Things I have been making.....King Louis Kustoms

Things are moving along with the little venture, been making more designs and had our second market last week, and our third one will be next week.  I try to keep things at a reasonable and managable pace but with a five month old it still feels hectic and crazy at times....  but he is adorable and delicious and quite the model....

So much to tell you.....

King Louis Kustoms

So back on fathers day I made Little L and S matching t-shirts to wear with my designs.  That started the ball rolling and since then we have started a line of kustom made items including baby tees, baby onesies and a few other bits and bobs.  Its been keeping me busy but very excited that I am finding a creative outlet in my maternity leave that makes me very happy even though I have been so busy between it and new mum duties I have been very content and am glad I did it.  Here are some pics of our goods so far

we are doing a mix of screen prints and transfers and things are going well after lots of testing and trialling.

So far we have a couple of series including the 45 series like the baby love design I made for fatehrs day, a nostaglic collection with toys and bits from our childhhod and a series of silouhettes.

I've been making... tees! our first fathers day

Last time I posted was a couple of weeks ago and I was very excited for our first fathers day.  I ended up making two tees with 45 records on them- one for S and one for little L so they were matching.  Little L's record label had Baby Love by the Supremes and S's had Daddy Cool by Boney M on his label- they loved them!

Anyway- that started the cogs working and since then I have been making a whole bunch of tees and onesies.  It's something I have always talked about and once I started I could not stop.... and then came the birth of King Louis Kustoms.. but I'll save that story for another day when I have more time

wish I did this.....

Saw these maternity series of photos and journals, wish I did them when I was pregnant.  Not too many pregnant photo's mostly becuase I was feeling crap and fat alot of the time and when I wasn't I didn't have a professional photographer, stylist and wardrobe around.  But if I did I wish they looked like this series I found on pacing the panic room by photographer Ryan Marshall

I am making.... onesies

Handmade Onesies

During all the kids sales at all the chain stores my mother in law and I bought a bunch of onesies.  Your usual white ones- which S and I plan to dye and do something to, but also some baby blues as well.  They were mostly to put underneath other clothes in the freezing winter we are having this year but we also got some long sleeved ones I thought maybe could be used on their own.  I have this weird issue with baby blue though that came out even more when I saw little L in the long sleeved ones- some connection with school uniforms and those ugly skivvy's some kids wore.  SO I thought to make them look more interesting and until I learn to screen print some handsewn bits seemed like the way to go.

we'll call this Effort 1, I hope there are more successful ones...

Step 1: take the onesie and iron it
I started with a short sleeved one
 

Step 2: Thinking of something to go on a plain blue background.  First I thought of clouds but that was too hard to cut out and hand stitch.  Next I thought of planes and rocket- that can be a future project and then I thought of paper planes.  I drew a bunch of paper planes to find a simple shape that would be easy to show the lines with stitching and easy to cut out.

Step 3: has no photo evidence.. probably for the best because I cut out the paper plane shape in white felt and decided to iron it....

Not very clever- I had the iron on full heat and it just "POOF" dissolves and vanished onto the iron leaving a nice sticky residue... plans commence for using different materials

Step 4: cut out more paper planes and practice how to stitch it on and work out which style looks best

went with the bottom one a- for ease and b- for ease

Step 5: putting it on the onesie. 

Step 6: getting my little model to test it.  Despite some clear functional issues like the fact the felt plane will probably disintegrate in the wash and after wearing it for an hour my little wriggler had some loose stitches coming apart I have a design to work with once I iron out (not with ours its covered with felt residue) some issues.

What do you think?

I made this... lasagne

Dinner with B

Going to catch up with B tonight and as she is feeling crap and pregnant we made her a lasagne for dinner so we can come to her and hang out and have dinner without her having to worry about anything. Let me know if you would like the famous S n S recipe.

When a friend had her bay shower she said instead of gifts to bring meals for her and the family once her twins arrived.  I wish I could have done that but we are still rocking the smallest bachelor sized fridge in our place.

Another woman told me people shold get you vouchers for cleaning ladies when your baby is born.  I am still wishing for that for any occassion...

I made these... lemon biscuits

Love lemon, love biscuits, thank you Jamie Oliver for the recipe
(watched them like a hawk to prevent burning- could maybe be a little more golden but wasn't willing to take the risk)

Oven 3

Monie 2

I made this... plushies

Ages ago I was teaching character design and some of my students made plush toys.  I was so inspired I went out and bought Softies and started making some of the templates int here and some of my own.  I had thought to make loads and sell them at markets but I'm not sure I can charge what would be reflective of the time it actually takes to make them all (handsewn no machine at home) Let me know what you think..
Here are the little critters.

Introducing.. the ominous owls

Critter

Lil' Robot

Next I am working on decorating some onesies for Louis- stay tuned.

I made this... cake

Raspberry and Almond cake with marscarpone cream
I do not have the best track record with cakes or desserts see the cake sale at school or the lime delicious incident.  This week alone I have burnt 2 packet cakes and made a brick of another.  BUT I went to LG's house the other day and she made us this cake that I was drooling over so I asked for the recipe.  It was quite involved and even needed special ingredients so I was very nervous.  Here is the finished cake and as you can see half is missing because it turned out GREAT.

This weeks battle with the oven

Oven- 3

Monie- 1

Adelaide markets

Very excited about all the kids markets coming up.  Helping Lala with her stall at Gilles St in September, and looking forward to checking out North East Kids Market and Lollipop markets coming up too.  Hoping I can find more time to make more stuff so I can have my own stall too soon! Pics coming soon of some handmade creations so I can join this group too!