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!

In the Pink

Two weeks of Easter holidays have flown by so it's back to work for me (but who can complain when work means doing the thing I love the most and getting paid for it!) I have been sorting through my stock and either getting rid of stuff I have been hanging on to 'just in case' or actually finishing off things I intended to do but never got round to. Such as this pretty little notebook, made from an album I made yonks ago when I was first learning bookbinding. The book itself was a disaster but the pages still good so out they came and were rebound. I actually got two out of it, one has gone into my new chalkhillstudio.etsy.com shop, the other into Chalk Hill Studio proper. Why two shops?

My main website is for UK customers only as 90% of my business is for custom work and dealing with people in a different time zone is tricky when you need answers quick or have a large wedding order to complete so I opened an etsy shop for those wanting Chalk Hill products without the complications. In fact it has made me rethink what I sell and as a result am developing new exciting ranges as we speak. All I need are a few more hours in the day!

New books are being added to Chalk Hill and my etsy shop - go see!

Christmas Special...

going on at the chalk hill blog, go see!

books books and more books!

Getting through them slowly, the bottom one is now finished and on sale in my etsy shop.

Books

Well it seems I have turned into a journal making production line, it's been a while since I made any books and I'd forgotten how satisfying it can be. The bottom one is one of two ready to be shipped round the UK etsy team, the top one is a sketchbook available in my shop.

Multitude of Angels

Been busy making angels and lightcatchers to stock the shop up with, listed the first finished one on Etsy and it's sold straight away so that's a good sign! Will finish sticking on the mirrors tonight then tomorrow might have a go at some felt ones. Have an idea for a canvas lurking in the back of my mind too so might start that before bed as well. After a day like yesterday it's good to be a bit more productive.

Finished

Cards are all printed, photographed and being listed as we speak, available on Etsy and Chalk Hill Studio.

New Print

Available to buy here

Cuteable

Look who found themselves on cuteable! How cool is that!

A Rose is a Rose

New little photographic print available on Etsy!

Update

My online shop is now officially finished, really this time, with lots of cards and trinkets going on there as fast as I can manage - www.chalkhillstudio.co.uk - it will only take UK orders at the mo but if you live overseas and found me via my blog please drop me a line if you like something. It also has its own blog that I will get going over the next week or so, it will have lots of info about DIY weddings and parties and interviews with other artists and designers I have been lucky to meet in the blogosphere! Again it will be predominately UK based but there will be something for everyone.

I am also delighted to have been accepted as a member of Tuggle , a brand new website that was set up by a mother of two Jasmyne Sefton to support other parents who run their own businesses from home - just what we need, go check it out!

Cambridge Open Studios has also started for this year, again I haven't been able to participate this year but I am holding another kids collage workshop on the 21st and 22nd July at the Gallery in Fulbourn High Street, so if you live around Cambridge please pop in and say hi, but be prepared to get messy!

And my little monkeys enjoying a rare day out in the sun, what has happenend to the weather!

Still here

After 3 weeks of solid decorating I've had a ton of work to catch up with so blogging has had to wait a bit. But I have had time to make crochet jewellery in the evenings which I have been putting in to my Etsy Shop along with some of my older artwork and prints at really good prices! I have also rebuilt my shopping cart at Chalk Hill and moved it into its proper home so it's bye bye to ocellus art and design forever, yeah! After months and months of faffing and indecision I am finally getting things into order and having a good clear out in the process, and boy does it feel good!

Daisies

I'm slowly but surely plugging away at my loooong long list of things I need to get done before I retire, one of them being to put into reality the 1001 ideas that lurk in my sketchbook and get them on the website where they might actually earn me some money! So here is a sneaky peak at one of them for the kiddy section - it needs refining a bit as the middles of the flowers shouldn't have been that orange or that big, but it's already sparking off ideas for a range of things aside from cards... watch this space! (Oh and if you want to see how I did this check it out here.)

Natural Attrill

This beautiful necklace has come from the very talented Toby at Natural Attrill, I fell in love with it when I saw it on his website and decided to treat myself. What you can't tell from the photo is how satisfyingly heavy it is and a joy to wear, the only problem I'm going to have is keeping it away from little fingers! Thank you so much Toby!

Orchid

New wedding design for the website.

Ticking off...

...the things on my list bit by bit. Above is a new wedding stationery design based on my smitten print, both of which can be found in my shop, and I've also started a cafepress shop with both this and some of my other collages - I will gradually add more and more but let me know if you would like to see a particular piece on there that I haven't got to yet!

Ta-daaa!

Just goes to show what you can do when you put your mind to it; after my cup of tea this morning I decided to finish the baby card designs that have been hiding in the bottom of a big box waiting to be finished. I first did these a good few years ago when I started the card business and have been very good sellers but I wanted to freshen them up for the new website. So I have made up new cards, taken photographs (although they will need re-doing when the light gets better) and details are up on the site. (I hate that bit as although easy it is a fiddle and time consuming). A good day's work, go and see!

Chalk Hill Studio

Well after much faffing and to-ing and fro-ing and 'shall I?' or 'shan't I?' I decided to change the name of my ocellus website. I never really liked Ocellus Art and Design when I chose it at two in the morning six years ago now, but it was the best I could come up with at the time, and I thought the scientific sounding name might make me sound very serious and get me lots of grown up design work. Which to a point it did. But no one could pronounce or spell it properly, nor did it really cover the art side of what I was doing. So this year I finally felt with the way I have progressed and grown in the last year or so it was time for a change.

Not as easy as it sounds though. Most of the decent names have already been thought of and I needed something that was somehow connected to me, so I went back to the butterfly theme I had with ocellus and remembered the little chalk hill blue butterflies we saw in their hundreds over the summer, something I haven't seen since I was a kid. Cambridge has a large area of chalk downs where these tiny little beauties live, plus I originate from the cotswolds which is largely chalk and limestone too. And so became Chalk Hill Studio. I have already set up a blog in its name so all my business news and cardy stuff will go there. This blog will stay as it is with all my personal and arty ramblings and as for Whispers? Not sure. See how much time I have spare. Not a lot has really changed from before, just feels a bit more unified and reflects where I am now. Feels like home.

Anyway I have put some more greeting cards on there, as well as a few valentine ones. The wedding stationery is still work in progress. Go and check it out!

Butterflies