Merry Christmas!

We Make pt 2

Not sure how but I made it to London and back in one piece but I did - there I was worried about having not enough stuff and it turned out I could have easily filled two tables lol. Wish I hadn't been so busy chatting to take more photos but I made a few sales, got a lot of people interested in UK Handmade and got to meet people I chat to online in the flesh which was very cool. A good day out!

Now with both of my major deadlines complete I am left with catching up on all the little jobs; emptying my inbox of over 3000 emails, listing all the stock I've made, updating my websites with new work, spring cleaning the house, preparing for Christmas, writing a list of what the things I need to do to improve my business next year and setting about achieving it. But first a badly needed cup of tea.

UK Handmade Magazine

There was a time I thought this day would never happen, but here it is, the very first edition of the UK Handmade magazine. I don't think it has quite sunk in yet and there is still a lot of work to do on the website itself but to be a part of all this is pretty awesome :D. Below is a sample of the gorgeous layout by our fantastic designer Jo Askey and you can download the full version from the website. We also have a fantastic giveaway to celebrate the launch, full details on the blog!

We Make

So finally I can show you what I was up to the other week, decorating 5 tote bags for We Make. They are being sold at the fair itself full of goodies and you can see the rest (and vote on your favourite) on the We Make blog now!

AEM day 29

We are on a roll with this Christmas thing, been drawing up new patterns specifically for a few of the designs I have in mind and it has occured to me to make them transparent so I can layer them up and change the backround colour to suit, as in this bauble card. The process is starting to feel a bit more normal now and I am excited by the ideas that are springing up in the back of my mind to have a go at next year! We Make is a week away now, will I get everything done I wanted done? I think I might just manage it :D

AEM day 27, 28

This angel looks calm and peaceful, everything I am not right now! 7 more days and it'll all be over. We Make here I come!

AEM day 25, 26

My we have been busy, still ploughing through the books and trying to come up with little things that should sell well even if the bigger things don't, so today I printed out these loads of bookmarks - seeing my patterns altogether felt quite satisfying!

AEM day 23, 24

I've always loved daisychains, remember my mum making them when we were little, so I thought it would be nice to do a pattern based on one. Turned out to be a bit of a struggle to get the repeat to work, or rather to get my head round what to do, and then to remember the steps in illustrator. Got there in the end though, after 20 minutes of hair pulling and a few choice words. Technology is wonderful but can be incredibly frustrating at times!

AEM day 22

We Make is exactly 2 weeks away!! Need to pull together my Christmas range then get printing.

AEM day 19 - 21

Think I picked a bad time to do the Art Every Day Month, not because I'm not doing anything but because I am so busy that I forget to take photos before the light goes! Having a rubbish mobile phone camera doesn't help (guess what's on my wishlist for Christmas!).

So we have more books sewn and ready to list, gift tags coming out of my ears and sheets and sheets of things printed ready to be turned into something pretty. Better get on with it!

AEM day 16 - 18

Well I was going to show you what I've been up to the last few days forgetting that they are going into a competition and I'm not allowed! So instead here are the promocards I am sending with the mysterious tote bags that I can't show you yet.

AEM day 15

You know I was beginning to think I wasn't going to be able to do anything new for Christmas this year, everything so far (and no, I'm not showing) has either been naff or looked like something that's already been done a thousand times before. Or both. I couldn't get the colours to pull together either which is unusual for me. But in the meantime I have building up a little library of patterns in Illustrator so when I finally got an idea of what I wanted to do I had enough to play around with. Et voila! I am really loving the dark spicy colours that are around at the moment and this is what I have been trying (but failing) to capture. Hopefully more of these will follow in the next few days in various forms and I can add to my growing collection of new things to take to We Make.

Aem day 12, 13, 14

Oops I appear to have lost a couple of days somehow, but when each day consists of the same thing they tend to all merge together!

Here are a few of the fabric sheets I printed this morning drying in the sun. I'm experimenting with using prints of one or two of my art pieces, not sure if they work as book covers but will see what they look like when finished.

AEM day 11

Not much art going on is there! Should be called Crafting everyday month but needs must! Three more sketchbooks are nearly finished and ready to go!

In Remembrance AEM day 11

Take a minute to remember and be grateful.

AEM day 10

So just how packs of these gift tags will I need to sell to buy me a new camera? Too many I fear lol.

I've been busy proof reading and website coding and printing promo cards so managed to sneak these little pretties in. Off to punch holes and add ribbons now.

3 down.... AEM day 8 and 9

Gosh the days to We Make are counting down quick. I've now got approx 50 books ready to sew, but only 3 stitched. Going to have to speed up!

Preparing books AEM day 7

Stitching books is an evening job because I can do it sitting on the sofa and watch TV so I thought I'd better get this photographed before the sun disappeared. I am loving my new fabric designs, hopefully I will sell enough of these to have proper quantities of fabric printed up (well a girl can dream!)

Christmas cards AEM day 6

I miss my camera :( oh well here are my christmas cards at long last! Tomorrow - books.

Scuppered! AEM day 3 / 4 /5

Sob my camera has died! Not that we have had any decent light to photograph anyway but I could have shown you poorly lit photos of christmas cards and books and new gift tags. Oh well, here is my new pattern fresh out of Illustrator - hand drawn snowflakes scanned and coloured and after a bit of trial and error and head scratching turned into a bona fide pattern repeat (unlike the previous ones which were engineered into boxes but shh don't tell!)

If I catch a bit of sunlight tomorrow I will try with my mobile phone camera. Have a good bonfire night if you are in the UK!

UK Handmade

Finally I can share what's been keeping me away from everything I should be doing - UK Handmade is now live! I'm still adding info and the magazine itself will be available to download in a few weeks (fingers crossed).

I have also set up a ning group for everyone to join and network and share what they do. If you live in the UK please join and say hi, we have worked really hard on this and we are really keen to support UK artists and designers from all fields. Hope to see you there!

AEM day 2

Oops well that's a good start, do Art Every Day month and miss the 2nd one! Oh well, must try harder! These are pretty butterfly cards made up and ready to be listed (as shown in the previous post). Hopefully I will remember tomorrow's!

Winter Cool - Art Everyday Month

I keep trying to sit down and focus on designing a few Christmas cards but I think I'm in denial - try as I might I keep getting drawn to cool colours and flowers and butterflies and pretty organic things. Christmas is already everywhere in the shops and on the internet and I'm feeling a bit overloaded! So I'm going for soft neutrals; greys teals and pinks. Cleansing the palette a little before the main course of colour!

Oh and just found this site via the lovely Christine. Art Everyday Month will hopefully give me a daily boost of creativity which is just what I need right now!

Paper Mountain

A new batch of indian cotton rag paper has turned up so I spent a delicious hour or so folding them up into signatures ready for stitching. I ordered a few pages in black this time to make photo albums with, something I haven't made in a few years so will see how they turn out!

12 months ago...

...to the day we moved into our lovely new home. When I think how long it took us to get here (and we weren't even sure it was going to happen!) it's incredible to think how fast the year has zipped by. We both knew when we saw the house this was the one. Our home.

Print shop

Been doing a fair bit of printing this week, not least because I have been ill and not up to much else. Three year olds that go to playgroup seem to be riddled with germs this time of year! But not one to be beaten by a bit of flu I have churned out the latest set of cards for Sudocard....

a small tonnage of business cards for our soon-to-be-launched UK Handmade....

as well as calendars and gift tags for my own Chalk Hill shop.

Not bad going for someone who is supposed to be in bed resting :D

Illustration Friday - Late

Just how long will a man be kept waiting for?

On a Roll

Full Circle

I used to love drawing patterns as a kid over and over again on graph paper my dad used to bring home from work. After a week working solid on websites I needed a rest so sat with my sketch book and a bundle of books and magazines and just doodled. I need a range of fabric designs for my journals and with the We Make fair only 6 weeks away the pressure is on! Simple line drawings scanned into Illustrator and coloured. I am 10 years old again and in heaven!

Reflection

Found this in my sketchbook yesterday, just a random doodle of a model from a magazine but caught myself staring at it. Her eyes are wonky and her face a bit too long but her expression was unsettling, a bit like looking in a mirror (even though she doesn't look like me). I remember reading somewhere that portrait artists tend to capture an essence of themselves and people have said that about my drawings, but just how much of myself do I give away?

I've never considered myself an emotive type of artist, expressing my feelings on canvas has never been my drive. I love line and pattern and texture and depth and mystery but it's on a quite a superficial level although very much guided by my instinct.

What am I trying to say? I'm not really sure but I've got to stop looking for my style and perfect my technique. Recognise what I have already and relearn how to get the features in the right place!

Tick tock...

My son very kindly announced this morning that there are only 75 days left until Christmas. My stomach flipped. It means less than two months until the Wemake fair in London and my own Christmas Studio, and I have hardly any stock! Calls for some serious mass production; cover cutting, glueing, paper folding and sewing. My poor fingers hurt just thinking about it!

Trial and error

Sometimes they work sometimes they don't. This one is definately a failure (although strangely it looks quite good in the photo). I will have to be careful when printing these fabrics that there isn't too much white as as soon as it gets stuck onto the book cover its turns grey. Or I cover the board in a layer of white first. And the black stitching is too heavy. Back to the drawing board methinks!

Liberated...

...from all my hair! I'm usually terrified of having my hair cut; hairdressers see my luscious locks and immediately turn me into a poodle or some kind of bon jovi groupie but I was determined this time to find someone who could turn me into the business-like 30 something I am (or at least that's what I keep trying to tell myself I am). I think I hit the jackpot this time. There's nothing like a good hairdo to fill you with oodles of confidence and considering everything I've got coming up between now and Christmas (various craft fairs, magazine launch etc etc) it's just what I need. Watch out world!!

Buzz

This is what the inside of my head looks like - pretty eh?

A morning in the woods