Surface Active

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Surface Active The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company: Keeping it Kiwi and putting it on T-shirts, that’s us! T-shirts in the spirit of fun!

Discover our New Zealand nature wildlife art designs from Surface Active’s independent artists, design pARTners Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh at our two e-stores. Global store: www.surfaceactive.nz?pr=PERFEC - USE CODE: “PERFEC” for 5% off all purchases. Local store, New Zealand-based: www.surfaceactive.digitees.co.nz/
Sale price: Our Surface Active store prices are all 10% discounted, and our minimum order is one item. In other words we want to be fair and equitable to all our customers and include everyone in our storewide 10%-off sale.

• About us •

Founded in 1985 by Chrissie “T” Terpstra and Shaun Waugh as a screen printing hobby on the kitchen table supplying weekend market stalls at the Christchurch Arts Centre Market and Waiheke Island Markets with our New Zealand nature t-shirts. Surface Active art-to-wear grew into a craft screen-printing studio in our back shed in South Brighton, and a clothing label sold at our weekend Arts Centre Market stall, at The Great New Zealand Craft Shows and in stores nationwide. Surface Active has been at the forefront of New Zealand nature and Kiwiana t-shirts since its creation. During the 2020 lockdown SurfaceActive.NZ has grown to encompass the web. We print the highest quality t-shirts for nature lovers, and our New Zealand nature t-shirts make the perfect gift idea. We believe drawing is an essential part of the creative process and all that you see in our store began as drawings, many took a lot of patience. Our subject matter is New Zealand’s native flora & fauna, landscapes & designs in praise of Kiwiana. Graphic designs that connect to and cherish the nature of our home, wonderful beautiful NZ.

14/10/2026

NEW BRIGHTON WAVE

Hot pink. Restless blue. Made of motion.

An original op-art design, created and heat-pressed by hand in my Brighton studio by the ocean. Optional badge print on chest reads;

NEW BRIGHTON — no ordinary suburb

$67.50 • Limited colourways • Choice of surfer silhouette

Well made here. Designed to brighten.

Music: Bill Frisell - Surfer girl

Catch fresh artwear perfect for a new season, at the New Brighton Seaside Market.Saturdays, 10–2.Tell your mum!
09/10/2026

Catch fresh artwear perfect for a new season, at the New Brighton Seaside Market.
Saturdays, 10–2.
Tell your mum!

Forever chasing the air’s invisible crumbs.It flickers. A scrap of wind that learned to fly. That’s the fantail’s charm—...
08/10/2026

Forever chasing the air’s invisible crumbs.
It flickers. A scrap of wind that learned to fly.

That’s the fantail’s charm—light, lively, made of motion. It’s the heart of the wildlife art print on this tee, and the quiet hope behind Surface Active’s new forever home in New Brighton.

You’ll find The Fresh Prints of Brighton weekdays and weekends at Craft and Collectables on Carnaby (New Brighton mall, corner of Carnaby Lane)—my best hope for a lasting place on Main Street, even though we all know retail out there is tough across the board.

We’re still proudly at The Creatives Edit too—Moana’s long-time local craft gallery, now in the new smaller storefront at the front of 105 New Brighton Mall (thanks for four years of support and counting).
And of course still at New Brighton Seaside Market Saturdays 10–2 and Riccarton Sunday Market Sundays 9–2.
Come say hello.
The fantails are waiting-not-waiting.

Based. Surface Active now has a new solid home in New Brighton.Weekdays and weekends at Craft and Collectables on Carnab...
08/10/2026

Based. Surface Active now has a new solid home in New Brighton.

Weekdays and weekends at Craft and Collectables on Carnaby (New Brighton mall, corner of Carnaby Lane).

And continuing at The Creatives Edit—Moana’s long-time local craft gallery, now in the new smaller storefront at the front of 105 New Brighton Mall.
Weekends you’ll still catch us at New Brighton Seaside Market (Sat 10–2) and Riccarton Sunday Market (Sun 9–2).

Drop by anytime.

Joy! Joy! Surface Active now has two solid homes in New Brighton.Weekdays and weekends at Craft and Collectables on Carn...
08/10/2026

Joy! Joy! Surface Active now has two solid homes in New Brighton.

Weekdays and weekends at Craft and Collectables on Carnaby (New Brighton mall, corner of Carnaby Lane).

And continuing at The Creatives Edit—Moana’s long-time local craft gallery, now in the new smaller storefront at the front of 105 New Brighton Mall.
Weekends you’ll still catch us at New Brighton Seaside Market (Sat 10–2) and Riccarton Sunday Market (Sun 9–2).

Drop by anytime.

02/10/2026

Maree from Maree Designs filmed this in the brand new Craft & Collectables on Carnaby gallery. Eighteen seconds. She takes one look at the New Brighton Wave and says, “It’s perfect.”
Cool blue ground. Hot pink lines. Surfer in the trough. “New Brighton — no ordinary suburb.”
Grateful she did it. The shirt, on the rack at Craft & Collectables on Carnaby, corner of the mall and Carnaby Lane, opposite Paper Plus.

The Fresh Prints of Brighton
Shaun E. Waughhol Print Factory, Outer Eastside

Surface Active—New Zealand Nature Tees.

Maree from Maree Designs filmed this in the brand new Craft & Collectables on Carnaby gallery. Eighteen seconds. She takes one look at the New Brighton Wave and says, “It’s perfect.”
Cool blue ground. Hot pink lines. Surfer in the trough. “New Brighton — no ordinary suburb.”
Grateful she did it. The shirt on rack at Craft & Collectables on Carnaby, corner of the mall and Carnaby Lane, opposite Paper Plus.

The Fresh Prints of Brighton
Shaun E. Waughhol Print Factory, Outer Eastside

Surface Active—New Zealand Nature Tees
Maree Wells

Setting up at 7am Saturday and the easterly is already beastly.The mariners of old didn’t call them the Roaring Forties ...
27/09/2026

Setting up at 7am Saturday and the easterly is already beastly.

The mariners of old didn’t call them the Roaring Forties for nothing. 43° south is not a gentle latitude. It’s boisterous.

Three mesh walls and a canvas half-wall later, people can stand still long enough to try a shirt on. That is the difference between a gazebo in a gale and a stall that shelters.

Eastern corner, facing Marine Parade. A great place to be if you’re a Baden-Powell-grade prepared Boy Scout.

A2 gold-framed A2 print first proof hanging on the green wall behind my heatpress.The work is a black-and-white digital ...
24/09/2026

A2 gold-framed A2 print first proof hanging on the green wall behind my heatpress.

The work is a black-and-white digital scraperboard portrait of Henry, the Invercargill tuatara. He’s an adult male sphenodon punctatus facing right on a weathered felled tree trunk, in graphic black and white, against dark bottle green. Hand written title: Tuatara II. Dated and signed yesterday.

Framed by me in gold or black narrow profile aluminium. Tell your mum, this good old boy is also available on dark bottle-green T-shirts.

24/09/2026

Henry of Invercargill I first drew in 1988. Pen and ink portrait close-up. He was already old. Back then my wife screenprinted him in white puff ink on black and dark green T-shirts. That was the beginning of Surface Active: The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company.

Again this month I illustrated him. Same animal. Black-and-white scraperboard, digital. He is about 130. The shirts are DTF now—a heat transfer from a Brother, pressed by me. Same ink system as 1988: water-based acrylic, new printing technology.

Tuatara II is out now. Inkjet on heavy matt faux canvas—framed without glass. A2 and A3, gold or black aluminium frame. Also in black and white on dark bottle-green T-shirts.

A living fossil, twice.

Henry of Invercargill I first drew in 1988. Pen and ink. He was already old.Again this month I illustrated him. Same ani...
24/09/2026

Henry of Invercargill I first drew in 1988. Pen and ink. He was already old.
Again this month I illustrated him. Same animal. Black-and-white scraperboard, digital. He is about 130.
Tuatara II is out now. Inkjet on heavy matt faux canvas—framed without glass. A2 and A3, gold or black aluminium frame. Also on deep bottle green T-shirts.
A living fossil, twice.

Address

15 Brighton Mall, Christchurch
New Brighton
8061

Telephone

+64210676176

Website

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