Bondi Markets

I am very happy to report we had a fantastic day on Sunday at the Bondi Beach Market!  These are a few shots I quickly took with my phone on the day.  Wish I got around to take some more of the other stalls and people...next time...

My very tired and hardworking husband above - thank you sweetie!
And today I am exhausted...it's amazing how tiring it is!  But, it was wonderful to talk to so many wonderful and interesting people...makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside  :))

We had a lovely little spot under a big tree and we were lucky the weather held out for us.  Thank you to everyone who came down!

We'll be at Bondi on Sunday!

Ooh I'm so excited!  We just found out on Monday that we have a place at this Sunday's Bondi Market for Hamamist!  It should be fun....as long as the weather holds out!

This is one photo from the stand we had at the Magnolia Square market in November.  I had hoped to take a whole lot of fancy pictures :)  But ended up not having any time for it at all!  Having the stand at Magnolia Square was great - we learnt a lot, were rushed off our feet and totally exhausted afterwards...but we'd do it again  :) 

I flew down to Melbourne for it while Senol stayed in Sydney with Yashar.  Luckily my sister Emily and my Mum helped out sooo much...there is no way I could have done it without them!  We had the chance to meet some wonderful people too...so inspiring to see such creative and entrepreneurial people building their businesses, and a crowd of people that really appreciated their work!

Fingers crossed for the Bondi Market!

PS  My sister is starting to get her online store for Emily&Leo happening (I think it is looking great!) and is having a pre-Christmas sale with 20% - check it out!

Recent Work: Tirtil Kids Bookshop - Istanbul

I am continuing to work with Tirtil Kids Book Shop in Istanbul and am loving it!  The work often needs to be done quickly and I try to make it eye catching and fun...  These are a few I have done recently - above is a detail from a birthday related one, ...and you can see some of the past illustrations here.

One of the exciting things that the book shop is doing at the moment is having different comedians and actors in to do readings each month..so fun I think!  This is the most recent one - the reading is on this Thursday:

And this was the one for last month:

Christmas Making Inspiration

Source: purlbee.com via Verity on Pinterest

I've just started to get in to Pinterest ...and I'm liking it a lot!  It's basically a website that lets you collect pictures (and links to the sources) of your favourite things from around the web and organise and share them.  These are some things I 'pinned' from around the web today - all for some Christmas making inspiration.

Source: sweetpaul.typepad.com via Verity on Pinterest

Source: sweetpaul.typepad.com via Verity on Pinterest

Source: poppytalk.blogspot.com via Verity on Pinterest

Source: bostonmamas.com via Verity on Pinterest

Have a great weekend!

Recent work: Invitations

These are a couple of photos I quickly snapped before sending these invitations I created off on their journey to France.  They were for a very sweet little girl's Baptism and used one of my Angel illustrations as a basis.    These were so fun to work on  :)

A snowy Istanbul scene for the 'Action Pack - Celebration Issue''

Thank you for the lovely birthday wishes for Yashar!  This is one of the many other things that has been keeping Yashar and I busy lately!

A little while back I was contacted by the the amazing Kathreen, founder of whipup.net and author of Whip Up Mini Quilts and Little Bits Quilting Bee She asked me to contribute to the December/January edition of 'Action Pack' (an e magazine with loads of activities to do with kids) and of course I jumped at the chance!

 Yashar and I made this wintery Istanbul scene - complete with Galata Tower, Aya Sofya, the Maiden's Tower and the Bospherous Bridge.  Yashar loooved making it... and so did I!!  Above is a layout from the Action Pack with our activity (and Yashar busy at work!) on the left, and below is the super cute cover of the e mag.

If you would like to buy the Action Pack, with the printable Istanbul monuments and all the instructions on how we made it, you can do so here.  The Action Pack is fantastic - so many activities to do with kids - I think it is around 80 pages this time!   You can read more about the pack here.   It is going to be keeping Yashar and I happy and busy for many many hours this Summer! 

Oooh!  I almost forgot!  You can use this 10% discount code 'WPContributor' to get 10% discount off everything at the whipup.net or action-pack.com store!! - especially for friends and blog readers.  Yay!

Hope you all had a great weekend!  I'll be back with loads more posts very soon  :)  So happy to be back blogging again!

Yashar is 4!

Wow! It's been a long long time - far longer than I meant and I have really been missing blogging! This is a post that I actually started writing a few weeks ago but didn't get around to putting up. I have so so much to share with you all. SO expect plenty of posts in the upcoming weeks! Thank you for sticking by in the mean time :)

Yashar turned 4!! Can you believe it!? When I first started this blog he was less than 6 months old. We went down to Melbourne for the weekend and had a mini fiesta in the park, complete with nachos, pinata and even margaritas! I forgot to bring the memory chip for my camera (as I often do) so I was very happy that my sister Mindy could take some photos - including the cake!

It was so nice to have a birthday for Yashar surrounded by my family - to spend it with them and have all their help. This was the first time Yashar had a birthday in Australia! It's amazing to see Yashar growing, learning and adapting to life here. I don't know if I have written about this before but he actually spoke only a few words of English (despite understanding everything). Now he is learning so much every day. So wonderful to watch.

For Yashar's actual birthday we had a quiet day (after an overnight drive back from Melbourne!) The photos at the top and below are him at our new fave cafe where he has already been busy charming the locals. And don't worry - he got a haircut the next day - in all the rushing and moving etc his hair grew in to quite the little mullet :)) hehehe! actually it was only looking at these photos that I realised just what a mullet it was!

 Yashar pulling a silly face for the camera!

And now a special message to my little Yashar:

Well done Yashar and Happy Birthday! I hope the year to come is as wonderful as the past four have been. I hope that you continue to be your wonderful, warm, talkative, gentle and inquisitive self. I hope that you continue to grow, to learn and to have fun! I will miss you when you start pre-school in January, but I know you will love it. I hope you are happy here and I know that you miss your friends and family back in Turkey. But I know too that you will make some wonderful new friends and have so many good times getting to know your family here. All my love, Mum

You are so VIP!

Hey - my sis Emily is having a VIP this coming Wednesday evening - and since you are all my VIPs you are totally invited!  :)  She was kind enough to have it the night before we move to Sydney so I didn't miss out.  I will be there helping out and sipping on champagne so I hope you come and say hello!

We made it!

We're here!!  Still settling in - my husband has found a job, we have found a house and in two weeks time we will move to Sydney!  Another adventure!   We had hoped to be in Melbourne - where most of my family and friends are but I am particularly excited about 3 things with the move to Sydney - getting to spend time with one of my sisters that lives there and getting to know her two cute little kids (who I haven't even met yet!)  and also that I will have a little studio to work from!  I can't wait to get set up in there.

We have been spending time catching up with family and friends here and hanging out at my sister's shop - Emily & Leo - which I love!! I'm so proud of her  :)  You can see the cards and notebooks of mine she has in store in the top photograph and we have also set up a mini wall of our Hamamist towels here - they go beautifully with the yummy soaps and beautiful leather bags and wallets she has here!

These beautiful rings are also from Turkey - we brought some more back for her with us because they have been selling out so quickly!  If you want to get your hands on one be quick!  Drop in to the store or email her at info@emilyandleo.com   I love them!!

We still have lots to organise - like the move to Sydney, a car, beds, a fridge etc etc - ahhh!   Please let me know if you have any shop/restaurant/things to do with kids recommendations for Sydney too!!  I'm looking forward to getting to know it  :)

Huge News! and a huuuuge sale!

(huge news for us anyway) ...we are moving back to Australia in 3 very short weeks!   It was really a big decision for us - and still everyday we ask each other...are we really moving?!  I'm sure later I will be in the mood for writing something thoughtful, meaningful and emotional about it all...but at the moment it's all about packing  :)

We made the decision not to ship our things over - which means we just have our luggage allowance and some small packages that we will be mailing over...yikes!  I totally thought I would be fine with that, but now that I have started packing I have no idea how it is going to fit and how I am going to choose what to take and what to leave behind!  

All of this means that I am having a CRAZY HUGE SALE of all the stock I have on hand.  I have put a special section in the shop here where you can go to see all the discounted  items.  The images here are just a few of them.  The matted prints (which are usually $28) are on sale for $14 - yikes!!

So if you have ever been thinking about getting a print, or you want to stock up ready in time for birthdays or Christmas then this is the time!!  There are very limited amount of stock - just what I have here in the studio that I am slowly and sadly packing up.  Have a great weekend!