I’ve had a few queries recently about what will be happening with Nut and Bee while we welcome our imminent bean.

I didn’t want to make plans too far in advance, as I didn’t know what these last weeks would be like, but I’m getting to the stage where work is very challenging – especially in this weather, what was I thinking having a summer baby?! – so I’ve decided that my final working day will be February 10th.

After that I will still be contactable by email for customer service queries, and I will be posting miscellaneous things on the blog, but the shopping cart will be disabled and I will not be accepting or shipping orders. (I can’t make any exceptions to that, as it’s a legal requirement that I do nothing other than minor administrative tasks while I’m claiming paid parental leave!)

I plan to open for business again around the beginning of April, though the exact date will depend on when the baby makes its appearance and how quickly I manage to find a satisfactory work routine. I have fantastic family support lined up, so I am hoping for a smooth transition back.

If there is anything you would like in the next couple of months, please place your orders soon! I’ll post another reminder closer to the time. Thank you for your patience, and all the excitement and joy you’ve already shared with us :)

We are back from holiday! The weather in Christchurch was so much nicer than Auckland that coming home was slightly bittersweet, but it’s still nice to be back in our house, even if we are melttttttting in the heat. Roll on autumn…

01) I love the idea of a meal planner and grocery list in one. I try to have some idea of what I will cook each week, but it usually involves lots of printouts and bits of notepaper and isn’t very organised! This DIY tutorial includes downloadable/printable PDFs.

02) Lovely art process videos from Geninne D. Zlatkis. To see the whole piece watch Watercolours 1, 2 and 3; then White Ink 1, 2 and 3.

03) Three remixes/covers of the Mr. Plow song from The Simpsons by Moby. Hee!

04) Baby porcupines are pretty high up my all-time-cutest list after seeing these photos.

05) More Lego! (I’ll stop soon.) This time it’s an awesome Howl’s Moving Castle.

06) I made a little squeak of glee when JSR sent me the link to this upcoming Professor Layton action figure. I adore the DS games, and he looks just perfect. Plus, it is hilarious to me that his “action” is to sit down and have a cup of tea!

07) Scott Teplin’s Alphabet City is a set of 26 meticulously drawn fantasy houses in the shape of the letters of the alphabet. The more you look, the more there is to see.

08) Luxirare’s food/art yoghurt parfaits featuring spheres of juice are mindblowing.

09) My new favourite word game for the iPhone is Moxie. It is very soothing; I play a couple of rounds before bed each night.

10) Slow motion Maru. Wait until he shakes after his bath about halfway through. It is the BEST.

Fly Spy

Nut and Bee will be taking a shipping break from Friday 15th to Monday 18th January. Orders received after 12 noon on Thursday (New Zealand time, convert to your local time here) will ship next Tuesday. I should have some email access during that time, but replies may be a little slower than usual. Thank you for your patience :)

Spider Drop

I never thought I’d be drawing spiders for N&B, given that I am very very frightened of them, but I was curious to see if I could manage it. I figured if I made the eyes googly enough they might not be so bad, and thus far I have not startled myself!

In The Intergalactic Sea

Froggy Blossom

I bought these treats for the kittens because I could not resist the name:

MILKY FLAKE-UMS! Don’t tell me you could walk past that on the shelf!

They turned out to be the most well-received of all the treats we’ve tried, and are always nommed with gusto, even though they smell and taste like nothing more than little pieces of ice-cream cone. (Yes, I tried one…) They must have some special magic cat ingredient :)

Double Swirl

• Six new rubber stamps
• Flat Flop Pug write-on labels
• Four new buttons/magnets

It feels nice to put up some new designs, it has been two months!

I bet I’m going to get a flood of out-of-office auto-replies from the mailing list this time, lucky vacationers :D

Over the last few days I’ve been doing my annual check of sales and statistics and spreadsheets. I like to take stock at the end of each year and freshen things up to make way for new offerings, and that means quite a few designs are being discontinued from the lettersets and write-on labels. They are all marked on their respective product pages now, and will disappear as soon as current stock runs out. In addition the 4×6″ versions of prints are now discontinued, though I can still produce these by special request if you email. I’ve also had to make minor adjustments to the prices of a couple of items but most are unchanged. Some of my suppliers have raised their prices but in most cases I’ve been able to compensate by purchasing larger quantities, hooray!

Now this is uploaded I may just go back to bed for a long-weekend sleep-in… mmm…