Given we’ve just started 2026, a 2025 recap seemed in order.

It’s been a rough year and I didn’t have as much creativity as I’d hoped and although I started well what with one thing and another no big finish was on it’s way.

In January I was working on paperdolls and in February debuted my two finished Circus Performers on Instagram. Amara Skye and Zephyr Noir. I never managed to get them up on the site, which isn’t really so much a worry now! Amara Skye is dressed in a body suit with a matching optional skirt of white, blue and red in aged faded tones for an old school circus vibe. Zephyr Noir wears a red and white bodysuit with a neck piece and matching optional shirt inspired by a circus big top. Zephyr also has a pose-able ponytail so she can be displayed upside down.

At the start of March I assembled the Tara Jones (Heartstopper) paperdoll I’d made the year before, intending to photograph her for the website but found her arms were to long and had to shrink them a little to improve her scale. I need to print and colour her for the website, and make her girlfriend Darcy. Will see how I go!

Also in March I started the first of my Melbourne Uniform inspired crew, a white haired gentleman who upon his finish in May was named Quenton Taylor. In his Melbourne Uniform form Quenton wears a black 3 piece suit, black Dr Martins and carries a black breifcase. I’d like to do a stem punk version in browns and sepia tones at some point but I’d like to finish the set of Melbourne characters first.

This Melbourne set is based on an April Fools post by the City of Melbourne in 2024 saying they were instituting an all black uniform for all city goers. Melbournians have a reputation for preferring any colour as long as it’s black. Sadly the campaign was AI but I decided I’d like to make my own version based on people I see around the city and subcultures I know to inhabit Melbourne. I have 4 planned (two of which I’ve at this point completed and hopefully 2 more to drop in the coming months) and hope to have one to two more to complete the set.

So far it seems the set might have the Uniform version as well as a more colourful version. As a girl from the suburbs of Melbourne and a non-black wearer I’d love to show the other colours of Melbourne.

In late March I picked up several statues while op shopping and by the end of the month I beheaded an elephant and defaced a harlequin to create Fil Merryman. Fil from the Turkish for Elephant and Merryman referencing his jester’s attire. At this point he hasn’t had an official photoshoot.

Also in March I taught myself to crochet beds for our mice from a youtube video on crocheting circles. To this day I can make a pretty decent mouse bed and can crochet chains and trebbles and nothing else lol.

Mid to late March I applied to enter the Incognito Art Show in Sydney. I liked the concept, artists from all around the country are sent A5 cards to add a piece of artwork to. They then fill out the details on the back. The cards are then displayed artwork forward so that shoppers are picking art that resonates with them not the names they recognise. I might do a full round up of my feelings about incognito in a later post but the TLDR version would be I sold 2 but I didn’t believe the 3rd would sell as it was displayed upside down. I’m assuming I might have placed it upside down on the card. So potentially it was my fault.

The first piece I submitted to Incognito was a watercolour painting with organza ribbons embroidered with the painted image. It sold soon after loading to the website. For the other two pieces I initially thought I’d place Quenton on a Melbourne streetscape and send him off, but being an art show in Sydney I didn’t think that would play to the crowd, so in April I printed up Amara and Zephyr in A5 size, placed them in a big top background and sent them off. The Lady who bought Amara contacted me on Instagram and is so lovely.

At the start of May I de-faced another statue to give her a pig face but my daughter’s school announced a historical dress up day. So breaking out some stash fabric and a history of fashion pattern book I managed to bluff my way through a workable dress.

Also in May I beheaded two fairy sculptures then was unhappy with their replacement heads, made a bunch of mouse beds and started to draw up a larger female body type for the next in the Melbourne set, before the end of May painting rocks for a community art project and painting a couple of little 3D printed Stitch and Angel statues for my daughter.

In June I finished up the line drawing for my second Melbourne paper doll and tried a fabric folding technique on a piece of paper I’d used under the painting projects from the previous months.

Then bouyed by my recent sales at Incognito I sent of a submission to join an art sales website. It was a confronting process for me as they wanted a head shot and I have dysmorphia and find it uncomfortable looking at pictures on myself. So I took a bunch of pics and just uploaded the last one to the form. I sent off, what I thought were, my best product pictures, but received a form email informing me I was not what they were looking for.

Having found the application process challenging I found the rejection particularly hard and stopped creating.

In August I had several half finished projects at this point that languished, but book week was inbound and my daughter wanted to be Astrid from the How to Train Your Dragon films. I made a skirt, studded faux leather over skirt, shoulder armor (pauldrons), a headband and wrist bands. She was pretty happy with the outfit.

Since I was working on things I coloured the Melbourne woman whom I named Patricia ‘Patty’ Newlands. I’m looking forward to redoing her in bold colours at a later date but her Uniform is complete.

In late September I finally attached the pig face to the large statue I had de-faced in May. I had picked up the influenza that was going around and was struggling to be awake for more than a few hours at a time for a few weeks. But I got her all glued together, painted her a little until I was happy with her look.

I wasn’t going to make a halloween costume this October so I ordered a costume online. Zoey, KPOP Demon Hunters, but of course being a generic costume the top wasn’t ‘right’. She was unhappy and was twisting up the top trying to get it to sit like Zoey’s. So I ended up cutting the collar off and redoing the straps. it was a painful experience.

In October I had plan on working on my Christmas sales project. I bought the fabric at the end of September then caught another virus and was out for another few weeks taking up much of October. So November I spent making as many 6th scale tents for Elf on the Shelf as I could. We were in desperate need of cash and I hoped to sell all 30 tents to be able to get us through Christmas. Sadly I only sold 4. I’ll be trying again for next year. Hopefully I’ll have a large stock in place before November to do markets.

Also in November I stumbled upon some tiny dinosaurs at a garage sale. Now I finally had some heads of an appropriate type to re-head the two little fairy sculptures that had been sitting around headless since May. One of the sculptures had been missing one set of wings since I bought her so her wings needed replacing too. After 3D printing a new set I attached them at the end of the December. I have since painted them and finished up the statues.

In non creative making I repaired some clothing my daughter had torn in December making hair bands from the left over pieces. But other than that, that’s the year.

It was a year of struggle. I’ve been looking for work since my girl started kinder, but I’ve sent off so many applications and get nothing back no interview, no thank you for your time even. Usually I can get through Christmas with the extra I receive at tax time, but this year my car broke down and I had to pay $3k for a new engine, after sending it back twice because they failed to hook the new engine up correctly the transmission died. I don’t when I’ll be mobile again.

I’m just needing something to go right. I’ve backed off from social media for the time being. The world is a scary place at the moment. I don’t know what any of us are going to do about it.