Once again the Pantone Colour Of The Year 2017 is all over the internet, and once again I can’t help but see how well Crayon Chick fits in. Let me introduce to you Greenery.  A fabulously bold and vibrant colour.  The perfect colour to pop.  Planet Earth in a nutshell. The perfect colour for these times. The simple truth is this has been a favourite colour of mine for years and I’ve stubbornly insisted it stays in my range. Glad I listened to my heart. Now there’s a lesson for you!

This is the time of the year I’m looking forward and plotting and planning new styles, new colours and new ranges.  So keep an eye out on the socials for some sneak peeks.  Join the mailing list to get the first news on shop updates.  After looking at all these beautiful images online today I can hardly wait, I’m so inspired!  It’s going to be a great 2017.

You can find all the Crayon Chick goodies are available now online.

Images:  
Top L-R pantone.com, french by design
Bottom L-R french by design, sea of atlas

I love dotting knots around the place because #shelfie is the new black, don’t you know.  It turns out a lot of people on Instagram do to.  So I thought it was a good idea to share some of my favourites here.

The pictures below are all from Instagram and were taken by people who tagged me in their photos.  So many gorgeous flatlays, shelfies and vignettes showing my Nautical Knots.  How clever!

It got me thinking about creating a tag-along in Instagram.  I’m going to put the details in my newsletter.  Just for fun, of course.  I’m so inspired to create a little decorative corner of my own and I hope you are too.  Don’t forget to tag me (@crayonchick)!  And if you’re not on Instagram, then you can always share a pic on Facebook.  I do love seeing them in their new homes.

You can get your own Nautical Knot online now and start styling!

I found all the non-Crayon Chick images on Temple and Webster’s Pinterest board Colour – Rose Quartz and Serenity.  We’re a good match, non?

And of course all the Crayon Chick goodies are available now online!

We’ve recently returned from a quick and spontaneous holiday to our favourite Cambodia.  Given I am in the middle of my crazy pre-Christmas market schedule, a quick getaway seemed like the most bonkers idea ever.  Especially when we’d recently returned from a trip to Cuba.  So a compromise was a non-negotiable part of the deal.  I would keep making while we travelled and we set a daily quota of knot making for me to work towards.  I am a to-do list junkie and very task-oriented, so setting a daily quota was definitely the magic wand approach to keeping up with my making and still enjoying a holiday.

Did you know I make all my Crayon Chick products by hand?  I do.  Usually in my Melbourne-based home work space (or spaces as I take over the whole house in the 11th hour before a big deadline).  And the best bit about running your own business and keeping it on the very low-tech side is the fact that a lot of what I make is totally transportable.

With a little planning, WIFI, and a whole stack of space in a suitcase, I can pretty much take my making on my travels.  A few tools and materials on my lap and I’m good to go.  A Caribbean beach in Mexico?  Why not.  A riverside bar in Cambodia?  No worries.

My biggest ‘job’ on this last trip was making a million little knot beads for my Nautical Knot Necklaces.  They are one of my newest products and available online here.  I pre-dye the cord, knot by hand, string onto necklaces and delight in the deliciousness of them hanging in big colourful bunches. And it’s a great way to get to chatting with locals when you’re travelling. I don’t, however, recommend whipping out your craft in a foreign cafe if you’re the shy type!

I’m thrilled to share this gorgeous page from the latest Jetstar magazine with you.  When a photographer/stylist approaches you asking for a necklace to use in her shoot for her client it’s always exciting to see their work in print.

This beautiful page full of spring colour was created with a Spring Racing Carnival Essentials theme, and is all about a fashionable look at the elements needed to create a great race day look.

With a Crayon Chick Knot Necklace, of course!

Isn’t this a fabulous necklace display?  My stockist in WA, Mr Sparrow in Perth, sent through an image from her beautiful shop of this amazing necklace display.   I just love it.  Of course the necklaces look best worn, but I also love laying them out in neat rows on my market table.

I’ve been very busy gallivanting across to Cuba and back and about to do a sneaky mini-break to Cambodia.  In between I’ve been building piles and piles of stock ready for the mad lead up to Christmas.  As I type this, I’m trying to ignore the rising panic that it will be all over in about 2 months time.  Gasp!  I have rope and tools packed for Cambodia because although it’s good to know I’m the type of gal who grabs an opportunity to travel when it comes, I also know I have responsibilities and from time to time compromises have to be met. Oh, being a grown up is hard work.

The necklaces have become streamlined and silvery since last summer.  This updated range features silver findings.  And I’ve kept some absolute favourite colours and snuck a few more in – because who can resist a colour palette.  Not me!

All the new season colours are listed online here.

I’ve also updated my Events page so you can keep an eye out for when I’ll be in your neck of the woods next.

I’m enjoying my markets so much lately.  I’m really happy with my current product line and overwhelmed at the responses I’m getting.  Thank you to everyone who comes along and shares their enjoyment and enthusiasm with me.  Bringing all my work together for show and tell is such an amazing feeling.  I can’t quite believe I can make that much stuff!  I doesn’t feel like that at home.  I make one thing at a time and put it away when it’s finished to move onto the next thing.  I know that in the lead up to a market I take over the house.  Things don’t get completely finished and sit around in organised piles of Stuff To Finish.  Taunting me with how much I still need to do to be ready.  Every surface is covered in a temporary work station set up, and I can literally see all the balls juggled and held in suspension above my head.

Last weekend in Brisbane was also special for a little brag moment.  A national tv show did a quick broadcast from the market and my stall set up featured in the background!  I knew this aired because I started to get text messages, Instagram messages and Facebook comments from people recognising my work while I was out to dinner with my fellow market chicks.  That was a very special moment indeed!

To see my 15 seconds of fame, click on this picture to see some extraordinary iPhone video skills as I recorded from my tv!

Something lovely has been happening over on Instagram the past couple of weeks.

My weave bowls have been popping up in some very beautiful images posted by some very clever stylists!

I know these bowls so well; my nails are worn to their sore and bleeding quicks, my elbow may or may not have something inflamed, my hay fever is out of control from rope dust, my fingertips are morphing into the texture of sandpaper, and I haven’t been to bed before midnight for I-don’t-know-how-long. So it’s a lovely surprise and I’m a little proud to see the bowls in such beautiful settings, just how I imagined they would look.

I’ve kept the account names on top of each image. You can look them all up in Instagram for more of their lovely styling work. Oh yeah, and you can keep up to date with what my worn out hands are making over on my account (and it’s not all coffee!).

Boom! That was April and May!

I have had the craziest best time. Why do my lovely big market events always land on back to back weekends? It will be nothing for 6 weeks and suddenly – bam! – everything all at once. May started with a trip to Adelaide for 3 days of absolute fabulousness which is Bowerbird Bazaar. It’s so nice to return there, especially when I recognise customers from previous visits. And the following weekend it was off to Sydney for 3 days of total awesome at Finders Keepers with their record crowds! Followed by a leisurely (cough cough) 2 week preparation for Markit@Fed Square in Melbourne to recover from the previous events, rebuild my sold out stock and get on top of orders waiting patiently for my attention.  You guys are amazing and I’m so proud to have new things to share with you.  Your enthusiasm makes the 20 hour days I spend in preparation all worth it.

So you can imagine, with such an overwhelming market schedule and a busy online business, April and May disappeared in a flash of making.  Making making making. Stop for coffee. More making making making. My happy place! Except when the pressure is on and all the orders come in at the same time for the same thing. Then it’s a juggling act with many many balls in the air at any given time. Choosing a self-employed creative business was never going to be the easy way to earn a living. Believe me. If you’re thinking about it, be warned, you will never feel more overwhelmed or more out-of-your depth and bone-tired all the time than when you’re running your own show.

But you’ll never feel as exhilarated and proud of yourself, either!

I’m still  not exactly caught up … can you ever be when you’re the one doing it all? … and sadly I’m operating on the squeakiest-wheel-gets-the-oil method in combination with the-closer-the-deadline-the-more-gets-done method. I’m hoping for a few hours to squeeze in some playful experimenting because that’s when the magic happens. That’s when new ideas come to life in my very hands and I get all excited and obsessed and thrilled when I can launch them.

And then you have a moment, like at Markit@FedSquare last weekend, where the result of some of that magic-making is shown on the big screen over our stalls at Federation Square. Yep, my Knot Necklace, a result of playing around with my Dad over the summer, was up there on a screen as big as a drive-in theatre, bigger than Ben Hur. That was a pretty nice moment.

One of my favourite spots to sit is on my back deck.  I have created a few sitting nooks where I can chase the sun through the year.  Each year I plant my tiny kitchen garden and adore harvesting a handful of greens and herbs everyday.  I’ve got a pot of kale for the first time and if anyone could tell me how to keep the bugs off that would be great!  I’ve never known a plant to be so covered in every bug and its a daily job to check for hungry munching caterpillars.

This favourite worn wicker chair is the only spot in winter where the sun reaches for an hour and it’s the perfect spot to eat my winter lunch, if it’s sunny.

In the middle of summer it bakes in the scorching sun for hours.

I love tracking the movement of the sun and I’m now noticing it’s return to the north.  It always catches me by surprise.  We’ve had some glorious balmy early autumn evenings and the sun shines down the side of the house leaving beautiful shadows on the fence.  In the next few days the sun will move too far north to catch this corner.

Autumn is my favourite season, but it’s arrival is always bittersweet as it means saying goodbye to sunny decks and balmy evenings.