happy halloween

If your like me and have to work through this great holiday, here are some things to have fun with! trick or treat!

Eleanor Grosch of Pushmepullyou Design has turned some of her newest creations into free desktop wallpapers, two of which are halloween specific! my computer is adorning this one with the crows.


Our beloved Etsy has posted the winners of their halloween costume contest here, I don't want to show any of them so you can be surprised when you click on over. There are some really clever ones. While your there check out the etsy halloween showcase too.


So have a great time on this spooky day and don't eat too much candy!

debi van zyl

when you mix a background including architecture, furniture design, graphic design and throw in a bit of knitting, typography, and book design you get debi van zyl. I came across her shop one day on etsy and then linked to her blog where she began posting a bout her process of creating a very unique 2008 calendar so i emailed her to make sure she would let me know when it was done...and guess what..it's done and it's very cool!


This calendar handmade and in limited edition. You can count down the year with concentric circles, each month getting smaller and smaller as the months go by. It's also cleverly bound with wood strips and each month is perforated and can be easily torn off. measures 4 x 5.5 inches (10cm x 14cm). so if your looking for your 2008 calendar and you want a unique one, head on over to debi's shop.

Follow up on Gocco

As you can see, freshlyblended has a new look to it. Most things are in place but there are still some things missing as you can see on my side bars. I'm still doing a bit of reorganizing and tweeking so you will be seeing some more changes for about another week or so.

Anywho, I have been trying to get around to posting a revised Gocco resources list for a while now and as the email inquiries keep funneling in, i've been constantly reminded to make a follow up post about it. In a recent article from the New York Times, entitled The Cult of Gocco, Jill Bliss was interviewed about her site savegocco.com and how this little machine has become a favorite tool for craftsters and designers alike. So in this, I do want to highlight that savegocco.com will probubly be your best bet for finding resources for the Print Gocco. I however, can only give you a direction from what I have bought and where the deals are.
Since hunting for the cheapest prices on inventory for myself, I found that Welsh Products has the best prices for supplies thus far. As the gocco becomes more popular, it's also becoming more expensive to acquire the inventory to run the machttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifhine so don't jump on the first price you see, shop around.
As for purchasing the actual machine, I think ebay will be your best bet although and Northwood Studios have the B5 for under $200.00. One other tip is to be careful about buying the inks in chunks from certain places, you could see a great price on say a 7 ink bundle but the shop offering them is located in japan so your paying more to ship them then what you bought them for. So definitely do your research before you jump the gun and buy, i made that mistake in the beginning and had to learn the hard way. All in all, it should be a fun buying experience so don't feel overwhelmed to just get it because you feel like they'll all be gone if you don't, find a good price first cause they haven't all disappeard yet.

CHANGES

hello all, this post is to let you know that FB is going through a face lift and may look a bit messed up for a bit until i can get all the bugs out. Some new elements along with a change of layout will include new categories, rss feed, search bar, and some more that i haven't even figured out yet. i just wanted you all to just be aware so you don't freak out when you see things looking weird at times, it may look worse before it looks better! hope to get things set soon.

Elenor Yap

I'm back from a whirl wind of a weekend in NYC. The wedding was so beautiful and it was so great seeing our old friends and meeting some new ones as well.

I feel like starting my work week with some beautiful work by Artist/Designer Elenor Yap out of Melbourne, Australia. Elly's process starts with little scientific type drawings which are cut out and tediously collaged together before she scans in and pieces together more to create this brilliantly surreal design. She is on a visual mission to create order in a chaotic world by using rich colors and sensations of fruit, vegetables, animals and the natural environment. I am so inspired by how elly makes such an extremely organized rhythm with so many detailed and textured elements. It's mind blowing to me.

The following two images are of her most recent textile design project for Dhini. There are more images of the printed fabric here.


This piece is from her first solo exhibition 'Planet Earth' at Off the Kerb Gallery, more here.

of paper and thread

Thanks to a very nice comment earlier from printmaker/ textile designer, Danielle Smeets, out of Australia, i was able to find her new etsy shop called of paper and thread with some very nice silk screened cards and little pocket purses . Danielle hand silkscreens everything in her home studio in a very "green" way using water based inks and recycled paper. Click here to get to her etsy shop and here to read about her progress on her blog!

paper tote

a design collective called cina, based in tokyo has create a very cute line of totes made from laminated paper! i love them, doesn't it look just like fabric! Those in tokyo can see them in person at the design boom mart running october 31st - november 04th.

Blog Action Day

I'm a bit late for my enviro-post for blogactionday.org but i figured it's better late then never, right?
My post is going to be a visual. This drawing i did a while back for a book on sustainability and it didn't make the cut so i thought it would make a really good statement here and now. This tree represents life and nature, nature is what we need to sustain healthy living so lets not destroy it. Focus on using nature in a better and more reasonable way because if we destroy it then we destroy life too.

Mel Lim & BLIK

My girl Mel Lim has joined forces with the kings and queens of wall decals, BLIK to launch a delightfully whimsical line of Mel's award winning designs! All I have to say about this is "It's about time girl!" (you know my sarcasm lol). Mel has really built a very impressive foundation for her work and it continues to grow is all kinds of directions. I really admire her drive and ambition. So congrats go out to mel and her newest endeavor.

sustainable find

Shannon Lowery of Round Robin Press, has some very adorable cards in her shop printed with soy based ink on plantable organic cotton paper. I did some favors for my brothers wedding on plantable paper, it was a big hit! Shannon's Etsy shop is packed with all kinds of great designs, it's too hard to pick a favorite, i love them all.

pietari posti

I came across Pietari Posti, a brilliant Finland born illustrator based out of Barcelona. The way he uses color is just fantastic. I am usually afraid to use bold or florescent colors in my work but after seeing what Pietari can do with it, it makes me feel less afraid.

distant apologies

almost made it, originally uploaded by freshlyblended.

I've been meaning to do a post about my lack of posts lately. You've probably noticed that i haven't been highlighting a lot of things lately and my "featured fridays" haven't appeared in a while. We'll there are a lot of multiple "in progress" projects that i've been attending to and on of which is redesigning a new blog on and off. I'm sure many of you know the woes of being a sole proprietor, not enough time in the day to get things done..well thats me right now! Most of which is not even having time to seek out my true inspirations and thats a real bummer to me. So please don't think i'm ignoring you if i don't post what you email to me, or don't answer comments etc.. i'm not at all, it's just me being bogged down at the moment. What you don't know is that i'm keeping records of the incoming inspirations and new blogs of note and they will all have their place on the new site hopefully not too terribly far in the future. thanks for everyones continuing support with the fb blog...MUAH!

Blog Action Day

In 5 days bloggers around the globe will be able to simultaneously put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. So far 8,033 (and counting) blogs and websites have signed up to make an important pledge to themselves and the environment on this day. Freshlyblended will in that mix. I think our environment is our responsibility and we don't treat it with the respect and care that we should. every living soul on the planet is responsible and we are the only ones who can own up to it.... i will save the rest for the 15th! If you'd like to be apart of this, just swing on over to the blog action site and sign yourself up...it's that easy!

early fall minis

early fall goods, originally uploaded by freshlyblended.

I've just updated the FB shop with some early fall minis in great botanical prints and some other fun prints.This is hopefully the beginning of a great season to come so stay tuned.

PRE- Ornament Swap News

WIP2, originally uploaded by freshlyblended.

Hi all you swapers out there in blogland! Kathleen and I have been getting some inquiry emails from folks who participated in the First Annual Holiday Ornament Swap last year. This post is dedicated to answering your questions about this years Second Annual Ornament Swap, i think i just answered the biggest question right there!

Q:: Are you going to do the swap again this year?
A:: "Oh heck yeah!"

Q:: We signed up around this time last year, did you change the sign up date?
A:: Yes, we did, this year we will launch the sign up announcement within the FIRST WEEK OF NOVEMBER.

Q:: How long will have to sign up?
A:: We decided to make the window only a week long this year. This will allow us to be more organized so we can assign groups faster and make swappers happy in time for xmas.

So on that note, we urge you to get excited and start brainstorming. we hope to see alot of you back for this year as well as some new names and faces!
thanks from
me and kathleen!

2 years down

IMG_9900, originally uploaded by freshlyblended.

Did you know that Cotton is the gift to give your other half on your second year wedding anniversary? Two years ago on this day, I got married to my best friend, the one who understands me, guides me, supports me, and loves me unconditionally, the one who I love unconditionally too! This post is dedicated to my other half, Jason...Happy Anniversary my dear, I love you!

goodies, prizes, and updates

The wait is finally over! Do you ever have the situation where your dying to work on something but your missing some of the tools or materials you need to continue on? ...well i was just there but now i'm finally back on track. I aquired this rad paper drill but it had to come all the way from British Columbia so i had to wait and wait and wait until today! A huge heavy box sat on my door step waiting for me to open.

So since coming home from work so happy, i decided to take the lovely warm fall evening to start cutting down some giant sheets of chip board that i rumaged up. These pieces were so big, that none of my rulers or yard sticks would measure all the way to the edges. These will be for my up coming "greener" collection, im very excited about it.

Don't forget to check out the new Design Sponge site here. Such a cute new design except its sad to leave the old site behind, i'm going to have to change up all my linkage now. Another place to check out is jan'sgrand opening of poppytalk handmade

if you'd like to see my picks of tonite, go here. for some strange reason blogger won't upload any of my pics, silly glitches.