New in my Etsy Shop - Stock Illustrations

In the course of my work I often have bits and pieces left over that weren't used in the final product, but that I still like and enjoyed creating - I'm going to be selling some of those bits and more on my Etsy shop as stock illustrations for you to use! This is the first set that's available, perfect for party invites or birthday cards.

If you're in South Africa you can contact me for non-PayPal payment options. If you have any requests, I'd love to hear them! What do you think of these?

Dominique Falla's Tactile Typography

Dominique Falla is a freakin talented Australian designer and artist who creates tactile typography pieces out of all sorts of different mediums. It's so awesome and inspiring to be able to have the dedication, patience and skill to not only to that, but do it ridiculously well. Watch the video at the end of this post to watch some of her process and check out her site to get the full effect of her creations.

So I impulse-bought some calligraphy pens...

I've never attempted proper calligraphy before and don't know the first thing about it really, so if you're a calligraphy master don't go getting your judgy pants on! I thought they'd be fun to play around with and might produce some interesting results. They came in a pack of three, each with a different width. These are some quick doodles I did with them (above), and I worked it into a watercolour pattern I'd created previously (below). What do you think? 

Looking forward to playing around with them more :)

The Burlesque Cafe

A few months ago I spent a weekend on the KZN south coast, one of my favourite holiday places nearby. We've been going there ever since I was little, and it just never gets old for me, it's lovely down there. Nothing big or amazing going on, but the beaches are awesome, the vegetation is beautiful and it's pretty quiet during off-peak seasons. So I finally got round to sorting some of the pics of stuff I'd like to share with you, and this is the first. 

The Burlesque Cafe is a fun little place in Ramsgate with a full Burlesque theme in the decor as well as the food, which is beautifully presented. 

Unfortunately our visit was a pretty quick one coz we had a booking at the next place we visited, which  I'll show you next time.

"We could not resist transforming this 1930′s site into a Cafe! Being a collector of art and antiques as well as living in Ramsgate it made good sense that we should base ourselves in the village that we love so much. Our travels abroad always kept pulling us towards Italy and France and the food we serve conjures up the smells of our favorite seaside villages that we love to frequent abroad."

Right next door is an absolute treasure trove of an antique shop, piled with precious stuff! Maybe it's a good thing we didn't have much time, else I may have gotten lost in there for days. There was even a  newspaper from the 1800s! 200 years old! Can you even imagine that? People from 200 years ago touched and read and created that newspaper! I just love antique stuff so much.

More info on The Burlesque Cafe here.

The Power of Quiet and Introverts

I came across this article and video the other day and the topic really resonated with me - it's about the importance of introverts in society, and how most things tend to favour and cater for extroverts. Whichever side you fall on, it's an interesting topic, and if you don't care for the topic, it's illustrated beautifully by Molly Crabapple and worth a watch for that reason alone...


Being the type of person who's very much more introvert than extrovert, I could really relate to it and it mentioned a lot of what I've always thought.

"There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas."

If you are interested in the topic, here's the full TED talk by Susan Cain...