hey emmaline, you'll be looking forever

I love gossip. I can’t help myself – I like to know everything about everyone which is why I’d make the finest stalker this side of Sydney.

I also like drama. I like dramas on TV (hello Foxtel IQ, my enabler). I didn’t like drama as a subject at high school because I’m THE worst actress (OH MY GOSH. I LOVE THIS PRESENT SO MUCH. THANK YOU. I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED THIS EXACT SET OF TEA TOWELS, HOW DID YOU KNOW?!.. convincing no?), but I thrive on a little bit of drama in day to day life. It keeps things interesting no?

Me and Owen aren’t exactly the most exciting people around – in fact everyone uses the word “laid-back” to describe him. My word is usually “neurotic” (What’s with that?!).

But you can imagine that somewhere between a laid-back guy and an overly neurotic girl lives at least a little bit of drama. And you would be correct.

I can slam a door louder than the rest of the apartment block cares to know. And boy does that laid-back guy of mine know a thing or two about the silent treatment.
We niggle each other like no bodies business. At dinner parties we are sometimes outright mean to each other – but never in a mean way. Does that make sense? No not really.

Well either way, we’ve always been this way. I remember annoying the hell out of him our entire high school friendship by calling him a cynical crank. Deep down I just wanted to flirt with him. And nothing says “I like you” than insulting someone’s personality to their face right? Safe to say he didn’t get the gist until a few years later when I fell on his cute noggin in a pool, rendering him unconscious (another story for another day).

Don’t get me wrong – we do like each other! We actually do love each other, I swear it! But we also like to bug each other… and after eight years together I think I’m qualified to say it works… at the very least for us.

Which is why I didn’t bat an eyelid when I received the below email today.

And truth be told… I WAS being a narcissist.

I do this thing where I spend all day listening to songs with my name in the title. Is this unique to me? Or does everyone do this? Please tell me the later or I’ll feel like a jerk.

Emma isn’t a super common name, but common enough to pop up in quite a few song titles… especially if I decide my name is actually Emmaline/Emaline/Emily/Roxanne.

I’m not daft enough to pretend they’re singing about me, but it’s nice to hear your name in song… even if it’s Big Leg Emma by Frank Zappa (this one hits too close to home… with thighs like these who needs enemies?)

In fact, it’s by being a giant narcissist that I came up with the name Hey Emmaline – taken directly from the chorus of Bodyjar song. In short, my brand of cutesy “sweetheart” teapots are in fact named after an Australian punk-rock band from the late 90s. A great match!

And all of that is a very convoluted way of talking about Hey Emmaline and the fact that I’ve added a few new items to the shop.

I’ve just decorated a couple of coffee/tea mugs with some cute red designs. Generally speaking my non-custom stuff doesn’t sell as well… but thought I’d try again. No harm done!

First up is this set of four mugs with kisses and polka dots – my favourite things in the whole wide world

 And then next is this little lonely mug, covered in hearts which I’m a bit smitten with.

Hope you like ‘em!

insert blog title here

Sometimes I wonder what the people at Myer must think of me when they look at my buying history.What is one woman doing with all those teapots?! I’m pretty sure I’m known “that crazy teapot girl”. To be honest, if you’re buying two of the same white teapot, it might not raise an eyebrow. But when you’re buying 22? It usually looks a little something like this…

I’m a-okay with it! If you’re going to be notoriously crazy about something, why not teapots? I like teapots better than cats and you can bet hurling teapots at people isn’t going to get you in trouble with PETA… unless you hurl a teapot at a cat and then you’re just sick. Anyway no one is hurling anything at anyone so why don’t you all just put your teapots down and take a deep breath.

Phew, that was close.

Anyway I prefer the term quirky to crazy. Quirky is the most polite way you can tell someone they’re a little left of centre (or right, let’s not get political) and you can bet I’ve been told that once or twice in my life time. I’ve also been called feral by a uni lecturer… as in “Emma I didn’t recognise you, you normally look more feral than that” end quote…and it was apparently meant as a compliment. To me as a feral or as a slightly more polished feral, I’m still not sure but it was about six years ago and you can bet I haven’t forgotten (or forgiven. I kid! Always forgive…).

But enough of my petty (yet impressive) grudge holding abilities. One thing I’ve always liked about Japan is that they’re also a little quirky! I’ve been getting pretty (read: very) excited for our trip to Japan in December so I’ve been blog stalking like crazy and trying to pick up some good tips (let me know if you have any - I’ll love you forever!). Along the way I discovered Mameshiba. Words fail me on this one so you’ll have to  read the below and watch. Hope you love it as much as I do!

I spy...

The lovely people at Shop Til You Drop magazine very kindly asked to include one of my teapots in their latest issue. Um.... YES PLEASE! was something along the lines of my response.

I've been pretty darn lucky when it comes to getting a bit of magazine exposure - I never really believed anyone would actually buy my teapots, let alone have three magazines approach little ol' me! Here is the great feature they did on getting things customised. I'm definitely taking note of some of these great shops - that cushion is a steal at $35 (click for full size!)

And why yes, I am sharing a two page spread with my good friend Louis Vuitton (ha!). Exciting!

Pour 1 cup of hot water over blog, steep for 10 minutes and strain

Hiiii! Long time no see to all my invisible readers. How's tricks?

I've been in a funk! No denying it and I think practically every blogger saying - DON'T APOLOGISE FOR NOT BLOGGING. But let's be honest, I think if I'm apologising for anything it should be the fact I'm subjecting you all to my blogging again. Suckers...

I have a nickname - Hoople Bear... or on occasion Hoople The Gloopsing Bear. Don't ask me what a Hoople is because I don't think I can answer, but I love it as a nickname. It's one of many unusual nicknames I've picked up from my family over the years. But we don't stop at nicknames, we have weird words and phrases that seem to have been passed down. Kind of like hilarious and strange family heirlooms, except you can't take them on Antiques Roadshow (trust me, I've tried). I'm curious - does your family have any idiosyncrasies or quirks that simply don't make sense to people outside the family unit? Or maybe they don't even make sense within the family unit? I've got a few...

Take for example the fact we refer to our nose as a "schnozzleberrybug". Um excuse, but what?!?

As far back as I can remember my family has thrown around the phrase "if you do it on your birthday you'll have to do it all year round". So according to this theory, if you unpack the dishwasher on your birthday, then you'd have to unpack the dishwasher every day for the following 364 days (way to make me resent leap years...). For 25 years, give or take, I naively assumed that everyone subscribed to this birthday folklore. Apparently not so much. I kind of wish I'd thought the theory through - I mean if there is one day of the year that you are likely to splash out and do something out of the ordinary, it's probably your birthday. You eat cake, you see loved ones, you get presents! It's a nice theory and safe to say I'm not against people presenting me with gifts on a daily basis. I fully intend to continue this Ralston birthday folklore because it's ours and it's fun to bring up every birthday, even if it's not steeped in reality.

Speaking of steeping things... new teapots! (get it? you steep tea.... yeah possibly the worse segue ever). I've started to design some smaller, ready to ship pots. Customs take the wind out of my sails, even though my customers are the best - the pressure of deadlines and my incredible ability to procrastinate do not a happy Emma make. So I love these! They're little and they're fun - at least I hope someone thinks so! Without further ado...

You can have a further look see in my store (hmmm subtle).

Sweat child of mine.

Today is stupidly hot and unfortch I inherited the excessive sweat gene from my grandma. It's super attractive to be sitting on a peak hour train and having to hold on to the edge, in fear of slipping off of the seat because I'm so freaking sweaty. Or the awkward squirm in my seat to try and remove the huge sweat batch my butt has left on the seat...followed by the sprint to the door just in case I wasn't successful. The trick is not to look back at the sea of judging eyes.

Anyway I've been a busy bee finishing up orders and I made some new tags which I like! My cute friend Heidi and I are aiming for a Glebe market stall in a couple of months which is great because I've literally been talking about having a stall there for about three years. I'm pretty sure my business card title is Procrastinator... if I had actually bothered to get business cards. But anyway the plan is to set up the week before Mother's Day and sell some new teapot designs - ready made and less custom. I love custom (and they are the most popular) but it gets a little stressful some times! Speaking of here is one I just sent off.

Otherwise I've also been catching up with friends and drinking tequila - the two best things in life, no? Last week we headed to Cafe Pacifico for a dear friend's birthday, where Coronas are a mere... $9. Ouch! Mortgages hurt my feelings and my bank balances. Expensive beers or not, I had such a great night as captured by this picture of me and Oh. It kind of sums us up quite well... he looks disinterested (or possibly like he's eating my face) and I'm lost in the moment. Which is also fitting because he's up and left me for the weekend to make some money. That's love, right?

River, Sea, Ocean

Here's my latest design! I don't generally get much time to think up new designs because the bulk of my orders are custom, but every now and then I like to try and start from scratch. I love custom orders and I love to know they're going to really belong to specific people (a touch hard to regift) but I don't really feel all that creative using the same design over and over.

 So it's important to me (I don't mind if no one else buys them) to branch out every now and then, otherwise I get bored. And generally with bordeom comes crankiness. Actually come to think of it, crankiness tends to accompany a few things - namely hunger, fat days and less than 8 hours sleep. Suffice to say I'm a pretty fun person to be around.

New kid on the blog

Hi thereeeee!

I'm standing on the edge of my 25th birthday and I can't think of anything I'd rather do than sleep . Good grief, I am tired. But instead, I start a blog. Touche...

I'm half of a girl called e where I occasionally ramble about all the things I wish I owned, with my dear friend Liz. I'm also the "owner" of a little business (and I mean little... I think the Hubble Telescope would struggle to find it) called Hey, Emmaline! where I decorate teapots. A few people seemed to like 'em so I've started up my little Made It store in May and before I knew it we're in December and I've sold more than 60 teapots. Yeesh! And across those sixty teapots I learned a lot of lessons... which I've since forgotten. See! This is why we need blogs, people!

So I've downed tools for 2010 but I do plan to start up bigger and better in 2011. More designs, more organisation and maybe a little less stress and crazed moodswings for those around me. Oh who am I kidding? Sorry Mumma!

Enough ranting, more teapots...

Here is my latest design. This polka dot cutie is set aside for my boyfriend's Ma & Pa for Christmas. They are the sweetest of the sweet so I think the deserved a teapot that reflected that. Here's hopin' they like it!