I looooove Anna Laura. I love her shop, her blog, her LIFE. Gracious, I just always thought she was one of those super cute people to have around at all times.

Turns out, she definitely is. ;)

–

8am
Get up and go for a run. I have a park behind my house, which is great for running in. I measured how far it is on Google Earth. Although because it is winter the ground is usually wet from dew so sometimes I go later in the day when the sun has warmed everything up and my socks don’t end up soggy.  I have tea and muesli with yoghurt for breakfast and clean up the kitchen and then head to the computer to check emails and catch up on things.

9.30am
I am making some little sample packs to send out to shops.  My label is just over 2 years old, but for a year and a half I was working full time as a teacher. I left my teaching job in December so I have been looking for stockists for my bags and badges to help the label grow.  My partner Gareth created a wholesale login and ordering system called Stocklist for my products on my website which is really handy for people wanting to make orders.

10.30am
I have some new products that I need to photograph to upload onto Stocklist and also for my blog and flickr.  This is a new bag I made with a screenprint from the bird drawings I do at Melbourne Museum with Bridget from BridBird.  We met via Etsy and The Rose Street Artist Market and have been drawing the bird collection since May. It is a great day out where we can sit and draw, talk about art and a little gossip, have a nice lunch and get lots of drawings done.  Because I work at home on my own I love being about to get out of the house and chat to someone that isn’t on the other end of a computer.

12.30pm
One thing I like about working from home is I can make my own lunches and don’t have to worry about it the night before. One of my favourites involves pita bread.  I often have it as a pizza but this time I’ve made a salsa with tomato and avo and put it on top of the pita which has been in the oven with some onion and cheese.

1pm
Time for some screenprinting. I created some screens where I just painted the design on with emulsion and wanted to do a second run with them to test them out.  One worked well (the one above) but the other had a few little holes in the emulsion and needs another coat.  I usually cut my screenprint stencils from cartridge paper and then peel them off and reuse them again.  I started exposing screens last year and blacked out my laundry but never got the right exposure time with the lamps.  Because I was working full time I didn’t get it sorted out and then we shifted so I had no blacked out space. I also realised the stencils work really well and I like being more hands one with the process so didn’t do anymore.

2pm
Afternoon tea. I don’t normally have arvo tea but my Nanna made us some lovely biscuits and I wanted some with tea. She always makes my brother, sister and I a big tin and whenever Mum and Dad visit from Gippsland (about 3 hours away) we always end up with one.  These ones are choc chip and another one with cornflakes and sultanas.

2.30pm
Walk to the shops for some groceries for dinner.  We live about 1km from a shopping strip with some great shops for fruit and veg and meat so I like to go there every couple of days.  I’m using my new shopping bag with one of the pigeons I printed last week from the museum drawings. The straps twisted when I made it so I kept it for myself.

3pm
I start dinner early so it can cook for a while. I make chicken and white wine casserole, but end up using all the sauce to make a risotto and we have with a big salad and some bread from the bakery down the road.  I get some more jobs done like trying to get more badge names and descriptions finished. I want to have lots of names available for the market as people often want a specific name and I want to make this available.

5pm We have dinner and then watch some films from Webflicks.  It is so cold tonight that I don’t get back into my studio so we ended up watching three films, which is quite a feat for us.  I sit and sew some badges while we watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Gareth put this on the list and it wasn’t as good as he remembers), Notes on a Scandal (I put this on and we both enjoyed it) and It’s All Gone Pete Tong. We are not sure who put this on and the start was really slow and I almost wanted to stop and put Dexter on, but the last half ended up being much better.

11pm We boil the kettle for some hot water bottles and head to bed.
–

Thank you, dear Anna!

Related links: The Dailies: Pia Bijkerk