Monday 4 January 2016

a round up 2015.

Last year's round up got such a great response we thought we'd do another one this year. This is a mix of things I did, things Jacques did and things we did as designosaur.

2015 you've been fun, we achieved a lot and we are ready for 2016, which is good as it's already the 4th ;)

January we started planning our collaboration with Toby from i Like CATS, this included lots of ice cream eating and glitter acrylic and fluff... you can see the final things here!

Went to Brussels and Bruge with my bessie, Frags.


I met Chad Dickerson (Etsy's CEO) alongside fellow team captain Louise, we had a nice chat about how we use Etsy and grilled cheese sandwiches.

I was invited to my old school in Cyprus to do a careers talk, it was really fun chatting to other scaley brats about GCSE option choosing, and the thought that there are jobs where you don't wear a uniform.

Whilst I was in Cyprus, Jacques went to Melbourne, Australia to visiting his best mates, shortly after this trip they all come home so we've had the most fun this year!

Jacques' Australian adventures prompted new designs including a Koala and a Platypus

Toby and I were invited to the UK Captains' Summit. I was awarded Team Captain 2015, we chatted lots and ate lots of tasty food too...

I posted this photo of my washing on instagram whilst I was actually on a plane to NYC. I'd signed a non-disclosure agreement and I didn't tell anyone, not even my mum!

I went to the Nasdaq Bell Ringing Ceremony for Etsy's IPO launch. It was a crazy whirlwind experience that I still don't believe actually happened.

Jacques and I made our light up necklaces which have been on the back burner for years, we LOVE them. We got Bob Prosser to make a little promo video for us and take the photos (cos he's good at dark)

We did a Supermarket Sarah wall with hello DODO. We collaborated on a bunch of new products including that ombre dinosaur design, billy the bat and we turned hello DODO's totem design into a necklace too!

hello DODO exhibited at Pick Me Up and we went along to look around. It was AWESOME! Jacques and I bought a couple of new prints too.

May Open Houses, we were part of Claire Potter's very first Studio Loo Open House. It was a massive success and there were loads of awesome designers invovled!

We went to see Jane Postletwaite's very first Brighton Fringe Show. 

We went to lots of Fringe Festival events, art exhibitions, comedy and of course the pop up bars! This photo is Jacques and my sister Amelia splashing with mud, I lost two coats to that mud. RIP coats.

Jacques' parents took us to St Malo, France where we ate lots and walked lots!

We did our very first tutorial for macrame friendship bracelets, which went into all the goody bags for...

... the biggest and best Brighton Etsy Craft Party yet!

We went to visit crafty friends Sally (hand over your fairy cakes) and Keith in Glasgow with the Brighton Crew and had ALL THE FUN. Including copious amounts of Irn Bru, Buckfast and strange breakfast foods.


We went to the very first Wild Life Festival and saw Karen.

George won us a PRIZE! We become the proud owners of the 2015 Mollie Makes Collaboration Award alongside hello DODO.

We were the Raffle Prize in the Dinosaur Disco Lucky Dip Club Box

We filmed a video with Etsy about SEO!

We did a collaboration with Toft Alpaca Shop.

We went to Brussels to visit my family again and bought some traffic lights!


We went to Luxembourg, the funniest day of Jacques life (Amelia and I got cocktails spilt all over us and Jacques couldn't stop laughing...)

We went to Shakedown with all our bestest buddies and had the most fun ever.


Jacques made a hologram thingy magigy which lasted a day until I accidently smashed it.

We filmed a promo video with my mate Heather, it's still being edited, watch this space!

I was invited to Melbourne to the Etsy Australia Captains Summit, and they printed a sticker of my FACE! I also had a week to bumble around Melbourne and it was so much fun!
We ran an workshops and set up in LICK for the #etsybloggersleeper
Photo Credit | Wish Wish Wish

I went along to the European Captains' Summit in Amsterdam with these awesome UK captains. Jacques and then had a few days in Amsterdam before the Christmas rush to eat all the food and drink all the beer!

We smashed Renegade Craft Fair again, this time with an even bigger Brighton Crewdem.

We collaborated with Fresh Stitches to create a range of rainbow-y goodness

We ran the best market Brighton has ever seen* with the Brighton Etsy Team.

Christmas happened and it was MAGICAL! We had new ROARball designs, and it was our best season yet!

We went back Cologne for the Christmas Markets before heading to our parents for some well deserved time off!


It was a year jam packed full of travel, and spur of the moment opportunities. I know the new mantra is to learnt to say no to things, but I'm very much still in the say YES to everything phase, check your inbox every five minutes and reply to every strange direct message you get, for me and in turn designosaur, doing all these things has lead to so incredible opportunities in 2015, here's to a bigger and better 2016.

Happy New Year guys,

ROAR!

Karli


*in my opinion

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