Year: 2019

The idea of adding a pōhutukawa design to my portfolio is not a new one, but it is really difficult to align their kahika (flowers) with my drawing style – by the time I have drawn AROUND every filament, the flower will be more black line than flower. The alternative, stylising the flower outline and only picking out the anthers, just makes it look like a dandelion. Ugh. Annoying.

I decided to break from tradition and draw the kahika in red, and it seemed to work… So after a quick mock-up, I used the trees that I had already created for my kōwhai design (with the pōhutukawa in mind, of course), and dressed them to fit the pōhutukawa structure.

Then, I spent long hours gradually building up the blooms to follow the way that a real p​ōhutukawa tree looks (ours isn’t in bloom, as it’s the end of winter, so I can’t go and look).  This stage is just before the final stage of being turned into a tile repeat. 

At this stage, the design is still very much a work in progress, so it may or may not make it all the way to printing. without further tweaks.
When I started trialling the repeat, I noticed that the trees definitely needed a root system. My original intention had been to hide the lower parts of the trees entirely, but I decided to try this, instead. It only shows a tiny bit, but the details really matter to me!
Click on the image to shop for pōhutukawa and other native tree designs on Spoonflower.

I am definitely no expert in succulent cultivation, but I love their company. They are such weird and lovely plants! And, of course, I have been planning to draw them and their relatives for quite some time.

Working from the actual plants, and from many photos, I built up a collection of sketches to start my repeat, then coloured them, combined them into a bouquet, and drew in additional plants to fill out the composition.

I initially started sketching kōwhai flowers and leaves for my personal embroidery project – which I am also developing for sale, after so much positive feedback – but I have also had a fabric design knocking at the back of my mind for a while. Of course, I wanted to finish this project first, but sometimes, you just have to let the stronger inspiration take over.

I don’t usually just draw elements in isolation, and then leave them that way, and more and more, I have been weaving the separate elements into a cohesive and realistic whole – so I knew that I would have to start by observing and drawing the structure of the actual kōwhai trees first, then start looking at how the flowers, seed pods, and leaves connect to the tree. I am really lucky that we have more than ten kōwhai trees on our land, so I was able to just pop outside and check them out for details whenever I needed to do so. What a privilege!

Our kōwhai trees have been full of dogfighting birds as the blooms open. It’s a noisy place to be! 
I walked around the property and took plenty of reference photos of the trees and the ​kōwhai blooms themselves.

From these photos, I developed a basic, stylised tree structure.

Once I had developed the basic tree, I knew how I wanted the flowers and seed pods to fit into the design, and started drawing them. I like to draw several different flowers, and then add them throughout the design, rather than draw the whole picture with every single flower drawn individually, because it ensures a consistency across the design, and it saves a great deal of time in some ways (although it still takes a very long time to build up the design, one flower at a time!).

Once I had spent many hours gradually assembling my tree, I created an initial repeat, which will become a repeating tile, then a fabric design. 

As this is quite subtle, and the flowers take a backseat to the overall tree structure, I also re-drew the ​kōwhai flowers and seed pods, as well as some leafy branches, and created some larger motifs, which will become a range of complementary designs in the ​kōwhai range, as well as being used in my embroidery patterns.

You can shop for these designs on Spoonflower now – here are a couple of examples:

It’s been AGES since I have had time to design some new stuff, and I have been jonesing for some creative time. 
Our major renovations finally finished a couple of weeks ago, so we finally have our house back. We are gradually sorting through all our possessions, decluttering, and putting finishing touches on the house, but the sudden lack of pressure is huge, so I have filled the gap with a whole lot of Copper Catkin tasks – new designs, updating the blog (hi!), getting our stock online as we aren’t doing markets anymore, and doing a massive craft and market supply destash. We started last weekend, with Fabric-a-brac in Palmerston North, which was awesome. 

One of our big remaining tasks for the house is the garden, and as we make small inroads, I have been taking photos in the hope that I would have some time soon to draw them.. and now, I have the time! So, first of all, let’s look at the herbs (from our garden) that I have drawn.

Basil is an absolute STAPLE in our household. We love it fresh in salads and sandwiches, cooked on pizza, made into pesto, or cooked into pasta sauces. Last summer, our basil plant went NUTS, but of course, the first frost killed it, so we have been using the little supermarket plants while we wait for basil weather again.

Marjoram is one of the basic herbs that I have used in pretty much everything I cooked for a lot of my life. My cuisine style, growing up, was strongly influenced by French and Italian cooking traditions (given that I grew up in Europe).

Oregano and marjoram are remarkably similar, visually, so I have made sure that I leave the labels in with all of the herbs in our vertical planter. I can almost smell the fresh, sunny herb smell through the screen. 

Parsley is one of the herbs I have struggled to draw – our Italian parsley is not in the most draw-able state, so I had a shot at curly parsley, but I am not happy with it, so it’s literally back to the drawing board on that one. 

To draw rosemary, rather than concentrating on the leaf shape, I looked at the leaf distribution. They look a little bit like fireworks when you just sketch the layout.

I love the look of sage, even our somewhat straggly little bush. I like to tuck it inside stuffed chicken breast, as well as the traditional sage and onion stuffing for chicken or turkey. It’s very pleasing to draw, too.

Tarragon has recently entered our cooking lexicon, and we are enjoying exploring new options with it. Like basil, when dried, it looks (and tastes) very different from the fresh leaves. 
I drew a lot of extra leaves in while I was creating the final tile repeats.

Thyme has the tiniest leaves, so it’s hard to get the detail and the scale correct. I really want to plant it as ground cover, I love the scent of thyme when it fills the air. 

It has been a busy couple of weeks, getting these all drawn, coloured, and building the repeats. It usually takes me AT LEAST two days to make a single design, so fourteen designs in a fortnight is actually epic work. We have covered the herbs, the first 8, in this post, and we will cover the others in other posts:
– Kōwhai (trees and flowers)
– Pōhutukawa
– Succulents
– Pittisporum
– Kawakawa

I thought about making a second post for these two additional herb designs, but they make more sense here, so I have added them onto the end of this post. I think it was definitely worth taking a second shot at that parsley, how much better does that look?

That’s right, here at Copper Catkin, we are **officially** on a market hiatus.

We want some time to concentrate on finishing our renovations, working on some side projects (and yes, we will show you!) and settling into a more normal life rhythm, now that we will both be back working full-time.

As many of you may know, we are hoping to move to Portland, Oregon. We had misunderstood the timings, and thought that we would be leaving the country around about now, but we have recently had an update on processing timeframes, and it’s likely to be more like a year (or even longer!), so we are looking forward to enjoying our lovely, renovated home a little longer than expected. 

Copper Catkin products will be appearing online soon, and Cat will be continuing to design and create – just not sell at markets. 

Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to seeing you around the markets in the future – possibly even with a few of our other ventures, or selling some of our Frankie G Apparel!

It’s been something that has been hovering on the periphery for many years – since the birth of platforms like Ponoko, in fact – but has never been an option because of all the software retraining and style changes required. Not, that is, until our wedding, where we decided to incorporate some laser-cutting into our centrepieces and cake stand. 

We also used laser-cutting to make the displays for our Steampowered Nuptials polymer clay sculptures.

Earlier this year, I was making an effort to take time out from the stress of our extensive renovations by doing a few small craft projects to decorate our home. We thought we were about to go on the market, so we just wanted a few small pieces to put up on windowsills or shelves. 
I was looking for something completely different when I spotted this piece at Pete’s Emporium, and thought, well, why not? I could paint it and make it into something inexpensive but fun. 

At about this time, we chose the name “Te Rerenga Manu”, the flight of the birds, as the name for our house, so adding bird decor seemed appropriate, especially as we were moving to Portland, home of “put a bird on it”, which, to be fair, was never terribly funny, even if it’s a bit accurate.

So once I had painted up the trreble clef and its birds, I felt like it needed a balance – but a bass clef is quite a hard design to make in 3D, as it has two floating dots. I tried to attach them in various ways, including by placing my bird on that corner, but it just looked lame, so I landed on the little sprues. Not perfect, but it works.

​The next step was to convert it into a file that I could get laser-cut, and of course, at this point, I stalled. 

My bass clef piwakawaka went into the “later” basket, along with my whio, who had been waiting a year already.

Laser-cutting is still very expensive in New Zealand, so it’s not really feasible to use it to make small lots of products; we would need to consider buying our own laser if we were going to make this a main part of our business. As we will be moving to Portland, a large purchase like this is not an option until we get there, but there’s no harm in getting a bit of practice in ahead of time.

​We decided to test-drive the concept by making a few designs for our home decor, including the bass clefs and the whio, with one giant kereru for the wall. We got extras cut in case they might sell, although that was not the primary purpose. 

​Peeling off the protective paper was both satisfying and frustrating, a bit like peeling off sunburnt skin… 

The first step with all the pieces was to completely seal the MDF with Resene Lumbersider in Nero, which is basically black. Loki, of course, was required to help, there.

I used the testpots of the colours that I was considering for our interior and exterior wall colours, so it was also a form of recycling.

It had been quite some time, at this point, since I had held a paintbrush for anything other than painting walls, so it was quite a challenge to paint for pleasure – but a welcome challenge!
Most of the piece was a single, flat colour, just like my digital art, but it was really nice to do some shading on the head and neck.

​Apart from being a useful record, photos also help me identify the areas that need work – not always apparent to the naked eye, but emphasised by the lens.

One of the reasons that we did a short test run to start with was this sort of thing – from the front, all good, but then you see how very spindly the leggies are – oops, some were even burnt through! Annoying, but most of them were ok. 

Two of these are sold, one is ours, and one was given as a gift to a good friend. The remaining two have the heat crack we showed above, so we will keep them as decor, too.

We knew that our bathrooms still needed another coat of paint, so until that was done, the whio for the wall were not urgent. Once we had completed that wall painting, though, it was definitely whio time, so the first thing I did was print out paper mock-ups to test the size on the wall. After a few weeks of living with them, I was sure that the scale was correct, so we were able to order that size with confidence.

As with the other pieces, I painted all of the whio black to seal the MDF, which was particularly important for a bathroom!  

​Resene Lumbersider is self-priming on timber, so there was no need to prime, and it’s house-paint, designed to weather our fairly extreme conditions, so it was a pretty safe bet for a room that doesn’t get very steamy ( we only use it for baths). We did overcoat with a clear coat to protect the paint a bit more, though.

I painted one set diving left to right, and one diving in the other direction, to keep things interesting.

El Huzbando is the king of spraying, so while I can do a decent job, it’s usually best for him to do it when it matters.

We were honestly quite bowled away by the positive response to these designs – private posts and public posts alike got some really positive feedback. Thank you all again for making us feel so good about our little project – especially to those who bought our test pieces!

Keep an eye out for our all-year-round decorations, which are also perfect for tree ornaments or gift tags that are part of the gift!

We are attending the Yealands Classic Fighters Omaka airshow in Blenheim, New Zealand, as our last big outdoor event before we transition to winter indoor markets, and their theme this year inspired me to revisit my old “aviatrices” design from back in the day.

While I was still operating as Phersu Dancing, one of the first designs that I drew myself to use in my jewellery was my aviator range.

Throughout the history of aviation, there have been names that stood out and have been remembered – and many of them were women!  To celebrate this, I made a series of portraits which were available for purchase in the full range of glass jewellery.

I drew Amelia Earhart, Amy Johnson, Jean Batten, and Bessie Coleman, as well as the Red Baron.

It’s times like these when you realise just how far you have come! My style has eveolved so much that, even if I could locate the originals, I simply couldn’t re-use these drawings – it was time to start again. 

There are a staggering number of women who have contributed to the history of aviation and been recorded in the annals of history – and many more, certainly, who have not. I used this Wikipedia article as a starting point in my triage, then came across this useful list. I refined my shortlist even further, but I still had far too many options, far too many to draw, but I was having trouble deciding on my selection criteria. I decided to follow my colouring book format, and select 17 subjects.

Eventually, I narrowed it down to 17 women over the history of aviation, who made important contributions – and had good photos available , so that I could get a good sense of their faces. Here they are, in chronological order by date of birth.

Each of these designs is available on Redbubble, Spoonflower, and will soon be available in jewellery, scarves, and colouring books.

Our bathroom renovations took a gruelling 6 months, but we learnt a great many things, principle among which was: do NOT trust random tradespeople when they say that they know how to do a renovation rather than just a repair.

That being said, we did take a slightly different tack from most people, as we did the demolition, painting, and tiling ourselves, as well as choosing all of the furniture and tapware – and we somehow also ended up replacing our roof in the process!

​​Let’s start with a bit of a “before” vision – the bathrooms were very dated. These are real estate photos, and they still can’t really hide how old and worn everything was. 

​On top of everything being a bit worn and outdated, the hardest part for me, as someone who had spent quite a lot of my career working with colour and design, was the colour scheme – basic Spanish White, pinkish melamine, and faux-terracotta tiles just made me sad every time I saw them.

The fact that the whole house had to be re-plumbed to remove Dux Qest from the walls was the perfect opportunity to turn our home into a space that I could really love (and clean!). We got a discount for it, and the wobbly shower enclosure in the ensuite, when we bought the house, but it was nowhere near enough to cover the eventual cost of all the renovations. 

I started with what I know, which is colour, and worked outwards – layout, then eventually, hardware. We won’t go into all the dramas there – suffice it to say that a particular company of plumbers are not good at renovation project management. 

My first decision was that I would base the colour scheme around my Blueberry Bush design. 
Then, I took that concept to Resene, and chose Resene Pacifika and Resene Half Shark for my walls and trims, respectively.

I then spent days slogging around all the specialist kitchen decor and tile shops, only to find exactly what I wanted at Bunnings, for a fraction of the price. WINNING! 
The tile choices allowed me to confirm my paint colours, and select my neutral, for the laundry and living areas – multiples of Resene Concrete. We ended up using Double Concrete in the upstairs rooms, and Triple Concrete downstairs, in the living spaces, kitchen, and laundry. 

• We started ripping out the upstairs bathrooms 8th March 2018
• The plumbers started replacing piping 21 March 2018
• The plasterer started 5 April 2018
• The plumbers finished 8 August 2018

Here’s our first weekend of demolition – we took it gently, as we weren’t sure how much they wanted us to remove. Just the tiles (YUSS) and the vanities, both of which unfortunately disintegrated during demolition and were not able to be recycled into the community.

Holes in everything, â€‹with the plumbers cutting holes in walls, crawling under the house, and generally turning our world upside-down.

The pets and I spent many months confined to one of the lounges, surrounded by banging. It was a tough time.

Our second weekend of demolition, we had a much clearer idea of what the plumbers wanted us to do – so it was on with the PPE, and off with the walls!

Ready for the plumbers to re-pipe, re-Gib, and install the bath, toilet, vanity… 

So this is the bit where, once again, I wish I had known more about supervision of tradespeople. A year and a half later, and we are still finding flow-on effects from the mess these guys made with a nail-gun. Nails out every wall, including out to the exterior, the stairwell, the hallway, and the neighbouring room. Pro-tip – check all adjoining rooms before signing off.

This was really cool – it gave me a chance to see how much skill and knowledge is hiding inside my husband’s brain, as well as to learn something new myself. We did a lot of research, called the suppliers for the tiling adhesives, and eventually figured out that the previous tiles were so hard to remove because they had been installed incorrectly for the chipboard sub-flooring.

Following advice from the professionals, we laid down concrete underlay board – and I learnt to use a chalk line!

There’s something terrible exciting about testing things. It was such a thrill when the plumbers were able to show me that my special tap worked, especially as I was very restrained with all the other bathroom accoutrements. 

We ran up against a really annoying roadblock – because the sparkies hadn’t installed the lights yet, we couldn’t paint at night. It meant some very long days, and, yes, some quite poor painting at night, in the end. We ended up doing a third coat about a year later (when we found the time again, after the next huge tradesperson invasion – more on that later).

Anyway, once the ceiling and walls were plastered, we sanded, sealed, sanded, dusted, and painted them.

​When I was little, I used to imagine very hard that I could hear Father Christmas’ reindeer on the roof. I would snuggle down in my bed and try to make sleep come so that it would be morning soon and I could go and open my presents.

Listening to the plumbers working in the ensuite above me felt similar – I just wanted to go and look, but I also didn’t want to ruin the surprise!

I spent a lot of time looking at my paint samples and imagining VERY HARD.

So. Very. Exciting. to see the whole thing coming together at last!

I always start decorating long before things are ready for final touches, lol – but how was I supposed to resist this gorgeous whio rubber ducky?!

It wasn’t until we were up to our necks in tiling that I learnt that El Huzbando’s “previous tiling experience” was a couple of basic mosaic tops on some side tables, but luckily, he has a natural affinity for handiwork like this. 

I was often having to leave George to work on the tiling while I did markets, so it was lucky that he had Loki for company. 

4 May 2018 – So good to have light again! Even if we can’t actually use the upstairs bathrooms at all, having light means that we can work much later – especially in the main bathroom, which, being on the south side of the house, gets dark around 3pm.

Our lives have felt like they have been utterly swallowed by renovations and craft markets. As we move into the third month of renovations, the end is in sight for the upstairs bathrooms – after the tiling, that is.

**breaking tiles in the
​Hot sun**

Grouting is kind of like buttering toast, only you have to scrape and scrub and clean it off afterwards. 

We discovered that the hot water cylinder has to be replaced in order to cope with the new mains pressure pump. Ok, what’s more money, right? Everything is fine

We had initially asked the plumbers to quote to repair the roof, too, but the costs they gave us were so high that we decided that we might as well replace the whole thing for a few grand more. Make it rain. It’s only ALL of our savings. Renovations are great. 

​So we went from painting the roof and exterior, to replacing the roof entirely.

I was initially really optimistic – we were helping a young man launch his business, and he was helping us out because his boss wasn’t going to take the job.

Guys, just don’t. Pay the extra, get a reputable roofer.
We just had to pay DOUBLE to get all his mistakes fixed – but fixed they are, and the roof does look pretty good. Sigh. 

This was definitely a different challenge – getting tiles to sit correctly and adhere to a wall, especially around the bath frame and hardware, was quite an adventure!

We did it in two stages, so that it all had time to set, and because we were under the pump to get the bathtub installed.

Hooray, the upstairs bathrooms are finally starting to look like bathrooms!

This is my task list update from May 9th 2018. Yikes.

​Right then, so that’s it for plumbers until “next week”, when the tiling will be done, and the demolition of the downstairs bathroom can start after that.
So next steps are:
Drayers:
Tile bath surround
Tile skirting in both bathrooms
Tile splashbacks
Grout all tiling
Remove toilet, shelf, towel rail, and sink from downstairs bathroom (mudroom)
Remove tiles from mudroom and laundry floors
Next week:
Electricians: replace incorrect vanity lights; straighten fan grille
Plumbers:
Sand plaster
Seal plaster
Complete piping changeover
Install new pump
Complete hot water cylinder outflow and adjust water pressure
Install bath
Install main bathroom shower doors and toilet
Drayers:
Re-paint plastered patches
Paint trim if time allows
Week after next:
Drayers:
(once paint cured)
Demolish mudroom shower
Plumbers:
Re-gib mudroom
Plaster entire room
Sand plaster
Install shower tray
Electricians:
Move and change power point
Install lighting
Drayers:
Seal and paint/wallpaper mudroom walls
Tile floors
Plumbers:
Install toilet, vanity, shower, and mirror
Drayers:
Paint trim throughout
Tile mudroom splashback
Install new laundry cabinets and work bench
Hang dryer

15 May 2018
“11pm. Almost caught up on Wrought admin and social media. Been up since 4am.
Meanwhile, George has just finished prepping the tiles around the bath, and is starting the grouting.”
​
George finished at around 00.15am.

While all of this was going on, I was doing ridiculous hours working on the Wrought Pop-Up shop. 
“​So a little update – we have a bath and shower in the main bathroom! Can’t use it yet because 1) plastered walls are not sealed, painted, and cured; 2) the silicone beading needs to set, and 3) I’m not home for long enough, lol
Should be ready by the time the pop-up ends though!”

After waiting for some time for several issues to be remedied (plastering issues, incorrectly-hung cabinet, etc), I eventually gave in and had my first bath at last on May 31st, even though the silicone on the backsplash wasn’t finished, lol

Now that we finally have working bathrooms upstairs, it’s time to demolish the mudroom bathroom. It’s July 2018, and we have been in renovation chaos for 5 months now.

14th July – starting on the joinery in the upstairs bathrooms at last!

Finally, the new pump (well, the first one, sigh – yes, that too required replacement).

Thanks for reading this far – and if you think this post is long, imagine living it!

​We did a thing we have never done before. We hung wallpaper! And bonus points – it’s my very own design! All of my designs on Spoonflower can also be purchased as wallpaper.

5 months since we started demolition and the plumbers started on the bathrooms. 8th of August.

A lovely knick-knack display for the ensuite, featuring dangles by Peg Creative. Click on their photo to shop on their site!

​Meanwhile, George is making great headway with the skirting tiles in the main bathroom and ensuite!

I mean, we said we would, so we should

21 August 2018
Grouting and silicone done – just need to silicone around the backsplashes once the grout is dry, then touch up and clean up. So close!!

Well, after battling for months, our roof was finally “finished” on October 14th, 2018. Until we found out about what he didn’t do, that is. But that’s a story for another day.

We love to fill our home with art, craft, and decorations made by local makers.
When we travel, we also buy from the local markets, so we have beautiful collections of souvenirs from all over the world – Europe, several countries on the Mediterranean coast, North Africa, and the Middle East, are represented here. as well as the USA and some Pacific Islands. 

Lots of our treasures are currently packed away in preparation for the big move, so we have a very pared-down aesthetic at present. It’s nice, but I miss my pieces of flair…

​When I attend markets myself as a stallholder, I have a little tradition of buying something from another stallholder at the start of the day, even if it’s food, as a sort of karma seed – if I start by sending good vibes out, hopefully, the good vibes will bring me good sales that day. More importantly, it puts me in a good mood, and gives a fellow stallholder a boost at the start of their day.

​I love to find places for these little treasures around our home.

​So, let’s start with the shelves in our room. Here, we have cute little mushroom artworks by Ceri’s Creations. 

​On the nexgt shelf, we have a custom-made bunny, using our own fabrics, made by Tings, perched above three gorgeous bunnies from Knack craft market.

In between the floating cube shelves, we have a beautiful tapestry by Polly Lind Artist, featuring the scene that we photograph every day when we leave the house.

​The two tiny wooden boxes were bought back in the mists of time at the now-defunct touring craft fair, and contain my little collection of semi-precious stones and crystals, collected during my teens and early twenties. 

​The paua butterfly is by Paua Art by Jessie, the tui is by Peg Creative, and the winged mouse is by Mouse Maker.​

The duvet cover and the throw pillow are my own kereru design – click on the photo to shop on Redbubble!

You may have read about our extensive bathroom renovations earlier, so here is just the detail of the artwork in our bathrooms.

I have started collecting small things for this shelf – it currently features aliens by Wonky Stitches NZ, a bass guitar clock, a baby shark by Shop Nikkis, a cactus, also by Wonky Stitches NZ, a whio rubber ducky by Antics, a little enamelled box that was a gift from my brother, a flask from What The Fox filled with scented diffuser oil from Button + me, and a collection of fossils.

As we are trying to both support local makers but also not increase our own clutter, we generally buy consumables, like soaps and pampering items. I really love relaxing with a candle by Button + me, or a Doodlebum wax melt, scenting the air.

In the main bathroom, we have a selection of handmade soaps  – custom berry soaps by Underground Soapery and rainbow soap by Kiki’s Creations, in etched bowls by Burnt Offerings – and soaps in What The Fox flasks, with bath salts by River Mist Soaps.

In our ensuite, we have another Burnt Offerings dish filled with soap made by Sweet Escape, next to a ceramic tÅ«Ä« dish by Melissa Boardman, and a slate tile painting by Paper Pigment Rock.
We also got towels printed at Society6 to match my wallpaper design, which is the feature wall in the mudroom bathroom.

Hydrageas grow all along the front of our family bach property, near the Rakaia river mouth. I have always associated them with holidays, and found their colour changes, based on the soil ph, fascinating. 
When we bought our new house, I found that we had white, blue, and pink hydrangeas in different parts of the property, all within a few dozens of metres of each other.
​One day, I decided to photograph some of them, and draw them.

I was working long hours at the Wrought Pop-Up Boutique, so I brought printed photos and drew them. It was a really productive period for me, actually – so nice being back in the centre of town, surrounded by creativity and activity.

I think the most interesting part of the process, for me, was seeing how they are attached together to form the effect of large balls of petals. 

And it looks pretty great in fat quarters and scarves!

And here it is, along with some of my other designs, made into liners by Fluff Mail.

You can order my hydrangea designs in three print sizes and a large range of print-on-demand fabric choices from Spoonflower – click on the button below to see the whole “Roadside Colour” collection!