We often ogle Google Maps...

... so imagine how excited we were when we discovered Google Maps ogling our map letters!

It all happened earlier this year over on makeably.com, one of the other online locations where Little White Dog can be found. Makeably is a rather nifty place where you can get something made exactly the way you want. It's all about collaboration & discussion between makers and customers.

Google Maps asked us to make the words 'Google Maps' in their particular font. The tallest letters are 30cm high and the whole sign is just over 2 metres in length. Each letter is made from a different map or satellite image showing the location of a Google office around the world.

Click here to read the whole story, including some photos and video of the letters in progress.

Scribbling

I received a wonderful present back in January but I've been so busy that I barely even had time to play with the box, let alone the thing itself!

I don't really consider myself much of a draw-er (or a drawer!) in the sense that I'd rarely sit down to do some observational sketching to create a picture, but I do have notebooks where I scribble half baked ideas for designing & making things. I've been very curious about drawing tablets for a long time now and lucky for me a beautifully gift wrapped Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet arrived on my birthday thanks to my lovely husband, Gareth.

It's like a giant, pressure sensitive touchpad that you can use with a special stylus or with your finger. The stylus takes a bit of getting used to because you're drawing with your hand but looking at the computer screen instead of the drawing surface. When I discovered an animation app I thought that drawing almost the same thing over and over, frame by frame, would be good practice and increase my accuracy. I decided to do something with the Little White Dog logo (since that was one of my own scribblings in the first place) and then I added some music in iMovie. You can click here to see my 16 second video. Watch this space for more scribblings to come!

My Mummy Was Born In A Mini

In our house, back in the very early 1980s, we danced around the living room to the likes of The Birdie Song on the record player. We also had a record that I  was utterly convinced was called My Mummy Was Born In A Mini because that's what my older brothers and sister and I used to sing! 

I was more than a bit disappointed to discover what it was actually called. Here are The Children of Tansley School singing My Mummy is One in a Million which reached the lofty height of Number 27 in the UK charts in March 1981. I'll leave it up to you to decide which version of the lyrics you prefer. 

Mother's Day is Sunday, 10th of March this year and our final order dates for our Mother's Day Message in A Bottle are: Monday, March 4th (Republic of Ireland) and Wednesday, February 27th (UK and Northern Ireland). 

Need a cure for the January blues?

How about a little bottle of something that will cheer you right up, has no calories and won't give you a hangover?

The thing is, I think I've invented the best job in the whole world ever. I spend my days taking people's love messages, typing them on ribbons, putting them in little bottles and sending them around the world. It's impossible to feel unhappy doing this. In the past few days I've typed messages of love, hope and happiness, a marriage proposal, a message from a wife telling her husband he's going to be a daddy, and several slightly cryptic ones that I can only guess the meaning of.  

What impresses me most is people's ability to say all that needs to be said in just a few words. I give a forty word limit because that's roughly the amount of ribbon that will fit comfortably in a bottle. Some people use slightly more than forty words (that's ok... as long as all forty words aren't "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"!) and others sum it all up in as few as three. 

I'm often asked "What do people write???" (the inquisitors do the extra question marks with emphasis and wiggly eyebrows). The truth is, I concentrate on the messages while I'm typing them to make sure I get them right and then I pack them up and forget them. By the time I get to the post office I can usually recollect the general sentiments but not the exact words. They're not mine to remember or to share so I don't do either. 

If you'd like a Message In A Bottle made just for you or someone special click here to visit our shop.

Happy Christmas from Little White Dog

We're taking a break this Christmas but don't worry, we'll be back again in January with some new & exciting projects. The shop will be closed from December 15th until January 3rd so any orders placed during this time will be made and shipped in January. If you placed an order before December 15th it will be shipped by December 20th and we'll be in touch with tracking details. We'll be checking our messages every few days so if you have any questions about custom orders or delivery times please get in touch. Wishing you a peaceful Christmas and a happy new year! Suzie, Milo & Holly Xxx

And By Itself And

Forget about celebrity couple nicknames like Brangelina or Bennifer, we think it's time to celebrate the &! Our ampersand paper sculptures are gorgeous by themselves or combined with other letters.

A large customised & is a great wedding gift which can be personalised to represent something that the couple have in common such as:
-The place where they met or got engaged
-Where they live
-Their wedding location or honeymoon destination
-Their wedding song (contact us first to make sure we can find it!)
-Mutual hobbies or interests (tell us a bit about them and we'll see what kind of papers and pictures we have available)

The ampersand symbol is a combination of the letters "et", the Latin word for "and".  Its use can be traced back as far as Roman times. The word "ampersand" comes from the phrase "and per se and" meaning "and by itself and". You can debate whose name goes first in a couple: ladies first (Elizabeth & Darcy), leading man (Romeo & Juliet), in order of rank (Victora & Albert) or alphabetical order (Cathy & Heathcliff) but, whichever you decide, that ampersand in the middle is the perfect symbol for tying the knot.

Prices start at €50 for a large, 14.5cm, customised ampersand (but we can make smaller ones too). All of our map art and paper sculptures are presented in gift boxes, ready to give.

Click here to visit the Little White Dog online shop or here to contact us about creating a customised gift for you.

Where the heart is....

Our latest creation from the studio is our Bespoke Map Papercut. This personalised treasure map can show the location and coordinates of a special place anywhere in the world. It's the perfect gift to celebrate an engagement, wedding, anniversary or the arrival of a new baby.

Each unique piece is made with an original map from our collection of old maps and atlases. The raised heart shows a town, city or area, and the cut-out coordinates give an exact location within the heart. It could be the place where someone was born, where a couple met or married, or where they live.

You can either give us the exact latitude and longitude or tell us an address and let us find the coordinates for you. We can also add name(s) and date below the map if you wish.

The Bespoke Map Papercut is available in the Little White Dog shop unframed €50.00 (plus postage) or framed €75.00 (plus postage).

Click here to contact us about creating one for you.

We'll need to know:
-Location for the heart (e.g. town, city or place anywhere in the world)
-Coordinates for a specific location within the heart or an address/landmark
-(optional) Date and/or name(s) to be handwritten below the map (e.g. "Tom & Mary" and "24th July 1972"

Crafting Type 8-12th March 2012

Suzie's work is featured in an exhibition entitled Crafting Type at The Factory, Barrow Street, Dublin from March 8th-12th. The exhibition, curated by Orlaith Ross, "will cross the craft and design divide by exploring the craftsmanship of some of Ireland’s finest visual creatives".  Not to be missed if you are a fan of typography and beautifully crafted design!

Momentous Mementos

What do you do with all those used tickets, maps and flyers you pick up on your holidays? They might look just like scraps of paper, but each one is a little reminder of a perfect sunny day, a delicious meal, a private joke or getting utterly lost and accidentally finding a hidden gem. Rather than packing them away in a box, or even throwing them away, you could display them in your home as a reminder of carefree days and sunnier climes.This is the story of a paper sculpture made from mementos of a year-long globe-trotting adventure...

Occasionally I receive emails from customers asking if I would make letters out of their own maps. I've created quite a few sculptures this way and they've always turned out really well, so when I received a message from Shanna asking if I could make letters from "maps and other scraps of paper" I had no hesitation in saying yes.

In September 2007, Shanna and her husband Derek set out on a trip that would last 366 days, visiting 40 countries in Asia, South America, Africa and Europe. Shanna's idea was to make HOME with each letter representing one of the four continents they visited. I asked her to send me her maps and mementos, at least enough to cover one A3 size page per letter, with removable sticky notes indicating the important places and information on each one.

Within a couple of weeks a very exciting package arrive at the Little White Dog studio! When I opened it up I found four neat stacks of maps and tickets with all the relevant bits marked, ranked in order of importance and clipped together. Taking each stack in turn, I spread them out in order and photographed them as a reference in case things got mixed up on my desk.

In addition to maps there were entrance passes for world heritage sites, pages from theatre programs, transport tickets, business cards and printed napkins. Some of them even had little highlights and notes that Shanna and Derek had made while they were there. With so many pieces to assemble there was a lot of overlapping so the sticky notes showing the important bits of each memento were vital. They helped me to make sure that I didn't inadvertently cut out something significant, and since Shanna had ranked them in order of importance I knew which pieces to prioritise.

It became clear that the medium size (10cm high) letters mightn't be large enough to do justice to all the great mementos, so I consulted Shanna and she was happy to go for large (14.5cm) letters instead. The difference between the two sizes doesn't sound like a lot but the large letters are also wider and deeper, giving me a lot more surface area to use.

The result was a truly personal, one-of-a-kind, three dimensional story! I've seen how excited and emotional people get when they receive map letters showing their home place, so I can only imagine how Derek reacted when he opened this Christmas gift from Shanna, full of memories of their amazing journey.

You can read about Shanna & Derek's travels and see some of their 12,912 photos on their blog 'One Year on Earth' here. It's one of the most comprehensive travel blogs I've seen and is well worth a look if you're planning a big trip (or even if you're just in search of some escapism in the form of a virtual holiday for a little while!).

If you would like a paper sculpture made from your very own travel mementos why not send me a message here? Large (14.5cm high) letters similar to the ones shown cost €55 per letter and postage costs vary depending on the size of the project and destination. I can make any letter of the alphabet A-Z, and numbers are possible too. Every paper sculpture is different so if you have an idea you'd like to discuss let me know!

Take a look at our new studio...

We've moved into our new Little White Dog HQ and we're absolutely loving the extra space to work in (Suzie) and to roll around on the floor (Milo).There's still a bit of confusion about who is supposed to be sitting at the desk and who is supposed to be sitting under it but I'm sure we'll work it out!

Visit our contact page to make an appointment for a studio visit if you'd like to have a chat about some customised letters or to collect something you've ordered.
You can even get Milo to email directions to you!

This is where I am!

I entered this piece in the 2011 RDS National Crafts Competition and I'm absolutely thrilled that it has been selected for exhibition! The exhibition is in the RDS Concert Hall and is open (free of charge) on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th of July from 10am-5pm, and as part of the RDS Dublin Horse Show from August 3rd to 7th (entry fee applies).

When you're trying to find your way, the natural point you are hoping to find on a map is the marker that says "you are here". It isn't always easy to find and quite often it isn't there at all. Sometimes you need to stop looking at where you have been or where you want to go in order to make sense of things. Just be where you are.
 

I'm quite excited because this is an important piece of work for me. It represents a personal journey for me as a designer and craftsperson. I spent many years training to be an architect and in 2009 I found myself at a point where I was unemployed and my job prospects were pretty bleak. It gave me the space think about what I really like doing, to create new designs and to find my own direction. I think it’s an experience that I share with a lot of people in Ireland at the moment, because over the past year I've met lots of them through in the past year through Etsy Ireland, a start your own business course, and just yesterday at the "Craft Means Business" conference at Farmleigh.

Each letter in YOU ARE HERE is 100mm tall and made from a different Irish map. The map is applied to a flat piece of A4 recycled card, which is then cut, folded and glued to create a 3d letter.    

The Exhibition will be at the RDS Discover Ireland Dublin Horse Show from August 3rd to 7th. It will be open to the public (free of charge) on Thursday, July 28th and Friday, July 29th from 10am to 5pm

Blooming Marvelous Garden Letters

**UPDATE** Click here to see our photos from Bloom 2011 on our Facebook Page**

I had an idea, quite a while ago, about a different way of using my 3D letter templates, and then I got some emails recently that prompted me to do something about it.


The first email was from the Crafts Council of Ireland and was about some garden designers who were looking for handmade items for the Bloom Garden Festival. One particular designer needed letters made from stone, wood or metal for their garden.  It got me thinking... and then I got a message from another Etsy Ireland team member, Mollie of Spleodar, saying that she got the same CCOI email and that she thought of my letters when she saw it.... so I decided it was time to conduct a 3D letter experiment!


I found some very cooperative helpers, my nieces Anne and Grace (proprietors of Muddy Little Paws on Etsy) who were on their Easter holidays, and we did some research into making a type of artificial rock called hypertufa. The mixture we used was one part portland cement, 1.5 parts perlite (to make it lightweight) and 1.5 parts peat moss (this washes away when it dries out giving the piece a rough texture). I made two moulds, the letters A and G, by modifying my 3D letter templates slightly. Portland cement has lime in it so we mixed up the ingredients very carefully (with gloves on!), added water, filled up the moulds and left them to cure.


The curing/drying process took just over a week in total, but after a few days I was able to take them out of the moulds. They were solid but still quite wet and very peaty looking. After a few more days they were much lighter and made a hollow sound when I tapped them which meant they were fully cured.
So the experiment was a success! I rang the garden designer, Mark O'Loughlin of Sanctuary Synthetics, to see if my hypertufa letters would be suitable for his design, and the answer was yes!  I'm making them this week so that they'll be ready for Bloom at the Phoenix Park, Thursday 2nd June to Monday 6th June 2011. "Ireland's biggest garden festival" don't ya know!


The garden has an Alice in Wonderland theme and you can find out more on the Bloom Wonderland Garden Blog where Mark will be sharing his experience and counting down to the festival.  

Keep an eye on Milo's facebook page too for updates about our garden letters!!

Words of Encouragement

I had a moment of inspiration yesterday, at the toll plaza on the Portlaoise by-pass to be exact! It happened like this....

I'm not really a morning person and, in general, if I have the opportunity to have a lie-in I just can't resist. Strangely enough, though, if I'm told to get up at 6.15 on a Sunday morning to drive to Limerick to help with some photography I have no problem hopping out of bed as soon as the alarm rings. However, I do tend to feel it's expected of me to grumble a little bit about being up at that unearthly hour so naturally I oblige!

Anyway, my husband, Gareth, and I were driving to Limerick and on the Portlaoise by-pass road we went through the e-toll lane of the toll plaza (the one that scans the tag on your windscreen as you drive through instead of having to stop and pay at the tollbooth) and I realised that there's something about driving through e-tolls that just makes me happy! I think its to do with breezing through while all the lights turn green, and how the barriers spring open to clear the way through.  I said to Gareth that they should have lines of people at the side of the road cheering you on and clapping as you drive through. He laughed but he also agreed with me when said that if I was at home asleep in bed (as any sane person would be at 7.45am on a Sunday) I would never have had this curious idea.

It started me thinking about encouragement and how a few words or a pat on the back can sometimes help you to do great things. By great things I don't necessarily mean big things. Sometimes a little bit of encouragement to do something you've always wanted to do, to contact someone you've lost touch with  or simply to keep on going has a life enhancing effect. I don't mean platitudes like "you'll be fine" when you know you won't. I mean genuine encouragement from someone who believes in you telling you that you really can do something, you really should follow your heart, you really will make a difference.

I have to say that when it comes to encouragement I'm pretty lucky. I have a husband who goes with the flow when I make rather loopy pronouncements about toll booths and the like, because sometimes those weird ideas lead somewhere more coherent....eventually! When I had a really tough time in university my friends spent not hours but days helping me with drawings and models, and more than anything else,with their encouragement I got through it in the end. I can think of so many of examples of every member of my family encouraging my creative endeavours over the years from my Dad's "Great stuff, Sue!" to my brothers actually arguing over which of them would buy my clay model of a duck's backside!

There is one phrase that my Mum used regularly to encourage all of us, particularly in situations such as acting in a play, public speaking or doing an interview. She'd say "Go out there and tell yourself 'My mammy thinks I'm lovely'", and somehow it works! When I say it to myself it makes me sit up straight, take a deep breath, put my shoulders back and as an added bonus it makes me smile at the fact that it works!

So why am I telling you all this on a Monday in April? To be honest, if you've read this far without giving up you deserve a prize. No really, you do!

I'd like to hear your stories about words of encouragement, phrases that help you to keep going or that thing that your mother said as she sent you out to face the world. If I post your story on my blog I will create a very special message in a bottle for you, with your very own words of encouragement typed on a satin ribbon, and send it to you (anywhere in the world!).  All going well I'd like to make this a fortnightly blog feature on Mondays because, well, everyone needs a bit of a lift at the beginning of the week!

You can email your story to suzie@littlewhitedog.ie with 'Words of Encouragement' as the title.

ps Feel free to borrow "My mammy thinks I'm lovely" and substitute "mammy" with the loved one of your choice.... "my husband thinks I'm loopy, I mean, lovely" "my doggie thinks I'm lovely" etc etc

pps Don't substitute my actual Mammy... that's not allowed!

ppps Some words of discouragement (just in case): Please don't go hanging around at toll booths applauding the cars driving through. That would be silly, distracting and very dangerous! (Not that I think you would)

Look! It's Milo's happy face on a t-shirt!

Each year the Irish Professional Photographers Association, in association with Canon, harnesses the goodwill and photographic skills of its members for the benefit of Irish charities with their Happy Faces event. Last year we visited Paddy & Emma Clarke for our Happy Faces portraits and Milo's caused quite a stir! It was among the finalists for the Canon Portrait Award and it appears on the t-shirts for this year's Happy Faces 2011. 

You can have your picture taken at your local qualified IPPA photographer's studio or event location for just a €25 donation. This year the IPPA have selected The Cystic Fibrosis Association of Ireland as their charity for 2011. Visit the Happy Faces website to locate a participating IPPA photographer in your area. 

 

 

Look what just popped up!

We are very, VERY excited to announce that Little White Dog has been selected to exhibit in the Pop-Up Shop at the Royal Hibernian Academy here in Dublin between June 18th and 24th. Follow this link to the RHA website for more details http://bit.ly/fIvSAO

 

**June Update** Click here to visit our facebook page to see photos of the shop 

Tell me a story, Grandad

I love the story of these letters so I thought you might like to hear it too! A customer ordered them as a christening gift for his granddaughter. The maps are of parts of Limerick, Galway and Dublin that show the place where Sarah lives and the exact places where her parents are from (which are also the places where her grandparents live). The cute paper on the 'A's adds a little bit of a baby girly feel and I like to think it represents the countryside in between the cities. If you ever went on long journeys as a child to visit relatives and spent a lot of time looking out the car window at lambs in the fields, birdies in the trees you'll know what I mean! The letters were framed after this photo was taken. I'm sure that Sarah will cherish this gift from her Grandad, that tells her a little bit about her own story, for many years to come.

Little bottles of love

 

A few years ago I met a lovely man and as a Valentine's Day gift I made him a ribbon message in a bottle. After a while he asked me to marry him and I said yes*. I'm pretty sure that it was the message in a bottle that caused him to overlook the fact that he likes tidiness and I have an ability to spontaneously create untidiness at the drop of a hat! Well, at the drop of a hat and some shoes and a handbag and probably some books and bits of ribbon and....

So that was the beginning of the ribbon in a bottle idea. I can't remember why I wasn't satisfied with making a little scroll of paper, but drawing a ribbon out of a bottle to reveal a secret message just seemed right.

After trying to write on ribbon with lots of different types of pen I really wasn't happy - it smudges and runs and generally just looks messy. Eventually I got a notion that typing the message might work so I asked around to see if anyone knew where I might get a typewriter. Somehow I ended up with five of them! I tested them all out and I liked a little vintage Hermes Baby the best  - it also looks cutest and packs neatly away in a matching case.

I've created quite a few customised ribbon messages for people in recent months for birthdays, weddings, christenings and even one for someone joining a silent monastic order! They're somewhere between giving a card and giving a gift, yet a combination of both. I love making them and I hope that I'll have some enquiries for customised messages - I think a marriage proposal in a bottle would just be fantastic!

*Some facts and even whole aeons of time may have been omitted from this part of the story :-)

Let it...

We're having some pretty severe weather here in Dublin at the moment with Arctic snow, thunder, lightening and freeeeezing temperatures as low as minus 10. Not your usual soggy Irish November! Its great weather for staying in, making 3D letters and updating neglected blogs (sorry!).

This week I've been making letters with maps of lovely warm places like India and Australia. I've had a lot of orders from Australia these past few months and apart from finding read-out-loud placenames like Toowoomba, Wallumbilla and Giligulgul, it's nice to be reminded that somewhere else in the world it's springtime.

Here's a moody picture of our street that Gareth took this afternoon as we were walking into town. Snow makes the city feel very quiet and old fashioned (not that our part of it is very newfangled anyway!).

Etsy Ireland Artist Trading Card Swap

Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) are small works of art (64mm x 89mm) that are traded between artists to share and promote their work.

I decided to get involved in the Etsy Ireland ATC swap which is being hosted by Virginie from ViviBijoux.

All the cards will be revealed on September 4th on the Etsy Ireland Blog *excited squeel*. I will be exchanging ATCs with Carrie from Cherry Blossom Tattoo who creates beautiful photography that can be found in her Etsy shop.

At the moment my work is focussed on creating personalised paper sculptures, and I particularly enjoy working with maps.

I love watching people examine my sculptures and find places they’re familiar with.

A little bit of detective work in Carrie’s shop told me that she is from the coastal town of Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland, so my ATC is a teeny tiny paper sailboat made out of two contrasting maps of Northern Ireland.

I added a little pocket on the back so that I could insert the instructions for making the sailboat.

Carrie, if you’re reading this, you might need a magnifying glass and a bucketload of patience but I hope you’ll like your 3D ATC!

The Airfield Baah-zaar

 This morning, after weeks of preparation, littlewhitedog.ie left the virtual world and entered reality for the day at the first ever Airfield Bazaar.

Nervousness and excitement had me wide awake half an hour before the alarm went off, and a peek out the window revealed a soggy, rainy morning.

Paper letters and soggy weather are a great combination.....for papier maché (oh dear!).

When we arrived at Airfield Farm......

and I found my table in the tent I wasn’t so sure about this rainy market business.

But it was when I was halfway through setting out my wares and the table collapsed and all my letters slid onto the ground that Gareth had to grab the back of my jumper to stop me running away! After a stern word (from Gareth), a cup of tea and some carpet tape (from a neighbouring stallholder) we got the table firmly back on its feet and by 11am we were up and running.

From there it was plain sailing! The Bazaar had a great mix of crafts, vintage clothes, retro furniture, books & bric-a-brac and all the stallholders created a friendly, relaxed atmosphere.

I had lots of enquiries about my cards and 3D letters, and lots of lovely customers too! I might even do it again! Click here find out more about Airfield Urban Farm