Shutting up shop!

It is time for me to hang the closed sign on the door of the Cowboys and Cupcakes website for the time being.

I cant manage my workload so its best for me to take a break and concentrate on other priorities in my life.

Perhaps I may even sell the business...anyone interested???

I will keep blogging when I can...perhaps even more than before...who knows???

Take care...

Angela

Where have I been???

Hi everyone, I know its been a while but I have good reasons for my absence...

I have decided to 'downscale' the wholesale side of the business...why you may ask...my little boy Cooper has started his first year at school and I have gone back to school myself. Im studying graphic design fulltime in the hopes that it will enhance my design skills and thus help me to produce high quality and super gorgeous products for your children and babies!

I was studying last year as well but managed to overload myself and found I was working long long hours , frantically trying to get assignments done, customer orders to complete as well as spending quality time with my children...argh! It was too much but it was a catalyst for change!

I am not going to promise to post more regurlarly, Im not going to apologise every time for not posting regurlarly...thats defeatist and unhelpful...what I will promise however is that from time to time I will upload some photos with interesting snippets about my work.

I hope the new year has found everyone well...heres to a positive 2010!

All the best

Angela

Mathilda's Market November 1st Brisbane...

Mathilda's Market

www.mathildasmarket.com.au

Its that time of the year again!

We're taking Cowboys and Cupcakes to the Masses!

Thats right...its on again...

November the 1st

from 9 am to 1 pm

Brisbane City Hall.

Heres a photo taken by the Mathilda's Market Photographer of Sophie, Amanda and I in front of the C & C Stall at the July Market...

We will have lots of new stock for sale...

as well as

Our gorgeous and special handmade Ceramic Christmas Decorations.

Stay Tuned for new designs...

In the meantime heres a sneak peak.

Christmas Mitten $10

Christmas Stocking $10

Your Initial Bauble delivery time 1 week $30

Stay tuned for more decorations over the weeks to come!

See you soon

Thank You...Home Beautiful!

Well what a surprise I got when my newest issue of Australian Home Beautiful arrived in my letterbox.

On page 74 I spied one of our hand painted draw knobs.

Buy direct from our website...

Do you remember my post when we first painted the red and white range?

Well they seem to have been really well received.

The article is called "The a - z of Kids Rooms"

Babushka Crazy...

I dont know about you but I love Babushka Dolls...or Matroyshka Dolls depending on your nationality. They are a great decorating theme at the moment and what little or big girl wouldnt love a timber wall decal of their favourite hide and seek game?

I made these from 3mm mdf that I have designed, cut with my trusty scroll saw and individually handpainted each one. they are designed to be adhered to the wall...or anywhere really with some trusty blobs of blue tac.

They measure approxinately 30 cm tall.

Enjoy!

Post Market Blog Post...

Well what a day it was!

Mathilda's Market Report...Sunday 19th of July

To all of you who came and said Hi, Thank you!

Your positive feedback was great to hear and I am glad I was able to put a smile on a few faces by making something special you couldnt wait to take home with you.

I met some wonderful artists and craftspeople too and of course I couldnt leave empty handed...

I certainly did some damage at Kristina's "Tiny Concept" stall and have lovingly placed 'my girls' in various places around my house.

Cowboys and Cupcakes hope to be at the November Mathilda's Market in time for your Christmas Shopping...we will have our beautiful array of handmade ceramic christmas decorations and baubles...keep checking back closer to christmas for pics...or of course you can check the decorations out on the website here!

Before the market madness started I was busy working on some exclusive designs for Little Peoples Linen...very sweet hand-painted products for boys and girls...

The eve of Mathilda's Market...

'Tis almost midnight the night before Mathilda's Market and all is quiet, except for the voices in my head competing for attention...have you remembered the shopping bags? Have you got enough change?Price tags? A pen so people can write their names on the mailing list form? And so on and so forth! Argh!

Above is a little sneak peek at the Cowboy and Cupcakes Display...Do you like it?

I hope to see you there...

Regards

Angela

Mathilda's Market here we come...

Cowboys and Cupcakes is heading to...

Brisbane City Hall for the

Mathilda's Market!

On Sunday the 19th of July

From 9am - 1pm...

If you are going to come and have a look, be sure to say Hi

and introduce yourself.

Stay tuned for more info...

New Hobknobs in bright red!

New Hobknobs for Kids!

Don't these look gorgeous? Handpainted by us for you...

Im adding a few more designs to our repertoire. They will be added to the website asap.

If you live in Hobart be sure to check out Ruby's Room

127 Macquarie Street, say Hi to Anji for me!

Enjoy!

Special Occasion boxes...

I am going to try and post some more regular photos on my blog. I am not the best person at sticking to routine so this is an attempt to lift my game.

The hat boxes are ordered for many different reasons, To hold memento's from childhood, to hold Christening and Baptismal gowns, for general storage. We personalise them with whatever the customer wants...and they always turn out beautiful...even if I say so myself! The hat boxes are imported from America and painted by us at Cowboys and Cupcakes. These 2 were painted for 2 sisters for their bedrooms to co-ordinate with their bed linen. Enjoy!

Peggy Dolls...For boys!

Who'd a thunk it...dolls for boys? Hand painted by us for the little boys in your life that love to role play. They are super sturdy and made out of plantation timber from European forests. We hand paint them with child-friendly non-toxic paint and coat in them a super tough clear finish. There's, Pirate Peter, Soldier Sam and Cowboy Cooper, all ready and waiting for your little man to spend hours of fun swash buckling the high seas, or roping himself some cattle. Pop over to the website and have a look at our other Peggy Doll designs...even some for the girls!

Reason for my absence...

Hi everyone, I have been rather slack and not blogged anything for the longest time but there is a good reason for that...I went back to full-time study, (although it should be called all-the-time study as it seems that all I do is assignments, exercises and tear my hair out trying to keep up with the young whipper snapper techno savvy toddlers who happen to be my fellow students), the only people older than me are the teaching staff! 

I am doing a diploma in design, graphic design, and guess what? I love it! I cant get enough! The reason for the little t cup and saucer is to show off my newly acquired skills with Photoshop...argh, that program has been driving me nuts forever, trying to work out how to remove images from the background has been challenging to say the least, but with the help of one of the lovely kids, and I say that endearingly cos they are all about 16-22, I'm a bit older than that...I have been finally able to remove an image from its background...ta da! I am quite 'chuffed' with myself and feel like clipping all and sundry from its background. I can see I'm still a little rusty around the curved bottom of the saucer and I know I could have tweaked it some more but that's a whole other story! Maybe with more practice?

Onto other news...I haven't told you about our new stockists...Rachel Skuse from Roma Queensland and Ruby's Room in Hobart, Tasmania. I shall post some photographs of both businesses in the next few days. 

So if we take too long to post some more pics soon please don't give up on us...we have so many new products in the making and we are working overtime with all the different projects that go into the products and development of Cowboys and Cupcakes.

Take care

Angela

Tag Fever!

I love to design and paint...if it can be painted on I will try it...I just need to satisfy my urge by coming up with new and fun things so I can get my 'fix' We make bag tags out of timber, hand cut on our little old scroll saw right here in our studio in Brisbane, we pop in a little opening ring and voila you can jazz up your bag, locate your keys or help your little one identify their bag amongst the 6 million other identical school bags. Below are some of the new designs...stay tuned as my off-sider, Sophie, who by the way turned 20 today..."Happy Birthday my Beautiful Girl" has been painting up a storm today so we shall have some new designs to pop on the website...enjoy!

Aeroplane Bag Tag

Lets Play Ball Bag Tag

Ballerina Bag Tag

Boys Castle bag Tag

An inspiration!

www.reddogandjude.blogspot.com is the blog of an amazing artist named Danielle McDonald. I have been following Danielle's blog for a while now and finally sent her an email (well a comment on her blog really) and she responded with some very encouraging words...have a look at her work here at...red dog and jude.

C & C tags from America...

Arent these the cutest? I ordered these tags from Etsy and they have just arrived, they are sooo much better than I thought they'd be. Now to find someone to make them here in Brisbane! We will be attaching these to our new clothing and textile products...

This will be our new front page...when it is finished...we are cooking up a few treats for the front windows...stay tuned!

Postage stamp anyone?

Oh how I love Picnik...yes I know I have said it before but its true!

I took these photos today for the website and I love the way they have turned out...picnik make everything I do look better! So thank-you Picnik!

What did I do with my quiet time after Christmas Day?

You may well ask! I wanted a fun and quirky way to photograph my new t shirts and singlets for kids, so I designed and made 'Cooper Mk II', who also, in the blink of an eye becomes Sophie Mk II, with some clever blu-tack'd piggy tails and a strategically placed pink hair bow! What do you think? The original Cooper asked me "is that me Mummy?', funnily his face is what I see when I am thinking about how to paint/draw a little boy...perhaps not so funny considering he is my life, sweet the way he can see himself in my artwork...amazing how his mind works...scary even!

Merry Christmas to all...

It is Christmas Day here in Brisbane Australia already, with a not so hot start to the day as we had a little rain last night.

My little one is not awake yet and the middle one is madly getting his big sister to help wrap his gifts...trust a man/boy to leave it till the last minute...Literally!

So to everyone out there in the big wide world, its a Merry Merry christmas I wish for you and a safe new year full of love and happiness.

All the best!

Angela

Some of my handmade goodies...

I am in love! With Picnik! Not the Cadbury's Picnic, although for some they may say eating chocolate is like falling in love...but I digress, Beside this text you will see a lovely montage of photograps edited and in original format that I have manipulated in PicNik. This website where you can edit pics for free makes my products look fantastic...even if I do say so myself! So pop over to www.cowboysandcupcakes.com and have a look for yourself...you never know what you may find!

Enjoy!

Discovering Picnik!

Oh My, I have a secret to tell you about how to make your photos look absoloutelyfantastic!

I discovered PicNik at Etsy.com and have been playing every since, so much for heading downstairs to do some work on my Christmas Orders no no no!

So, head on over to Picnik.com and for FREE you can edit your photos with so many editing options it will feel like Christmas has come early!

Other new goodies...

Invitations & Thanks-You's! Lovely invites, announcements and thank-you packs ready for you to fill in with your very important information... when...where...who etc.,

They come in packs of 10 with co-ordinating envelopes, sealed in a clear resealable cellophane bag. 

www.cowboysandcupcakes.com

We are LIVE! Finally after months of hard work the website is live! Go to www.cowboysandcupcakes.com to see what goodies we have been making just for you!

www.cowboysandcupcakes.com is almost here!

Well it is almost here!

My website for all things gorgeous for kids and babies & their spaces is coming to fruition. Tomorrow the talents at Website Blue are starting to complete the website complete with shopping Cart. It should be finished in about 3 weeks time. Soon you will be able to search high and low for lots of great interior and gift ideas for the special little people in your life.

The range of Australian made and designed products will include:

Hand-painted ceramics, personalised or not. Plates in 3 sizes, square and Round, 2 handled cups, egg cups, cup and saucer sets, door plaques in 2 sizes as well as wall plaques, pendants, Christmas Decorations, teacher plates, serviette rings plus much more.

Invitations and thank-yous in packs of 15 (with envelopes) as well as high tea, baby shower and christening and baptism or naming day invitations and thank-yous. These are all ready for you to fill in the details or for an editing charge we can personalise each and every invitation. If you like we can design an invitation exclusively for your special occasion or person.

Greeting cards in all sorts of designs for all sorts of occasions, cute little bears hanging around numbers for boys and girls from 0-9, fairies and princesses, pirates and footballers as well as some general designs.

There is a superb collection of hand-painted drawer knobs, 44 designs thus far to chose from. All Australian made and individually hand-painted with the cutest images, from cowboys to princesses to neutral shades and tones for the nursery of the surprise baby (Where Mum and Dad want to keep the gender of the baby a surprise Shhhh!) Hobknobs can also be painted to co-ordinate with your decor.

I am constantly looking for inspiration and get quite excited when I get a special request. I love working to achieve something unique and individual and hope that the client gets a kick out of having a one of a kind gift made just for them.

Please contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Kindest Regards

Angela Owner-Designer

Cowboys & Cupcakes

The egg has hatched yay!

And here he is! A little playmate for our Easter chick.

The Easter Bilby is on its way!

This little chick is wondering what came first? She is hoping that soon her egg will hatch and give her a little playmate...who knows, maybe a little brother to play with.

This is one of my illustrations I produced for my greeting card range. Of which you will be able to see soon on my website... www.cowboysandcupcakes.com (coming real soon to the net near you)

More Photos of drawer knobs...

Arrrrr me hearties! A small sample of the boys drawer knobs.

Welcome to the world of Cowboys & Cupcakes!

Hello from Sunny (most of the time) Brisbane.

My name is Angela and I am a craftsperson! So what does that mean? I paint! I paint anything and everything!

I began painting over 3 years ago when I was pregnant with my youngest child, Cooper, now 3.4. I wanted/needed a creative outlet different to what I had been doing...ceramics (read pottery). I started painting personalised canvases for friends children and to my delight they were very well received...mostly by the parents, why didnt I give toys for their birthdays like everyone else did!...I know they will appreciate my gift when they get older!? Anyway, I thought I had something unique happening not to mention how much I loved this new expression of my inablity to sit still doing not much at all. In 2006 I met Ashlea from Bunnycup Embroidery. I now design for Bunnycup's online embroidery website where you can buy downloadable software and stitch or applique some gorgeous designs onto clothing, quilts towels etc., http://www.bunnycup.com/ We have been collaborating for the past 8 months and often share the highs and lows of working from home and being Mum's to very busy children! Ashlea has 2 children and I have 3, Cooper 3, Nic 17 and Sophie 19.

I have also worked with Alyssa from lyssymay http://www.lyssymay.com/ creating some gorgeous greeting cards depicting what she does best...handmade handbags that are more than just a vehicle for your wallet and mobile phone, they are a work of art...wearable art!

I have been playing with an idea for the past 2 years and finally
this week it came to fruition. Hand painted drawer knobs...see I
told you I'd paint anything. Here is a photo of some of the
designs...what do you think?