Wednesday Wicked Design

This week I want to highlight a designer who I 'met' when she left a comment on my post earlier this week. Gabriella runs Stilelemente where she offers gorgeous artworks and products for the home. The name Stilelemente is German in origin, and according to Gabriella, loosely translates to Elements of Style - a very fitting name for her exquisite designs.

Pieced-Fabric Floor Cushion

Gabriella draws on local Australian flora and fauna to create beautiful designs for her range of fabrics and cards. All of her cloths are natural/organic and/or fair trade, with her latest textile designs being created using naturally dyed tea-stained cotton.

Stilelemente's designs are available through bluecaravan and etsy. The range of natural colours used in all of the designs are simply gorgeous - take a look at some of what Stilelemente has to offer.....

Wattle eco-friendly Greeting Card

Cycles of the Moon (4) - framed textile art

Kangaroo Grass Table Runner

Gabriella also has a beautiful blog under the same name where she literally takes you on a journey through her creative processes. Her latest post talks about her textile art/ideas and experiments, and is a really interesting read. Pop on over and say hi if you get the chance, I know she would love it if you did.

Hope you are all having a wonderful Wednesday.
Michelle

My BIG Ebay Purchases

I know I've said it before, but I have to say it again .... I love, love, loooove ebay!!

We were in need of a new lounge for our main tv/lounge area as our old leather one was starting to show its age (about 10 years). We visited one of our favourite showrooms - King Furniture - in the valley only to discover that our beloved Jasper suite was somewhat out of our price range. Now I don't mind spending on quality as we already have a Delta lounge in our formal area but at a price tag of over $12,000 on sale for the leather Jasper we thought we would look at fabric - after all the kids are a little older now and a little better at not spilling/jumping/sliding around on the furniture (I live in a dream world I know)!!! Okay back to reality we thought that for our informal and comfy lounge area we would like to look at fabric ... I also thought I would try to find one on ebay.

After several months of looking (every day) - the jasper hardly ever comes up and when it does most people are dreaming when it comes to price, especially if they have not bought on sale - finally I found this one, and we love it!!! It was in fantastic conditions for its 4 years and although not exactly the colour we would have chosen at $2100 it was a bargain, and at least a third of the sale retail price. Yippee!!!!

We had to bring the lounge up from Bateman's Bay adding to the cost, but I have to say the team at Aladdin's were amazing - it was such a great process and was delivered when they said it would be!

sorry about the bad lighting!

My second BIG purchase was a Miele coffee machine. We had a steam oven in its place (which we hardly ever used) so we decided to purchase the coffee machine and pop it into the oven's space, let me tell you this is certainly getting a work out. At a normal price tag of between $3500 to $4000 it was also a bargain purchase at $932!!!! Don't worry we have kept the steam oven and will probably do a mini kitchen makeover to incorporate it at a later date.

One of the great features of the Jasper is its storage space .... my magazines are all housed very neatly ....

Lots of room for important nick-nacks too!!

Luckily we have a big space for the jasper as it takes up quite a bit of room .... now where am I going to put my two butterfly chairs that I am currently getting recovered (that's for another post)????

Have you made any great ebay purchases lately?
Have a great Monday. Michelle
p.s. I guess I need to update my lounge photo on the sidebar now!

Butterfly Art Kits

Example of a finished 'Cinderella'

My 'Butterfly Art Kits' are for those of you who love all the butterfly art that is around at the moment, but not the price tag that comes with it (I can say this because I sell them)!
Instead of paying for someone else (i.e. me) to make the artwork up and frame it, you can now do your own artwork via my kits.

inside a vintage 'bambi' kit

Each kit contains over 20 butterflies, an A4 mounting card, and instructions for mounting. All kits are lifted from old (mostly vintage) childrens books and are available in many of our favourite stories such as Cinderella, Bambi, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio ....
I also do these kits up in beautiful red and pink papers if you are after the colours only.
They make fantastic gifts, and make up more than one framed piece. Many of my friends children have created their own masterpieces from my kits - they love being able to create their own stories from the butterflies and see them hanging on the wall.

wrapped and ready to send

At the markets I sell a lot of these kits, and I usually get asked if they will be available for sale online. I like to keep some things for my 'market' customers only, but due to popular demand will now be selling these through my stores at bluecaravan, madeit, and etsy from next week. Each kit will be priced at $19.00 plus postage.

I will be loading more stock into my stores, along with these Butterfly Art Kits, next week. I'd love to hear what you think!!

Have a great weekend.
Michelle

Open and Closed

from here

Hi everyone, on a good note I have reopened my madeit, bluecaravan, and etsy stores again today.
I will be adding lots of stock over the coming weeks to these stores. I am planning on adding a bit of artwork shortly too - instead of just saving it for my next market.


On a slightly sad note, I have recently found out that my local daycare centre may be losing it's funding as of the 30th June. Lots of families in the area rely on this centre and it will be really sad for the community if it is forced to shut its doors. Anyway, in light of this, myself and another Mother have volunteered to try and organise letters, petitions, and emails to Kevin Rudd (whatever it takes really) to try to keep the centre open. Hopefully we will be able to gain the support of the daycare and local community to try and do what we can to keep our little centre open. Even though I already have a really busy life, I can't simply sit back and do nothing about this issue - so I apologise in advance if I become a little slack on the blogging scene.

I never pictured myself as an 'activist' but sometimes I guess duty calls .... right?
Anyone ever been in a similar situation?
Michelle

And The Winner Is ....

from here

Hi everyone, I am back from holidays and had a wonderful time!
Sand, sun and relaxing at the beach ..... I even managed to read three magazines from cover to cover, and an entire book!

Anyway, back to business, before I left I put up a little giveaway of one of my little birds ...

And the winner is ..... Rockmelon Recycled!
Congratulations, I hope you enjoy your artwork!
If you haven't stumbled across this blog yet, Rockmelon is a fellow Brisbane artist who enjoys sharing life's journey with others through her blog. Pop on over and say hello, I'm sure she would love to hear from you.

Thank you to all those who entered, and for all the new friends who now follow, I look forward to visiting you all soon.

On another note, we currently have a yard/house crawling with tradesmen etc. (I know, everything is normal right?). Due to this, and a little one who is sick, I will not be reopening my stores or blogging until next Monday. If you are really wanting to order something though, please email me at papertreedesign.blogspot.com

I hope you all have a great week, and I will catch you all next week with (hopefully) some reno. images. Michelle