ONE-DAY-SALE

To mark my birthday I am offering a one-day-sale on Facebook and on my web shop.

All organic cotton handbags are on sale for just $100, normally $140, plus postage.
There is limited stock and only one of each available.
This sale begins at 12am 4th March and will end 12am 5th March.

Please share on facebook or twitter to receive free postage too.

Please head over to your preferred site to view and purchase.

Sunshine and smiles.
Paisley

Handbags

Of the new products, my current favourites are the new large organic handbags.

I've really never been a hand-bag sort of person and until a few years back I was attached to my trusty plain black backpack. We'd had a long, easy relationship of about eight years, but as all good things do... it came to an end.

I'm a bookworm and so, I will never leave the house without a book - I also always carry a water bottle or flask, and so there's already a problem developing, I needed a bag with separate compartments to keep my book safe and my water handy. On top of this as a standard, I carry a day-to-the-page diary, a notebook, a jumper and a first aid-kit/travel bag. I like to be prepared for any situation and there have been many delayed or cancelled busses/trains over the years for which I have been grateful to have a book in my bag. Having a bad back meant that one shouldered handbags were never an option, but every backpack that I have had since has disintegrated within a matter of weeks.

I tried to design a backpack, but it just got too complicated and big and so I decided to give a handbag a try. It's safe to say that now I am not often seen without my handbag. I made is specifically to be my new 'Mary Poppins'' bag, and to do so without impacting on my back. It has a few features that I'd like to share with you:

- It's triple stitched through and through for durability, it's also overlocked and top-stitched
- It has a very very wide strap to distribute the weight across your shoulder, this can be folded and shaped to fit your body
- The strap has a flannelette lining which makes it incredibly soft as well as being cool in summer and warm in winter.
- A large zip that goes up the inside of the straps for security
- It has a large, external, zipped pocket, in which I can fit: two phones, a purse, a massive bunch of keys, business cards, lipbalm, pens, headphones and sometimes more
- It has a large internal 'book' pocket which is usually filled with a large book (I just don't get kindles), a day-to-the-page diary (I can't figure out how to digitalise my diary without deleting everything regularly), a note book and a sketchbook and pens.
- And it still has enough room in it that I can fit a one litre water bottle standing up, a jumper, my laptop, my travel bag, lunch, my hard glasses case, my hard sunglasses case and still have room left over
- The outer cotton is 100% GOTS certified organic cotton, the inside is 100% certified cotton flannel and the lining is currently recycled cotton, I will be using new cotton in the future and for the moment it won't be organic, I am currently working on finding a supplier of plain organic cotton and will keep you updated as to when I can swap over.
- The zips and label are all Nylon. Last year I paid for some gorgeous organic cotton brand labels from the US, but they never arrived, so again, I am trying to source a new, reliable source so that I can phase out the nylon labels.
- All the thread used on the bag is 100% organic cotton from the US.

This gorgeous brown and blue bag was custom made for a lady in Brisbane who took it all across Europe over the festive season.

The bags are available online now at www.pixieinthepark.com. They are currently custom order only. You can choose from 30 different designer fabrics and four colours of flannelette.

I will be releasing a new, full, range of them on Monday 4th March, which will see the end of custom orders on them for a while. As Monday is my birthday I will be doing a HUGE sale on the bags, so keep an eye on the website as it's a one day only sale.

I hope you enjoy your bag as much as I do mine.

Sunshine and Smiles.
Paisley.

New stock

Hi there, it's been a fair while since I've been on here and I have a lot to catch you up with.

As I said at the end of last year, this year is all about new designs and new ideas and I have been really busy developing these....

I have finished some clothes, which you can view on the Facebook page for now. We will be doing a photo-shoot next week to prepare for sending out the new clothing designs. All items are eco-friendly, sustainable or recycled - NOTHING BOUGHT FROM CHINA.

This has been a huge issue on my mind lately, as much as people are getting excited about hand-made I have noticed that a lot of the components are still being bought from the mass producers including the Chinese market-place. I find this to be such a shame as we all put a lot of time and effort into our work and the thought that some people are risking their quality and name on externally produced details, when this is their direct competition upsets me. It is hard enough to break through into the market without this happening. A lot of us generally aim to produce better quality designs than those on the budget market currently. But the hand-made melding with these "bad" products is not reflecting well on those of us who make 90%-100% of our items from scratch, I felt a little soul-destroyed today when I went into a predominantly hand-made gallery only to find out that the requirement is only 50% hand-made components. Perhaps it's just me... thoughts anyone?

Rant over and moving on...

I also put out a new design this week, it is a simple lined fold-over clutch purse. All the components are 100% recycled. Available at: www.pixieinthepark.com/store

This design is in anticipation of the collaboration between UrsaLady Creations and myself. We will have some great designs coming out in the next month. UrsaLady Creations can be found on the Logan Road strip in Stones Corner, only 10minutes from Brisbane CBD.

I will be at the Laneway Festival in Brisbane on the 28th January 2012 with the Suitcase Rummage.
Come and join us all from 11am -6pm. There will be music and drinks and lots of great stalls on the day.

Available at Good Concepts

How exciting! You can now purchase Pixie In The Park items at Good Concepts in West End. You will find Good Concepts at 58 Vulture Street (up past the Cupcake shop). I dropped a few things off there last week including these three Journals, most of my gift bows, some Christmas Cards and some bookmarks. Head down and have look.

Other places you can find me this month include:

Northey Street Village Life Market on Sunday 13th from 8am to 12pm.

Reverse Garbage's I HEART HANDMADE Exhibition on Saturday 26th from 6pm to 9pm. This exhibition will be open Monday to Friday 9-5 up until Reverse Garbage closes for the holiday.

Mad rush to the end of the week here I come!!
Hope to see more of your friendly faces soon.

Getting Close

First of all, I am having huge difficulties trying to get the website working from my end, so please bare with me and my fumbling around with updating it. I am currently trying to sort out more photographs, content and a shop. For now, please feel free to email me with your orders.

So, for all of you who follow me on Facebook you will know that I am exhibiting at the Reverse Garbage end of year exhibition, this one is called I HEART HANDMADE and it is based around sustainable gift-giving. This means that not only are all the items under $50, but they are all a minimum of 75% recycled, reclaimed or up-cycled. Let me know if there is anything you would like to see there.


Many of you may have noticed that recently I have been chopping and changing what I have been bringing out. Currently I have some fantastic gift bows available. They were originally only to be sold at markets, but as you all love them so much; when I found some bow-sized cardboard boxes at Reverse Garbage today, I couldn't resist!

Large Gift Bows

Top - Spiderman and The Punisher. Bottom - National Geographic (2002).

Bows are 11cm and self-adhesive.

This means that I have 20 lots of bows I can ship, in time for Christmas. In stock I currently have the black and white The Phantom, colour Spiderman and The Punisher and full colour gloss National Geographic, each bow is around 10cm. Custom orders are available. The bows are $5 and shipping is $6.35 per box, within Australia. Each box will hold up to three bows, or you can mix and match with any smaller items. I will send you a free gift with each bow if you order before November 10th*.


I have also been creating hand-bound journals. I have had a lot of fun with these and it has given me a lot of freedom in my cover designs. I am only taking custom orders for these journals as they take quite a lot of time and work. Please check out the website for more information on how you can customise them.

Blue Journal

 Front Cover of the blue notebook is a medium weight blue and brown material with a faux-suede embellishment. The book measures 145x115. It has 80 pages. All pages are reclaimed medium weight sketching paper, plain off-white. Perfect for sketching, writing, water colours etc.

The inside covers are a pale blue pearl paper.

Quilted Journal

 

This journal has a patchwork cover and measures 145x115.

The inside covers are black paper and the pages are reclaimed Australian Hand-Made paper. The paper is extremely porous. The spine is larger on this book due to the thickness of the paper, but it still has 80 pages.

 Rainbow Journal

This journal has a plain black faux-velvet cover, lilac cover pages and a selection of bright pages. This note-book is 145x115 and also has 80 pages but as the pages are printer paper the spine is thinner. The pages are: blue, green, yellow, orange, red and fuchsia. These are the only journals in stock currently and they are for sale!*

I made myself an A5 journal last week to try and get myself back into sketching/drawing/journaling. It has become my new best friend. I will take a photo of it at some point. 

I'm off to make something...


*The gift bows and journals are not part of the free postage before 1st November offer. But the notebooks do fit in the boxes. Maybe I'll send you a free bow with each journal if you ask nicely.