Mikaela Danvers » Handmade & DIY

It’s sale time!

Mikaela — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:17:17 +0000

I’m having a facebook market sale RIGHT NOW over at my facebook business page: www.facebook.com/mikaelahandmade, only until 8pm tonight AEST, so jump on it =)

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{Party Planning} Rafa’s 1st Birthday

Mikaela — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 11:27:01 +0000

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but I LOVE planning parties. I’ve re-capped birthdays past before, as well as documenting how much I love designing invitations, and how much I love baking and decorating for halloween! I also like to make birthdays a bit special for the doggies ;) I’m pretty much impossible to throw a party for, because I just take over and organise everything. I love it!

So you can imagine, having a kid is going to be fairly convenient for my party planning obsession in the future…

Right now I’m in the midst of planning Raf’s 1st Birthday Party, with an “Under the Sea” theme. I’ve almost finished designing the invitations, and am using pinterest to create a mood board, you can see a few of the fabulous ideas I’m collecting here, and more on my Pinterest Board.

I’m pretty excited about it!! Stay tuned for more planning and DIY decorating =)

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Oh look, it’s 5 minutes with me!

Mikaela — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:25:29 +0000

In new Canberra Magazine, Us Folk. Well, not in the mag, but on the website =)

Us Folk is a new independent magazine providing a platform for young and emerging artists, photographers, designers, writers and performers from Canberra and the surrounding region to gain exposure and have their work published. Canberra has a bad reputation for being boring, but we know that’s not true. There are lots of young people in this city who are making Canberra a fun an exciting place to be, and Us Folk want to share their stories.

Check out my little interview here! =)

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Canberra Creatives

Mikaela — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 11:07:48 +0000

Oh hi *waves* I am blogging! I told myself to go to my tumblr and blog about something that I’ve already taken photos of, and what do you know, I have a tonne of pics from my new creative business that I’m pretty sure I haven’t talked about here yet! (pretty sure)

So here we go, strap yourselves in ladies and gents, it’s exciting stuff (it really is!).

In March I started teaching classes at the Handmade Shop in civic, and it didn’t take me long to realise, I really enjoyed doing it. It all makes sense, I’m a trained teacher, and I’m a crafty person, so of course I would love to teach people crafty projects! I had already hosted a couple of Crafternoons at home with friends, and once my brain had recovered a bit more after having quite a bit of time off work already, it went into overdrive. And Canberra Creatives was born!

I teach resin workshops at the Shop, but also offer Crafternoons in people’s homes, where I bring all the materials, supplies and safety gear to you, and you bring your friends, and we whip up some awesome stuff! The resin workshop is by far the most popular at the moment, but the Glass Etching and Fabric Printing workshops are really fun too. I’m currently developing some kids parties and a “Martha Stewart Mega Party”, which will be amazing. Down the track I’m looking at doing a conference style something something, but that’s not quite formed properly in my brain yet, so we’ll just leave it at that.

One exciting thing that is on the horizon for Canberra Creatives is expanding the “products” section of the website, I’m just waiting to confirm some details with suppliers and soon I’ll have an awesome range for Canberra crafters to buy locally and support small business! Double win ;)

If you have taken any of my classes, make sure you take a photo of what you made and post it on my facebook page! =)

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Handmade Market Wrap-up – June

Mikaela — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 06:47:20 +0000

What a great Handmade Market! I brought out my new “Woodland Creatures” range and they were snapped up like hotcakes =) The foxes were especially popular!

On the Saturday, a previous student of mine, Sarzi, was my “market girl” and did a fabulous job, thanks lovely girl ♥ She took these snaps of my stall for facebook =)

And here are a few more shots of my setup, I was really happy with it!

Unfortunately I won’t be at the Spring Market in September, as I’ll be at my brothers wedding in Hay, NSW! But I’ll still be having a monthly facebook market (the June Market is open right now!) so you can get your goodies ;)

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Handmade Fashion Market Wrap-up

Mikaela — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:00:06 +0000

I attended the inaugural Fashion Only Handmade Market event last weekend, as a stallholder with my jewellery and accessories, it was really great! This time I was inside the main hall (as it is a slightly smaller market than the regular big Handmade Market) on a corner stall, and I had a lot of fun setting up my tables. I’m starting to get used to the mad rushed panic of setting up, and I have a system of packing away a previous market that allows me to unpack and setup fairly quickly. Now if only I could get out the door half an hour earlier like I always plan to and I’d have heaps of time!

I spent a lot of time working working working glueing glueing glueing in the week leading up to the market so I would have lots on offer for everyone.

As always, I had lots of help all day, and lots of visitors. So a big thank you to my awesome husband and baby for being amazing (Raf had a little sleep on the floor before going home with daddy), and JA’s mom for staying with me at the stall all day, allowing for tea and loo breaks! And thank you to everyone who came by and said hello! =)

Starting from the next market (June Canberra long weekend) I’m going to have a market girl, yay! JA’s sister Katie has a really strong retail and customer service background, so she is going to be manning the stall for a few hours for me during the day, I hope you can all make her feel as loved as you make me feel each market day!

So the count-down is now on for the June market, it’s going to be my biggest market ever, I am going to have SO. MUCH. STOCK. for you all, as well as lots of specials, a giveaway and some new surprises! So I hope to see you there =)

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Crafternoon Tea Party – Scrappy Framed Photos

Mikaela — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:37:04 +0000

Last weekend I hosted my second Crafternoon Tea Party of the year (read about January’s here).

I baked some Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing (yum), and of course had on hand the many varieties of teas I’ve been collecting. Susan brought Costco cookies (so yum!) and Clo brought White Tim Tams and choc-mint slices. We were on bikkie overload!

Once again, it was so fun! There’s something so fantastic about bringing creativity into people’s lives – people who think they are “uncreative” – and seeing what they come up with, once given the tools.

We created a “Scrappy Framed Photo”. The instruction of this craft was minimal compared to the resin bangles, as all I had to do was show some examples of some scrapbooking I had done previously, and show everyone what was available to them and how it might be used. Then for the most part I wasn’t even there (off trying to print photos and feed the baby!), and what everyone came up with really delighted me!

To thank my lovely gests for coming I made these little party favours, by cutting the cupcake shapes on my Cameo and popping some lollies and malteasers inside (though I was lazy and used sticky tape on the outside instead of glueing them!). So cute =)

I already have ideas for next months Crafternoon Tea Party!

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{Point & Shoot} Making Headbands

Mikaela — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:28:47 +0000

Yesterday I felt bored and unsettled, unproductive and lazy. Yuk. I knew the only way the remedy the situation was to make a list of things to do, get off my butt and do them. So I re-potted a plant, I baked some brownies, sewed some nappy boosters, and started making headbands for next weekends market.

I felt much much better by the afternoon =)

Today I need to finish designing Issue 6 of *bespoke* zine, upload a gallery to a client website, call the blinds people and organise installation (yay!), clear off the dining table, and make Potato Bake for dinner (YUM). I mght try watch a movie this arvo when Rafa goes down for his afternoon nap too, it’s very rainy, perfect movie weather =)

Join in the Point and Shoot fun over at Sunny + Scout.

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{Link Love} The month that was

Mikaela — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:17:55 +0000

Over at Creative Collective the lovely ladies are asking us to show our highlights from January.

“What was it that really got you excited this month? What inspired you? Did you start anything creative? Have you got any creative goals for February?”

My answer is, a dangerous new hobby.

Scrap booking.

*cue dun dun dun music here and visualise dollar signs sailing out the window*

It makes sense, I love photos/photography/snapshots, I like being crafty, and I’m a graphic designer. So a hobby that combines all three is calling to me. I’ve only just started my Project Life album, and still have to create a few more pages detailing what went on in January, but I’ve got a title page and I guess that’s a good start!

I’ve made a couple of notes in my diary about what I can put in it for January (having a blog helps, I can refer back to old posts when my memory fails me heh). So what did we do in January 2012? Rafa met his Great Grandma; We went to Sydney for the weekend, to the beach and Ikea; I hosted a Crafternoon Tea Party; I made a “Don’t Forget” Chalkboard; I went to the January Brown Owls catch up; We got Raf on a good sleeping and napping routine; I did my nails!; I participated in January Photo a Day; I went and had a Massage & Body Pamper session with mumsy & watched an amazing sunset afterwards; We went to Katie’s BBQ for Australia Day; and I seemed to do lots of shopping.

So I think my creative goal for February will be to just keep doing it! I plan to have 2 double page spreads per month, I guess that’s a page per week, but I’m not aiming to do it every week, just every month.

The sources of inspiration for this are Pinterest, Studio Calico, and Allison’s blog.

Do you do scrapbooking? Are you addicted?

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Fash’n'Treasure Market, 4th February

Mikaela — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:05:37 +0000

The Fash’n'Treasure Market is on again next weekend, and I will be there! I’ll have all my old favourite pieces as well as some new ones I’ve been working on =) There will also be a specials tray, so you could grab a bargain!

If you’re in Canberra on the 4th Feb, please come and say hello!

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