ABC

There seems to be a lot of Alphabets around lately. I'm in the process of designing one for a stained glass panel (one of my many WIPs at the moment)...but in the meantime, here are a few that have caught my eye.



I think I might be just a little bit in love with the fig...from Dazeychic




From The Small Object




From Lucy Player




Be still my beating heart...my mouse has hovered over "add to shopping cart" on Amazon one too many times....by Julie Morstad


A quick PS to say thanks for all your lovely comments on the little lovebirds!

Bird + Bird = anniversary loveliness

Sorry, more birds!

I've been wanting to post about this for ages. About a month ago, I received a very nice e-mail from the husband of a very nice blogger, saying that he had spotted one of my birds on his wife's blog, and wondered if I could make a pair of them as a gift to her for their upcoming first wedding anniversary. So after a bit of secret and stealthy emailing back and forth, we agreed on a design and I set about making them.

They turned out pretty sweet, I think.

Folksy Love...

Just a few things I've seen on there lately that I really love....

I like everything in Emma's Wolf...to me, it's all got a cranky, crazy, Jan Svankmajer thing going on somehow. Especially "Cat Grrrl":




Here's another seller with just a few items...but I want them all. Kettle of Fish



The Juzzard is the shop name of illustrator/animator Philippa Rice... in there you'll find lots of lovely things...including comic books and zines as well as other hand-made items. I am particularly smitten with this "Book Club" print...especially the boss-eyed, odd-sock wearing, curly-mopped girl.

Visit The Juzzard's blog here.

School's out...

Wahaaay...last day of term here we come!

I'm going to be pretty busy over the next 7 weeks (I know, what is that all about?!) so expect posts to be thin on the ground. Plus on top of having 2 girls to entertain on a daily basis, I suddenly have a queue of jobs to do - some repairs and some new work...unusually, all Victorian doors and windows... but I'm looking forward to getting stuck in (I made a good start tonight, then had to go and watch Psychoville - just sooooo creeepy and wonderful)

Here's the last batch of birds...I couldn't resist making a few fledglings to go with the grown-up ones. I'll be listing them tomorrow, hopefully!


Cheerio then x

First to fly the nest...

...is this happy happy red, orange and yellow bird. I'll be listing more on Folksy over the next few days, but in the meantime here are a couple more...

(well now, that's odd, the red has come out very blurry hasn't it...it's not like that in the pictures at all)

Next, I just have to show you something that I have completely fallen in love with. I bought a vast consignment of knitted food from this lovely seller on Ebay as part of Isla's birthday present (we did the whole wooden-play-kitchen thing). Every item is beautifully made, but none more so than this perfectly simple and simply perfect apple. Too good for the kids to play with, it's going on display.



Oh, and lastly, I gotta show you my cakes. The first one was Nelly's from the beginning of the year when she turned 5. Turned out pretty well, so I did it all over again but with Maisy instead of Hello Kitty for Isla.



Mmmm, cream cheese frosting....

Colours Patterns Shapes...

...from around the house.

An Invitation....

...which I have now finished tinkering with. I am really pleased with this - the little peeper looks just like Isla, who is a very teeny nearly-2-year-old, and therefore spends her life desperately trying to see and reach everything that her older sister can. I was going to do it in colour, but Nelly had so much fun colouring in all the not-quite-perfect versions I printed off, I thought I'd leave it as a line drawing for the recipients to do! I was vaguely batting around the idea of putting blank versions (i.e. no writing on the tablecloth) in my shops (either as a pdf to download, or ready-printed) but hmm, not sure I know how to go about that. What do you think?


It was a re-working of this doodle...which I may also do something with at some stage.


The rest of my time lately seems to have been spent scouring Ebay for knitted cakes and biscuits, to go in the party bags.


Sorry, bit of a party-themed post...but that's where my head is at right now.

Topsy Turvy

We are lucky enough to have a wonderful secondhand bookshop next door to our house. Due to the fact that I am usually accompanied by 2 small rampaging girls, I don't get to spend nearly as much time in there as I'd like, but quite regularly Mike comes back with a little gem he has unearthed. Yesterday he brought home a fantastic book about fairy tales - origins of, illustrations from, original versions...well, you get the idea. I could spend half the night scanning in pages for your perusal, but alas, I have birthday party invitations to design and print off, so I'll just show you this (let's face it, rather haggard) Cinderella:







But hang on, look! Spin her around and there, as if by magic, is her (let's face it, very wizened) Fairy Godmother!



Quirky. Very quirksome.

Ooooh, ooh, one other thing, I just had to show you this most gorgeous print that I saw on the brilliant Loobylu's blog, by artist Vera Brosgol. Hmph, I want to spend an afternoon sitting in a tent knitting wearing stripey socks...