New Ideas, New Stuff!

Finally! I have shot, downloaded and uploaded my latest polymer clay creations! I have molded a few different characters. First, my cute Little Miss and Mr Men characters from the series! I use to read these tiny books over and over again and I have quite a big collection now! I have created a Little Miss Naughty, Mr Clever, My Bump, Mr Messy and Mr Happy charms! I intend in making a charm bracelet with these characters, necklaces and earrings with the huge range of Little Miss and Mr Men Characters! Second, I have also molded Alice in Wonderland, Ariel and Dorothy charm. I love the disney series and would like to do more of these characters (I think they look so cute!). Third (and last), I molded a Homer Simpson charm! With his favourite food in the whole wide world - Donuts! Pretty similar to the real pictures don't you think? I'm quite proud of them! Hopefully I'll get better as I progress! Please leave comments of what you think!

Til next time,
Tiny Love

About Me

Hello friends!

I’m Mel. I live my life like I’m Glen Coco. I’m also a little bit of a loony and slightly obsessive when it comes to certain things (being normal is so overrated – yes, that was a 7th Heaven quote). For example, stationery is my achilles heel. I can’t walk past without having a look, and no matter how much I have; I’ll always go for more. I love Disney (Lion King is my all time favourite movie) and I go absolutely weak at the knees when I spot a dog on the road (I also have a tendency to squeal).

My favourite TV shows are Criminal Minds, CSI, and NCIS (no, I’m not a closet psycho, so don’t worry, although I have borrowed a few true crime books from the library now and then, and always wondered if they are suspicious of my activities and motives – I just like crime stories ok?)

I work as an Art Director for a kid’s magazine which gets my creative juices flowing as well as giving me permission to look at pictures of Justin Bieber (just kidding, no I’m not… yes I am!) With the little spare time that I do have, I love to draw, illustrate, design, create and paint – I’m always learning, and always trying to improve my techniques.

If you’ve gotten this far, that’s all there is to me really! Stop reading right now and be on your merry way. The next paragraph is only some quick fun facts about myself.

I drink early grey tea.
I think watermelon smells and tastes gross.
My favourite words are dumpling and squiggly.
When I was little, I wanted to be a flight engineer.
I play the Lucas Arts Monkey Island games over and over again.
I haven’t used a PC since High School.
I don’t understand why people like Seinfeld.
I play an aggressive game of Pictionary.

And that really is it now.
Bye friends!

XO Mel

TUTORIAL OF THE DAY: Kiwi Cane

Ever wondered how to make a delicious kiwi slice for your scrumptious cute cupcakes? I did! And I found the perfect tutorial! Marina's dollhouse miniatures website has a great tutorial on how to make a kiwi cane. Then all you do is slice them and there you have it! I've tried it and at first it's a little tricky but it comes out great! It definately works! What I like about this tutorial is that she managed to get the colours perfect! It actually looks like a juicy delicious kiwi! TRY IT!

TUTORIAL OF THE DAY: Ice Cream and Fruit Bowl

I browse everyday on helpful polymer clay tutorials and polymer clay art to get inspiration and ideas. Today I found a perfect tutorial by Maria Smith on how to make a bowl of ice cream and fruits out of polymer clay. The most important I found in this tutorial was how to make the bowl as I have struggled many times with this and it always comes out wobbly and wonky (same with anyone else?). Anyway hope this helps! It sure helped me! For more Maria Smith tutorials go here.

I'm everywhere

Well not really. But I'm trying my hardest to be everywhere!

So I've set up my store on facebook and created a Flickr account. Flickr is great! I'm still a newbie at it though but I had a look at groups and there's so many I can join! I joined Australian Polymer Clay, Aussie Polymer Clay, Anything Polymer Clay and Polymer Clay Today. I think I've become a Polymer clay freak! But it's so exciting to be part of a group! And I've made some new friends along the way!

Everyday I found more and more stuff on polymer clay and different techniques and ideas! I've found so many artists that work with polymer clay and their work is fantastic! If only I could be as good as them :(

Xmas = busy = HELP!

Hey everyone!

Sorry it has taken me so long to write up another post. I am trying to blog at least once a week but have already failed on that part. Now that it has hit December, I've officially in busy mode. I've found it hard to keep up to date with my polymer business. The magazine and deadline industry is quite demanding - I come home at around 7:30 (sometimes later especially on deadlines), eat dinner, shower and find that it isn't until at least 8:30-9:00 when I'm starting to continue my polymer work. That only gives me a couple of hours before I hit the pillow. I'm trying my best to give myself a time frame of when to post/write/photograph and create new stuff though! Anyway, I'm looking forward to the holidays - who isn't?

So last sunday I spent all day creating new polymer clay jewellery bits and bobs. Charm bracelets, more cupcakes, cake slices, ice-creams, lollipops, and now new characters!!! (Ariel, Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy and Toto, Homer Simpson, Little Miss and Mr Men). Pictures to come. In the mean time check out the new items and please visit my online store for more details on these items. TINYS

Oh and by the way I designed and ordered new business cards for TINYS. They came out great! I love them! I will post a photograph of them later!

Til next time
Tiny Love

Beginning

Exciting news!! I have decided to go into business! Doing what? Well let me tell you! Let's start at the beginning...

There's this really cool online marketplace called www.etsy.com that I have become addicted to! Here you can find a whole range of handmade stuff (jewellery, clothes, paintings, stationery, books, you name it!) And the sellers are ordinary people from all around the world! Genius!

This is a perfect place for a crafty/design enthusiast like me who has always dreamed about making her own artwork and selling it to others! But what would be my art? Well, after many hours of researching and clicking links I found the perfect idea! Polymer clay...and let me tell you, it's addictive!

So there I was, playing with clay, molding cupcakes, ice-creams, muffins, cakes, animals, hotdogs, and movie characters to be made into cute and adorable earrings, necklaces, mobile phone charms and more! The ideas just kept coming: tv characters, book characters, gaming characters, different foods, matching things and even sporting teams! THEN I had ideas on doing charm bracelets, leather wraps, and pandora style beaded wrapped bracelets (it's so popular at the moment). Playing the polymer clay is so much fun! I was determined more than ever to set up my own shop and sell sell sell!

Having a design background has helped me tremendously. I had to design my own shop banner, profile, business cards, and stickers for packaging. I also had a few marketing ideas up my sleeve to try and kick-start my business. Once everything was in place it was definately time to register my shop!

I took several photos of my products and calculated all my costs. My shop http://tinys.etsy.com was up and running in no time. Everything looked great - the banner, profile, announcement, shipping, policies - I was so excited! But now all I could do was wait....(how long will it take for someone to buy something? Would people like it?)

But I didn't have to wait long! My first sale came through within 24hours of setting it up! and then another 2 the next 24 hours! Good sign so far don't you think?! I am so excited!

So that's a lot to take in, in one post! But things were on a roll and I thought setting up this blog to write down my progress and the life of Tinys would be a fun and interesting adventure!

Til next time
Tiny Love