Penny For Your Thoughts?

 

New in my Etsy Shop.

Penny Dreadfuls - Damask Vintage Black and White

Check this beautiful kit out here.

In Our Town of Halloween...

I can't believe that it's September already!

Now anyone that knows me will tell you exactly how much I hate winter. I hate the cold. I hate the rain; and I especially hate snow because it is both of those things put together. But I quite like Autumn. Fall. Whatever you want to call it. 

I like the cooler air in the mornings and the colours of the leave changing. I like the hazy sunshine and the way that the days are still quite warm even if they are airy.

Anyway... After I posted the Modern Gothic kit I had a little light bulb moment that the Baddest Witch In Town papers would look great in black and orange as well as black and white. I then decided to play on the whole Witch angle, hence the Hat and Broomstick patterns. But, of course, I could launch a kit in Halloween season without incorporating pumpkins now could I!? If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen my post with a little behind the scenes designing of the scroll work on the Pumpkin Patch designs.

I hope you like them, and check them out on my Etsy store.

Until next time.... Happy Crafting!

The Hallow Eve digital paper pack is available here. 

Modern Gothic

New Etsy Product Alert!!

So I've been working on a few projects lately; some of them have been intentional and some have kind of just happened. This was one that kind of just happened.

I had been in the process of designing some printable planner packs that you could print off and would work with most of your favourite planner brands, and as part of those pack was including six background papers that co-ordinate with the six divider designs. 

However once I started designing the sheets for the Modern Gothic planner I was on a roll, and next thing you know I had fourteen designs. So what else was I to do than put them all in a bundle.

The Modern Gothic Paper kit  no in the Etsy Shop. 

Going back to the Basics

So I guess that I'm still not great at the whole consistent posting thing. I'm going to try to get better; try being the key word....On the other hand I'm pretty sure that I said that last time....Oh well.

Speaking of that last time that I posted, if memory serves (yes I'm too lazy to go back and look at what I wrote, sue me.) I mentioned that I was going to work on some paper crafting kits that would cover that basic patterns. Well... I did. Whats more these kits are available in my Etsy Shop. (Click the link in the menu bar up top, the E under the search bar, or on the big Enigmas Emporium Logo over on the right to get there)

5 Patterns. 9 Colour ways. 27 Kits. All designed to colour match with the enormously popular Graphic 45 papers as well as Santoro's Goujuss.

Stripes, Spots and Dots, and Harlequin and Honeycomb kits in the following colours:

Vintage Black and White.  Mayan Blue.  French Navy.  Pear Green.  Burnt Orange.  Dusky Peach.  Wild Rose.  Vintage Red.  Tuscan Yellow.

 

COVID, Netflix and Crafts, Oh My!

Well Hello!

Long time no see. In fact it's been more than a year since I last posted anything here. Life and work has a habit of getting in the way of these things. Working in theatre doesn't leave a lot of room for free time and when you do have it you don't particularly want to spend it looking at another computer monitor.

However, the Coronavirus Pandemic has bought work to a screeching halt. A lot of us working in the West End are facing redundancy, even if just for a short while, since we can not do shows with social distancing measures in place. There is very little in the way of financial support for the arts and entertainment industry at the moment and petitions are popping up all over the place asking the government for more support. The only one that matters is this one on the official government site. If you are a UK resident please consider signing as it only take a minute of your time.

So, having been furloughed from work since the middle of March when lockdown started, and probably not going back to work until the new year, what am I doing to occupy myself? I'll confess, the first six weeks or so of lockdown I spent in front of the TV, becoming very good friends with Netflix and Amazon Prime. It was actually really nice to just sit, relax and catch up on all the shows that I don't normally get the time to sit and watch, as well as re-watch some old favourites! I watched all five series of Merlin in just over a week and have just started on Doctor Who. On the subject of Merlin, I'm really looking forward to Cursed which is coming to Netflix at the end of July and the second season of The Umbrella Academy. 

I haven't only been watching TV. Honest. I've read a ton too. It's been a very long time since I've been able to read a book in a day! I reread everything by Ilona Andrews; all of the Kate Daniels series, the Hidden Legacy series, (I'm super excited for Emerald Blaze to be released in August), finally caught up with the Innkeeper Chronicles. Now I should probably move on from books before I start to gush over how much I love Ilona Andrew's writing; once I start I won't stop!

I've given the blog here a bit of a make over and want to be more active on here. The part of blogging that I've always found the hardest is knowing what to write about; (She says after waffling on...) But now, with all this free time suddenly on my hands, I've been getting back to doing more arty things, that I haven't had time for lately. I've already added a Scrapbook kit to my Etsy shop, the first in a long time. 

My mum (a crafter) suggested doing some more basic paper kits. Lately she has been making a lot of pocket book albums with Graphic 45 pads and keeps saying how she wishes she could get a pad of just the striped paper. So that's what I've done. I've created kits of Stripes, Spots and Dots and also Harlequin and Honeycomb patterns that coordinate with Graphic 45, Santoro Gorjuss (another of mum's favourites). They're really the colours and designs that you can use for just about everything. There's 27 kits all in all, so you can tell how much fun I've had uploading everything to Etsy.

Left to right:
Dusky Peach Dot, Wild Rose Dot, Mayan Blue Stripe, Dusky Peach Stripe and French Navy Stripe.

I'm thinking of release a colour way a week, but maybe more, we'll see I guess. Mum has already been playing with these and using them in her projects; which is also something else I hope to be posting on here. Mum has been writing up How To guides for the pocket book albums she's been making, after improving on what she has learned from YouTube videos. She's done the trial and error so you don't have to.  

  

I've also just discovered Disc bound planners. Now as much as I'm not into planners I like the idea of how this system works. I've been shopping around for a new art journal since I'm reaching the end  of my current one and couldn't really find anything that I liked or suited how I like to do my journalling. So I've bought a Punch, papers and a set of Discs, which I'm still waiting for. So hopefully Some posts on that in the future to.

So, see you soon for some crafty goodness!

      

It Begins...

So after what has been nearly a year in the making, Tomb Buddies is open for business!! 

Yes it has been a long process, that is still far from over. But they are here! Finally!! 

You can check out the store here at www.tombbuddies.tictail.com/ 

There are a whole bunch of different items for you to get your hands on. T-shirts, Tank Tops, Posters, Tote Bags, Cushions and even Mugs. All items are made in the USA; meaning that you can be certain that everything has been produced ethically, without a sweatshop in sight. 

Also, for every item that is bought from the store, I plan to donate a pound to that amazing charity Random Acts. If you haven't heard of them check out their website here.

I'm back! And I'm Still Alive...Sort Of...

I'm back! Not that I really went anywhere, just had a really bad case of the Flu. Bad enough that I started planning my funeral (FYI, I want a funeral pyre, on a Viking boat, pushed out onto a lake/sea at sunset. For two reasons: 1) It'll be the last chance for me to be a complete pain in the backside for everybody involved. 2) It'll be very cinematic, so someone better film it; seriously I'm giving you a chance to make your big break as a film maker here.) So I basically spent bank holiday Monday playing catch up to all the things that I should have done last week.

I did use this time to have a good old think, a dangerous occupation I know, and to plan out a way for me to open the new Tomb Buddies store sooner rather than later. This is one of those times where being such a perfectionist isn't a good thing. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that, for me to wait until I'm totally finished with the drawing/designing part of things before I open shop, means that you will be waiting for a very long time. As in you may do nothing but wait. This is one of those projects that, even if you gave me till the Sun implodes, I still wouldn't be finished. I don't want you to have to wait that long; hell, I don't want to wait that long! Therefore I have devised a plan that means I can open the store and share all the great stuff that I have been working away on for what seems like an eternity, while I still continue to work on the project at the same time and that way everyone is happy. I already have a few products uploaded to the store, which is quite exciting. Store is looking awesome as well. Follow on Twitter (@TombBuddies) or Instagram (@tombbuddies) (or find the relevant buttons over on the right :P) This is were pretty much all the Tomb Buddies related updates are appearing.

Everything in the Tomb Buddies store will be made in America. This means all items will be made ethically; sweat shop free, and workers are payed a fair wage and work in a safe environment. The only downside to this is that things cost a little bit more, but to be quite honest, I think that it's worth paying the slightly higher price.

In other news:

• World Goth Day is on May 22nd and +Dead With Tequila will be having a sale. so keep an eye out for more details about that. 
• May 27th is WWF's Wear It Wild event you can sign up here. If yo have nothing to wear why not pick up Dead With Tequila's "Live The Wild Life" shirt here. For every shirt purchased we will donate £2 to the WWF. 
  

Also you may or may not have noticed the addition of the "Book Reviews" tab at the top of the page. It does what it says on the tin; basically I've created a page where I will be adding links to all my book review related posts so that they are in order and in one place. I only push reviews from Goodreads to my blog when they are lengthy enough to be worth while reading. The short ones are only on Goodreads. I'm trying to get better at writing longer reviews for books, but sometimes words don't cover, and can't explain how awesome a book is, which is when you end up with the " Oh My God THIS BOOK IS AMAZING" review.

Anyways, I'm going to stop waffling on and get back to sorting things out so that I can open Tomb Buddies!

A usual, questions comments leave below, find me on twitter, or send a flying monkey, unicorn, or even a carrier pigeon with your message. 

 

Lost In The Tomb

Okay so I think it's time for an update.

Tomb Buddies Twitter and Instagram accounts are all up and running !! Be sure that you follow if you don't want to miss anything. You can also sign up to the mailing list here so you will be the first to know when we open the store.

The store is looking really good at the moment; I'm really excited for you all to see it. I have to keep reminding myself that I still have a lot to do before we get to that. I already have one mug designed and uploaded, and a few more part done and some still floating around in my brain. I also have some ideas sorted for cushions, most of which, will also work on t-shirts and posters.

Tomb Trivia

HELLO!!! It feels like it's been ages since I posted any weird ramblings. I'm not going to include the book reviews that have been posted as they come via a link to Goodreads. If you're a bookworm, feel free to add me on Goodreads, I have discovered that the "Livvii's Quotes" bit on the right is a link to my profile there (who knew!?). Until recently, I was busy in the +Dead With Tequila  tomb trying to get everything done in time for us to reopen with all the awesome new stuff. But that's all done, and I've spent the last month doing all the marketing side of stuff, which always takes more time than you think. Thank you to all the awesome people that have been viewing the store and keeping us well over a thousand views a week. 

If you haven't taken a look in the store since we re-opened, then you're missing out, but you can easily fix that! (just click "Shop Dead With Tequila" in the bar at the top). If you have had a peruse at the store, what's your favourite thing? (I am genuinely interested). I'll also have you know that we are still not done with new items for the store. Yes, this does mean what you think it means; it means that there are even more new items that will eventually be coming your way. If you don't want to miss out on any new items that we add to the store, you can Watch the store and receive an email when anything new is added. You can do this by clicking "shop Dead With Tequila" and in the top right corner in the store front click "join Storenvy" then you can watch the store and never miss a thing!

Some boring  interesting facts from the Tomb:

• In making the new jewelry items so far for the re-opening we used upwards of 600 Jump Rings.
• Somewhere in the region of 2000 beads have been used on the new items so far.
• New items so far have used around 300 head pins
• The new necklaces and bracelets that have been made so far have used about 130 crimps.
• On new items alone, we used probably 150m of wax thread and 120m of organza ribbon on bracelets and necklaces.
• The new earrings made for the re-opening used up about 40m of chain.

Yes I did spend about three hours working this out. I was gonna do this really cool thing, and make some kind of infographic. R then pointed out (after I spent the 3 hours working it all out), that probably no one is going to care. I said "Well I spent three hours on this so I'm going to blog it whether anyone cares or not", R replied with "You are a silly bean."  For the record I am not a bean, but a flying donkey.

Now that the mad rush of photographing and uploading new items to Dead With Tequila is over, I really want to get back to working on my cartoon based collection that I started a while ago. Because we were trying to get everything else done before R went off to university, it got put one the back burner for a little while. The good news is, it now has a working title!!! Tomb Buddies. This may change between now and it being finished (god only know when that will be). There is  still so much to be done it's unreal, but it's going to be really cute, but keep the vibe of Dead With Tequila. It's a very monochromatic collection; very black and white. R has suggested having small hints of colour in there, but I'm not so sure. It's still early days yet, so I may change my mind on that one. Thinking about it now, they'd look great on t-shirts and bags. Of course there will be posters too. I also have a vague plan in mind about some book mark style thing with the characters, but that needs a bit of fine tuning yet. Perhaps when I've done a bit more to it all I'll share some "in progress" pics.   

I think that's everything for today. As usual, questions, comments, either below, or come find me on twitter. Failing that, carrier pigeons, magic carpets, unicorns and flying monkeys are also acceptable messenger services to be used.     

And The Count Down Begins

R and my self have been working really hard in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb lately, whether we are ready or not the, end is near. In a little over a week and a half R goes off to university, and therefore we have to have everything finished before then. In an ideal world we could do with another couple of months to finish everything off; for no other reason than at the moment we are very stressed out, regularly repeating our new mantra of  "There's not enough time, oh God there's not enough time!"  and have pretty much been working in the tomb morning, noon and night and having dreams that we are still in the Tomb working away.  Have you ever been so stressed and panicked by what you're doing that you no longer no how to do what you're meant to be doing? that's how R and my self have been for the past 3 or 4 weeks and it is horrible.

I'll stop rambling now and start telling you about some really cool stuff from the Tomb.

So we have TEN, yes 10 new collections for you: Edgar Allen Poe, Down The Rabbit Hole, Light Years Away, Dreams Of Darkness, American Dreams, Pocketful Of Posies, The Kraken, Ancient Ruins, Dia De Los Muertos and Pandaemonium.

We are getting RID of postage charges!! (Whooo!!)

We have got some amazing new necklaces. Where we now have themed collections we ave got some amazing statement charms and things that are gorgeous and we can't wait for you all to see them.

Now for the really exciting stuff!!! We have decided to branch out and offer apparel items in the Dead With Tequila store. If you follow me on Twitter or just occasionally stalk your way through my feed (I don't mind a bit of stalking :-P ) you would have seen this pic that I shared yesterday

  
This is one of our Own Brand items that will soon be available to you from the Dia De Los Muertos Collection. This is the collection that will be the home to all of the Own brand items. 

So basically we have paired with a third party company that make, print, and ship the apparel items as well as the new posters directly from Los Angeles. We have tank tops, hoodies and posters so far.

This does mean that there will be shipping costs attached to the apparel and the new posters because they are the ones that deal with the order and they are the ones that set the shipping costs not us. There will be more info on the shipping costs of these items and size guide and things put on the Dead With Tequila blog site in the FAQ section, that will explain everything so no need to worry.   

Anyways...back to work. I can't wait for you all to see what we have been working on. If you end up reading a product description or something on the Dead With Tequila blog and there are mistakes or missing info, please let me know. the problem with working on something so much is you get so used to it you stop seeing the mistakes, so I'm counting on you guys.

You know the drill questions or comments can be left below, or tweet me, or send a magic carpet, carrier pigeon, flying monkey or unicorn.  

Hi, Just passing through

This is just a flying visit because I'm busy busy busy in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb.

Yes there is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the Tomb right now. We're have spent the last few weeks, especially the past two days working really hard on some awesome new stuff. 

I can confirm that within the last hour and a half we have finished the jewelry part of the Edgar Allan Poe collection!!! (does happy dance). There's some wire bracelets, elasticated bracelets, a couple of bag charms, earrings and...(drum roll please..) NECKLACES!!!!! They are totally gorgeous.. I've already finished a couple of poster designs and a tank top. Yes you read that right, a tank top...as in an item of clothing (Oooo!!) I'm working on even more designs for both t-shirts and posters and maybe even tote bags... I'm just gonna leave you to ponder that for a moment.

The Pandaemonium Collection is coming along nicely as well. Lots and lots of really bold colours paired with black. This is the next one that we are going to aim to finish. Hopefully.... we're waiting for some supplies, but they have to come from a supplier in China so are taking awhile to arrive, which is stressing R and myself out a little bit. If we don't get our stuff with in the next week or so we want to move onto the Down The Rabbit Hole collection. 

Down the Rabbit hole has some nice pieces in already. This is going to have clocks, and playing cards, and dice, some florals. It's going to be a very grown up version of the old story. The teacups are being swapped with martini and shot glasses...Make of that what you will.

The past couple of days have been really busy to say the least. We've started to make multiples of the same item (never more than 10 though) 

There's going to be some updates on how we list stuff in the store as well, but I'll tell you more about that another time..


Anyways...Loves you all, but now I have to dive back into the Tomb or maybe bed. Maybe I'll just sleep in the Tomb...Yeah, that sounds like a plan. 

Laters my lovelies.         

True Colours.

So +Dead With Tequila are considering branching out into tshirts and maybe some other stuff. So I was just curious as to what sorts of colours appeal to people.  The image below shows the colour options for the items we are considering. I'd love t know what you think.

Personally I'm leaning towards going with the Vintage Black and the Venetian Grey (potentially adding Purple Rush and Vintage Red into the mix) for the Women's tank top. Ultra Blue and Black for the hoodie. For the men's tank Black and Heather Grey.

Let me know what you think via the comments, on twitter, or by carrier pigeon.

Thanks xx     

Change is Coming.....

So over the last couple of weeks we've been having some serious talks in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb.

The end of July will mark 1 year of Dead With Tequila, and we have decided that some big decisions need to be made about how we do things, both on Storenvy and in the Tomb.

Change is coming.

We have got so many new ideas, and feel that the way we currently operate just isn't gonna cut it for all the craziness that's in the pipeline. These new ideas and plans show more of who we are, both as individuals and as a brand; not that the items currently available don't do that, but the awesomeness that we have in store for you does so even more! We really want to develop our style and personality in this next year, and hopefully in doing so can grow our brand that is Dead With Tequila. We want to flaunt our dark and twisted, weird and wonderful, creative and quirky sides. So far we don't feel as though we've been able to do that. We want to make a statement. We want to be able to be like " 'Boom!' This is us. Yes, we're young and arguably inexperienced, but we've worked our asses off and created something pretty amazing with absolutely nothing at all, and we're proud of what's been achieved!"

That's really the truth of ALL of this...If you told me two years ago that I'd be here, running and creating a small business, I would have thought you were crazy. Believe it or not, this isn't a life long dream of mine. I haven't spent years of my life imagining what it would be like to run my own business with my best friend, and considering all the potential names for it. Dead With Tequila is really the result of me throwing away three years worth of work because I got sick, and to continue on studying was no longer going to be a viable option for me. Dead With Tequila only exists because, I happened to have the most incredible best friend, who was willing to take a chance with me, with this crazy idea, stand by me and help add to the craziness of it all. This was one of those times where neither of us had any idea about what we were doing, but being to stubborn to back down from the challenge, went ahead and did it anyway; and if we got stuck, well hey, that's why the world invented Google.

This first year of Dead With Tequila has really been about us finding our feet. Learning. We didn't have any aims or targets for the last year; the way we saw it, just opening the store was an achievement! Then the fact that we had more than 1 page view was a shock....Then actually making a sale....We refreshed the page about three time to make sure it wasn't a mistake! We couldn't believe it. Now that we feel we know what we're doing, understand how the relevant platforms work, we can now start putting all our plans into place. 

Some of these ideas that we have aren't new; they've been with us right from the start, unfortunately we had to learn to walk before we could run. This was probably the only time my mum got involved with the business side of things, (she runs about 3 for various people) other than educating me and Carrie on how tax works (still don't think I understand it!). Her advice was to pace ourselves, and in the process let our ideas develop. So, we've held back. We are now ready to start unleashing the crazy on you! 

The way that we group our items is going to be big change. Our products will no longer be grouped by type e.g. Wire Bracelet or Elasticated Bracelets etc. We have decided to create themed collections, any new products will be produced as part of a theme, meaning that we can really spread our creative wings. Some of the names that have been tossed around for these collections are just wicked! But you're just gonna have to wait to see what they are. We haven't quite worked out the finer details of how we are going to go about implementing this overhaul yet. At the moment it seems like the best choice is to close the store for a day or so. It's been discussed that we may release one of these new collections at a time, say one a month or something. The problem with this would be that some items may have to temporarily disappear. 

Some of the current collections will stay. Most likely the Accessories, Posters and Original Art mainly because the items currently in these collections won't fit with the new themes. Hopefully more of these collections will be raising money for other charities.     

So lots to be doing, sea things, evil bunnies, weird and wacky stuff!! I hope you're just as excited as I am about all this! 

As usual leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions, magical unicorns, flying monkeys etc. below or come and bug me on twitter ;D  

Shhhhhh...It's a secret...

For anyone wondering about what's been going on in the +Dead With Tequila Tomb of late, the answer is lots of awesome stuff. Quick summary....

• Givaway: We've finally finished putting together what's going to make up the bundle. Details should be up and ready to let you all loose on really soon  NOW!!.   Exciting stuff!! Click Here
• There's about 6 items in the bundle, I think. Give or take.

• The release date for The Wild Life Collection (raising money for WWF) has been narrowed down to June, so keep your eyes peeled for that. You can already preview most the stuff in the store if you want, there's only a few pieces that we haven't up loaded because they're unfinished.

• We've been playing around with some new ideas as well, but I can't say to much on that right now.

• There will be a 10% off flash sale across the store on World Goth Day, that's May 22nd for those that don't know. Coupon code will be revealed nearer the time.
• I did want to do a whole other collection** for this spectacular celebration of Goth awesomeness, but The Wild Life Collection to a lot longer than expected to finish, so there just hasn't been the time. Fingers crossed we might aim to do one for next year and have it as another charity collection (we've discussed the Sophie Lancaster Foundation as a charity)

• There may or may not be another longer sale in the summer. We haven't decided on this yet, so don't get your hopes up (there's still World Goth Day!) 

**I've been wanting to do some more Goth / Alternative style collections for a while now; I've been thinking and Edgar Allen Poe collection (You may say cliche, but I love his work. Random Fact: I have the same birthday as Poe). I recently got a bunch of new arty stuff to play wit that would work really well with this idea. There has also been talk of a Nordic/Viking theme collection, make of that what you will.... Any thoughts on this, or suggestions even...Let me know via comments, Twitter, carrier pigeon, magic unicorn (seriously, I expect a unicorn)

Take a peek....Dare you.

First things first - I've revamped... Again.....Slightly. The +Dead With Tequila store button that was on the right hand side was bothering my Inner Squirrel (the button was dark blue and really didn't work with the colour scheme) and the Brain Hamster had enough of listening the to whining....So I had to change it. I'm happy with the pages bar though....For now anyway ;)

Now the really important stuff...

Dead With Tequila have added awesome new stuff the the store. There's some cute bag/key charms, quirky earrings and gorgeous new bracelets that I think you'll all gonna love. Check it all out by clicking the "Shop Dead With Tequila" button at the top of the page.

 

In the Tomb

Guess what guys... +Dead With Tequila  have got  new stuff in the store for you to get your hands on, and even more is on the way!

Find it here

Plans for the giveaway are picking up speed, and there's even a sneak peek (keep scrolling) of the WWF collection from the Tomb!