
Behind the Scenes: The making of my Christmas Decorations
Ever wanted to know what go's in to bringing my Christmas decorations to life?
I don't know about you, but I'm always facinated about what goes on behind the scenes in artist studios and workshops. We always get to see the fabulous finished pieces, and often don't have any idea of the blood, sweat and tears that go in to the work!
Thought you might like an insight in to exactly what it takes to get the seed of an idea to a finished product, and show you some behind the scenes of the making of the latest collection of Christmas decorations.
It began with a love of Australian Native plants of course......
The seed of an idea, beginning with studying, photographing, sketching... |
The hand drawn sketch is then manipulated in Adobe Illustrator to fine tune the design and meet all the parameters required to put it in to production.
Designs are then created in stainless steel, right here in Australia
After the cutting is done to create the pieces, it's out to the Powdercoaters for them to recieve their durable colour finish.I'm passionate about supporting local and Australian businesses when sourcing my materials and services.
It's been a rewarding experience over the years, building those relationships and working alongside talented and skillful people to develop my products. Matt here, has been powder coating my decorations for years now. I think they secretly like doing something a little bit out of the ordinary!
Now the fabrication starts: Removing each piece from the master sheet and matching centres with backgrounds, ready to rivet together.
Each contrasting centre
detail is hand riveted....by me.
Need to concentrate on this job, don't want to hit the fingers!
Choosing companies that look after the environment is important and needs some investigation to make sure they're in line with my own philosophy and brand as a maker.
Here's a few fun facts that might interest you about the company I work with to cut the steel here in Australia.
- 75% of their power usage is solar, and they have 40kw system.
- 60% of water is harvested from the roof and stored in a pair of 10,000 litre tanks
- The stainless steel melt source foundries (based in the USA) use a significant portion of recycled material
- All of the offcut material is returned to specialty scrap metal recyclers
- The forklift was gas powered and is now battery electric, charging on weekends from their solar panels, so has zero emissions.
- Natural fruit extracts, rather than harsh chemicals are used to clean metal.
- The marketing team staff volunteer time every year to Life Education, raising money, which is used to empower children and young people to make safer and healthier choices through education.
Hope you've enjoyed the insight into the making process!
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