The illustrator and designer behind the South African label Skinny laMinx (named after her Siamese cat), Moore’s recipe is simple: mix together a love of pattern, a cute shop, a top-notch team, and top it all off with equal parts playful and chic: “Pattern makes us happy, color makes us feel good!”, reads her Instagram bio, and boy do we agree.

Moore’s blooming business began relatively small. After 10 years of freelancing, she opened a blog and an Etsy shop in 2007, where she sold her simple, clear screen printed tea towels and hand-cut fridge magnets. By 2009 the business was so busy with retail and wholesale orders that she quit her comics-writing job.

These days, her brand includes a store and studio in Cape Town, where Moore employs a team of 15 women. Her product range has also grown over the years and now includes anything from pillows to furniture, becoming a beloved lifestyle brand both home and abroad.

Ever the creative, when it comes to inspiration, Moore admits she finds plenty of it: “It’s kind of silly to say this, but I really am inspired by just about anything and everything!”, she admitted once in an interview with Sweet Paul Magazine.

She noted that she’s inspired by things such as the holes in a piece of cheese, her dreams and desires while flipping through an IKEA catalog, ancient rock art on cave walls, and the dishes on her shelves at home.

All of Skinny laMinx’s designs are screen printed in Cape Town (with an added dose of African chic), and everything is cut and stitched by a small sewing team in the studio above our shop, making her products both ethical and local. “In general, I like design that is concise and fits its purpose,” says Moore. “If it manages to do these things while being elegantly exuberant too, that makes me happy.”

Add a dose of happiness to your home!

The post From Cape Town With Love: This Home Goods Brand Will Delight You appeared first on MyTrendTales.

“After spending a long time in the supermarket thinking about what fruit would work well, looking at so many bananas, pears, lemons and mandarins, I cast the fruit in silicone rubber and made plaster molds around that,” shared Ormsby with homestyle. According to Ormsby, this process involves many different stages to achieve the finished outcome. 

First, you begin with fettling the wax. This is followed by building a contour mold (made of a plaster/silica mix) around the wax model. Once set, the wax is steamed out, leaving a positive copy. The contour mold is then dried and loaded into a kiln to be fired. Over time, solid glass gradually melts into the positive space filling a positive form. The contour mold now “baked” can be broken off revealing a glass object. This then is cold worked, sanded and polished, after which you are finally left with your glass fruit.

“Fruit holds a large significance in art history, which is where I think the appeal comes from,” observes Ormsby. “I’d thought for a while about what I wanted to make and kept seeing vintage glass fruit in op shops. Brightly colored with exaggerated forms, it was charming in its own outdated kind of way; I wondered where it came from, what its purpose was and who used to own it. Eventually, I set about making a cast-glass version true to the form of actual fruit.”

Take a look at some of her incredible work in the gallery below.

The post The Glass is Always Half Full With Devyn Ormsby appeared first on MyTrendTales.

The illustrator and designer behind the South African label Skinny laMinx (named after her Siamese cat), Moore’s recipe is simple: mix together a love of pattern, a cute shop, a top-notch team, and top it all off with equal parts playful and chic: “Pattern makes us happy, color makes us feel good!”, reads her Instagram bio, and boy do we agree.

Moore’s blooming business began relatively small. After 10 years of freelancing, she opened a blog and an Etsy shop in 2007, where she sold her simple, clear screen printed tea towels and hand-cut fridge magnets. By 2009 the business was so busy with retail and wholesale orders that she quit her comics-writing job.

These days, her brand includes a store and studio in Cape Town, where Moore employs a team of 15 women. Her product range has also grown over the years and now includes anything from pillows to furniture, becoming a beloved lifestyle brand both home and abroad.

Ever the creative, when it comes to inspiration, Moore admits she finds plenty of it: “It’s kind of silly to say this, but I really am inspired by just about anything and everything!”, she admitted once in an interview with Sweet Paul Magazine.

She noted that she’s inspired by things such as the holes in a piece of cheese, her dreams and desires while flipping through an IKEA catalog, ancient rock art on cave walls, and the dishes on her shelves at home.

All of Skinny laMinx’s designs are screen printed in Cape Town (with an added dose of African chic), and everything is cut and stitched by a small sewing team in the studio above our shop, making her products both ethical and local. “In general, I like design that is concise and fits its purpose,” says Moore. “If it manages to do these things while being elegantly exuberant too, that makes me happy.”

Add a dose of happiness to your home!

The post From Cape Town With Love: This Home Goods Brand Will Delight You appeared first on MyTrendTales.

“After spending a long time in the supermarket thinking about what fruit would work well, looking at so many bananas, pears, lemons and mandarins, I cast the fruit in silicone rubber and made plaster molds around that,” shared Ormsby with homestyle. According to Ormsby, this process involves many different stages to achieve the finished outcome. 

First, you begin with fettling the wax. This is followed by building a contour mold (made of a plaster/silica mix) around the wax model. Once set, the wax is steamed out, leaving a positive copy. The contour mold is then dried and loaded into a kiln to be fired. Over time, solid glass gradually melts into the positive space filling a positive form. The contour mold now “baked” can be broken off revealing a glass object. This then is cold worked, sanded and polished, after which you are finally left with your glass fruit.

“Fruit holds a large significance in art history, which is where I think the appeal comes from,” observes Ormsby. “I’d thought for a while about what I wanted to make and kept seeing vintage glass fruit in op shops. Brightly colored with exaggerated forms, it was charming in its own outdated kind of way; I wondered where it came from, what its purpose was and who used to own it. Eventually, I set about making a cast-glass version true to the form of actual fruit.”

Take a look at some of her incredible work in the gallery below.

The post The Glass is Always Half Full With Devyn Ormsby appeared first on MyTrendTales.