The Bitter Years

Look out Featherston, our new band The Bitter Years is descending on your doorstep soon! Hope you all had lovely Xmases; mine involved a Xmas day plane ride and some airport ukulele playing, yeeha!

Christmas gift tag giveaway

Seeing as it's Xmas I thought I'd have another little giveaway, this time of the printable variety.  If you'd like some Millicent Crow gift tags to adorn your presents you can download them here and print them out onto some card in colour.

I've just bought one of those hole punches that only punches one hole, so I'm very excited about its potential for making gift tags.  Happy printing!

Winners

I've reached into my hat and pulled out two winners of my Xmas giveaway and they are...
- Helen
- Amy's Crafty Shenanigans

Congratulations!  Flick me an email to millicentcrow AT gmail DOT com and I'll get your goodies in the post for you!

Thanks for all your entries - I like the fact that other people's tea and coffee preferences are so much more diverse than mine.  And stay tuned, I'm hoping to have a giveaway of the downloadable variety round these parts soon!

Xmas giveaway

Thought I'd have a bit of an Xmas giveaway and I've got two prize packs up for grabs.  They've each got an A4 digital print, a huia medal and a screenprinted badge...

 

 To enter, all you need to do is leave me a comment telling me how you like your tea or coffee (I like mine black with no sugar thanks) and I'll draw two winners next Friday.  And I'll post them anywhere in the world...good luck!

The Auckland Art and Craft Fair

 We had a great day at the Auckland Art and Craft Fair on Saturday and here are a few pics of the stall. 

 The most commented on prints were my new tea and coffee ones...turns out the issue of who makes the tea or coffee is an important one in many relationships! 

Mr. Millicent Crow was resplendent in his new borrowed-from-Oamaru boater...

 

...and I had new business cards to give away.

Thanks for another great fair Kylie and Jess, and stay tuned...I've got a bit of a Friday giveaway for you!

See you at the Fair!

 

This is one of the new prints I'm going to be bringing along...oh and there is an interview with me on the Auckland Art and Craft Fair blog here.  Contrary to the interview I'm afraid I won't be bringing along any dinosaur printed fabric...some things just have to fall off the to-do list, but I'll have a whole lot of other goodies for you!

Birdie badges at the Fair

The Auckland Art and Craft Fair is tomorrow and I'll be bringing along these screenprinted birdie badges (which I finished late last night) and lots of other printed bits and pieces.  It's 11-3 at the Aotea Centre...might see you there?

 

You are my cup of tea

Here is a new drawing I've been working on in the wee small hours; I've got a coffee version too:

 

I'm going to be bringing them along to the Auckland Art and Craft Fair, on next Saturday, the 30th of November.

How do you like your tea?  I have a cup of Earl Grey every night before bed and Mr. Millicent Crow always makes it too weak on purpose so that it won't keep me awake.  I grumble about the weak tea but secretly think it is nice!

Signs and arrows

Dunedin was a visual feast of hand-lettered and neon signs...here are some beautiful fading ones:

 

 

 

 Having just seen the Sign Painters movie I was very excited!

Dunedin buildings

One of the things I love most about Dunedin is the way it feels like being in a fairy tale, with beautiful old buildings covered in rambling roses, iron lace and fretwork.  When I was down there last week I had my camera pretty much glued to my eye the whole time taking photos of all the pretties.  Here are some of my favourites, some of them taken on the way to an uncharacteristically early morning swim!

 

You can see the turret of the house from the movie Scarfies peeking out behind this one!

Blue iron lace.  So beautiful.

And another thing I love about Dunedin is this view!

Victoriana

I've just got back from Dunedin, Waitati and Oamaru, where I had a stall at the Victorian Fete, played my ukulele on stage for the first time, met my friends' new baby, sold merch at the Explorers' Club in the opera house, watched a pennyfarthing race and took about a bajillion photos of nice buildings.  No wonder I nearly fell asleep on the plane on the way home!  Here is my bunting at my stall (I was lucky enough to be able to take over the bar at the Loan and Merc with all my prints) and at the Opera House, which was decorated for the weekend like a Victorian Explorers' club, with taxidermy aplenty. 

 And some other Oamaru sights:

 

I'll have to find a Victorian frock for next year, and brush up on my pennyfarthing riding skills!

Brown paper zine pages

 

Finished off the drawings for a couple of pages of my zine tonight...more pictures of things I didn't buy at the op shop.  That thing at the bottom of the top picture's a banana protector, in case you're wondering!

Whew, getting there!  I think I'll need to make another zine just to fit in all the things I didn't buy from the op shop today...a whole lot of creepy dolls, knitted cushion covers, a decanter in the perfect shade of mint green...

Delicate

 

I've been doing some screenprinting for a wedding and this afternoon I was testing out some printing on organza so I thought I'd tape the delicate fabric to the window and take a few photos.  I had to do some pretty acrobatic positions to get the sky and the house next door in the background and not the washing line with its ugly fluoro pink pegs!  

 

The flowers are manuka, kowhai and kakabeak.

Maybe some screenprinted curtains are in order...my furry friend seems to think so!

What does the fox say?

I had another go at this drawing...think it turned out looking a bit more like me this time.  I guess the fox is not strictly to scale though...I have never seen a fox in real life and have always imagined them the size of a cat.  Mr. Millicent Crow assures me they're more the size of a dog!

Love is always making two cups when you only need one.

 

And ain't that the truth.  Something that I heard in a speech at a wedding a while back.  

 Here it is with the real life cups; I'm thinking of doing a tea one too for those who prefer tea.  Black, no sugar thanks!

I'm starting with the man in the mirror

I had a go at drawing a self portrait yesterday...it didn't really turn out looking like me and not just because I don't usually wear a fox around my neck!  But it was fun, back to the drawing board with that one I think!