Designer Love - Mr.PS by Megan Price

Hi there! 
On this very wet and unseasonably cold Sydney Spring day, my thoughts turn to home. My homeland that is. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I am an English expat and sometimes I am drawn to things that remind me of 'Blighty', and my childhood, (I guess most of us have at least some fond memories of being a kid that we like to re-visit from time to time!).


I had fish and chips for dinner this evening - with brown (malt) vinegar of course. That's the English way.
It reminded me of one of my favourite Etsy shops - Mr.PS.

{Fish n Chips screenprint on paper - buy here}

I love the work of Megan Price who owns said Etsy shop. 
Her designs are in just the kind of Quintessentially-British-but-fun, retro style that I adore. 


...Think pots of tea, fry-ups for brekkie, fish and chips, 'bangers' and mash, pick and mix sweets and the ice cream van that came round after tea on a Sunday, offering up 99's, FAB's, Rocket Lollies and Snowballs... (did you have all of those where you are from? Are you OLD enough to remember them?? Not to mention 'Chopper' & 'Tomahawk' bicycles and Holly Hobby knee-high white socks!!!!).
I digress. Forgive me!

Anyway, as I was saying (before I oh so rudely interrupted myself!)...
Megan's screen-printed wares are quirky and British and really rather fabbo!


Megan, who is based in Greater Manchester, trained in illustration and has a passion for PRINT. 
Her hand screen-printed, hand finished  products, such as tea towels and tote bags;
 feature whimsical, bold graphics, line drawings and messages. 


Her Design inspiration comes from vintage signage, food and drinks, and the great British seaside, such as Brighton, Blackpool or good old Skegness! 


Here are some more pics of her wares:

Find out more about Megan here, or visit her shop, Mr. PS here.


All images by Megan Price.


Thanks for stopping by,


Happy weekend!


Love Sally xox

'Christmas In July' came early with the ABCD goodie bags!!!

Ditty, Bec & Sophie

some of the girls including the fabulous Anni (in swanky red boots on the left)

arrivals adding their treats to the goodie bags!

 I mentioned in my last post, that I was about to attend the Sydney, ABCD Winter meet-up. Well, it's now been and gone, {in fact it's over a week ago already - oh WHERE oh where does the time go??!}.

...The first one for Sydney, (which I went along to), was late last year.
I was so nervous and not sure I could actually BE brave enough to go out to a pub on my own to meet strangers - no matter how much we were deemed to have in common!
It was such a lovely experience though, that this time I didn't need any 'Rescue Remedy', or "I WILL be brave!!"type mantras!!

It was a really lovely evening and I enjoyed chatting with some lovely, talented and creative ladies (and briefly to a very nice artist called Geoffrey, who loves to imbue his paintings with positive energy!).

I especially enjoyed chatting to Steph, Ditty, Bec, Roberta and Anni, and as always was thrilled to see Anastasia, whom I now count amongst my good friends, having met her through the Australian Etsy team DUST. {They all have great blogs / businesses, so do go ahead & check out the links to see for yourself}.

Anastasia and me!! :)

We were invited to bring along something for a goodie bag to help others remember us. I opted in, as it's a lovely idea. Now, I have to be honest here, one of the highlights was getting to bring home said goodie bag - bursting at the seams with lovely, fabbo things to remember the others by by!!

photo by Lisa of The Red Thread of some of her bag contents.
{my contribution is top right!}

In Australia, because Christmas is HOT, and doesn't feel like Christmas 'should' (that's kind of how I feel anyway, having grown up in the Northern hemisphere!), we sometimes kind of celebrate "Christmas in July"!
Hence my title to this post! I don't think we'll be making snowmen, cooking roast turkey, singing carols and pulling crackers, but my son's school is having a fete, and there wil be a temporary ice rink in the local park. Of course I am digressing now....

.... back to the goodies.
Take a peep here at the lovely loot I came home with!!

Please forgive me if I don't caption and link to the giver of each item, I'll NEVER get this post published if I do that.... instead for more details & pics of who gave what see Steph's post here.

THANK YOU to all the girls, and especially to Steph and Lisa for organising / hosting.
Three cheers to them, HIP HIP HOORAY!!!
                                   HIP HIP HOORAY!!!
                                   HIP HIP HOORAY!!!

Lovely ladies Lisa (left) and Steph (right).

What a great night!


Take care Lovlies, I'm off to watch a little TV with hubby before bed,


Sally x 0 x

Stationery Love - my latest finds

Oh I do sooooooo love greeting cards and stationery!
I am always buying cards for no other reason than I like them. They draw me in. I could (and occasionally do) spend hours in Stationery shops - such as the oh-so-fabulous Paperchase (my favourite!).

Recently, whilst visiting my local art shop, a cute patchwork elephant card jumped off the shelf to say hello to me! Upon inspecting the back to discover the name of the artist / designer (always my first response to an appealing design), I discovered a new card range to investigate - Jenny Frean. I found several of her cards, on the rack, which were all fab. The cards are published by the Art Group, and published by Jenny, who has run a  studio of talented designers since 1986.  First Eleven Studio is based in Sussex, UK.
The two designs above are by artist Rebecca Hoyes.

Also in the same art shop, was a stand of intriguing designs from La La Land - also a new discovery for me! Whilst they are not necessarily all styles of artwork that would normally appeal to me - they are a really fresh style. Something modern and different from the norm. Hooray for some originality!

by Art and Ghosts

by Flossy P

Greetings!!! lol
Sally x0x

Artist and Designer collaboration - Something Special....

As some of you will know, my last position of employment (before having my bubbas), was as Textile Designer for the awesome, world famous artist Ken Done, at his company 'Done Art & Design' in Sydney.

"Paintings of Things in the Sea"

It was a 'fantabulous' job and I LOVED it!! 
The office was full of light, colour, warmth (the human kind), and my role was interesting, fun and technically challenging at times, but always rewarding.


Ken, his lovely wife (and the company fashion designer) Judy Done, and the rest of the team, which included their 'kids' Camilla and Oscar were wonderful - in a sense they were like a surrogate family to this
here ex-pat! I had only moved from the UK to Australia about a year prior to working at Done.

one of the designs I worked on (above)

Incidentally, I had been a big fan of Ken's work for many years, and upon deciding to emigrate to Australia, I had decided I wanted to work for him. Hey Presto - funny how life sometimes obliges isn't it? Faith, hard work, good luck, being in the right place at the right time??? Let's just call it SERENDIPITY!!


Today, I came across (via Printsource blog), a collaboration of Ken's with designer/ artist Natalie Wood and her label Something Else.

'Something Else' fulfils Natalie’s desire to combine different creative disciplines; blending art and fashion.  She collaborates on collections with respected artists, such as Georgina Cullum, Michaela Saunders, Skullux and Tara Marynowski.  

The results are 'street-chic', edgy clothes, intended for "women who share Wood’s appreciation for art, music, popular culture and nature".

photos via Style Bubble

Wish upon a Star!

....I know it's wrong to covet stuff.

BUT, we all do it - at least occasionally right??

Anyway, I would rather like to own this fab frock

by the awesome Anthropologie.

It's called The RIVER FISH DRESS,

and it's silk.

Oh, how comfy and stylish it looks.

sigh, it will never be

mine.... but I can look at it here at least!!!

Have you found any lovely frocks or skirts lately?

I love a good printed garment - ART YOU CAN WEAR!!

Have a great weekend,

love,

Sally x0x

Last week's Sydney ABCD meet-up!

I am later in posting about this event, than I would have liked. Oh well, small boys must come first...
(at least SOMETIMES anyhow!!).

What:  ABCD Sydney Meet-up     When:  Thursday 28th October

 The ABCD (Artists + Bloggers + Crafters + Designers) Meetups are a chance for art, design and craft bloggers to get out from behind their computers and meet face-to-face at a casual quarterly get-together.

"The meet-ups have no set structure, and are designed to be an informal gathering at a bar or cafe on a Thursday evening."

True to their promise organisers/ hosts Steph Bond  and Lisa Tilse gave us a fun, casual gathering (in a swanky room, in a bar). Which luckily for me was in my very suburb!! Yes, I know, so lucky!! : )
                                                                           
Thank you Lisa & Steph, and also Kim of Udessi for co-organising. You all did a great job!

We were invited to bring something along (well, around 30 somethings!!) for the goodie bags, so I made up extra of the Spring embellishments I had made for the Creative Collective project, and made up little mini goodie bags, with one of these in , a postcard, a sticker and a lolly.

 The goodie bags were a lovely treat and were filled with all sorts of creative yumminess such as a little apple pin cushion, hand-made cards and tags and a teeny-weeny cute knitted tea-cup! Oh, plus more lollies. Yum!

My favourites were the Screenprinted fabric bookmark by Michelle from Me We and the little Apple pincushion by Dandi, but everything was fabulous. Thanks muchly to all who contributed to the goodie bags - I loved mine! ♥

for more details of the goodie bag contents (and better photos) see Steph's post here !

This is ME with the lovely Anastasia

Of course the best bit was meeting some of the lovely creative ladies who were there, every one of them beautiful AND talented! My only regret was that I didn't get to meet EVERY single one of them!

I had an awesome time chatting to the likes of these awesome gals: Amanda, Anastasia, Lisa, Steph, Sarah and Jessica...

In the (prettily put) words of Steph -

it was "LOVELY TO MEET YOU"!

                        ♥