Friday On My Mind #39 - teapots + polkadots + bears + braids + more....

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you've all been having a week full of creativity and adventure! I've been visiting my parents in my hometown of Devonport, a small place in the north of Tasmania. It's always so nice to come home, isn't it!

Here's a bunch of loveliness for you to check out today! Enjoy! x

I think this card by Luka Va is brilliant!

Love these teapots but can't decide if I like blue or orange best!

A very cool idea by Portland innovators Bucket - a coffee press made from a mason jar!

Now to move on from the beverage theme of this post so far, how about these amazing colourful braids!

And this amazing photo by Sylwia Domaradzka. Wow.

And the last picture to drool over.... these cookies are grain-free, full of chick peas and look amazingly delicious! Must try!!


Some interesting links for your weekend websurfing enjoyment!

There's some great advice and insight on The Maven Circle about getting unstuck.

Check out this bold open letter to the Abercrombie + Fitch's Mike Jeffries by the wonderful Jes over on The Militant Baker.

A cute post from Petit Pot about life in 16 tote bags.

This free downloadable chalkboard background from Foolish Fire.

The latest issue of online Australian handmade magazine Tickle The Imagination is worth a read!

I am dreaming of a holiday in Iceland after reading this account by Phillipa (former Tassie girl now living large in London!) on the Cosmopolitan website. What an amazing country! Have you been?

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Jen x

Illustration Crush - Nader Sharef

Today's Illustration Crush is on Spanish illustrator Nader Sharef, who says that he draws to avoid wasting time as creating an image is much easier than writing 1000 words.

From Your Door To Mine (The Kiss) 

The Art In Spain

Two works from a series entitled Serie Grupusculos

His work is absolutely stunning - beautiful, concise, magical.... it summons feelings of a skewed reality where everything is not quite as it seems, yet perfectly as it should be.

You can see more of Nader's lovely work on his website!

Enjoy!
Jen x

Tips For Driving Traffic To Your Site With Pinterest!

As you all know by now May is Pinterest month here on Red Parka. And so, I am happy to bring you a wonderful guest post from one of my favourite pinners, Julie from tractorgirl. Thanks Julie!

Aaaaah Pinterest.

It’s one of those seductive timewasters that I can’t stop going back to again and again. There are SO many amazing things out there. More pretty pictures, more incredible things, more jawdroppers than you can poke a stick at!

If you’ve got a small indie biz as a maker or artist, Pinterest can be very useful in driving traffic to your blog or shop site, and I’ll get to strategies in a minute. But first, it’s important to know that Pinterest is not all wine, roses, and cute kitties - there are problems for indie biz too. If you are an author of 2D work (photography, graphics, typography, illustration, surface design), your work can be something that gets shared a heap and you might get a big boost to traffic. However this might not result in sales – unscrupulous folk can just print it out themselves, or misuse/steal it for other purposes. Makers of 3D items seem to fare better when they get a big boost of traffic to their shops, and have a corresponding increase in sales. (I have written more on this aspect, as well as a few other pitfalls of Pinterest on my blog here - Sharing images on the internet - it's easy, but is it good?)

Having said that however, Pinterest is a wonderful tool when used in the right way! (And I’ve got lots to say about it, so stay with me.)

Now, for those of you who don’t know me, I write a blog called tractorgirl where I share my finds in contemporary craft, surface design and photography. I love scouring through Pinterest for great artists/makers/designers to feature on the blog, and have found several wonderful people that way. (So keep on putting your work out there – bloggers like me might just find you!)

I also use Pinterest as a source of traffic to my own website. The main way of course, is to pin images from my blog regularly onto my boards. Then, when the images (hopefully) get shared, people click on them and get taken back to my site. And I can’t state this enough – the most shareable images are those that are the prettiest/wildest/most interesting – because Pinterest is ALL about images. If you want people to share your images, make sure they are fabulous!

There are a few tricks if you want to maximise your traffic.

If you’ve used Pinterest for any amount of time, you’ll realise that not all your followers follow all your boards – some people only follow one or two boards from your collection (I have 22 boards). Therefore, I spread my pins over all my boards to connect with the widest audience.

Make sure you pin a variety of things, but DON’T pin everything. You want your followers to remain interested in what you are pinning, so keep to the good stuff! As you go on, you’ll soon figure out the stuff that it is REALLY worth pinning - your followers will appreciate your good taste, and they’ll be more inclined to repin.

As for getting new followers, I find it’s often followers of followers that end up following you, because of your interesting pins. It’s certainly what I do most often – if someone’s pinned a great piece, I’ll click on the pin to find out who else has pinned it, and then check that person’s boards to see if they’re likely to consistently pin good stuff. If they are, then I’ll follow them. So yet again, increasing your Pinterest presence comes down to only pinning the good stuff.

I spend a bit (OK a lot) of time on Twitter, and so besides using it to send traffic directly to my site, I also use it to send folk to my Pinterest pins, which then has a trickle-down effect. They look at my pins, start following me, then click on a few links, and occasionally land on my site. They also repin my pins, and share it around that way.

How much traffic does it drive to your site? Well, that depends on how you use it, and how many followers you have (I currently have around 750). Pinterest ranks about 3rd in my sources of traffic, and accounts for about ¼ of the volume of traffic behind no.1 (Twitter) and no.2 (Facebook). This appears to correlate fairly well with how much time I spend on each of those things. I know some other bloggers swear by Pinterest, and say it’s their No.1 source of traffic, but I think it also depends on what things you pin and how much your followers appreciate your personal taste…

So yes, I think Pinterest is most definitely a very useful source of traffic, BUT it is not the only one for me. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket as they say! You need a range of different social media platforms to get yourself out there, and remember that building up sources of traffic takes time and consistent effort.

I still love Pinterest. I pin because it feeds my visual soul. You can find me here.

Julie Gibbons is a contemporary craft and surface design junkie, and writes about these things and more on her own blog, Tractorgirl. She is also a maker of many things.

Friday On My Mind #38 - Colours of Morocco + Rug & Shoe Love + Impossible Things + More...

My goodness it's been a big week here at Red Parka Global Headquarters! 

But today is Friday so time for a little break for sharing some fun, creative and inspiring internet finds....  I'm doing something a little different this week and also sharing a bunch of links at the end of this post that I think you guys, my lovely, creative, adventurous and all-round-awesome readers, will find interesting.

I'd love to know which links you like best so I can make sure I keep providing you with the best, most fun and useful things I can!

I hope you enjoy! x

I think this rug is simply stunning!

I found this lovely image and quote on Pinterest but cannot locate the original source - if anyone knows please let me know!

Honestly, I do not consider myself a shoe person. But lately I keep finding these amazing shoes all over the place! Like these Sorel shoes. They are just perfect. For me at least! Now which ones do I like best?? I think I'd have to pick the bottom right, but it's a tough one!

Here's a cute messenger bag for my fellow coffee lovers! It's made from upcycled coffee bean bags.... I bet they still smell delicious!

I want to live here!

I could get lost in Adriaan Louw's photography. These shots from Marrakech are amazing! I want to go to Morocco so badly.... have you ever been?

Link Love!

Here is a great post about getting consistent sales in your Etsy shop over on Create & Thrive.

Get crafty with 50 Recycled T-shirt Ideas.

Did you see this lovely mother's day tribute, Dedicated To Mama, on Bourbon & Goose?

My fellow blogging Jennifers are reading Half The Sky, a wonderfully inspiring book, in the Feminist Book Club this month. Wanna join in?

Some interesting social media stats for the number lovers amongst us!

I really enjoyed listening to this podcast, Confessions of an Entrepreneur, from BlogCastFM - some good inspiring listening for us creative entrepreneurs out there!

Those lovely creative girls at A Beautiful Mess have released their own iPhone photo app! Very cool!

And finally, I got super inspired this week by reading The Impossible Manifesto by Joel Runyon - well worth a read if you, like me, have a gazillion impossible things you want to achieve and need a little encouragement now and then.

Thanks to Joel's encouragement, I have started an Impossible Things list which I shared on the blog yesterday. if you missed it you can read it here! What seemingly impossible things would you like to do in your life time?

Have a great weekend everyone! Jen x

My Impossible List - What impossible things do YOU want to do?

Do you dream of doing big amazing things in your life? 

Do you get discouraged because sometimes it all seems so impossible?

I know I do. I'm a dreamer and schemer from way back and like nothing better than making lists of all the awesome things I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it. But the problem is, it's hard to keep up the momentum and actually get them done. 

I recently discovered Joel Runyon's blog Impossible HQ and have found it a great source of inspiration. If you want to do impossible things, you should totally check it out!

With a few obvious similarities (a desire to travel and run successful businesses) our impossible dreams are pretty different. He's into fitness and adrenaline rushes, where I'd rather challenge myself to knit for 24 hours straight than to jump out of a plane! 

But it doesn't matter what your big dream is. The key is to be determined, gutsy and proactive until you get there. By which stage, you'll have another dream on the list ready to chase!

Inspired by Joel, I decided to write my own Impossible List. You know, like I do, that none of these things are actually impossible. But they are improbable, often appear impossible, and all will undoubtedly take serious hard work and perseverance. Otherwise they'd be on my regular ol' bucket list!

It's not finished, as I know I'll think of more to add to it tomorrow, next week, next year and so on. But it's here! It's written down. And I'm publishing it to my blog because I want to share with you my dreams of doing impossible things and hopefully inspire you to make a list as well!

Big Life Stuff

• Become conversationally fluent in 3 languages other than English (I have basic Japanese and French but not enough to pass this one - being a polyglot has been a long time dream of mine!)
• Volunteer for a time at an Elephant sanctuary (I LOVE elephants with such a passion)
• Build my own tiny house from scratch
• Help over 100 entrepreneurs through micro loans on Kiva (so far I've contributed to 15 loans)
• Start a cafe/shop/gallery
• Buy some land in Tasmania (to build my tiny house on!)
• Write and publish a book

Business Goals

• Reach 5,000 email subscribers (currently 250)
• Earn over $100,000 in one year (last year was under $15,000 so there's a way to go!)
• Publish an illustrated book (I am working on this at the moment!)
• Have my products in shops in 10 different countries (so far it's 1 - Australia!)
• Write and teach an eCourse on creative business (a dream for the future)
• Be featured in a major Australian magazine
• Be featured in a major international magazine
• Start a homewares product line (how fun would that be!)

Travel Dreams

• Visit every country in the world during my lifetime (193, depending on who you ask. I've so far visited 18 and cannot wait to travel again!)
• Live in at least 5 different countries for a period of 3 months or more (I've done this once in the UK and almost once in the Netherlands. But that doesn't count!)
• Spend 6 months circumnavigating Australia in my van (while running my business online).
• See the 7 wonders of the 'new' world (So far I have been to two, the Taj Mahal and the Colosseum).
• Spend a winter in the arctic somewhere where it never gets light.
• Spend a summer on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
• Visit every state of America on a year long mega-road trip in campervan. And Canada too. Why not?

What Impossible Things do you want to do?

I'd love you to share your ideas in the comments and if you're inspired to blog your own list, please share the link because I'd love to read it!

The real key to achieving impossible things? Doing one little thing everyday that gets you one baby step closer to the goal. So today, I'm going to develop a marketing plan for the illustrated book I am working on so that when it's published, I'l be ready to get it out there as effectively as possible!

Here's to achieving the impossible my friends! Now go!!

Jen x

Illustration Crush - Nefariousni

Today I am happy to be sharing the work of Nicole, the Texas-based artist behind Etsy store Nefariousni. Nicole loves animals, bright colours and patterns (just like me!) and works with hand pulled lino cut printing as well as illustration.

I really like the use of pattern in her work and the splashes of neon are really eye catching and fun. Nicole has a fantastic Instagram feed that features lots of her artwork so if you like a bit of illustrative inspiration on your Instagram (and who doesn't??) then check her out here!

I hope you are all have a fantastic week! I am feeling a real creative buzz at the moment.... lots of new projects underway and exciting things in the pipeline!

Jen x

Pin It To Win It + My 3 favourite Pinterest boards!

How are you going with Pinterest month? 

I am having a ball and today I have two fun things to share...

1. I'm having a "Pin It To Win It" contest!

This is the first time I have tried this so I would love you to join in, enter and share with your friends!

The winner will win the pendant and earring set in the photo featuring my fat, happy watercolour sparrow, along with a set of 5 greeting cards featuring the same image. Total value of $65 and includes postage to anywhere in the world! (And I just noticed you can see my reflection in the silver... hehe).

How to enter:
You can pin the image above directly and tag me (@redparka) to be sure I see it, or click here to head over to Pinterest and repin from my board!

I'll be picking the winner by random next Monday at 10am Australian time and will announce here on the blog! How exciting!

2. I thought I would share with you some of my favourite boards to follow so you can all share in my fun. Good idea?

I've been really enjoying spending extra time on Pinterest this month and pretending it's work. Now I give you permission to do it as well and take some time to get inspired with these three lovely boards!

If I had a cabin.... by Mrs French
I adore little houses and cabins in the woods (or shacks in the bush as we tend to cal them here in Australia) and I can easily get lost in daydreaming about my own little shack that I will build one day. This board is just so dreamy, earthy and makes me yearn for a simpler life in nature.

Need.More.Colour by Pilgrim Lee
This is one of my favourite boards because it's so bright and colourful and happy - I mean, seriously, how can you not feel happy after browsing through some of these pics? Fellow colour lovers, this one's for you!

Nautical by Nautical Wheeler
I love the ocean and everything to do with it, like cliffs, lighthouses, boats, frayed ropes, peeling paint and salt water hair.... this beautiful board makes me want to runaway in a yacht and sail around the world! This board is full of dreams and peace.

There are so many more boards I could share with you but I think I'd better stop there or this post will go on forever!

Do you have any favourite boards to browse? I'd love you to tell me in the comments because then I can go and check them out too!

Til next time,
Jen x