Love Zine Giveaway Reminder

Just a reminder you have 2 days left to enter the giveaway, all you need to do is leave your email at this blog post here! I'll be drawing the name out of the hat on Tuesday :)

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Love Zine + Giveaway (entry closed)

So over the past few months I've been collating old poems, letters and cards that Ben and I have been writing to each other since 2010. The idea was to put together a love zine of all the best! This process took longer than I had imagined but I'm super thrilled with the outcome. A whole lot of love has gone into making this zine be the prettiest it can be!

I thought valentines would be a lovely day to share this on the blog and bonus points as it's only a few weeks on from our seven year anniversary too :)

The zine is A5 and you can go grab yourself a copy over on my etsy store (more info there as well!).

..........................................

COMPETITION TIME

I also want to give away a copy to one of you guys!
Simply comment below with your email address and next Tuesday (21/02/17)
on the blog I'll announce who the winner is! 

GOODLUCK!

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Taking Five with Bianca Jagoe

I've been super excited to share this post and introduce you to a super awesome person (if you don't already know her).  Her name's, Bianca Jagoe, she hails from Launceston in Tassie, Australia and she is AWESOME! Think, lover of cats, lives in a cute town, appreciate thrifting, dresses her adorable son in sailor suits, draws, designs, has two different coloured eyes (eep!) and sooooo much more!

I can thank Ben for introducing me to Bianca via her zine, Paint it Black which you can find over in Bianca's etsy shop.  Ben is a collector of zines/comics/stickers/artworks and likes to show me the art packs he receives in the mail.  When he came to show me Bianca's zine he was like "you need to read this, you'll love it".  Paint it Black is a step back into Bianca's childhood, presented in a heartwarming way, complete with sweet illustration and honest, poetic writing that had me bawling by the end (although I need to state it's 100% sweet and nostalgic rather than sad or depressing but I'm am a super cry baby :P)

sneak peak of the Paint it Black zine

I thought it would be nice if I could do a mini interview with Bianca and she graciously agreed - yay! I've grabbed a bunch of rad photos from her flickr and her blog to give you a glimpse into her colourful life but I'll also link you to where else you can find her (at the bottom of his post) so, like me, you can stalk/follow her too :)

red lips, cool style and her cutie pies :)

1) Hey Bianca, could you give us a little blurb about you?
Hi! I am a freelance illustrator living in Launceston, Tasmania with my husband, one and a half year old son Theo and four cats. I like drawing pictures, Morrissey, making zines, tickling my son, wearing red lipstick and riding my bike. 

happy bikes

2) What makes you love zines?
I started buying zines early in high school when I first attended Newcastle's This Is Not Art Festival Zine Fair and fell in love with the medium. They are these lovely, lo-fi, tactile, handmade, personal, intimate little publications. I think there's a nice mysteriousness to them that the internet can't quite imitate. I just think that they're really fun. I think everyone should try making one (or ten). I'm hoping to make a new zine over the Summer about the four years I've spent working part time as a checkout girl. 

cats and zines - perfection!

3) I'd personally love to live in Tasmania, what made you choose the area?
My husband and I came to Tasmania for a holiday in 2010 and when we returned home to Newcastle we couldn't get it out of our heads (my husband kept talking about how fresh and delicious the air was). We ended up moving here about 6 months later, which was a big deal for me because I was 20 years old and left behind all of my friends and family, but now I couldn't imagine life anywhere else. I love the scenery and the slower pace. I love the farmers markets, the history, MONA, the snow, the beaches, the immaculately maintained old buildings, the wildlife and lots of the people. I love that I can ride my bike everywhere around my city (5 minutes from home into the city, 5 minutes to uni, 5 minutes to work) and that it has all of the things that I need but doesn't swallow me up. When I ride my bike around Launceston I feel like it belongs to me. Ps. You should totally move here Fee! :P 

eep!

cute architecture in Tasmania

4) What is your favourite creative pursuit?
I find this question surprisingly difficult because I feel like a bit of a jack of all trades, but master of none. I just like being creative in general and I'd like to encourage others to be creative too, by whatever means. I really enjoy painting with gouache, woodblock printing, designing graphics in Photoshop & Illustrator, blogging, drawing and singing. I'd love to be a master of something, but I just really enjoy playing with different things - I guess it's more about the process of being creative for me, rather than the output. 

Bianca's sweet illustration style

5) Any exciting future life goals to share?
I have just started a new course with the Tractor Design School in Melbourne (online) and sat in on a really great talk by Frankie Radford of The Design Kids last week, who is someone who is extremely goal oriented (I am totally in awe of her goal setting and achieving!) and it highlighted to me how go-with-the-flow I tend to be about setting goals for myself. My goals at the moment are to make a really great veggie patch in my little English country garden over the Summer, to have another baby sometime in the next two years, to make a living from doing something I enjoy (hopefully illustration/design/education) and to do a bit of travel in the not too distant future (Japan is number one on my list). Thanks for having me!

theo shares his mum's rad style :)

 

#dreamhouse

Where else to find Bianca!

Bianca's Blog

Flickr

Etsy Shop

Instagram

Thanks so much to Bianca for playing along and really for just being one super cool chick :)

I look forward to following all her adventures to come!

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FINALLY HERE!

Yay I'm so stoked for my little zine to have finally come together!

Packaged up and read to go!

I have put the listing up on etsy, where you can read all about it

CLICK HERE

I wanted to do something fun too, so before the end of November, gulp not long now! If you purchase a zine, you can have a free print too! Just let me know when you check out by leaving me a message in the "note to seller" section

Also get in first to get your free cat badge!

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Cat badge

So after coming back from Japan and working on my zine and being all Japan cat inspired, I thought it would be nice to include a little bonus with my zine for those that get in first!

The badges have magenta glass eyes and a gold embroidered mouth

After the first few badges I decided I was kind of crazy for doing this but I think they turned out real cute and they are a nice size to pretty-up a plain tote :)

I was notified of a certain postcard shipment to happen tomorrow, eeek, super excited!

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Off to the printers my little zine goes!

My labour of love, aka Tokyo Zine, is off to the printers! I was thinking of ways to compile my zine, actually to be honest the whole thing was given me a headache until I woke up one morning with the solution…

Now excuse me whilst I go off on a tangent...

About a year ago I went to a local church bookfeast and picked up the book “the magic power of your mind”, the book, written many moons ago, talked about the fact that for 8 hours in a day our mind is slacking when it could/should be working. It suggested giving your brain a problem to work on whilst sleeping. And hey presto I did just that and woke up with the idea to do a postcard zine! I’ve given my brain a few problems to dwell over during my sleeping moments but to be honest the hit or miss ratio is heavily on the miss side! I either have a lazy brain or the book is full of nonsense :P

So yes a postcard zine, as a lover of postcards and their nifty ability to be blu-taked to a wall. I think it shall all turn out dandy!

By the way I wouldn’t suggest giving your brain a problem if you have trouble going to sleep, possibly making things worse for you!

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What is a Zine

So what is a Zine?
Firstly it's not pronounced 'zine' like 'line' but rather 'Zeen' like Magazine! Actually a zine is just a small version of a magazine and they're known for being self published with a small production number and usually no fancy printing methods involved...go the photocopier! Wikipedia goes into all the nity grity if you're more interested!

In the art World, zines are fairly common and if you type 'art zine' into etsy you'll find some great publications. Closer to home though and what has inspired me to kick start my own, is the fabulous Girlie Pains aka Brisbane artist Mel Stringer. Her zine production rate is one to be envied! 

So every free chance I get, I'm thinkin, drawing, planning my own little magaZINE! and having a blast, can't wait to share more process shots as I get further into it all!

weeeeeeee

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