June Featured Members and Giveaways!

This month, please give a warm welcome to Lauren from Raspberry Pink and Sophie from Strat Designs, as they give us a sneak peak into their fabulous worlds of crafty goodness, and give away some of their wonderful handmade items to two lucky readers. To enter is simple - just leave us a comment at the bottom of this post. For more info (and to find out how to score an extra entry) read The Rules at the bottom of the post. Good luck everyone :)

Introducing BrisStyle member...


NAME: Sophie Straton - Ferrier
ETSY SHOP NAME: Strat Designs

1. Can you please describe the items you are giving away to one of our readers?

I'm seriously into felt balls this Autumn/Winter so I'm giving away two items using my new favourite matierial!


1) Cherry felt ball triple drop pendant, and
2) matching little cherry felt ball drop earrings.


2. How would you describe your work?

Colourful, stylish and fun.


3. How did your Etsy shop come into being?

A friend told me about the handmade expo. From their website I followed a link to the BrisStyle blog and from there...ETSY! And wow! That was such a mind blowing experience, I just read and read and looked and looked. I was totally hooked. I couldn't rest until I was signed up and listing stock.


4. Who or What inspires you?

My whole life has been involved with jewellery, antiques and collectables . I'm a very visual person, so beautiful things always get my attention and inspire me but overall it's colour that does it every time. The older I get, the more attracted I am to colour - I suspect I'll be one of those grannies with fuschia hair.. I find colour, like music, can really affect people's mood, and so I'm inspired to create pieces that bring "visual happiness". I enjoy architecture too, especially old buildings, and of course nature always has a wealth of inspiration in form and balance, colour and texture.


5. Do you ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ as part of your creative process? If yes, how is your art / craft eco-friendly?

At this stage only the felt balls have the potential to be made from recycled products, however I have a strong desire to bring in an element of vintage to my designs in the future - buttons and antique/vintage jewellery bits are things I'm actively collecting right now, so hopefully yes, in the future I'll at least have a section of my Etsy shop dedicated to recyled.


6. Can you describe your studio / work area?

My spare bedroom! Well it was once. Now it's totally taken over by my workspace and my long suffering husband has done a great job of building it in with workbenches and shelves. There's never enough room though is there? I've been eyeing off the garage for a while now..


7. What is your favourite thing in the shop at the moment?

Like I said - I'm very into my felt balls right now! This is my Autumn leaves felt ball lariat. You can wear it really long, or wrapped around twice, even three times. It's lightweight, cosy and textural and very colourful! Great for those dreary cold days ahead.


8. Do you have any other places that people can view your work?

I haven't made the leap into blog world yet, so other than my etsy shop the only site I have is my website www.stratdesigns.com

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Introducing BrisStyle member...


NAME: Lauren Hillard
ETSY SHOP NAME: Raspberry Pink

1. Can you please describe the items you are giving away to one of our readers?

I’m giving away one of my gorgeous new Socrates the Sheep phone charms!

Socrates the Sheep likes to spend his days hanging around on your phone pondering the meaning of life, the universe, and your text messages.

2. How would you describe your work?

Colourful and cute. I love all things brightly coloured and gorgeously cute so they tend to be my favourite things to make. My characters are quite varied because most of them started as custom orders, just like these guys:

3. How did your Etsy shop come into being?

I discovered polymer clay early last year and in my research into all things clay, I stumbled onto Etsy and having already made far too many things to ever use myself, and still with so many ideas I wanted to try out, it seemed inevitable!


4. Who or What inspires you?

Everything inspires me. I have folders full of thousands of images that have inspired me and continue to do so. I find it hard going shopping because everything I see, my brain wants to translate into ‘clay’. As something to use to texture clay, store clay, shape clay, display clay, decorate clay, decorate with clay.. The list goes on!


5. Do you ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ as part of your creative process? If yes, how is your art / craft eco-friendly?

There is literally no wastage with polymer clay unlike other mediums. Single colours are stored and used in future projects, attractive leftover patterns are made into beads or incorporated into other projects, unattractive colours (I always end up with lots of strange shades of red for some reason?) and patterns or colour mixes become tools and texture plates.


6. Can you describe your studio / work area?

Messy. As much as I try to organize it, I have so many tools and colours and works-in-progress that I have a desk covered in clay, tools and findings, a box of findings on the couch arm, a bookshelf shelf (gotta love Ikea) that doubles as a semi-portable work area and boxes of stuff all over our unit!


7. What is your favourite thing in the shop at the moment?

I love everything glow in the dark. I keep forgetting to get photos of them glowing though!


8. Do you have any other places that people can view your work?

Blog and Clay Shop: http://raspberrypink.com.au
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raspberrypink/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Brisbane-Australia/Raspberry-Pink/95765001207
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenhillard
Workshops: http://www.tangledyarns.com.au/

Thank-you Lauren and Sophie!

The rules:

Simply leave a comment on this post to be in the running to win one of these two fabulous giveaways. Be sure to leave a way for us to contact you. If you don’t have a blog, please include your email address. Only one entry per person. You may enter twice if you mention this giveaway on your blog. If you choose to do this, please pop back after posting to your blog and include the url address to the post it was mentioned on here in the comments. This will count as your second entry. International folk are welcome to enter. BrisStyle members and their immediate families (ie: husbands/partners, dependent children, and their computer savvy pets) are excluded from entering all BrisStyle giveaways. A name will be randomly drawn on the 25th of this month and the winner will be announced on the blog on that same day.

Once again, the very best of luck to you all!