On the corner of a street in Milan that I will never be able to find again I came across a wall full of scissors. From nose hair cutters, to lace scissors it was very ‘cool’ to say the least. My favourite scissors of this collection happened to be a thread cutter (see below). I am still wondering if I made the right decision to leave the shop without it.
Jeremy and I spent two days in Milan – I had to show him a bit of Italy and because it was so close, we went. What we did not realise was that the first two days of the new year are celebrated with huge 50% off sales and there were queues outside shops that I dare not even dream of entering around the block. Sadly, as a tourist, we also discovered that to see most of the sights (like the Last Supper) you need to book well in advance. Our sight seeing in Milan consisted of the Duomo, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele and people (including their fashion).
I really liked this water feature with paper water lily lights and origami birds.
In and around Switzerland there were loads of little things that you would only notice walking around. I loved these door hinges and plan to use them as inspiration for a new Coffee Clutch Set design.
In Basel, Switzerland the ironwork of gates and even the street lights captivated me.
Walking over one of the bridges (on one of the few half sunny days) the railing cast a gorgeous shadow. Coming from a textile design background I could not just walk over this pattern.
I love how the pattern (as the shadow) is distorted and how the geometric lines meet and divide the flowing shapes.
Europe is wonderful because it is so different (from South Africa that is). One cannot explain what it is like to see artworks that you have learnt about in books, to see buildings that are older than your mind can comprehend and to experience a way of life that is not orientated around your car. It is refreshing and in that, inspirational. However, there are the obvious design inspirations that I could not pull myself away from. For one, I was completely blown away by all the amazing lights that I saw: standing lamps, desk lamps, ceiling lights. How adorable are these animal lights?
My favourite light from this collection is the fish.
It’s the new year and I am back from my wonderful holiday in the cold and have landed on a treadmill. I haven’t had much time to relax since getting home and accidentally prematurely opened my shop. I also must mention that I got engaged over the holidays (which is very exciting) but this has meant a lot of phone calls and congratulations. Slowly this is starting to cool down and I am able to focus on Wren and share some of the big NEW YEAR changes.
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>>PRICE CHANGE<<
I have relooked at some of my prices. This is generally good news especially in the Antique Linen & Leather Bag example. I found a new supplier of Antique Linen Grain sacks that is a lot cheaper and as you can imagine this is making the overall price of the product a lot less and I would like to pass on this saving. I hope that this means that more people can enjoy this wonderful material now that is is more affordable. However, for the people who already bought, please do not feel left out and done over because I will be contacting you with a voucher for the difference because I feel that is only fair.
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>>DISCONTINUED DISCOUNT<<
Sadly I must announce that the Small Town Bags, Big Town Bags and Ashleigh Bags are on their last run. I have been working with the English Linen & Cotton fabrics for almost two years now and I feel it is time to move on and forward. I adore the bags as do many of you but I feel that is is a good move and leaves space for new and exciting creations. In celebration of this, all the remaining Small, Big and Ashleigh Bags will be marked down. Click here to see the last of these bag styles.
I’m taking a break, closing my etsy shop and heading for the snow for a short while. I doubt I will be doing much resting like Pye above but it will definitely be fun. I plan to soak up as much inspiration as I can and come back energized for 2010. Thank you to everybody who bought a Wren bag, added a comment to a blog post or even just hearted my shop – it is thanks to you that Wren is what it is and that it will be here again, with lots of new and exciting creations, next year. Can’t wait….
Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and New Year.
P.S. I will be back on the 8th of Jan.
Whilst traipsing through the back streets of Kalk Bay taking photographs of the Coffee Travel Bags Jeremy noticed this peculiar tree on an empty plot (of which there are not many in Kalk Bay).
Jeremy, having read Victoria Finlay’s book ‘Travels Through the Painbox‘ several times (I have only managed it a few times) identified it from a sketch as a Dragon Tree. Realizing the odds of this are extremely unlikely we went up to inspect it. Sure enough, from swollen pork-sausage like branches a crimson red sap oozed (hence the name “dragon’s blood tree”).
This red sap is what makes this tree special. Stradivarius used dragon’s blood resin (which is said to be a mixture of turpentine and dragons blood sap) to give his violins their amazing color (something which was a mystery for years). The colour of this lacquer has been described as ‘little lumps deeper in colour than a barbuncle, clear as crystal and fiery as a ruby’ and to find it harder than ‘…droping the city as hard as Digoengens had to grope for an honest man in a much less knavish town than London‘.
One has to wonder what on earth this tree is doing in Kalk Bay when they are naturally found in Northern Africa, Southern Asia and on the mountainous areas of the Canary Islands. After a few days of searching in vain for information about the Dragon Blood Tree that is in Kalk Bay I am left to my imagination: perhaps the Cape Malay people brought a seed or a small plant and planted it, Or if it was a sailor fromm a distant island stopping over in the tiny harbor who gave it away… We will most likely never know.
The thing about the Tree in Kalk bay is that it is huge -Â the trunk branches every time the tree flowers and this doesn’t happen once a year either – so this tree could be well over 200 years old. It think it is amazing that so little is known about this very unusual tree in the middle of Kalk Bay.
To see more pictures of this tree visit my flickr set.
It’s that time of the year again and as always before you have time to blink, yikes, it’s Christmas.
Christmas is less than 5 working days away which means that if you want anything to arrive in time, it needs to be shipping via EMS (Expedited Mail Services. Delivery to your door in 4 working days). *All the Coffee Travel Bags (and products purchased with a Coffee Travel Bag) are upgraded from normal airmail to EMS for FREE until the 22nd which is when I will be closing my shop for the holidays.
See and buy my bags from my etsy shop.
It has taken me over a year to make the Coffee Travel Bag and finally, after many hurdles, it is finally complete. Getting the right peices to make this bag was complicated: the brass fittings had to be imported becuase I wanted a wide shoulder strap, the fusing had to be sourced and then ordered (becuase the burlap must be strong enough to make the bag useful) – this was complicated becuase after I had done the testing, the factory closed and disappeared. Then the webbing had to be just the right weight so that it could be sewn and held. All in all, to cut a very long tale short, this bag has been a real struggle but I think, worth it.
One of the benefits to this bag taking so long was all the advice and requests shared: please can there be a waterproof pocket, please can it be the perfect hand luggage size, please can the zip open both ways, please can there be a cardboard base, please can there be more than one pocket inside… all this feedback was applied.
For me this bag is a huge breakthrough in Wren design. It is unconventional yet practical, unique and stylish.
Because Christmas and the end of year holidays are just around the corner, I am offering a FREE SHIPPING upgrade to express courier for any Coffee Travel bag bought before the 22nd (when I go for on a short holiday). This postage option delivers to your door in 4 days! Normally, express courier costs about $20 extra.
To see and buy the bags in my etsy shop click here.
These metal drawers remind me of my wooden library ones. I wonder what their original purpose was. I love the green stars.
Packed high up to the ceiling were these cardboard rolls. From far they looked like a giant honey comb.
The book shelves that were filled with brown paper folded and bound books were beautiful. I love how each one is different, how they are each stacked to be the same but yet are not and I love that the writing on them is all jargon to me. It adds to the wonder of whats inside.
Photographs from the Chief Directorate of Mapping and Survey.
One of my favourite things about my ‘job’ (in inverted commas becuase Wren isn’t really a job), is finding new places that I would probably otherwise never have known about. The Chief Directorate of Mapping and Survey in Woodstock is my most recent find. I realise that this probably does not sound very exciting but I got to go into the archival rooms and open draw upon draw and discover maps from years ago and to be honest, being in such an ‘old world’ space was somewhat special.
When I first went there I asked for the maps they no longer needed. They showed me this HUGE pile but quickly added that they could not give them to me. For months I have been writing letters to various people explaining what I hoped to do with them and finally I was given permission to collect them. The maps will be going to the Hope Factory to be made into gift bags for Wren.
I searched for a beautiful set of wooden architecture drawers (as it is seemingly becoming my life long goal and dream to find one) but sadly they all seem to have been replaced with these grey metal ones (above). However there is something inspirational in the starkness and assembled line-up of these grey drawers.
There were also rows of old books. Lined up at the end of the grey drawers this space felt like I gone back in time with its wooden shelves and hand bound books.
‘MOvember’ has just finished and boy but were there were moustache’s all over the place. ‘Movember‘ is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues. If only I have found this ‘Moustache Wax’ (from MansFaceStuff on etsy) earlier. I know a handful of guys who would have had a great deal of fun moulding their moustache’s especially becuase that there is a competition for the most creative ‘MOvember’ moustache.
My neighbours must think I am mad. If I had a neighbour like me, I would. This is a photograph of me taking photographs (using the remote with the camera on a tripod) of my bags in the car port with the washing on one side, the canoes stacked behind me, a varnished ladder and a dining room chair. The wind was too vicious to take photographs outside (I kept having to chase after the bags). What a funny sight!
I have just added these new bags to my etsy shop. Go and check them out.