Welcome to the weekly Feature and Giveaway! Every Monday, we’ll be featuring a lovely craftsperson, artist, or  artisan – and every week you’ll have the chance to win something from their shop!

This week we welcome Sam, from the gorgeous Matou en Peluche!

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Where do you live?

Sydney, Australia

Where do you do your work?

At the dining room table!

What’s your favourite place in the world, and why?

Favorite place in the world: Sydney’s pretty hard to beat – but London or Venice come a very close equal second!

Tell us a little bit more about yourself! Your ‘day job’ or business, family, hobbies…

I’m an English language teacher by day. Every other spare moment I spend drawing or at least thinking about drawing!! I’m also quite fond of taking long walks on the weekend with my partner in crime around the beautiful parks, bushland and beaches of Sydney.

What did you want to be ‘when you grew up’?

I wanted to be an artist!

How did you first get into your craft/art?

My Mum was an incredibly creative person – and both my parents were forever taking me round the art galleries of Sydney on the weekends so, I grew up in an arty house and was very encouraged by both of them to draw and create from a young age.

What do you make?

I draw charcoal and pastel gals and birds mostly and sell them as prints. I also have a range of greeting cards.

What are you most proud of making?

Gosh! I think I’m quite proud of the body of work I’ve built up over the past year and a half on Etsy.

What do you like the most/least about selling your wares online?

I love the interaction with the people who stop by my shop. I love the Etsy community and the blogging community – I had no idea that that was one of the perks of opening an Etsy store! I also love being able to put up a new drawing in my shop and get some feedback more or less instanly. I also love being in control and not having to go through gallery curators in order to sell and get my work seen.

I can’t think of one downside to selling online!

I love…

cats, shopping for art supplies, drawing, fine spring weather, the online community!

It drives me crazy when…

People make a big deal about standing in a queue at the post office and sigh very loudly and breathe all over my neck!

What’s your favourite word?

Thank you!

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Visit Sam Online!

Shop: http://www.matouenpeluche.etsy.com
Website: http://www.matouenpeluche.com
Blog: http://www.matouenpeluche.typepad.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/matouenpeluche

Wow – Sam is being super-generous to all my lovely readers this week! She is offering the winner of this giveaway their choice of five (yep 5) 6cm X 10cm (4″ X 6″) small prints from her shop – this is worth $25.00. I have a few of Sam’s prints, and I can tell you that they are top quality and just lovely to look at!

To Enter:

1. Visit Matouenpeluche, and come back here leaving a comment about your favourite pieces from the store.

2. For additional entries, leave a comment saying that you: followed or subscribed to Epheriell Designs (or already do); have Twittered about the givewaway; have shared the giveaway with friends on Facebook, or; you have written a blog post about it.

3. Entries close next Sunday night, the 13th of September, at 12pm Australian EST. Winners are announced the next day as part of next week’s Feature and Giveaway post.

Remember to leave me a way of contacting you.. and Good Luck!

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Well, more like in the mail for the last week!

I have been recieving lots of goodies – Nick was jealous because it was his birthday and I was getting more presents than he was!

Here’s a little looksie…

1. Resin Ring from Bobishi

2. Little Mo Bag from Little Mo and Friends

3. Print and Six South Zine from Pocket Carnival

4. Soaps and Lip Balm from New Earth Soaps

From where did I buy all this handmade goodness? Why, from DUSTers on Etsy, of course!

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So today I woke up and found that the cold I hoped I didn’t have has come about. What is with getting sick as soon as you go on holiday?

Anyways, I had a lovely surprise today when my latest Peppermint magazine arrived in my mailbox! I had been thinking that I wanted to get the latest Frankie mag to read, so the delivery (and feeling meh) clinched my decision to buy some mags to chill out with.

You have two ways to view this post! I was so excited I did a video blog about it…

Or the more traditional text and photos.. (with some witty and intelligent insights that only came to me after filming the vid.. so you should probably read this too!)

Now, I almost NEVER buy magazines. I see most of the mags on the market as a complete waste of time and money. So how happy am I to have found a few gems that are certainly worth both!

First, as I mentioned, Peppermint. Now this is a magazine produced right here in Brisbane, by the lovely Kelley and Ben (whom I met at the Brisbane Stitches and Craft show, and I’ll be seeing Kelley again this Saturday at our Brisbane Indie Designers Market). I have to admit I subscribed sight-unseen to this one, simply based on the ethic of the mag (eco-fashion, handmade, real people..) and the recommendations of a few online friends.

I love it.

There is a gorgeous blend of little snippets and longer feature articles – the best one in this issue is all about the handmade revolution, and it’s more than well worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy (it’s only sold in Aus as far as I know though – sorry international readers!).

My second choice was Frankie – a well established fashion, art, music,  lifestyle and craft magazine with a definite young indie vibe. I have yet to read this one.. but it looks great!

My last pick was based purely on flicking through it at the newsagent – Corduroy. It is completely gorgeous. It is filled with small and longer features on interesting designers, musicians and actors, and a number of stunning photo essays.

Check out just a snippet of the photo essays…

It’s a seamless blend of art and fashion. What struck me was the gorgeous aesthetic of the mag – and it didn’t strike me until I had read the whole thing why it was so coherent. There were no ads throughout. Only on the inside of the front cover and the last two page. The rest was pure content – almost like a gorgeous coffee-table book.

I definitely recommend picking it up!

So, as my cold settles in for a few days, I will have some awesome reading material to curl up with. (Oh, did I mention that I also bought the latest New Scientist? Yes, I am a science geek as well, but you’re not here to read about that, are you… )

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Today we welcome someone a little different to the blog – Aussie artist Lee Sargent. Lee does awesome comic-book style art, and blogs over at Quit Your Day Job(practice your craft…). He’s also a great guy! I know a number of my readers are geeks like myself.. so enjoy…

Where about in Australia do you live?

I live in not so sunny Brisbane (at least at the moment – I’m told by reasonably good sources that the sun shall return).

What’s your favourite place in the world, and why?

That’s a hard one because to be perfectly honest I am yet to see all that much of it. Right now I think, at least in Australia my favourite place would be Melbourne, I picked up some great art from a street vendor down there and I just don’t see the same thing in Brisbane.

Where does your online ‘handle’ come from?

I always use my actual name, that’s who I am and I chose a while back not to hide behind an online handle.

Tell us a little bit more about yourself! Your ‘day job’ or business, family, hobbies…

Well, for the day job I am a web/social media consultant who is currently contracted to the Queensland government, so my day job is pretty cool in itself. I’m really into a lot of popular culture related things, comics, animation, science fiction, etc.

What did you want to be ‘when you grew up’?

A Ghostbuster, and I proudly told my guidance counsellor that too, needless to say that my guidance counselling sessions were not very productive.

How did you first get into your craft/art?

My father drew and painted and I guess I first started drawing to be a little like him, probably not the best reason in the world. I discovered comic books when I was quite young and the imagery really captured me, in fact it ruined me for high school art because I fixated on the style of American comic book art.

What do you do/make?

I draw in comic book style, I’ve recently been doing quite a few artist trading cards in comic book style. I actually, as I type this, have just inked the first page in a comic book that I’m producing based on a character that I launched via my blog and got some really cool feedback on.

What is your favourite media to work with, and why?

Copic markers, especially for my artist trading cards. Otherwise Copic black ink, water colour and Indian ink.

Where do you get your ideas?

Comic books, of all genres, from throughout the world.

What do you like the most/least about selling your wares online?

Finding the right fit for your online store is what I like least, finding that initial point to start and then the whole promotion of your work.

What’s your favourite word?

Awesome, and it is awesome that I get to use it a lot.

If you could sum yourself or your work up in one sentence, it would say…

Something extraordinarily funny, that you would remember and find charming.

You can find more of Lee’s work, and more about his sci-fi/comic book/movie obsessed musings over at his blog – and don’t forget to check out the awesome Goodies and Baddies – a comic-book inspired artist trading card collection that he has created!

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Pssst… next week Mondays have a new look! We’re still having a featured artisan each week – but now they will be paired with a giveaway! That’s right, every Monday there will be some gorgeous handmade goodie up for grabs, so come back – next week’s is a beauty!

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I was just looking at my incoming searches, and saw ‘resin jewellery supplies Brisbane’. Well, I’m in Brisbane, and I use resin… but I haven’t yet found a supplier here! I actually order my resin (the nasty stinky stuff… but so much cheaper than epoxy!) from a company called Adelaide Moulding and Casting Supplies.

For those non-Aussies out there, Adelaide is another capital city – a very long way away! However, I would definitely recommend them, and I will be ordering from them unless I find someone closer. The postage is a bit steep, but the price of the resin is 1/2 what you would pay from a ‘craft’ supply store online.

So if you’re in Oz and want resin, give them a looksee Here is the exact link to one of their resin products.