Asking For Trouble - Marceline blogs about illustration, Japan, crafts and the freelance life

Weekend Wrap Up

As the opposite to last week, this one has been super duper hot and filled with exciting deliveries. I even made it into Glasgow to see Ghibli’s new film The Red Turtle, which was so beautiful. I’ve been busy getting my new wooden brooches ready for sale so they should be available by the time you read this, unless I’m still flopped out in front of a fan.

Limited Time Shopping Offers

Half price brooch sale in my shop, plus bargain seconds on polymer stamps.
A Redbubble offer on a Saturday! Get 25% off all apparel, including t-shirts, dresses and leggings, with the code STUFFTOWEAR.
25% off everything in my Zazzle store through Monday with the code MEMORIALSAVE
Repeat customers get 15% off all my badge sets! Just login and check the cart page for the code. (How do you become one? Place an order in my shop and you’ll have the option to create a customer account for exclusive monthly offers!)

Ongoing Shopping Offers

$10 off your first order at my Society6 store with this link.
25% off any 4 small vinyl stickers from my Redbubble shop or 50% off any 10!
50% off your first personalised card at Thortful with the code TTSHUVNO.

News and Reminders

My new printed wooden brooches are now available! More on them next week.
New paper craft tutorial will be up next week so sign up to my mailing list to be get it sent straight to your inbox along with news and offers.

Posted on May 27, 2017 by Marceline

Sales & Offers

New Brooches Preview & Clearout Sale

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know I designed some new printed wooden brooches. I’ve been sharing a few sneak peeks and they’ll all be added to my shops over the weekend. Before that though, I’m having a clearout sale for the engraved wooden brooches.

They’re not going away forever – it’s just that the quality of the wood has been getting worse. I will bring them all back, either as printed brooches or in a better quality wood. There’s only a few of each left and they’re now half price until they’re gone.

Here’s a peek at the back of the new printed brooches – can you guess them all?

I’ve also added a few seconds including some more wooden brooches and a handful of polymer stamps. Go check out the sale!

Posted on May 26, 2017 by Marceline

Crafts, On-Demand News

Fill-A-Yard at Spoonflower

Spoonflower are always coming up with interesting new ideas for fabric and Fill-A-Yard is a great one. You can now buy fabric printed with multiple designs for cheater quilts or scarves!

The simplest option is to buy a yard of fabric with two different designs, printed vertically or horizontally. More exciting are the projects, which let you choose up to four designs laid out for infinity scarves or up to 48 designs in your own cheater quilt pattern. Cheater quilts are a great solution for people who don’t have the patience or skills to piece together a real quilt top and they can look almost as good.

You can create your project using fabric collections, which you can create yourself (here are mine) from the entire Spoonflower library or choose from the curated collections. I had a play around with my designs and was pleased how well it works with colourways – the veggies above is a seamless repeat across all the colours. Use my 5 A Day collection to make a fruit and/or vegetable pattern.

That also works with my Hello Cupcake colours and I really like how muted the colour change is – this would make a really sweet baby quilt. You can recreate this using my Sweet Treats collection.

This is more on the crazy side using designs from my Kawaii Repeat Patterns collection. You can make some cool designs with the grid, though there isn’t much space to do any pixel art. Maybe in future they’ll add more squares and even patterns from quilt designers.

I’m definitely going to consider using Fill-A-Yard for my long-neglected quilt project as it would be a fun way to do something easy for the backing.

If you fancy trying it out, you can browse all my collections or other users’ collections featuring my designs.

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Marceline

Japan, Japan 2016

Seasonal Flowers in Japan

Japan is of course famous for sakura season when everyone goes crazy for the fleetingly pink cherry blossoms but that also makes it one of the busiest and most expensive times to visit. Luckily there are beautiful flowers to be seen all through Spring to Autumn, and winter foliage too. Here’s some of my favourites and you can see more of my Japan flower photos on Flickr.

Sakura / Cherry Blossom (March/April)

Okay, I can’t miss sakura out! Our first visit was in late March and we were a tiny bit early for the full sakura display but still managed to spot some. Plum blossoms also appear just before and are almost as pretty. If you want to see sakura, make sure to check the blossom forecast before you book and be prepared to travel north or south if things start sooner or later than expected.

Roses (May-July)

My 2016 trip coincided with quite a few different flower festivals but the main ones were for roses, with amazing displays at Shinjuku Gyoen (at top of post), Yoyogi Park and Nagoya‘s Higashiyama botanical garden. There were hundreds of perfect flowers in every colour and everyone was going photo mad with total heart eyes.

Azaleas (May/June)

Azaleas are considered a bit too boring for a festival but you’ll find them in lots of gardens and the hot pink flowers are so cheerful, especially contrasted with the green leaves. Shinjuku Gyoen had an area with hundreds of bushes and it was so pretty.

Irises (May-June)

I was lucky to see so many different flowers during my May 2016 trip and especially this field of Irises. I managed to catch them at Koishikawa Korakuen on the last few days and take the same photo as the brochure cover! They don’t bloom for long and there were a lot of photographers out as well as a wedding party.

Hydrangeas / Ajisai (June-July)

On my last full day in Japan in early June the hydrangeas were just starting to bloom so I was able to add them to my collection. I think they’re so pretty especially alongside the monuments in the quiet gardens close to Sensoji in Asakusa.

Chrysanthemums (October)

There weren’t a lot of flowers to see during our second and third Japan trips in the autumn but we were mesmerised by these perfect chrysanthemums at Meiji Shrine in Harajuku. There were rows and rows of them, all in different colours but exactly the same size.

Flower Festivals

If you’re visiting Japan in the spring or summer, check for flower festivals. These are out in the countryside so usually require a train and a local bus but the reward is huge displays of thousands of flowers. The most famous ones are nemophila, shibazakura and wisteria but you can also see tulips, sunflowers and lavender. I’d love to do this sometime though they’re very crowded.

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Marceline

Sales & Offers

Weekend Wrap Up

It’s been a rainy week with a disappointing lack of package deliveries. I’ve been keeping myself busy updating my product photographs around the internet and working on my online Japan guides (more on that soon).

Limited Time Shopping Offers

30-50% off paper products in my Zazzle store this weekend with the code MAYPAPERSALE. Includes cards, notebooks, gift wrap rolls & tags, posters, stickers and more!
15% off different categories every day at my DaWanda shop through Tuesday.
Repeat customers get 15% off all my badge sets! Just login and check the cart page for the code. (How do you become one? Place an order in my shop and you’ll have the option to create a customer account for exclusive monthly offers!)

Ongoing Shopping Offers

$10 off your first order at my Society6 store with this link.
25% off any 4 small vinyl stickers from my Redbubble shop or 50% off any 10!
50% off your first personalised card at Thortful with the code TTSHUVNO.

News and Reminders

You can see all my free paper craft tutorials in one place now. Sign up to my mailing list to be notified of next month’s tutorial along with news and offers.

Posted on May 20, 2017 by Marceline

Older Posts