Issue 44 features working mums and crochet-heads, ugly jumpers, Antarctic adventures, bicycle-driven art, sweet studios, nostalgic wonderment, a yummy DIY ice-cream recipe and a suspicious amount of chook photos. There are all your usual bits and pieces of fashion, music, art, design, laughs, photography and real-life reads too, and we hope you like it very much.

For frankie 43 it’s all about originals and individuals: people who push the envelope (and might get the occasional paper cut). There’s a lady from Christchurch who won’t let her city’s continued rumblings get in the way of her boutique dreams, a chat with maverick director John Waters, a Queensland painter who’s quit her day job to let art pay the rent, some music lovers who’ve started their own pirate radio station and an Australian diplomat who conducts peace talks with a guitar.

Welcome to the making of awesome things. Our tools of the trade spread documents all the little items that go into making art, music, shoes, jewellery and tattoos. We have The Grates dressing up in pretty fashions, DIY costumes to make and wear, the sweetest adoption story you ever did read, a skipping club, rhyming slang, Bon Iver, cool campervans, television’s most awesome flatmates (may include gratuitous Golden Girls references) and a trip to the real town of Twin Peaks. Plus there’s all the usual rants, funnies, arty bits and niceness.

Just excuse us while we do a tiny dance and fist pump the air a little. We are excited because by issue 41! Featuring golden girls (and boys) talking about their younger years, cute weddings with guaranteed no puffy dresses, the lovely Beth Cosentino from Best Coast frocking up and chatting about thrifty fashion, a look inside the life of a foreign correspondent and a road test of deliciously dark winter beers, there’s lots to behold if we do say so ourselves. Plus: TVs in Cuba, Megan Washington, public ping pong, giant earrings, green pancakes and all the usual craftiness, artiness, laughs, creativity and various other shenanigans that come with each issue. Hope you enjoy!