I go...you go

“A London street artist Louis Masai Michel paints swarms of bees on urban walls to raise awareness of Colony Collapse Disorder” ‪#‎artpeople


Submit your Artwork and join our artists @ www.artpeople.net.

I found this post on Facebook which addresses two of Shiftazine’s  favorite topics.  

Firstly, it is a great example of Wallism (Street art) and secondly, it speaks of the serious topic of protecting and respecting bees. 

Shiftazine has reposted in the hope more people can see this lovely wallism as well as be reminded of our friends, the bees', deadly plight. 

Also maybe it will encourage you to submit some artwork to artpeople.net.

Bold and Beautiful

A large glass flagon, or an industrial light shade can be all a room needs to have an exciting focus.

As mentioned a few months ago, there are many replicas being produced by interior design companies,

but I am of the belief that why go for imitation, when the real thing is waiting to be rescued in

some unlike places.  

You just need to have a scratch around some second hand stores and recycle centres. Go get'em.

All in a row: Street Chairs

It never ceases to amuse and amaze me that street chairs abound on almost every street I walk along.  
More often than not, they are perfectly fine...not broken, or torn, beyond use.  
Is it that we just get tired of seeing the same stuff all the time, or they hold sad memories.  
Either way, stop and ponder that lonely piece of furniture and consider if there is room in your life and apartment for it.  
Street chairs rock.

Issue No.16: Inner Niceties

Feeling a bit Scrappy

The article ‘Fabric of Life’ posted the other day has shiftazine thinking about crafting with fabric scarps. 

So when a friend of mine, who is a fine young graphic designer and new mother, Karmen Rai posted some photos of a crazy looking toy the other week, the shiftazine radar was activated.

After a quick email to her, shiftazine received a brief overview of how Little Scrappy came to life plus some lovely images of the progress from rough conceptual sketch to fully realised toy.

Shiftazine has named the toy 'Little Scrappy' for the sake of the article, but Karmen may have some other ideas for the creature, who reminds me of the Real Monsters of the late 90s.

"I decided to create this monster for my tiny darling girl Imogen. She is at the age where she is curiously feeling different textures and objects. 

It was her curiosity that was the inspiration for me to used different fabrics / ribbons / buttons in the making of this Little Scrappy.

I considered the size and shape of the eyes, legs and arms, which I made thin so she can grab onto the toy easily.

For the feature fabric came from an old top that I had outgrown, but kept it, as I really liked the fabric (the yellow patterned fabric in picture).

I want Imogen to grow up with toys that are either quirky or handmade by me." 

Let there be light

It seems to me that people have embraced the whole notion of recycling, and reinventing with a great sense of creativity.

Emerging from what only a few years ago would have been considered rubbish are beautiful, quirky, and truly desirable objects.


All the lights featured in this article are by EKCxTRK found at Seasonal Concepts 122 Redfern NSW 2016

The fabric of life

“I'm a little bit of a fabric lunatic”. John Malkovich. Me too! I simply can not bring myself to throw out the scraps of fabric that I have accumulated when I sew anything.

 I have a cupboard full of stacks of fabric scraps all tied up with brown satin ribbon,

 just waiting for the day when I am inspired to utilise them somehow.

 Everything has potential to be something else…something beautiful and useful.

 It is the possibilities of what could be that prevents me from casting these random fabric scraps out in the bin. 

A little bit of this and a little bit of that, all combined with a few odd big buttons that excites me. 

Sew something!