Excitement!

The Tawa awards are tonight! We're looking forward to getting dolled up & downing a few cocktails! And of course we're excited to see if we're are officially the best clothing retailer in Wellington. As Murray would say- Imagine that!

We feel pretty lucky to be in the company of some great stores- Ziggurat, Madame Fancy Pants and Mandatory & we'll be happy whoever wins, what an honour!

Meanwhile- here are some more snaps of our lovely wares:

A Swonderful Christmas

Here's some more special goodies we have in the shop...

Pretty Hokey rose rings... these are just so so lovely $28.00


Hungry Girls Cookbooks, a beautiful gift. $39.00


Cheek Pinchy Collage brooches- $15- $30.00


Cute necklaces and earrings by lovely local lass Natelle (Prices vary)


Hokey handmade hair slides. So cute! $18.00

Stay tuned for more gifty goodness! X

In store now...

Super cute Bon Voyage & the new crabbie swellington totes!
Both come in tees & the swell design is available in singlets too. Perfect for summer.
The natural unbleached cotton totes are just $18.00 each, a nice wee gift perhaps?

Oh & can you spot the anchor I managed to work into the crab design...? X

Miss Dior Cherie

Have you seen the Miss Dior Cherie perfume advert directed by Sophia Coppola?
Luckily here it is! Enjoy. X

PS- Votey votey vote vote.

VOTE FOR US!

We have been nominated for top clothing store by the Wellingtonista! Go vote for us here, (and pass it on to all your friends, we wanna win this!!) X

Yummy...

I'm so pleased to announce the arrival of The Hungry Girl's Cookbooks in store, both volumes one & two. These are the most beautiful books I've ever come across, seriously! Each book is handmade with a cute cloth spine, sweet illustrations & fantastic photographs. I think it is often underestimated just how important it is for recipe books to have photos of all the recipes. The hungry girls have done a wonderful job of this, all the photographs are so inspiring, just a flick through the book makes me want to cook! (& rhyme!)



A little but about the hungry gals- The Hungry Girls' Cookbooks are more like works of art than regular recipe books. Each edition is lined with cloth and hand-sewn, and inside you’ll find exciting dishes for the home cook. A crisp green bean, breadcrumb and pistachio salad, a soba noodle soup for a simple and satisfying weeknight meal, a delicious lemon poppy seed cake, and plenty more. These unique books are the work of three friends – Rachel Pitts, Leah Holscher and Katherine Bird – who have combined their love of food to create the recipes, photography and illustrations.

Pop in for a squiz! X

Oh & Remember...

Buy Handmade this Xmas

The silly season is upon us, ugh! There's no denying it & you can't avoid it as hard as you might try. However, you can do your part to reduce the amount of crap that end up in landfills or being resold on trademe.
This Xmas, Pledge handmade!



At Swonderful most of our lovely things are handmade & if they aren't they are manufactured ethically & as locally as possible, All papercup clothes are lovingly handmade by us & our tees are printed just down the road in Newtown. We've taken time & care to ensure all our outsourced products- (tees, hoodies) are great quality & sweatshop free. So you can rest easy buying from us!

Visit Buy Handmade for more reasons to take the pledge.

I will be posting more handmade ideas for Xmas soon! Oh & take a look at my new wee blog- Friend or Doe! X

What a corker!

If you're in or around Melbourne, you'd be a fool to miss the happenings at Corker gallery right now. Lovely lady Leah Bartholomew is having her very own exhibition- Where the Dry Leaves Fall. Leah is a talented designer, painter & potato printer & also assistant to Beci Orpin of Princess Tina. She also played a crucial roll in the opening of our new shop, by buying our curtain fabric & sending it over to us all the way from Melbourne! Thanks so much Leah & you know we looooove your work. Watch out for more amazing stuff from this extremely talented lass. X
(Leah bartholomew for Princess Tina)

This is it

Thanks so much to Kiran from Texture for writing such a lovely review about us! She really captured what we aim to be about. Woot!

I'm off to Tauranga, Auckland & Thames for the weekend with a stop at Taste & See Castle Cafe, I can't believe I've never been there before, it sounds like a vegetarian/ vegans paradise.


Of course I remembered to have my say before I go! I feel both satisfied with my choice & a little nervous for the outcome. (Check out Romy's tongue!) See you soon! X

Phew!

Congrats Obama & congrats to the U S of A. Well done y'all!
It looks like...


(painting by Jen Renninger)

I might even have to do a red, white & blue window to celebrate!
I hope everything goes as swimmingly with our own election.


Also- We have back in stock the swing skirt in blue floral, but only two! This is the last of it :( So get in quick folks! X

Wanna see something cute?

We've got some super dooper new stuff in for little ones, so super we're wishing it wasn't so little & we could order some for ourselves!


Spilt milk is a new Wellington based children's wear label, their focus is on high quality garments that aren't in run of the mill colours & styles & the designs are mainly unisex. Not to mention hip! I'd love one of the brown cardis for myself & my boyfriend is insanely jealous of the brown gingham "cowkid" shirt. Bless.


Almondtree is another local label producing hand knitted Maryjane booties. They are so sweet! Almondtree booties also come in a lovely selection of colours- both the traditional baby colours & other lovelies like apple green. Scrumptious!

We have a selection of both Spilt Milk & Almondtree goodies available in store now. X

Feeling the love...

(Image by Julian Wolkenstein found via Code for Something)

Lovely Liv gifted us a sweet bloggy award not too long ago. What a doll!

Here is the text that goes with the award (a rough translation from Portuguese)

'To translate the gift from Portuguese to English, it means:"This blog invests and believes, the proximity" [meaning, that blogging makes us 'close' -being close through proxy]". They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let's try to give more attention to them!
So with this prize I must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must do the same thing and put this text in their blog.'

Hehe what funny English! The lovely Hollie from my new favorite blog Vegan & Vintage also sent us some bloggy love in the form of another award, so I thought I would combine the two here & share some blogs I really enjoy. Here are the rules to the second award- (They were also in funny English but I kinda changed them).


1) Post this wee pic on your blog.
2) Link to the person who awarded you.
3) Nominate seven other people and link to them.
4) Leave a message on those people's blogs to make them aware they are nominated.

I couldn't really think of seven (or eight!) blogs I wanted to share, or that haven't been shared by friends already so here are my six!

Studio Home Creative
Code for something
Scaredy Cat
Papercuts
Victoria n Bird
Vegan & Vintage

All amazing ladies, with an eye for style, design or art & doing wonderful different things. Love your work! X

In case you didn't know...

S'marvellous!

Stay Golden

Thanks so much for all the crabbie love!! I like Amber's befitting tittle of Kool Krab. Kool Krab it is! Me & Mum were discussing it today & we feel there is a definite lack of anchors on the new design however. So I will be trying to work an anchor in there somewhere before it goes to print. Everything would be better with more anchors though really (Says the nautical mad sailor girl.)


I got some shoes in the mail today that I won on trademe. They are red corduroy & super fabulous! I can't quite decide if they are meant to be slippers? Or they might just be samples- as the sole is kind of unfinished (I'd better watch out for slippery surfaces, how embarrassment!) Regardless, they are awesome & have a witchy vibe- in the best possible way! I can't wait to pick my outfit tomorrow based around these red beauts.


Also on trademe... I've had my eye on this amazing owl calender all week, but it seems some other folk have too as the price today has shot up to $63! I'm not about to fork out that much, as hoot-tastic as it is. Next time round maybe. X

Should it stay or should it go?

When I designed our infamous Swellington tees & totes last Summer I was all over them, but people didn't really seem that keen, maybe they didn't get it or it was just too cheesy, but when we had our final sale at the old shop they sold like hotcakes, it seems they have come into their own... Or maybe I'm just waaaay ahead of y'all!
Anyway I had thoughts to update our beloved Swellington- just revamp it a little but keep the idea the same. This is what I have come up with-
NEW

What do you think? Should we bring in the new Crabby Swellington or keep the old Neptune (God of the sea) style?
OLD


I would love to hear everyone's opinions! Please cast your votes by leaving a comment. It would be ever so helpful! (PS- click to view images larger) X

tiny dancer

Yesterday I wore a leotard. And I felt hot!! My boyfriend thought I was nuts when I got dressed in the morning- first with white tights then on with my navy leotard. Reow! (I did end up wearing a skirt too, as tempting as it was not to.) I know leotards and their nineties alter ego- the bodysuit are a little inconvenient at times, but these American Apparel numbers are totally worth the small inconvenience of having to undress to go to the bathroom. Honestly! They are hot! They look great under a high waisted skirt or jeans and when you take your jacket off to reveal the sexy low cut back your friends will be both turned on & jealous.
Here's our Penny all tarded up!


We have navy, black & grey marle leotards in store for $58.00.


Another great new product we have in our sparkling new store are Little Ladies tiles. Original paintings by a very talented lass named Anmea Hoskin are scanned then reproduced on ceramic tiles. Anmea is very very talented, her paintings are perfection. This is such a nice way to own a mini piece of art. Anmea works at our favorite tea shop Martha's Pantry, so say hi next time you pop in for a cup of chamomile & Cinnamon. (Highly recommended!) X

Exciting & new!

Phew! Well... there is so much to say that I really don't know where to start! I have so so much to blog about & so so many emails to respond to that I've kind of been putting it off.

We managed to refit our new shop in 10 days! I can't believe it myself, we did it all ourselves bar the help of one builder & a sign writer. We cleaned, sanded, filled holes & painted & painted & painted, & then painted some more. Then we drilled, hammered, organised & arranged.

Here we have it! The new Swonderful- 95 Victoria street & loving it! I'll let these photos speak for themselves. More can be found on our flickr. X

Just like Heaven

Here's a little peek at our Papercup summer look book, which can be seen (along with the clothes themselves!) in our super new store as of this Saturday 11 October. (Eeeek! Back to work...) X

hey good looking

We've achieved a lot in the last few days, it may not look like it-



But the shop looks a million times better than it did when we got it! We still have to put up all the shelves & then there's the daunting task of the floors... ugh!


Here's a wee storyboard of our revamped look- the black & white design is our change room curtain fabric, brown is for the counter & change room structures & that aqua- well I'm sure you can see where it fits in! We bought some amazing second hand light shades in a pearly- amber colour (bottom left) but unfortunately we couldn't get fittings for them, but we managed to find some great substitutes & we are working on a way to make the others into lamps.

No home & away omnibus for me tomorrow, too much work to do! X