! I’m also very aware that you never know how your situation may change in a year making some things irrelevant or impossible.

For #3, I would like to open this out in a CHALLENGE. I have been making zines since I was 16 and am something of a zine evangelist. There is nothing like holding a finished zine in your hand and nothing like getting zines in the post.

So, I would like to challenge YOU to make a zine. It can be photocopied or hand printed, it can be words or pictures or both. The best zines are documentary of something important to you and inspirational to others (a trip, a place, a project). If you want some ideas, check out the Zines category on Etsy.

In particular, I would like to challenge the following folks as I would LOVE to read, or look at, a zine they would make.

- Alice of Peapods
- Jen of Hello Jenuine
- Elise of Argyle Whale
- Kim of Madness of Many

There are other people too but I don’t know them well enough to throw challenges in their faces. If you would like to join in, just add a comment and blog about your progress. I will trade you any of my zines in return for yours. If anyone would like some tips on zine making I am happy to oblige, though the best thing about zine making is that there are no rules.

Now I must finish all these websites so I can get on to zine making.

Aaaaah. I am standing outside Loft in Shibuya! How I wish there was an arrow going down those steps and in the door! I was skimming the Google Blog on my RSS reader when I spotted a mention that Street View now covered parts of Tokyo. So off I went and walked from our old hotel (B on the map) to Loft, just to show that it’s not that hard to find. Okay, it is hard if you just look ahead but a few looks UP and you will spot the big yellow sign from streets away. I’ve added the link to my Loft entry in the Tokyo Shopping Guide and will look up some more when I get a chance. But if you’ve ever wanted to go to Tokyo, now you can!

Here is a photo of the joint Miso Funky/Asking For Trouble stall at Made in the Shade last weekend. It was hard work squeezing all our stuff on to one table but I’m glad I did as if I’d had my own stall, I would have just broken even. I don’t think Made in the Shade likes me – I never do as well there as at other markets. Oh well. At least I sold lots of stuff for Miso Funky and met some nice people. My final market of the year is this Sunday at Mono and I must say, I’ll be glad to pack the suitcase away and not have to lug it around every weekend.

Probably my major achievement of the year is above. I bought that amazing Jay Ryan screenprint TWO YEARS AGO and then spent the next two years fruitlessly searching for a frame it would fit in. I even considered getting it framed professionally but I’ve never had the spare cash. So instead I just put in a frame that’s too big! At least now I can look at it. Maybe I will find the perfect little prints to place underneath it but in the meantime I have just stuck in some of my favourite little things of the moment; my hilarious LOST notecard by Betty Turbo, a darling Christmas card from Argyle Whale and my Folksy Owl wooden postcard via Merulapie. This is all right opposite my bed so I’m getting constant enjoyment. Yay! Sorry for terrible photo btw – reflective things are no fun.

And finally, Rowan at Kitschen Sink wrote up a lovely post about my stuff. Go read!

My good friend the Random Integer Generator has picked some misprint bag winners! Donna and Fuji Mama – I will be in touch! If you didn’t win, there’s still the Sweet Figments giveaway which runs for a few more weeks yet.

Have you guessed what the photo is? During my stationery box rummage, I sorted through all my photo prints and set aside a pile of photos that don’t sell well or didn’t look as good in print as I’d imagined or didn’t have the white borders I eventually decided on way back when. After forking out a hefty sum on my beautiful double-sized Moo cards, I’m finding it hard to throw them around in a suitably promotional way. So I made some stickers and stuck them to the back of these photos – instant cheap business cards and you get a whole real photo as well. Expect to see these tucked in with my orders and showing up at craft markets.

This morning my hard work was interrupted by the long-awaited arrival of the building electrician to take a look at our door buzzer which has never worked in the 3 years we’ve lived here, much to the irritation of my postman. During their extended poking around, I sorted through some random stuff downstairs and before they left I had come up with two exciting new products and ordered the supplies, woo! Apparently they’re in the post already so look out for that soon! The bad news is that the entire wiring of the building needs replaced before our buzzer can work and I can’t see that happening any time soon if it takes 3 years to even look at it. Oh well.

Tomorrow I will show you a bunny who hasn’t lost her gloves. Bet you can’t wait.

Also, America, please don’t mess this one up.

How tempted am I to buy these?! I believe I did know that the Royal Mail sells customisable stamps but somehow it never quite sunk in that this meant CUSTOMISABLE STAMPS. It is a bit of a cheat since The Queen won’t let anyone share her stamps, so you can’t customise the actual stamps. Instead you create these little sidestamps with your own photos and graphics which look so super cute I’m even forgiving them the awful name of Smilers. Anyway, a mere 5 minutes of fiddling and I came up with the designs above, inspired by the Love and Hello stamp designs offered (the third choice is, ugh, a Union Jack). Sadly, they are twice the price of standard stamps so it’s not really an economical option, especially since I hardly ever use real stamps these days, thanks to internet postage. If you’ve got cash to spend though, get on over and make some (and send me a letter so I can see!).

The postman did bring me something exciting today though, a gocco printed elephant notebook by Argyle Whale! It was a surprise gift from my sister (aka jiji~punch) and I had no idea at all so I was most pleased. I have been forgetting far too many things lately so I definitely deserve this and hopefully the elephant will keep me right. Yay. Thanks Nicolette!

And finally, the GCM craft market was good fun and I finally got my new stall setup working properly complete with my new Moo cards in their fancy holder which matches my kraft paper stall prices perfectly. Thanks to everyone who came along and bought things! There’s more photos on my Flickr if you want to see. I’m taking a wee break from craft fairs for a couple of weeks as I think I have at least one a week once November starts. Eek!