hoot hoot....birthday time!

So many of my friends seem to have summer birthdays!

Emma over at Pocketful of Patterns at a lovely birthday day trip last week that she's blogged about!

I've still got to wait a month or so for mine...and need to make the most of the time as am approaching my last year as a 20-something!

This little owl was created yesterday and will be transformed next week into a 3-fold card!

All go with pop-up type cards this week!

floral treat

this was a lovely sight to come home to....my orchids are well and truly out!!

there's loads of them and still more buds to open!

home and clean!

Oh what a weekend! It was fantastic!

We had such a lovely time at Glastonbury...

we were so lucky to have constant sunshine as well as super music and entertainment!

There were so many highlights...good old Rolf Harris did a great job of opening with his wobble board! Stevie Wonder was such a great ending to the weekend, especially with Michael Eavis singing along out of tune to Happy Birthday to you! check it out here

There's so much more to Glastonbury than just the music, including very vibrant theatre and circus fields. Its a great place for all ages....we're hoping to go again and again through the coming decades!

I didn't manage to see the Wall of Death in action unfortunatley...but I had a lovely wander around The Common, Block 9 and Shangri-La while the football was on.

We camped for the first this time this year after going in a caravan the previous 2 visits! We will be back in the caravan next time!! Camping was fine but the early starts don't suit us...we're night owls so it will be back to late nights and lie ins in a caravan next time!

Glastonbury is wonderful....full of fun with a brilliant atmosphere come rain or shine!

Those who haven't been....you must! Its my top tip!

ready for Glastonbury!

Well I'm excited, my feet are ready covered in henna, the sun is out and work is done!

we just need to pack up ready for Glastonbury,

despite the forecast I am still taking my wellies! You just never know!

Roll on a long weekend of pure fun and escapism from the real world at Glastonbury 2010!!

the early bird catches the worm

I wish I was an early bird sometimes...I'm more of a night owl!

jungle friends

I always wanted to have a pet chimpanzee when I was a kid!

I blame those old PG tips adverts!

A little jungle fun for a tuesday afternoon! :D

rainbow repeat

Here's a print of mine...would go lovely on stationery I think!

Sherwood Art Week

It's all go round here this week as its Sherwood Art Week, there's lots going on, including workshops, exhibitions, etc. There's lots of artwork on display in all the local shop windows.

Me and my parents went to a craft fair on saturday and it was very lovely, lots of cake for sale, a BBQ and live music as well as lots of stalls to see and buy from.

We liked the daftness of Corrina Rothwell's cards and prints!

There were some lovely ceramics and cards from Katrin Moye....

I love these cups from Anna Collette Hunt.....

I've had a lovely weekend seeing our families, watching Ed score 99 at cricket and celebrating rahrahrepeats birthday, all topped off by booking flights for a week in Poland in August!

(Any tips for Gdansk and/or Krakow will be welcomed!!)

Do hope you all had a super one too! Now on with work!

4 days to go!

yep it's finally here...well nearly! We'll be at the Glastonbury Festival in 4 days time...in the glorious sunshine hopefully!!

We practised putting our tent up last night...its a pop up one and we some how managed to get it back in the bag after much viewing of the instructions video on youtube!

Here's a pic of our little Gary...making himself at home on our pile of camping stuff!

I don't think he'd like camping!

My Dad's a....

Yep mine certainly is! He's fantastic!

I think my growing appreciation for my folks is making up for my teenage years when it feels like parents are certainly not cool and seem to get in the way a bit!

Talking of parents...check out this lovely mother and son print here. For sale now from LilSonnySky.

Happy Fathers Day for Sunday to all you dads out there!

LEMON CURD LOVE

Time for lunch and Yes! Lemon Curd will be involved! I love it!!

Its even inspired me to do this speedy illustration!

My friend Rebecca bought me a jar last week and its nearly all gone.

Its so so sweet yet very more-ish!

Long may the sun continue!

It's sunny days like this I wish I could see my laptop properly in the sun while sat in our garden! There's not a cloud in the sky...it's lovely!

This time last year I was laid out on the beach on our honeymoon!

As shown in this pic my Ed is a true brit abroad and insists on taking a brolly and chair!

I'm hoping this doesn't extend to a windbreak at any point soon!

A towel and my book is all I need!

summer floral

Here's a summery design perfect for this sunny day!

I hope you're all having a good week so far...

I'm hoping this week doesn't go as fast as last week did!

Enough wedding chat now!

I know some would say there can never be enough wedding chat...but for those that disagree that's it for my wedding reminiscing! (until next year's anniversary maybe!)

Here's a final snap of me and my much loved husband driving off from the church in my fig!

Oh if I only we could live that day again...it brings tears to my eyes! Cheesy yes I know but we couldn't have asked for anything more ...it was super!

Have a great weekend everyone and Come On England!

It will probably be best if you win and don't disappoint our nation of football fans!

I don't think I'd mind a lose though! ;D

Wedding Ideas Magazine Feature

Wedding Ideas Magazine featured our wedding in their 'real life weddings' section of their February 2010 issue, they also used me for the 'Steal her Style' page!

I'm really glad I got in touch with the magazine....

it's a great keepsake and it's funny seeing our faces in print!

Ed's friends thought it was brilliant!

I wasn't allowed to tell them but they all found out in the end!

wedding memories

I think a lot of people like to nose at other peoples weddings....I know I do!

There's so many gorgeous wedding blogs about, (here and here for example)

Here's some snaps from our day...one year ago this weekend!

Ahhh happy happy memories!

for more photos of our reception and stationery see previous post here

Our fabulous cake, decorated with fresh flowers by lovely friends Pol and Abbie.

Abbie also made the fabulous birds! Perfect!

All photos taken by the talented Josh Stocker

our wedding stationery

As its a year on from our wedding I thought it would be a nice time to share our wedding stationery with you all! I think I was my own worst customer and left a lot of the printing to the last minute!!

I wanted to create the feeling of a summer wedding and include details from our wedding; lots of flowers and bunting! The wording for the invite was informal...as this is the atmosphere we wanted at our wedding...a relaxed and informal one!

I think the rsvps are my favourite...I think the postcard format works great for reply cards.

I included a tandem in the design on the reverse as we were riding about on a tandem the day we got engaged!

(I say we...but I was just admiring the scenery on the back while Ed pedalled away!)

I couldn't decide on one design for the placecards so went for four! Each had a little message on the back thanking our guest for coming to share our day.

The menu started with a help yourself starter, inc. bread, feta cheese, roasted garlic, chutney etc, then onto Paella served from big pans then onto lemon tart for pudding.

We had a huge amount of people to thank...our friends and family were so so generous with both gifts and their time and help. There is no way we could have done it without them.

It really made me realise what super people we have around us.

I just bought a plain notebook from Muji for our guestbook and stuck a design on the cover.

It was fun reading the messages after from our merry guests!

The order of services were printed like a three fold leaflet...which looked nice and informal and was easy to print and included a little history about the church...to keep the guests entertained while they waited for the late bride!

(I really struggle not too be late....so I aimed to be there on time which meant I was only 10 minutes late!)

Apologies for the average photographs, I haven't got a great camera or am I good at photography!

I have worked on numerous wedding stationery commissions and do have a website here.

It really needs updating as being a fickle designer I am no longer completely happy with my collection or website!

I do prefer to work on a commission basis...that way a customer gets a design that is unique, personal and perfectly suited to their wedding or occasion.

Latest scrapbooking collection from Momenta

Here's a selection from a scrapbooking range using my designs which is for sale online.

Its called Flutter and has been produced by Momenta, who do such a lovely job of adapting my designs to suit their wide range of products....click here if you'd like see more.

Here's a couple of snapshots of the original designs for Flutter....

Click here for a previous post about my New Baby scrapbooking range...also by Momenta.

run forest run!!

I've been in training for the Great Midland Fun Run, which was yesterday morning.

It was 8.5 miles, I ran it with my Dad and we did it in 76 minutes and it was tough!

I found it really hard, the sun was out and there wasn't much shade and more hills than expected! But we did it!!

A great achievement as when I started running I couldn't run more than 5 minutes without stopping as I felt so breathless! It's amazing how it builds up.

I'm really feeling it today...going up and down stairs are a problem!

I've signed up for a half marathon called Run to the Beat in September so the training continues...once the stiffness goes!

Cheery Little Flower Face

I mentioned a little while ago that I was getting started on some lino cutting after having fun last october carving pumpkins...see here for the results!

Well I've had a couple attempts and I think I've at last created a little print I think I'm happy with.

I've added a touch of red using watercolour as I struggle drawing a face without rosy cheeks!

here's a little snap of my mess...I managed to get a cut on my thumb...despite reminding myself of my old school art teacher Miss Faulkner constantly telling us to cut away from ourselves!

My tray is from Ikea

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

watch out, there's copycats about!!

I'm aware of a number of copyright issues that have been brought to light through twitter and blogs over the last 6 months or so. Its always so sad and frustrating when it happens.

Here is a lovely design by Rachael Taylor which has been used for a variety of products including this light, see blog post here:

Thankfully yet sadly the below image has been spotted on Shutterstock images....

a massively blatant copy!

See Rachael's blog and twitter where you can offer support and keep up to date with her battle to get to the bottom of this upsetting matter.

There is a lot of trust in this business, as a designer you hope and trust that other

designers and companies have morals and don't copy!

Of course designers get inspired by other designers and artists but surely the whole fun of designing is creating your own designs.

Unfortunately trust doesn't seem to be enough, there seems to be a handful of designers and companies that can still sleep at night when they know they have copied another artist.

Does anyone have any idea how we can protect ourselves? Any copyright tips!?

It would be a sad sad world if it got to the point where designers were worried about putting their work out there on websites and blogs through fear of being copied.