Merry Christmas

First of all I hope that all the readers of this blog have had a very Merry Christmas.


This Christmas was thoroughly enjoyable spending time with family and enjoying wonderful food. Last Christmas was exactly the same however we were in Hungary with family. I'm sure you can imagine, the temperature difference between Budapest and Brisbane in December is about 35 degrees Celsius. 

This is the first hot Christmas that Scott and I have had in 7 years and it was definitely a little odd.

To compare, here are two photos, one from Christmas 2010 and one from Christmas 2011.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year! :-)

Oh, and the Ninjabread Men I made went down very well.

Brisstyle Indie Designers Market

Saturday 10th December was The Quizzical Owl's first official BrisStyle market.

The day started out with rain, rain and more rain. It was bucketing down. We'd already packed the car, and I decided to head to Racecourse Rd to see what the weather was going to do. We got there, chatted to other stallholders, and waited for the rain to stop.

Our spot for the market was outside, hence the waiting!

The rain cleared up just as the market opened at 9am. Talk about perfect timing!

We had a fantastic day. We met crafty and non crafty people alike. I am so pleased that we stayed.

The Quizzical Owl's stall

The stalls outside, from a distance.

Reclaimed Records' stall - gorgeous notebooks

The stalls inside the hall

Lego hair clips - the Christmas Special!

These will be available at the BrisStyle Indie Twilight market, 16th December

The Quizzical Owl's last market for 2011 is this Friday, 16th December. Between 5 and 9pm, I'll be in King George Square, in Brisbane City.

See you there!

Custom Order - Harry Potter & Captain Jack Sparrow

I was contacted on Etsy by Maggi, who wanted a couple of custom items for her nieces.

Maggi had specific ideas about what she wanted, and I was more than happy to oblige. One niece loves Harry Potter, and the other loves Pirates of the Caribbean. And of course, Lego do both of these themes, so it was perfect.

Normally for pendants, I use just the Lego figure. For this order I used a few extra bits and pieces for each necklace. I also made each girl a pair of matching earrings. Harry Potter is surrounded by potion bottles, and is carrying his wand. The matching earrings were white owls, just like Hedwig. Captain Jack is surrounded by cutlasses. And the earrings were cutlasses too.

I'm really proud of these pieces. I think they look fabulous, and I'm looking forward to hearing from Maggi how her nieces liked their presents.

What do you think? :-)

If you would like your own set like this, please email me! thequizzicalowl [at] gmail [dot] com

Knitted Secret Santa Present

BrisStyle held its first AGM last Saturday. It is always lovely to see the crafty ladies. There was a Secret Santa present swap and the only rule was that it needed to be handmade. Rather than raid my stock of Lego jewellery, I wanted to knit something. I was very pleased with my creation and thought that I would share some photos.

Cute, huh?

I've also made a second one for Scott's Secret Santa at his work.

The pattern I got from here.  It's an excellent way to use leftover yarn. And I've got lots of yarn.

My First BrisStyle Market

Friday night, the 25th November was the Racecourse Road Community Christmas Party. And, BrisStyle organised some market stalls as part of the festivities. There were also carols, readings, a band, a sausage sizzle (I missed these while in the UK, I tell you!), and crafty activities for the kids.

What a night! There were lots of people, families, out enjoying the beginning of the festive season. There's no denying that Christmas is almost upon us.

I became a member of BrisStyle a month or so ago. They have been nothing but kind, professional, helpful and knowledgeable. A seriously crafty, awesome bunch of ladies (there are no boys in BrisStyle - I'm sure they'd love to have some though!). It is such a pleasure to turn up at an event that is well run and well attended.

I'll be at the next two BrisStyle markets. On the 10th of December there is the BrisStyle Indie Designers Market. And then on the 16th of December, I'll be at the BrisStyle Indie Twilight Market in King George Square.

See you there!

The crowds watching the carols and dancing about to the music

The gorgeous lanterns out the front of St Augustine's Church

Busy busy at The Quizzical Owl!

The Collective Store

 

On Friday I went out to the Collective Store at Wynnum and set up my pod of jewellery. The Collective Store brings Australia’s independent artists, designers and craftspeople a fresh, contemporary boutique where they can exhibit and sell their work; whilst offering customers a unique shopping experience by providing high-quality handmade articles directly from talented, original makers.

The store is in the main street of Wynnum, in Brisbane's east. It's a couple of blocks from Moreton Bay. Wynnum has a lovely breezy, calm feeling about it. There are crafty shops and op shops intermixed with restaurants, banks, etc. The Collective Store fits right in.

 
These are the photos of the display that I built.

                                                                                                      

Christmas is Coming!!

As the title of this blog post suggests Christmas is not very far away. In fact it is only 37 days away. This Saturday is the first market in the lead up to Christmas and it will be a busy period. We will be at quite a few markets and the list is available from our website. This will be updated with any other markets that The Quizzical Owl will be at.

Two of the markets that I am doing are twilight markets and have bought some fairy lights and Chinese style lanterns for the stall. I will experiment with these lights to see if they will be bright enough.

Today I got some very useful tips on taking product photos as product photos are very different from other types of photography. I have also built my own lightbox which I am very proud of and will be using this to take stock photos over the next few days.

I made some gorgeous bunting to go on the stall for The Bothered Owl and I am very pleased to say that one of my achievements this week has been to make some more for The Quizzical Owl stall. I like bunting and think it is an excellent way to add some colour to a market stall.


Tomorrow I will be dropping some stock off for sale at the Collective Store in Wynnum. This is the first shop that our stock will be displayed and sold in which I am very excited about. This is a very eclectic boutique with lots of local artists and designers selling their items in the store.


The work on the website is continuing. There are now a number of keyrings uploaded which allowed me to get used to uploading stock and using the stock management features of the site. I have also decided to test the Facebook shop function of Create which they released today. If you go onto our Facebook page you will see an icon that says shop and you can buy straight from the Create shop.

Supanova Brisbane 2011

Wow, what a weekend!

I headed over to the RNA Showgrounds on Friday morning to set up my table. Everyone had to wear high visibility fluorescent vests for set up and pack up. Very fetching!

We had a great spot in Artist's Alley - we were on a corner, so we had a great view of the other stalls, and of course a great view of the convention-goers! I love people-watching. I always have. Maybe that's why I studied anthropology at uni? Anyway, Supanova is a great place for people watching! Not everybody dressed up of course, but it didn't matter what people were wearing. Everyone I saw or spoke to had a smile on their face or seemed genuinely happy to be at the event. 

By the end of the weekend my helpers and I were utterly exhausted. But, it was such a fabulous weekend! Thank you to everyone who stopped by the stall, to the customers who bought from us, took business cards, and chatted with us. Thank you to those who explained their costumes when I asked who they were, to those who posed for photos, and to those customers who kept us entertained.

I'll leave you with some of the photos I took over the weekend. Looking forward to the next comic con already!

The Quizzical Owl's stall in Artist's Alley

A Storm Trooper holding one of my Storm Trooper keyrings. Awesome!

The Four Horseman Necklace

The crowds outside waiting to come in on Friday

Wall-E

Captain America

The dude from the movie The Hangover

A man in a suit of cupcakes!

This is the fabulous Rebecca, dressed as Dr Horrible. She kept us laughing on her visits to the stall

Supanova

On the weekend of the 4-6th of November The Quizzical Owl will be attending Supanova.

Supanova is an Australian Film and Comic Convention held in different parts of the country. In November it will be in Brisbane at the RNA Showgrounds.

As The Bothered Owl we did a couple of Film and Comic Shows and they were always a lot of fun. If you have never been to one then click here to read about what we wrote at the time.

At these shows it is fun to be able to wander around and see all of the activity in the various areas. There are competitions, areas for autographs, dealers selling every imaginable collectable character, and comic artists who will happily sell you a print of their latest amazing drawing. At Supanova there will even be a wrestling area! I can only guess what will be going on there, and will have to take a peek for myself! I am sure that we will take lots of photos of the event and share them with you both here and on our Facebook page.

If you'll be there, please stop by and say hello. :-)

Jam'n'Beats

Saturday the 22nd October was the event Jam'n'Beats at the Greenslopes Bowls Club. I'd seen on Facebook that an old work friend (who now makes jewellery) was attending. The bowls club is close to home, and it seemed like a good event to debut The Quizzical Owl!

Jam'n'Beats was an all ages event with music, dance displays, bongo drums and a few market stalls out on the bowling green. The event started at 4pm, but didn't really start to get busy until after 6. There were plenty of happy people, out enjoying the music, and who squealed appropriately at my Lego jewellery.

We'd gone out and purchased a gazebo because the weather looked decidedly dodgy. It was windy and sprinkled on us at one point. At one point I thought the gazebo would take off, but we weighed the poles down with bricks (we couldn't use the tent pegs as we were on the bowling green itself). The tablecloth also blew all over the place, but we pinned it under the table legs.

There were also some fire twirlers. They were amazing to watch. I tried to take some photos, but they probably don't do them justice.

All in all, a fun evening.

Vogue Knitting Live

While we were in Los Angeles, Vogue Knitting Live just happened to be on at the Hyatt Regency Century City. I swear I didn't plan it that way. Honest!

Knitted glass! Amazing :-)

We met up with a friend Ruth (RockandPurl) who had flown over from the UK specifically for the event and we delivered a gorgeous Pan Am bag for her from Washington DC. Ruth also showed me how to do the kitchener stitch so I was able to finish off the socks that I had been knitting for Scott. Thank you very much for showing me this and the awesome cheat sheet :-).

We had a thoroughly enjoyable time wandering around the marketplace. Both Scott and I were surprised at the amount of non-wool based yarn that was available. Some of the recycled materials used in the yarns looked fantastic. There was wool, nylon, soy fibre, bamboo, Tencel, and cotton.

The Fickle Knitter's stall

We follow the Fickle Knitter on Twitter and it was lovely to meet her. We had a chat, and I snaffled her last skein of yarn in a beautiful grey with purple accents. The yarn was straight Tencel, which I hadn't seen in the UK before. I also bought a shawl pattern from her. I'm determined to knit a shawl.

My next purchase was a bag from Namaste.A girl can never have too many handbags, right? And this one was very useful for the travel home, and I have not stopped using it yet. And it's red! I love red. I got this bag: click here for picture!

I also chatted with Anna Hrachovec from MochiMochiland who writes knitting patterns for tiny, tiny things! I'd seen her on Twitter and some of her work before. She had a knitted display with her, which was amazing. She has talent. I bought one of her books while I was chatting to her as I really want to knit some of her miniature items. They look like a lot of fun to knit, and most of them you can do in sock yarn, which I have a lot of.

From Vogue Knitting Live we went straight to LAX to catch our flight home. We had done some repacking in the hotel lobby to fit in all of our purchases. We must have looked as though we had bought half the marketplace trying to repack the 4 bags that we had for the flight back to Brisbane.