Simple red and white

Sometimes it's nice to take control of my colour addiction and strip back to simple red and white.

My best bud

This Santa holds a special place in my heart. He was my first Santa after starting back to work after my maternity leave. Such a jolly fellow welcoming me back with open arms. Love this chap!

Round balloons

I love a round balloon, if only all balloons were perfectly round and if only all our customers loved round balloons as much as me. That is my round balloon dream.

Santa in the Summer

Here he is, the great man himself: Mr S Claus. Just to bring a chill to your summer and to remind you that Santa is for life (for me and my fellow elves), not just for Christmas!

Oh look, there's that delicious yellow again!

The snowman and the fox...

...would like to say hello. Well, we are halfway through August so I think the Christmas posts can almost be excused. The shops would certainly excuse them.

Candles and presents

Hi there! Here's a couple of newish birthday designs for your eyes to look at today. I'm a big fan of using this colour palette at the moment. I'm completely in love with that yellow.

Spencer Jones's debut Edinburgh show

I had the pleasure of working with comedian Spencer Jones recently on the promotion for his debut Edinburgh show. He is a very funny man and BAFTA nominated (what more could you possibly want?!) so do check out his show if you're off to the festival this year. All details on the flyer...

It's been a while...

...since I visited this little space of mine. Looks like it's been 2 years, how very embarrassing. I have quite a good excuse...I had a baby last year! A little boy called Arthur who is pretty brilliant. Ok, that's not a good excuse seeing as he's 16 months old now and I started working again in January...oops!

Today I find myself in an empty studio with nothing but 6 Music and the sounds of engines revving from the mechanics nearby for company. With no looming deadline staring accusingly at me from the corner of the room, I thought there could be no better time to try and push my last post from 2012 down the page a bit.

So to celebrate me growing a beautiful boy in my body last year. Here's a couple of snap shots of some baby designs I did a little while ago.

I'll be back very soon!

Fathers Day papers

Hello there! Here are some papers I designed for Quick Cards magazine. I'm rather pleased with these - turns out, I love drawing a 'tache! You can download them here

New! Etsy! Shop!

Hurrah! I've just opened an Etsy shop. I've been working on a range of limited edition prints that I think would look rather splendid in people's homes. I'd love for you to go and have a look....and then tell your friends!

Here's a little peek of what you can expect over there....

Better late than never

Hello there! It's been a while, how are you?!

Seeing as it's Valentine's day I thought I'd better get round to posting the papers I designed for Quick Cards magazine a little bit ago. The magazine was out last month and I also designed the papers for the cover gift (details to follow another time!)

It was a lovely project to work on and you can download the papers here for your crafty card needs - maybe a last minute card for your loved one?

One year wed

Today is our first wedding anniversary. We shall spend the day eating pies in celebration!

Last week I finally got round to finishing the Blurb book I started many months ago.  Nice to relive our most favourite day a year on. Here's a few snaps: 

 

Photography seen within the book by myself & Joe

Nottingham appreciation

To celebrate my birthday we decided to hire bikes at Sherwood Pines. I don't know what part of me thought this was going to be a good idea. I've not ridden a bike for 15 years - I'm still sitting on cushions 3 days later! It was fun though once I'd built up my confidence and we accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up on the off roading trail for a bit - oops! Anyway, it made me think how lucky we are to have such amazing outside space 20 minutes drive away. The forest is so beautiful and reminded us of a mini Yosemite (without the bears). Unfortunately I was concentrating too much on staying upright on the bike so don't have any photos. I do have a photo of my picnic lunch though!


We went for dinner in town in the evening and in my red wine/midsummer's day haze I really started to appreciate the Nottingham architecture. We really do have some wonderful buildings in the city centre - I completely take them for granted usually but when it's quiet and you get a chance to look past the shop windows and look upwards, your home town can really be quite beautiful.

The boy did good

It was my birthday on Tuesday and David excelled himself by getting me my most favourite present...perhaps ever (although I did get a Lite-Brite for Christmas once which I was quite partial to)

Being a touch Mad Men obsessed, I said a while a go I wanted a pen necklace like Joan wears. Not only did he actually listen to me, he got me one. But it was even better than that - he actually got me a 1959 silver automatic pencil, had a loop and a chain put on it and had it engraved with my brand new initials.

He also got me a Mad Men book. Oh I heart that man.

A spot of bank holiday DIY

6 months after deciding to make one, we finally got around to making a headboard at the weekend. It was so easy to do and any task that involves a staple gun is right up my street. The fabric is from Ikea and designed by Kristine Mandsberg. We love it!




Olga prefers to keep her back to it. I think all the clashing patterns in our house give her a bit of a headache.

Surtex 2011

It's been a busy ol' time for me lately. As most of you already know it's Surtex time - one of the busiest times of year for us surface pattern designers (not just before Christmas as most people believe...!) Here's the banner I designed for Inspire by Design's stand.



You can find my work at the Inspire by Design stand (booth 326) and also at the Paper & Cloth Stand (booth 250)

So hip right now...

My lovely mum has just had a hip replacement (I think she would probably like me to point out that she's not that old, sometimes these things just happen, you know?!) Here's the card I made her to wish her a speedy recovery.


She kindly pointed out that the bow is around the pelvis and not the hip! Ooops!!

Baby week

It's mother and baby day round mine today. I don't have a baby and I'm not a mum, I'm merely the host. Two of my close friends have recently had little bundles of joy and as they don't know each other particularly well I'm getting them together. A sort of mother cupid if you will. I'm also secretly hoping to be a bit of a baby cupid as well - I'm hoping for a wedding in about 30 years time! This all coincides nicely with some baby designs I've been working on this week.

Someone's enjoying the sun today...

I'm not one to complain about the weather but....

It's cold isn't it? I love winter because I love a winter wardrobe but this time last week it was glorious. I drove around with the window open and didn't wear socks and it reminded me of how wonderful spring is too. As I wait patiently for it to arrive I will continue to draw Santa and his friends - at least they're all wrapped up warm with scarves and hats.