Inspired by craft in my bedroom....

So I finally have got my bedroom organised after many years in our house. Not only is there the built in robes but new linen, photos and of course some DIY!

Firstly, there was a ladder I found in the garage of my grandmothers house. The middle picture shows it before a bit of a clean and varnish. It has become a great storage place for all my scarfs! And as you can see, I love scarfs!! Much easier to find now.

The side of the new wardrobes were looking rather bare so I was trying to find something to fill it in. I have seen the embroidery circles filled with fabric and used as wall decors so I thought I would give it a go. I couldn't find any fabric I liked that matched my linen so I went for creating my own. Well, I didn't do it all on my own. My lovely sister did the hard work of the embroidery after I wrote it in chalk. I was so happy with the final outcome.



Inspired by the mothers out there...

Well the photo says it all. I put the call out for anyone that needed Mother's Day cards and I have spent the last few days making 14 cards! They have all been delivered now so time to start on my other orders.

Inspired by a New Year....

Wow! 5 months since my last blog entry. That is not good. I hope you all have been staying up to date with what has been happening in the world of Inspired by Paper over on my facebook page. If not, I will give you a little summary of what I have been up to since I last posted in August. I had a stall at the November Maribyrnong Makers Market however the weather wasn't kind and rained it out. Then the committee added a Twilight market a few days before Christmas which was a lovely evening. I hope they do that again this year. Besides the two markets, I completed over 30 frame orders. This kept me very busy and a lot of them where custom ones. I also had several friends order Christmas cards off me so they were also made. Amongst all this I worked ridiculous hours in my 'real' job as a events manager in the lead up to Christmas and was absolutely exhausted.

This leads me to now. Approaching the end of January and I am just finishing up a month off work. Yes, a month. You would probably be thinking that I got so much done and believe me, that is what I was hoping for. But I have made three frame orders and that is all. I was lucky enough to go down to Rye for 4 days at the start of January with my husband and enjoyed the lovely weather and great company by the beach. Oh and some great cricket viewing! Since then, there has been a lot of family commitments. Packing up the family home of 30+ years was a lot bigger job than I had anticipated and now focusing on organising my dads 60th is another big job.

So what do I have planned for 2012?? I really hope to have more time for Inspired by Paper but also remembering not to give up any family time in order to do this. The last 6 months of 2011 I didn't like that I was under the pump. Orders would come in and instead of sitting and enjoying making them all, I would be feeling the stress and losing my motivation. I hope to be able to have time to sit and create new things. One goal I do have is to open a Etsy store and close my online store. I believe Etsy will open me up to a larger customer base... now just to get that happening!

Market wise, I will once again take a step back form these. 2010 and the 18 or so markets was great but very stressful. I found only doing the 4 or so in 2011 I still had the same amount of sales due to word of mouth and repeat customers. I have committed to the three Maribyrnong Makers Markets again and will look at doing another Piccadilly Market along with the Yarraville Festival market. I also enjoyed the Mathilda's Market last year and will most likely apply to the big Christmas one they have at the racecourse.

Well that is a lot of words from me. I will be back later with some photos. But for now I will continue to change channels between the Tennis and the Big Bash cricket match!

Inspired by Mathildas...

I had the privilege of having a stall at the Mathildas Market on August 21st. For those that haven't heard of it, it is a baby and kids market where the stall holders are carefully picked to ensure a high quality of products are sold. I was very nervous in the lead up and worked hard on improving my stall and the visual appeal. As the photos show, I have added signage to the stall that hangs above the table. I was so happy with how it looked and I must thank my darling husband for drilling all the holes and getting it all sort for me.
So the day started off well with lots of eager shoppers through the door and wanting to get the free shopping bag. For the next 4 hours, there was a constant flow of people stopping to say hi and look at the frames. Two frames were ordered and collected by a gentleman who came with his two young daughters as his wife was away. He read about the market and thought he would check it out. I said it was very daring to venture out and battle the pram traffic at the market but he thought it was easy... well until he looked down and he was minus one child in the pram, and off he went! There were so many pregnant people checking out what was on offer for when their little baby arrives. One customer was so wanting a frame as she new the sex of the baby. Although she hadn't confirmed the name of it, she still purchased one and I said I would be happy to send the letters to her when the name was decided!
So overall I was happy with my first time there. I was amongst so many experienced and well known stallholders and was a little overwhelmed at first but I made it through the day. A big thanks must go out to my dear friend Rhiannon. I asked her to come at the start to just in case I needed anything and she stood by me for the whole 4 hours! Well, I did send her off for a coffee run and although I told her to leave her purse at home, she ventured out and did some shopping at other stalls! Having this stall here meant a lot for me and I appreciated having a friend turn up to show some support!

Inspired by babies arrival....

It is so exciting when I have friends who have a baby and of course when the baby is born, I like to try and have the best card on the shelf! I thought I would show you some cards I have done in the last year that have incorporated the babies name.

When Samuel was born and become a new addition to our street, I was quite happy to make cards for all the other neighbours to give the family. Fortunately I had 6 people able to give a card- one for each letter of the name. Each day a new letter arrived until finally the whole name was received.

This was also done when friend Sarah had little Alec recently. There were three other uni friends so straight away I made us each a card with a letter and sent them out. I actually can't find that photo at the moment but will add if it shows up.

Last year I also used the babies full names for cards. The cards below show the name spread across the three cards and I was able to give out to other friends to give.

It is great to see the looks on the mothers faces when receiving the cards. So if you know someone who has had a baby then I would be happy to do something similar for you!

Inspired by Paper Squared...

So with my life being all about work (the real job) and also Inspired by Paper, I said to my husband that we should head away for the night so I could spend some time with him. I had two days off work and I thought if I was at home, I would be in the study working on new creations and he would be on the couch watching some form of sport. So on Friday we headed to our holiday house in Rye for the night. Driving there, we went past Paper Squared in Mornington. For my fellow paper crafters, you will know it is like heaven in there. I was tempted to ask to stop but thought no, I am supposed to be getting away from this all.
When we arrived in Rye, I looked out the kitchen window and saw this beautiful rainbow...

However on Saturday, it was decided we head home a bit earlier in the afternoon than initially planned. As not only was there are good AFL game on the tv to watch, but that was then followed by the NRL game, the Wallabies game and then the 20/20 cricket. Luckily we have foxtel so I was able to head online and set the games to record just in case we didn't get home in time :-). So when driving past Paper Squared on the way home, I asked for ten minutes inside since I felt we were coming home early so he can enjoy his passion, I will enjoy a bit of mine.
I have only been in the store once and walking in I was like where do I start? So many different ranges of papers and as I wondered around the aisles, I was quickly trying to remember what projects I was working on.
When hubby called me from the car outside, I still had a bit to look at and said "just making my way to the front now". He then replied with " well I could say I am just on my way to the footy- but that doesn't mean I am not going to stop in at every pub on the way!". So true, and we returned home and he found himself on the couch watching the footy and I found myself completing another frame order... back to reality....

Inspired by my first Mathildas....

It is July 22nd which means it is just under a month until Inspired by Paper makes it inugural appearence at the Melbourne Mathildas Market. I am both extremely excited along with nervous. Such a big and busy market that has such a great name to it and I look forward to 'giving it a go!' So if you are around Hawthorn on August 21st be sure to pop in and say hello!

Inspired by the last month or two....

Well, where has the month of June and July gone? Since my last post in May, it has been really busy in the Inspired by Paper headquarters. The break from markets hasn't slowed down the orders and still there is a wait of at least a week on orders.

I had a couple of custom orders in May. Firstly there was one for Ella Rose. Her family have a British heritish and are fond of elephants, so along with a few other requests, i was able to put the below frame together.

Another one that I made was for the arrival of little Jake. I really like this one and look forward to making some more of these for the markets. It is still the blues and reds which is the popular boys colour, but then there is the black in there aswell. Lots of areoplanes are around the frame along with the clouds.

In May I shared with you the Geelong footy club frame I made. That has become popular and I have had to make a few more since then! The below Sebastian one is another Geelong one which is a slight variation on the original one. It was definately a hit!

Several months ago I made a frame for Patrick and it was based on his room colours and a selection of animals. I have recently had two of my neighbours see the photo of that frame and ordered one for gifts. Below is the finished product. It is a slight variation to the original one.

So apart from all of these ones, I have made a lot of exisiting designs. Butterflies, Ladybugs, trains and areoplanes!

Inspired by new customers...

It is great to hear that people out there are waiting babies arrival in order to buy a Inspired by Paper frame. Thanks Amy for contacting me after seeing my frames at markets and ordering a frame for the arrival of Eloise. I was able to get the frame to her within 48 hours. Remember that you can contact me any time and if it is a existing design, then I can get it to you straight away! Thanks Amy for ordering the frame and looking forward to seeing you at markets again in the future.

Inspired by simple photo frames...

I purchased these photo frames a while ago and was annoyed when the sizes written on the frame were different to the actual size! So they went in a box and forgotten about. When cleaning up over Easter I re-discovered them and deicded to add a simple little design so people can use them for a single 4 x 6' photo. The brothers one sold at a market but I still have the Sisters and the Family one available. Please let me know if you would like to buy one.

Inspired by Piccadilly Market...

I was very excited to be a part of the Picadilly Market for small people. Piccadilly market is in Geelong and it was the first time they had one solely for babies and kids. It was also the first time that Inspired by Paper had a stall there. It was at a great venue- on the waterfront in Deakin University- and the rain held off so people were more that happy to venture out of the house and visit the market! Many prams and toddlers came through the door and it was great to meet some new customers. Below is a photo of my stall and the venue. You can see the new addition to my stall... the ladder! I know a lot of stall holders use ladders in their setup and when doing a garage cleanup over Easter, I found this one and it is great to hang a few frames on it.

Heading to a market in Geelong, the first thing that came to my head was the Geelong football team. So I set myself a task of making a Geelong based frame for all the Cats supporters that would be going to the market. One of them got purchased and the name Gus was added. It is Gus' birthday this week and is a big Cats fan and I hope he likes his gift! I look forward to heading to another Piccadilly market in the future.

Inspired by bright colours....

It is great to get custom orders as I find it a challenge to come up with the design. This frame I had a request for planes, trains and boats and in red, blue and green. I selected bright shades of those colours and added some yellow. I was really happy with the final piece and I look forward to seeing a photo of it in Charlie's room!

Inspired by who is actually reading this....

So I recently saw that I had over 2000 blog hits. Yay!! But then it got me thinking... Who are all these readers? I therefore went on my Stat Counter- a page I dont visit often enough. Here I can see things like what web page you came from, how long you were on the page and what suburb your computer is in. But it doesn't tell me who you are. I can see your IP address but that doesn't tell me your name. I saw that there is someone in Hoppers Crossing that has looked at my page 193 times. Who are you mystery visitor?
Have you stumbled here accidently and quickly moved on to the next page? Have you come here from a link from a market I am attending? I often wonder about the people that visit so frequently if they come to get inspired by my products and perhaps make their own... I am always wondering.
So if you have come to this page and are reading this post (and not come to look at the pictures) it would be great for you to leave a comment and let me know who you are and why you like to visit my page.
Thanks for sharing....
Kasey

Inspired by Donna Hay...

I always use this blog to write about what I have been creating with paper whether it be cards, frames, birthday books. I want to start to change it up a bit and start to include more about what else inspires me, who inspires me or just what else I have been doing!
I will start it off with my purchase of the latest Donna Hay magazine. I had told myself that I need to not buy anymore magazines or cook books. I have far too much. Way too much actually. And I don't seem to use many of them. Actually it has been a while since I have used any of them. I used to love finding new things to cook for dinner, but the hours of my 'real job' and trying to keep up with Inspired by Paper orders, the time in the kitchen is limited. Sorry, I am getting sidetracked. Back to Donna Hay. It stood out to me in the supermarket as it had one of my favourite things on the front... Donuts. Yes, it contains recipes of a selection of donut recipes. Each one I read and licked my lips. Filled with jam, filled with custard, filled with chocolate. Oh which one would I cook?
Well last weekend I had a family member staying from interstate and she too spotted the magazine and got excited. We decided to go with the traditional jam donuts. It definitely took a lot longer than we realised. We couldn't help but have a laugh when the first step was to put some ingredients in a bowl and leave it for something like 40 minutes. So it was back to the couch for a while. The final product can be seen below. When I comment on the taste, I can say that they were nice. Not the greatest when compared to the Footscray station donuts (local readers will know exactly what I am talking about) but they were still worth the effort and they were all consumed.

Inspired by Caryn's 30th

I love getting requests for new orders and was ready for the challenge of making Caryn's 30th Birthday signing book. She wanted the colours of black and pink and loves butterflies so I had a lot of fun making this book for all her birthday guests to sign. I really liked the final product and would love to make another one. I think if I get time, I will make a couple for weddings and birthdays and sell them at a market in the future. Thanks Caryn for the order and the inspiration!

Inspired by new frames....

I have really tried to find time to come up with some new frame designs over recent weeks. This fairy one was really popular and was quickly snapped up for a Easter gift for Areti. I am loving the purples in this one and hope to make a few more with these papers.
I do my best to meet all my customers needs. At a recent market, little Angeline couldnt decide between the pony and the butterfly frame so I was happy to do a combination of them both!

Another special request was for a blue and green animal frame for Aidan. This was a fun one to make and I like the colour combination. I look forward to making some more of these ones as I am happy with the final product.

Inspired by an engagament...

I am really lucky to have many friends who support my passion for paper. Recently I had a colleague at work get engaged. (Congratulations Shana!!). She asked me to make her some thankyou cards and I was happy to make the below cards. The bird seems to be a common theme in my work (I used it for my wedding invites too) but I just love it!

Inspired by the people of Seddon...

We were lucky to have a lovely day last month at the first Maribyrnong Makers Market for 2011. The rain held off and it was great to have a lot of old customers stop by to say hello. I was also very happy to sell the 100th Inspired by Paper frame. I thought I was going to get there before Christmas but I am happy that Julie was the 100th frame customer with her Eva frame. Julie was visiting from Queensland and was so excited when I told her she did not have to pay for the frame. You will see her in the range of photos below!

Inspired by the year ahead...

So I have decided that instead of trying to look back and post all the things I made over recent months and have been 'gunna' post, I will just start fresh and post any new creations from now on. I will work on remembering that when I post things on my facebook page, I will also post them on here too! The only photos I will post on here are a couple of my recent wedding. I have had a couple people ask for photos so here are some on Bryce and I at the MCG on our special day. These photos were taken by the talented Woodrow Wilson.

Inspired by the new year...

I can't believe it has been over a month since my last post. I must admit, because I frequently post the latest news on Inspired by Papers facebook page, I forget to also put it on here.

Well 2010 ended on a high with a busy lead up to Christmas. When I get a moment, I will post the photos of the custom frames I made. The year 2011 started off and it was all about me! I got married in January so there was a lot of craziness there. All those last minute things to organise- I will share some photos of it soon with you all. Then it was off to Hawaii for two weeks. I found two scrapbooking shops whilst there, but was not able to get to them. I did find a big craft store and convinced my darling new hubby to let me in and I could see him pacing at the door.
So it was a quick look and I managed to quickly grap a couple new things.

As I said, lots of photos to share and I shall do that over the week ahead.
A belated Happy New Year to you all....

Kasey