Saturday Link Love

Sunshine! This has been the resounding thought in my head this week. Doesn't it make you smile? My feet are currently covered in a blanket of dandelion heads that keep blowing through the door, but I don't mind one bit. Have you had a good week? I've had a busy week working away in the Studio, which is one of my favourite places to be. I've rewritten all the text for our website and had a lesson about Dreamweaver from my friend Michael at Panther Club so that I can and start building pages for and maintaining our website. 

I've also started a complete redesign for the Shipshape Studio blog, which should be ready in a couple of months. This week has been really full but there's something about sunshine which seems to give me extra energy so I've managed to find some time to do things like go to the pub/catch up with friends/go outside, which I haven't had time to do for quite a while. It was my fellow's birthday this week and I wrote about last month's Illustration and Design Forum too. Nice! 

Here's what I've been loving this week

These painted bridal spoons from Brooklyn Bride made me smile. Aren't they cute? I wouldn't mind getting the wooden spoon if it had someone's face painted on it.

Photo from Brooklyn Bride :: DIY: Bridal Spoon Favours

I've been a follower of Katrina's blog for a while now. I got a copy of Photoshop about a year ago having never really used it before and have learnt so much about Photoshop from her generous tutorials. You should definitely check it out. She posted another great tutorial on replacing photo backgrounds this week, which I'm planning on trying out next time I'm playing in Photoshop.

Photo from Esme and the Laneway, posted on Pugly Pixel :: Photoshop: How to replace backgrounds

How cool are these DIY paper Geoballs over on Cherry Plum? They'd definitely spruce up your desk.

Photo from Cherry Plum :: Geoball

I love eating fresh, tasty food when the temperature shoots up and if you do too you should check out Yotam Ottolenghi's asparagus, celery flower, and quails egg salad. His style of cooking is one of my favourite, with Plenty being one of my most-used recipe books and NOPI being one of my favourite restaurants. It's a bit pricey but it's the perfect place for a special treat, and it's not often that a restaurant's toilets are spoken of almost as much as the food.

Elsie and Emma get a lot done, so their tips on time management are definitely worth a read. Streamlining your tasks and doing what needs to be done, rather than what you think you should be doing, are a big must for me. 

Photos from A Beautiful Mess :: Ask Elsie & Emma: On Time Management

If you're looking for some summer music, check out Devendra Banhart for some rich summer tunes. Good times!

Leave a comment below and let me know what you've been loving this week. I always like discovering new things. Happy weekend!

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Happy Birthday Adam!

It's my main man's birthday today and I thought I'd put together a little birthday surprise using some outtakes from our Mollie Makes shoot at the beginning of the year. I'd cringe so hard if anyone did this to me but, in Adam's words, "I frickin' love stuff like this!" I censored it a little, but you get the gist.

Happy Birthday Adam! Oh, and for maximum birthday times I've also posted Birthday messages over on the Shipshape Studio blog, twitter and facebook. All over the place!

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Illustration and Design Forum

Last month Adam and I organised and hosted the first Shipshape Studio Illustration and Design Forum in London. It was such a great day! We were working away on it for a long time and it exceeded our expectations. We've had some great feedback from it too, which makes it all the sweeter. It was really interesting to hear the panel of Alice Potter, Emma Block, and Rachel Lewis speak about the creative industries, and their different career paths, ways of working, and areas of interest. The questions in the Q and A were really interesting, and a good insight in to the different areas of the industry. There are so many options open, from licensing your work, selling products on Etsy, working in house v. freelance, working with an agent, marketing yourself, best practice, contracts.....the list goes on! Which is why it's so important to get together and share advice on these topics.

We set up a market place with prints, stationery, indie mags, and business books, which you'll be able to see more of once our online shop has launched. I made a clothes line type-thing out of long dowelling and twine, and decorated with acrylic paint. It was a good way to display prints, especially for pop-up events or fairs, as I've found it can can be quite tricky to display prints in a small space.

I'm really passionate about tooling up and empowering yourself with knowledge so that you can steam on ahead and carve out the path that you want in life, so I am definitely looking forward to the next event. We haven't got one planned as yet but we will be doing more so follow along here or at the Shipshape Studio blog to stay in the know. On a side note, do any of you use Bloglovin to keep up with your favourite blogs? I really like their easy to use, simple homepage.

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Go, go, go!

For me, this week is all about getting things done, even though it's so tempting to be outside in the sunshine. My heads full of DSRs, ECRs, and PSRs as I've been reading up about all kinds of regulations to do with online retailing in preparation for the launch of the Shipshape Studio online shop. If you're UK-based and offer sponsorship, advertising or paid downloads on your blog it'd be worth your while to have a look at the E-Commerce Regulations and Provision of Services Regulations, even if you don't have a traditional style retail site. I thought it was going to be quite daunting but it's good to get clued up so you can provide the best service to your happy readers and customers whilst avoiding any tricky situations.

With sites like Etsy, Folksy, and eBay you can easily set up a shop and start selling but it's so important to do your homework first. Lots of these sites have useful information for sellers but, ultimately, the buck stops with you so it's important to check that you're doing the right thing. A little while ago I shared 5 tips for creative business folks over on the She Draws blog, which I don't think I've blogged about here before. Head on over and take a look!

What would your number one tip be? What have you learnt along the way that you wish you'd known before?

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Saturday Link Love

My partner Adam and I have turned our crafty Studio in to a photographic studio this week, as we've been taking photos for the launch of our online shop, which will be happening soon. Yes! We took thousands of photos this week, with Adam taking all the photos and me doing the styling and assisting. There is nothing like some good role defining to stop bickering and treading on each other's toes. The Studio's back in a crafty mood this afternoon with a printing party underway. Good times!

Here's what I've been loving this week

Rustic snapshots of home on seventeen doors, a super stylish Swedish blog. I like the snapshots that provide a little glimpse.

Photo from seventeen doors :: the beautiful things

I love Elizabeth's mix of bright colours, and doesn't this look like a perfect spot to sit and read? Elizabeth has been writing about how you can become overwhelmed by work and projects in this creative world, which is interesting to read, and it's something that I've been thinking about a lot recently too.

Photo from Delightfully Tacky :: A heart made of Tundra

Sideshow Sign Co., found via Eat, drink, Chic, made me stop in my interweb tracks and stay a while. Based on vintage typography, the pieces are handmade by designer Luke Stockdale of Whiskey Theatre in his Nashville studio.

Photo of French Periodic Table from Sideshow Sign Co

Being a born-and-bred vegetarian with a vegan mum and brother, I sometimes feel a bit of a dairy guilt, but with food this good it doesn't stick around too long. Check out these asparagus and gruyere tarts from Joy the Baker.

Photo from Joy the Baker :: Asparagus and Gruyere Tarts

What have you been loving this week?

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