Shop Re-fit

The shop is having a bit of a makeover at the moment! It might be a little noisy over the next couple of days but don't worry it will look great, we promise. We will be closed on Monday 19th March to finish the shop. But pop in from Tuesday to see the shop in all it's shining glory.

Misadventures in Creation

As some of you know in two days is Perth Upmarket where you can find a wonderful mix of handcrafted wares. As usual we will be there on the top floor of Winthrop Hall from 10 - 4pm.

What makes this market special is we will bring along a nice selection of our 'misadventures', or what you might call 'seconds'. We haven't got enough room to house the things that have gone wrong as we're in the middle of refitting the shop. Some of the things we will have are - cheeseboards, t-shirts, baby onesies, and more. So come along on Sunday and find yourself a bargain from our sample sale, we'll also have our usual range.

Sheoak Lamp Stands

On a trip down south, Adam and his dad found a lovely piece of reclaimed Sheoak and promptly purchased it to take back to North Perth and transform it into something special. They laboured over it long and hard, and the piece of Sheoak transformed into a couple of beautiful hand crafted lamp stands. A nice petite size perfect for the bedside table, our small lamp shades (shown here are the Kings Park shades) are the right size to showcase the stands. These will be sold as a pair so you only have one chance to welcome them into your home, come have a look at them in store.

Can you help?

We have started a new illustration project with the Local History Centre... 

Do you or your Nanna have some stories to tell?

We are collecting photos and stories about North Perth people living and working around Angove Street in the past and present. Your stories and photos will be used as inspiration to create a unique illustration showing the history and vibrancy of Angove St. The final illustration will be displayed at the Angove Street Festival, Sunday 1st April 2012.

What do we need?

We would love to see your old photos, hear your stories of life around Angove Street.  Tell us if you are a talented musician living on the street or if you have ever kept a goat in the garden or if you remember the Mango tree on Woodville street that made the best mango chutney... tell us your story!

How to contribute:

PHOTOS :  Photos of Angove Street both old and new are welcome! With your permission we will scan your photo and return the original.

STORIES : Your stories big or small can be submitted in writing or via email to stories@futureshelter.com.

Drop your photos and written stories into Vincent Library and Local History Centre, 99 Loftus Street, Leederville or into Future Shelter, 56 Angove Street. 

Please include your contact details with your submission.

WIN! All submissions will go into a draw to win 

a signed and framed print of the final illustration.

LAST DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS :  Saturday 17th MARCH 2012

Spaceman

Every kid wants to be an astronaut when they grow up (or at least that was one of my dreams!), but it doesn't always happen. So how about the next best thing : a Spaceman tshirt. Available in mens medium, large and x-large. The most special element of the tshirt is....the Spaceman is flocked! It's almost like stroking a kitten (and you know how everyone loves doing that).  And for the ladies that wanted to always be an astronaut, there is always the Spaceman wall decal to adorn a surface as a reminder of your childhood dreams.

Hello Friday

Hello Niina here!

You may have seen me working in the shop on a Friday or Saturday, I help put things together and keep the shop in working order. As you know from the previous blog post, Jane and Adam are busy making new things and going on new adventures. So to help ease the load, I'll be making new blog posts every Friday (if time permits!) to make sure all of the Future Shelter fans have their appetite for good design satisfied.

Now you all know our cheeseboard, hardy yet stylish with laser engraved designs ranging from geometric shapes to birds and trees. The wood we normally use is Tasmanian Oak but in the workshop the boys have been experimenting with Jarrah.

They used the always popular Bird Tree design as well as the very sweet Teacup design to engrave on the boards. The photo doesn't do them justice, the colour of jarrah is very hard to capture! And here are a couple of close ups but to get the full effect come into the shop and have a gander.

February News

No we haven't gone anywhere, we're still busy making things! We've been doing a lot of planning and thinking over the last few weeks and we're really excited about this year. So far this year we've written and illustrated a new book which is still in progress, we've survived the school holidays and the Perth heat wave, we have introduced new cheese boards in sheoak and other native offcuts, we've created some new kiddy size lamp bases and have some new illustrated baby suits in the making. We will be doing a call out for all your old photos and stories around the Angove Street area to help create a special illustration for the Angove Street Festival which is scheduled for 1st April. We also have an exhibition coming up at FORM in Port Hedland mid April. We'll be flying up in Feburary to be inspired by giant machinery and vast landscapes. Finally we'll be refitting the shop area to bring some of the workshop into the shop space so you'll see us making things. So we may have been quiet but we've had our heads down working hard getting lots of new ideas finished as well as looking after 4 month old baby Ben :) Jane and Adam

Billion Dollar View 2nd Edition - Limited Edition Artwork

For anyone who hasn't passed by the store recently we now sell the Billion Dollar View print issued as a second edition featuring some of the extra sights seen on the lampshade version. Slightly smaller but longer than the original it is an edition of 200. The demand for the first edition was very high so if you missed out then this is your second chance! They are going quickly though.

 

'Boom' - cranes building cranes building cranes... but what are we building?

'King's Park" a print version of the mural we created for Aspects in King's Park

shown here with our Diver wall decal

LA - a view of the Getty Center

 

'Paris City View' inspired by the architecture of the building and the view from the Eiffel Tower

We now stock PLUMEN designer low engergy light bulbs

How great are these? We thought they are the perfect accompaniment to our lampshades. These bulbs are low energy but sooo cool! They fit all Australian light fittings and are $38 each for 8000hrs of light!

Puzzling ornaments - festive entertainment

I have to admit being inspired by my younger sister. She was well known for being very honest and sweet at the same time. To her, Christmas cards were boring and presents were exciting so why not stop people getting bored with the card by adding a game or two inside! The kind of thing she would do is create an anagram of your name, a dot to dot or a word search inside a Christmas card to make them more interesting and prevent boredom setting in while you wait for the presents.

So, we now offer our Christmas ornaments presented as a puzzle! We give you some clues on the back of the card as it is very tricky. Creating the design this way also means we minimize waste while providing you with entertainment and some beautiful ornaments for your tree. Why not create a festive mobile using a couple of old branches?

There are 14 designs altogether created out of a 20cm square and they fit perfectly with our large jewellery tree as a space saving alternative to the full Christmas tree.

Puzzling ornaments on our jewellery tree.  A perfectly postable present.

We're in the new Print and Pattern book!

Christmas in production

This looks puzzling!... a sneak peak at our new ornament puzzle. New screen printed ornaments available in walnut, oak and transparent red.

New Christmas Ornaments

A sneak peak at the new Christmas range in the shop today.
These designs are available as individual ornaments also in walnut and Tasmanian oak veneer.
Screen printed and made in our workshop.

New Future Shelter Baby

For those not on Facebook who have been wondering why it has been a bit quiet on the blog recently, here is a photo of our newborn baby Ben Coffey, the youngest member of the Future Shelter team! Pictured wearing a lovely little baby suit purchased at the Perth Upmarket from Pixie Kids.

A few photos of the document case in production

Here are a few workshop photos of our document case that we designed exclusively for the CHOGM commonwealth leaders. We printed the Fraser Avenue design with eco-friendly water based inks onto linen/cotton for the inside and used an industrial fabric for the outside. Screen printing and laser cutting of the fabric, padding and labels was all completed in our workshop in North Perth. Sampling and final stitching was also wholly made in Perth. Final photos to come soon... delay due to new baby in the family!

A glimpse of Kings Park....

Here are a few photos of our installation in the windows of Aspects, Kings Park.

Boom! - Outskirts Festival 24th/25th September

We are taking part in the OUTSKIRTS festival at the end of September. We are creating a two day pop-up shop and installation based around the theme "Boom! town" featuring Lampshades, Coasters,  Upcycled objects, Limited Edition Prints, Clothing, Stationery and Jewellery.

ENTRY ADDRESS: 89 James St, Northbridge.
ENTRY FEE: A smile
TIME:10am - 5pm Saturday 24th and 10am - 4pm Sunday 25th September
EVENT WEB LINK:  www.onwilliam.com.au/outskirts

We love engineers.

A giant wall of Lampshades....

If you haven't been in the store for a while you may not have seen our full collection of lampshades. We have a catalogue of designs in store. We have 4 sizes available and can also create custom colourways. If we don't have it in stock it takes 2 weeks to make a shade to order... all printed and made in Perth... what could be better :)

We also have a small range of refurbished lampbases and our own range of woodturned lampbases. If you are looking for a tall standard lamp they are hard to find and so they sell very quickly. We usually have at least one or two in store.

Yay! The plywood is here - Jewellery Trees back in stock soon

Thanks to all of you who have been paitently waiting for our Jewellery Trees and Owls to be back in stock.  Wait no longer, we have received some much awaited for plywood. We will be frantically making trees over the next couple of days and start shipping back orders on Wednesday.

A view of Western Australia

We have a new boxed set of 6 coasters inspired by Perth. Developed in conjunction with Tourism WA to represent the different regions of Western Australia. We were asked to illustrate some of their favourite views of the region. I think my personal favourite is the whale shark!

There is nothing wrong with a little bit of aeronautical engineering inspiration....

Top: New badge set
Bottom: New magnet set

I think all these engineers based in Perth are having a positive effect on our inspiration... this time from the aeronautical section. I love all those dials! Our anonymous aeronautical consultant informs me if these were the readings from your dials while flying, your aircraft may be banking just a little bit too much, your revs are too high and you are travelling at maximum speed.... we like to push the boundaries :)

Sophie in our new designs!

Well a new and old design... the Butterfly hoodie is actually a design we did for Pumpkin Patch that I found in their store last week but goes nicely with our new Crane and Giant Biscuit T!