Teacher outfits

As part of my post-grad course in teaching, I've been placed in a school to observe and teach for 5 weeks. It's been really fun so far, observing, learning, dressing up, interacting with the boys ( I'm in an all boys senior school! ) And despite feeling like I have so much on my plate right now, I find myself enjoying every moment of it! I love teaching and I've been really lucky to be placed in such a prestigious school. I go home each day, looking forward to the next. But then, the insane amount of uni work/essays due just starts creeping in and it's horrid! I just wished uni work would disappear all together and I could just focus on teaching, learning from my mentor teachers. Ah, too bad this postgrad course doesn't work that way. Now, off I go, to pack my bag, and of course, iron my shirt for tomorrow!

They're back!

Good news! I just received some fresh new melamine stock from Cath of Douglas & Hope. There will be some more of my burger plates and fries cups in my online shop towards the end of this week. Hooray!

Mixed Berries

I have for the longest of time, dreamt of making foodie scarves. I spent months last year, thinking of how a foodie scarf should look like, how the patterns should repeat, the length, the size, the price point, where to get them done, how to package it, the material, and so on, along with all the nitty bitty stuff that comes together with producing a brand new merchandise. Well, after almost a year, my ideas are finally taking shape!

My mixed berry drawing is currently being printed onto 180" of lovely Silk as we speak. Silk printing is really amazingly expensive. No surprises! But I think it's going to be all worth it. They're coming all the way from Durham, North Carolina. And I cannot wait to have them in my hands for real!

Just wondering, I'd love to find out how much you think a Silk Crepe De Chine scarf should cost. Considering they're going to be quite long, approx 19 x 90 ", and also so limited (only 3 available) I was thinking of pricing them at about $160 each. What do you think? Way too expensive, way too affordable? I've been doing quite a bit of research and found that silk scarves from independent makers, tend to range between $150 to $280. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Thank you!

GIVEAWAY TIME!

I finally relaunched my online shop yesterday! After weeks of hard work and no sleep. YAY! I must thank Darren and give him all credit for he's the clever man behind the scenes fixing up everything for me. I only had to state what I wanted, where I wanted them to be placed, edit and crop all images, do the writing, basically be the overbearing big boss lady. Haha! And Darren did practically everything else! Including proof-reading. Thank you Darren, you're such an awesome possum!

To celebrate the launch of my new shop, here's a giveaway! Everything that's pictured above will go to a special new home. Prize pack includes my limited edition Vegetable chart giclee print, 3 A4 recipe prints, 2 Macaron pincushions and my A- Z zine. (Both of which were made over 2 years ago!) so they're really no longer available anymore. The whole pack's worth about $165. And you never know, it might just be your lucky day today!

Please leave a comment, followed by your email address (Very important!) on this post. Feel free to share something fun/interesting about your country. Would love to know where all my readers are from. And I reckon it's always nice to know some little fun facts about different countries too. I'll draw and announce a winner this Thursday, March 22nd. So check back here then! Good luck and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that YOU might just be the lucky winner!

PS: Only 7 spots left for my upcoming adult watercolour class!

Congrats lamina! You're the lucky winner of my giveaway! I'll be emailing you shortly. Thanks everyone for joining in the fun. I really loved reading every single one of your comments!

Artplay fun + Update!

Last Friday, I ran two very fun workshops at ARTPLAY! (Has it been one week already!? Time sure does fly when your'e juggling a business and a full-time post grad dip-ed!) I worked with kids ages 2 to 4 and together with their lovely parents, we made self portraits, giant life-sized versions! The kids lay on large sheets of paper and parents traced around them. They then had full freedom in decorating and filling up their 'shadows' with lots of paints, found bits and bobs. Some kids got a little shy and ended up tracing their parents instead. We had parents lying on paper and their kids drawing around them! Haha. How cute! All in all, I had a lot of fun. There were lots of laughter and giggles. Mums and dads out there, if you're looking for a project to do during the coming school holidays, this might be fun!

For those of you interested, I also ran a workshop last year, where I made giant ice cream cones with the kids and parents. As you can tell, I am definitely obsessed with creating things larger than life! Click here to read all about it!

Artplay fun aside, I have a really exciting piece of news to share! I AM GOING TO BE ON TV! Yes! I know! See all my exclamation marks! I am that happy! And excited! And thrilled! And (insert every other good word in here)! It's still top secret now. And I can't say much, or which channel it's going to be for. All I can say is, I'll be working with a bunch of super cute and arty kiddies. And together, we'll be making something foodie and gigantic (again!) It'll be filmed for a segment to be shown on tv and it'll be all about the work I do with kiddies, my art and most importantly, fun activities parents can get to do with kids over the holidays. OOOOH yeah! All rightyo! The rest will be kept a secret for now! Hehehe.

Well, exciting tv news aside, after weeks of hard work and stress, I am almost ready to relaunch my new online shop!! The new shop will re-open again this coming Sunday, 18th March, 10am. You can visit it by clicking here! Or simply visit www.handmadelove.bigcartel.com

The new shop will be stocked with several classes for both adults and kids. Bookings will open for a new and exciting one-off watercolour class! During the class, adults will get to learn how to paint fruits and vegetables with watercolours. And guess where the class is going to be held at? At an exciting new space called SO:ME Space. Situated right in the heart of South Melbourne Market, amongst all the fruit and veggie stalls, good food and shops. That's where the class will be at! How exciting! Read more about SO:ME here. There will only be 12 class spots available, so it'll be best to book early if you're thinking of attending.

For all those living interstate or in other countries outside of Australia, fret not! For I have art prints and pillowcases for you guys! And good news is, after lots of requests, I will be bringing back a small number of my popular Douglas & Hope melamine burger and fries set! Do look out for them towards end of March. And to celebrate the reopening of my shop, there will also be a giveaway here on Monday! So remember to come back on Monday to enter!

Alrighty, see you soon! Now off to work on my much-dreaded essay. zzzzzzzz

Fish and Chippies!

Happy Monday everyone! I'm here with a little drawing I've just completed. FISH & CHIPS! One of my all-time favourite thing to have! Although, funny enough, I don't exactly like chips. I prefer peas! In fact, I love peas A.LOT! I reckon Saltwater Grill in Albert Park has one of the nicest fish and chips around in Melbourne. I always go there and order a grilled fish pack, with a side of brown rice, greek salad and iced lemon tea! Yum!

Where's your favourite fish and chips shop? Do you like squeezing lemon over your fish, do you prefer tartare, chilli or tomato sauce? And what drinks do you usually have with your order? I'd love to hear!

Dinner in the studio

It's 1:30am and I'm feeling incredibly sleepy but I feel like I just have to do this spontaneous blog post! As you can tell, I never ever schedule my posts and always write my entries randomly, whenever I feel like it. So yes. Here's a sleepy blog post! (I'm a granny and usually go to bed at 10.30!) So writing this post at this unearthly hour, is possibly not a very good thing to do, especially after having about 6 glasses of wine! But here I go!


I just came home from one of the most beautiful and inspiring dinners of my life! In line with this year's Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, clever potter Shelley Panton is hosting a series of artisan dinners in her Middle Park studio. Dinner guests get to have a night out, relaxing over great food and wine. All served on Shelley's gorgeously beautifully handmade ceramic wares. (Trust me! You just want everyone of her wares when you're eating off them!) At the end of the night, the guests each get to bring home a nice little napkin. Every round of studio dinners, Shelley collaborates with a Melbourne maker to come up with these napkins. And this year, I was lucky enough to be invited by Shelley to be the special artist/maker of her napkins! And major thanks to Frankie & Swiss, for if it wasn't for their amazing printing skills, those napkins would not even be possible! I've blogged about it previously here and here. So feel free to take a look! I've always been a fan of Shelley's pieces and am lucky enough to own 3 of her cups and a little salt dish. I use one of my cups quite a bit. It's become my favourite one! I dream one day to be able to fill my kitchen and dining table with many more of her plates and cups. I just love the idea of how much each piece is filled with so much time and effort and of course, love!

Well, I think I'm getting a little bit loopy and long-winded. This is what wine does to my brains! But yup, all in all, dinner was wonderful! I am so so glad I was fortunate enough to go! The food by chef Nicolas of Embrasse Restaurant, was perfect and the wine, by Ben Haines.. Oh! Don't get me started! All I can say is, I am not even a wine person, but I had at least 6 glasses before losing count! I don't usually drink even a glass!

Thanks you once again Shelley, for everything! For picking me of all people, to do a special napkin for this event. I enjoyed every single bit of the entire journey, and your studio dinner was indeed truly an inspiring one! Thank you also, to the lovely sisters, Michelle and Jacqui from Frankie & Swiss, for going above and beyond, and printing those napkins up so beautifully! Everyone loved it and I do too! They're so precious!

Alrighty! I think I should really go to bed. I need to wake early tomorrow as I've got a whole stack of readings to do before class. My readings are about 'giftedness amongst children'. It is an interesting topic, but trust me, the notes and things I have to read. Oh they make me sleep just after 2 chapters! All the terms, theories, boring wordy stuff! zzzzzzzzz.....Okie dokie! Thanks for staying with me till the end of this post. I promise, no more rambling! My tummy's happy, my eye lids are ready and so is my brain.. so Good night! Sleep tight! Don't let the bed bugs bite!

PS: Print packs are now all sold out. I'm awaiting on payment from a few people. But if I don't hear back from them, by end of this week, I'll put what I have left up for sale. Will keep you guys posted!

Final prints, shop news and upcoming watercolour class!

I was clearing my print stash last night and decided I seriously needed to make way for new and exciting art bits. I have just a tiny bunch of the above prints left. And good news is, I'm going to be offering them at a super sale price! All 3 Prints for just $25! (With additional $5 postage within Australia and $8 international) I've packaged them in packs of three prints. And I only have 6 packs available! Once they are sold out, there won't be anymore of these prints ever again! So if you see a print you really like, I'd say just buy it! Especially since their usual prices are $20-$25 per print! Drop me an email (dawntanwenyi@gmail) if you'd love a pack. Thanks!

Also, over the weekend, I decided that it's finally time my online shop got a makeover. Actually, it's been on my to-do list for months now! But I just never got around to it. These things take time, money and effort. Oh and not to mention, SLEEP! Well, I finally took the plunge and thanks to Darren and our combined efforts, (him tweaking the html, me resizing images and deciding where I want things to be placed...) my shop's getting a brand new look! Of course, it wouldn't be possible if not for this ready-to-use store theme from Tonkapark. It took me a while to find a good big cartel theme for my shop. I tried my hand at tweaking the default theme, but only messed it up. So I guess it's great that there's such themes out there for me to use. It did cost me quite a bit but I think it saved Darren a whole lot of time and we all know, having a user-friendly and nice-looking site does make a difference! Take a sneak peek at my new shop here!

My online shop will be closed for a while. I haven't exactly decided when it's going to re-open. But all I know is that when it re-opens, I will have an exciting Fruit & Vegetable Adult watercolour class available for sign-ups! Yup yup! And for all you South-siders, this class venue will be Southside! At a rather central spot which I love and can't wait to announce! So yes, hang in there! I'd say sign up on my mailing list, to be the first to know when my shop re-opens so you can make class bookings! Thanks a ton!

EDIT: ALL PRINT PACKS ARE NOW OFFICIALLY SOLD! Thank you so much everyone!
OOPS! Just realised I've got some more unsold print stock leftover from a christmas pop up! Collecting them this weekend. So I have another five more 3-print sets available. I know! I need to be more organised! *This last set will contain my choc cream pie, banana cream pie and scones print. They'll be shipped out mid next week. And they are truly the last ones I promise!

More napkin peeks!

Woah! This whole week has been pretty intense for me! I started a post-grad course in Education and so far it's been go go go! It's so fast-paced I found myself at the library till 8pm on day 2! I guess coming from full-freedom art school and a year of working on my own, teaching independently, the sudden change of having to do so many readings, prepare and print out lecture notes... it's just totally strange and something I'm not used to at all!

Anyway, school aside, I just wanted to share the above photos with all of you. More exciting sneak peeks and bits of a napkin I made! I went in to the Frankie and Swiss print studio last week and took these photos. Can't get enough of how lovely my drawing feels on linen! Seriously surreal to be able to touch and feel, use and wash and even iron my art! Thanks Michelle and Jacqui for printing these up so beautifully! These napkins will be super limited and are made as part of Shelley Panton's upcoming studio dinner, which is part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Read more about Shelley's studio dinner and make a booking here!