THE SEQUEL: pregnancy announcement

IMPLODING FOLDING PAPER CRAFT

Guess what... I am teaching my very first SkillShare class! I love crafts and I often document how I make them so what better way to share the love than to teach others and share my process and methods?
For my first class you will learn how to create a folding paper card that seemingly has two sides, but actually has four. Watch as your creation implodes on itself to reveal the hidden pages. In this class I will be demonstrating how to make one of these with an illustration example, but it's also great for photos, collage and invites. This origami-esque project looks complicated but can be done by anyone once you know the secret!
In my example I have illustrated a few of my favourite characters from Hunt For The Wilderpeople with the style I use in my Little Brown Notebook.

Take my Imploding Folding Paper Craft class today for only 99 cents!

If you're not familiar, Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes on everything from business to graphic design to fashion – it's the Netflix of learning. Classes are bite-sized and have a fun project so you can practice your newly learned skills.
By using this special link, not only will you be able to enroll in my class, but you'll also gain access to all other classes on Skillshare for just 99 cents! For three months, you can learn from the best in design and crafts, all for less than a dollar.

Take My Class

HELLO WORLD!

Introducing our wee bundle of joy Mr Van (Evan) Alonzo Veysey! Feeling extremely blessed to have this little addition to our family. The poor boy is destined for a life of photoshoots... But I just can't help myself! So much love for him xx

YEAR FOUR: CHATTAN FARM

Well this is it! Our last anniversary with just the two of us – and what a lovely four years it has been. But this chapter is almost at a close as we are about to add to our wee family with a son! I am 26 weeks pregnant with 13 left to go... The countdown is on (already). But in the mean time we decided to try a little glamping to celebrate our marriage and set out to Chattan Farm, one of the unique Canopy Camping sites. This is the first time we have been to one of the Canopy Camping Escapes and we loved it! It was so nice to get away and literally unplug... No power sockets here buddy! The tent (if you can call it that) is nestled away on a beautiful farm in the Bay of Plenty and set up with a kitchen and bathroom. I hope we can make it back here sometime soon, and after this experience I would be keen to try some of the other Escapes around the country. Thanks for these wonderful four years of marriage babe, here's to a new adventure! xxx

EXPECTING

We have some exciting news! Brendon and I are expecting a little one at the beginning of August. Fair warning... there will probably be an influx of baby related posts from now on!

DIY VALENTINE FLOWERS

Valentines Day is just around the corner so I thought I would share a little DIY project that you can make for your loved ones. You can make a bouquet like I have done or give out individual flowers. They will last a lot longer than real flowers... and they are delicious!

You will need: coloured tissue paper (I used three colours), cardboard, paper straws, lollipops, cellotape and scissors.

1. Cut a rectangle from your cardboard. Make a fringe by cutting lines along the edge of the cardboard. The closer your cuts are to each other the better.

2. Remove any excess tags from your lollipops. I used all yellow chupa chups (chocolate and vanilla) but you could use multiple flavours to make it more colourful.

3. Wrap your cardboard fringe around the lollipop, making it as tight as possible.

4. Secure it with some cellotape.

5. Cut a square from your tissue paper. This will be your inner petal. Fold the tissue paper in half four or five five times until you have something that looks like the below photo.

6. Cut the tissue paper in an arc and unfold it. The pink one is what it will look like when you fold it in half four times, and the purple one has been folded in half five times.

7. Make a hole in the centre of your tissue paper and push the lollipop stick through. Twist the tissue paper along the stem and secure it with tape at the bottom.

8. Repeat steps 5. to 7. with a different coloured tissue paper adding the outer layer of petals.

9. Push your paper straw over the lollipop stick and tissue paper. Mine fit snuggly so I didn't need to secure it with anything. You can also use plastic straws but they tend to fold in half with the weight of the lollipop. If you are wanting to use plastic straws I would suggest putting a BBQ stick in the middle to help stabilise it.

And there you have it, a lollipop flower. I mixed and matched the colours I used for the inner and outer petals so they didn't all look exactly the same.

Have fun creating and Happy Valentines Day :)

MIKE + TANYA

Earlier this year some friends of mine asked me to take some photos at their beach wedding – which was a bit daunting as I don't really know how to use my camera! Luckily the bride and groom are super chill and I was able to stumble my way through it. These are some of my favs from the day :)

Día de Muertos

My brother and I celebrated our first ever Halloween this year. It is not something that is big in New Zealand but a friend of mine has a party every year and it's a fun excuse to get all dressed up. My brother and I went as Sugar Skulls in the Day of the Dead theme. Do you think we could pass as Mexicans?! The make up was fun to do, although more time consuming than I anticipated. And I love any reason to wear a big ol' flower crown :)

YEAR THREE

Its amazing how quickly three years can fly by! In that time I have changed jobs, Brendon has changed career, we've moved to a new town and bought a house. I wonder what the next three years will bring?!
This year we decided to celebrate a little closer to home, so went to Solscape and stayed a couple nights in a teepee. It was fun to do something a little different! We spent most of the weekend taking naps in the sun and exploring the beach. Just what we needed before winter starts to set in.

MIND OVER MATTER

I entered my first Creative Allies competition today for a poster design for Young the Giant. These guys are one of my favourite bands so I figured it would be nice to do some art just for the fun of it. This album is amazing so if you havent heard it yet you should go check it out!

TRINA + ANTS

Last year I had the privilege of designing a wedding invite for my sister and brother-in-law who wed last month. They had a gorgeous wedding with an even more beautiful bride a groom.
Every happiness to Mr and Mrs Coyle! xx

1095 DAYS SO FAR

HIPSTER GUESS WHO

For Christmas last year (Yes, it's February already... I'm playing catch up!) I decided to make a gift for my brother. Growing up our family used to have a Games Night every Wednesday. It was a tradition that my parents started and my brother and I have been looking back on it quite nostalgically lately. One of our favourite games was Guess Who, so for his present I decided to craft him a custom-made version.

We played it together on Christmas morning and it morphed into more abstract version of Guess Who where questions turned from "does your person have brown hair?" into "is your person in a band?" and "does your person drink craft beer?". Given the ridiculous questions, it was amazing how many times we managed to guess the correct character.

TO CALL EACH THING BY ITS RIGHT NAME: part two...

In my previous post I shared some photos of the glass vials I used to put in our herbs and spices. I wanted my tea, coffee and condiments to match as they would be on the same shelf, but instead of clear stickers I used vinyl that had been cut on a plotting machine. In the above pics I've shown how you apply this with masking/application tape. Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out and I just love the white Dane Canisters from Freedom.

TO CALL EACH THING BY ITS RIGHT NAME: part one...

My lovely husband has built me some rimu shelves in our kitchen (photos to come) and I didnt want to ruin them by putting our mishmashed herbs, coffee, tea and oils on it. So I decided I would customise our condiments so they would look like a set. I started first with our herbs and spices. I wrote out all the herbs and scanned them into my computer which I then got the printers to print on a clear sticker. I purchased some glass vials with cork lids from etsy and applied my labels. This method looked better on the spices as they were lighter colours. Unfortunately the herbs were a bit dark for the black writing to be seen clearly, but I can still read them so it will have to do!

“Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name, or, if this were not within her power, to give birth out of love for life to successors who would do it in her place.”

– Boris Pasternak