#nofrillsfriday 05 - short and sweet

This week has been a bit of a short and odd one.  Kirsty hasn't been in Wednesday - Friday as she's been catching up with old friends (as mentioned last week) who are only in town until Monday.  The beginning of the week we were a hive of activity and productivity - but working on a SECRET PROJECT that we still can't quite reveal just yet!  We'll be photographing things like crazy as soon as we can though!  It DOES mean that this week is image-light, alas.  So here's Louis in a sailor outfit that he looks very unsure of.. (how very Jean Paul Gaultier?)

Louis is mostly unimpressed with the tshirt I unearthed! #bostonterrier

"Louis is mostly unimpressed with the tshirt I unearthed! #bostonterrier"

As solo team Frilly, I've been pootling along through emails and admin stuff - getting in new thicknesses of wood to test out some new design ideas we've had which will be exciting albeit tricky to figure out. (My brain is great at visualising things, but not so great at precision.  I prefer to do things by eye and find it normally works out (due to my 'super-vision'* - thanks eye doctors!) however our latest ideas will require a fine degree of precision.  May need to bust out a ruler and EVERYTHING!

We've also decided to finally start investing in some magazine subscriptions - partly because we buy them regularly, and partly because we plan on doing little magazine reviews on Mondays.  Obvious magazine choices include 'Making' and 'Mollie Makes'.. but we also want to include independent magazines and small print runs - so next week we'll be covering this little beauty which arrived yesterday! (SPOILER ALERT: it's like someone designed a magazine just for us!)

Speedy Gonzales delivery by #caboodlemag to @frillyind - exciting!! :)

"Speedy Gonzales delivery by #caboodlemag to @frillyind - exciting!! :)"

Today my friend Tim came to visit, which was good for two reasons: 1) we got to chat at length about a project We are Frilly are working on involving gaming and archives, and 2) I got to help Tim do his first ever laser cutting.  Whilst I still take childlike glee in the way Bertha works, nothing quite compares to the first thing you cut out - watching the teeny tiny red dot and beam magically zap away material leaving your work behind.  It was especially intriguing as Tim had designed his pieces in LibreCAD which is a program I've never used - we do our work almost entirely in Illustrator and Inkscape.  It took a bit of tweaking, but we managed to do a ninja star-esque model tool, a cube and a mini structure that resembled a boat.  

In other news, Frilly Photographer Extraordinaire Lee Allen was excited to be featured on Rock n Roll Bride this week - a very crazy wedding at Aynhoe Park, involving a LOT of taxidermy, dwarves and circus strong men.  

Lastly: weather has been hit and miss, but when it's been a hit it's been GREAT! Days like this one make me feel very glad we have our studio, and now I'm just eager to get out into the garden area and get it tidied up - and hopefully even install a bat box!

Excited for summer to finally arrive at the @frillyind studio!

"Excited for summer to finally arrive at the @frillyind studio!"