An apology made up for with a new product!

Wow i've been quiet haven't I? I really must apologise. My full time job has kept me unbelievably busy and rendered me entirely inept when I come home from work.

I'm a lecturer you see and the first half term from early September til October is so manic with getting to know new students, writing new projects and lessons, ordering materials, pastoral care etc and on top of that I am in charge of our in class support team which involves a lot of admin work and people management which i've never done before so I have not had chance to think of other things.

Luckily half term arrived, finally and i've been busy planning for our I Make Fun Stuff Festive Market on Sunday 20th November and have made a few new things.

I haven't named this line yet, there are currently necklaces featuring a combination of items including skirts, shirts, blazers, satchels, brogues and blouses and there are matching badges. I might make earrings of the more simple items in time. They will be exclusively released at the St Peter's Street Festive Market in Ipswich on Sunday 20th November and on the shops after that.

Clutter City Autumnal Affair

Come say hi! I'll be selling my wares at the Clutter City Autumnal Affair in Norwich on Saturday 3rd September.

As well as stalls they have food, live music and drop in crochet lessons so what more could you want?

I'm jolly excited i'll tell you that!

New Stockist! The Made in The Shade Maisonette

I am very excited to have been asked by the lovely Clare and Carrie of The Maisonette if I would like to have my work sold in their beautiful shop. I didn't have to think twice considering I had admired their shop for a while but hadn't found the courage to approach them myself.

I was absolutely delighted to receive their email and cannot wait to find out how things go there in a few months time. So people of Glasgow, you can now purchase selected items from the Cuppa Tea and Cake range at The Maisonette.

Check out their website too it is so beautiful.

Images from The Maisonette Facebook Page

Freelance Commission for After Noon Cakes

For a while now I have been working on a project for a company called After Noon who make and deliver delicious cakes and baked goods. Chris and Meg asked me to design a logo, labels for boxes and business cards in an illustrative style that would fit with their homely, creative ethos and really communicate the feeling and message they wanted to convey. That kind of warm, sunny, dewey, golden light feeling of childhood memories and comforting food.

And so with that in mind, a colour palette, sketches and lots of Adobe Illustrator I came up with the results below and with a few tweeks they became just what Chris and Meg were looking for, PHEW! This being creative on demand malarky is really rather hard. However I must say how proud I am of the work and happy I am that they feel like a bit of me and a bit of After Noon combined, I guess that's why they asked me! *warm glowy proud feeling*

We did three colourways. A light blue with yellow text, a duck egg green with teal text and a mustard with dusky blue text. I've only posted one as I don't want to go mad with pictures, so I picked my personal favourite, the mustard colourway.

Business Card Front (top) and Back (bottom)

Circular Label Design

Logo Design

Chris and Meg chose a doily style design which they wanted to update so it didn't feel a bit "overly traditional" and maybe smacked too much of old ladies but still held onto that feeling of homeliness and comfort. We decided on colours which moved away from that more "lace doily, old lady" feeling to keep the design contemporary but remain illustrative and obviously hand drawn.

You can find out about After Noon on their facebook page and they will soon be opening their website. There are lots of photos of their scrumptious treats on the facebook page and Meg regularly posts what she's baking that day, making a particular effort on "Pudding Fridays", my poor thunder thighs can't take it! I've got to stop talking about cake!

20% OFF! Cuppa Tea and Cake Etsy Shop

BICYCLE! BICYCLE! I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!....

I'm having a Summer (haha!) sale to celebrate my new Bicycle screen printed range. 20% off everything in my Etsy shop using the coupon code BICYCLE at the checkout.

Go on! Knock yourself out!

Vintage Bicycle Greetings Card

NEW! In the shops. Screenprinted vintage bicycle greetings cards on Hairy Manilla card (isn't that the best name!) They match the new tote bags don't you know, this range is expanding!

Etsy and Folksy

Ever Increasing Circles

For a couple of days last week I hung out with my friend, and talented surface pattern designer and illustrator Sarah Wade. She does a lot of work from home and as i'm off from work for the summer holidays we decided to stop acting like loners and work together.

It was great, annoyingly for me I didn't have any work I could do at hers on the agenda, all my current plans were for screen printing. So i packed a bag with my favourite materials (blog post about those beauties coming soon) thinking I would pass the time some how and off I went.

Well luck has it that i did do some work i'm really really pleased with. The colourful and patterned circles you see above and below.

I plan for them to be mounted in large white frames, rows and rows of them! Until then, there will be more and more and more! And hopefully some screen printed designs based on them too. Exciting!

Vintage Bicycle Print

New vintage bicycle illustration screen printed onto calico tote bag.

Currently available in black but I can do pretty much any other colour you would like on request. 

Look out for postcards and greetings cards coming soon too!

Available in Etsy and Folksy shops now.

St Peter's Street Summer Market

On Sunday we held our fifth market as I Make Fun Stuff and it was out third street market held on St Peter's Street in Ipswich. It was a perfect day for it, the sun was out and warm and crowds flocked to The Saints to buy handmade goods from talented local sellers.

It was a fantastic success and we can't thank our stallholders, customers, visitors, friends and supporters enough. Every one of you made it the fabulous day that it was, we love doing this and want to continue to promote, improve, develop and make our town a better place to live.

Here are some photos of the day and the stalls, more will shortly be up on our flickr page.

 

Visit I Make Fun Stuff for more information on our sellers and their wares

Goodies!

Now that pictures seem to be working in my posts again I can finally show you a couple of goodies I got recently, I say recently, not all that recently but blogger has been working against me!

So I did a great swap with the fabulous Nikki McWilliams. I bought her Wooden Custard Cream Brooch a few months ago and I really love it so when she suggested swapping one of my Crystal Form Totes for something from her shop it just HAD to be the Digestive Biscuit Brooch.

The other beautiful thing there in that picture is my brooch from No Milk Today. This is really up my geometric street right now! These shapes are top of my love list. You can find my jewellery from Eva in her etsy shop, I will definitely be going back for more!

Clutter City Summer Fete

This weekend I will be selling my wares at the fabulous Clutter City Summer Fete. I've never had a stall at Clutter City  but I have visited and bought goodies before so i'm very excited, I know how good it is!

Running your own markets is fabulous and all but going to visit other's in different towns is so exciting because you meet new people and see new things you want to buy! That's not to say I don't buy stacks of things at our I Make Fun Stuff markets, more on that soon!

Come down and have a lovely hot dog and buy some stuff and make some new friends

Wallpaper Rose Giveaway

Louise of the lovely blog Wallpaper Rose asked me if I would donate something to her First Birthday Giveaway which you can enter via her blog.

She asked for one of my Wooden Wool Badges so off it went to be added to the massive pile of fantastic goodies you could win just by popping over there and following the instructions. Here are a few of the lovely goodies...

Map Puzzle Badges by What Katie Found

Daschund Brooch by Oh My Clumsy Heart

Frances tea necklace by Wallpaper Rose

So off you pop!

p.s. apologies for no photos, blogger won't upload them for some reason so I will add some when it plays ball.

p.p.s YAY! Photos are back!

Typewriter Totes

New in the shops this week are these typewriter totes. I currently have them listed in purple and green but I can print them in any colour imaginable so if you would like one in a custom colour just drop me a line.

Fully heat fixed these bag have long handles so perfect to sling over your shoulder and keep your shopping, books, lunch, paperwork in.

Find them here on Folksy and Etsy

New Stockist!

Glaswegian friends! You can now buy Cuppa Tea and Cake products in The Shop of Interest... at 1058 Argyle Street

I'm very lucky to be stocked in this fabulous little shop. They have a large amount of products including the newest addition to my range, the wooden kaleidoscope badges. I hope Chris and I will get to pay Scotland a visit soon, I know he wants to and we've made so many friends up north via the power of twitter.

One day I will have a vintage car....

Every year the Ipswich Transport Museum hold a Vintage Car Rally which starts in Christchurch Park, they then leave to rally over to Felixstowe and spend the afternoon sunning themselves on the front by the sea. This year was the 41st run and the second we've been to.

I love vintage cars, if I was better off I would have a normal runabout car and a vintage one for pootling about in the summer with the top down. I'm particularly keen on that little cream chap at the top, the Frog Eyed Sprite. Look at his happy little face!

My good friend Flo has always loved these dinky little fellows. You don't realise quite how tiny they are until you see them in the flesh. I don't think Chris with his long legs could get into one of these! I'd love to have a little test drive of one though. These was a woman looking at the engine who repeatedly told her husband that they can run on only 2 cylinders, so there's a factoid for the day!

I also love the text you find on vintage buses. Here is a few pictures of my favourites. Maybe i'll get myself an old bus or coach for the summer holidays too!

Finally, here's a picture of me looking a bit windswept and getting in the way at a crucial moment...

Necklaces too, i've been playing with power tools!

Hello all, i've been really enjoying myself this past week. I'm on Easter holidays from work and have had a To Do list as long both arms and one leg but amongst all that I have distracted myself by drilling holes in wood.

So now I am pleased to present the Wooden Kaleidoscope Necklace! Available in the usual places...

Folksy and Etsy

Working with wood

I've wanted to create things from wood for a while but without the right equipment its not that easy!

A while ago I made some stripy A5 pieces using markers, masking tape and stickers and then went on to cut hexagonal crystal shapes out of them. I was really happy with them and could see potential for the triangles i'd cut out so went about trying to mount them onto wood.

The only real problem I had was getting the shapes cut out of the ply without having to use a junior hacksaw and take forever to do it. Luckily a friend stepped in and cut these babies out for me so now I would like to present...

the Hexagon Brooch! Clever name huh?

I carefully chose the triangles to put together and have varnished these chaps several times to protect them from wear and tear. The first one is in my online shops now.

Folksy and Etsy. Please let me know what you think!

New Foiled Crystal Forms

Lovely new screen printed and foiled things! A tote and a cushion cover. These will shortly be available in the shops, links to which are down the side of the page.

If you want to know more about foiling please see my previous post or feel free to email me.

A little glimpse into my day job

I work at my local college full time as a Lecturer and a Learning Support Assistant. Each job has their trials and tribulations as most of them do but luckily for me I really enjoy my job and get to be creative when i'm doing it.

For my next 3 week illustration workshop we will be designing and making zines and so i've made a project brief for my group in the form of a zine. It can be difficult to wade through lots of words for some students and I think just saying it all out loud just isn't enough so I often go for a very visual approach backed up by laying out the lesson each week at the start of every session.

Here is my zine project brief, broken down into weeks and with a big long list of fantastic contemporary illustrators for my group to research.

I hope my students appreciate the hard work i've put in for them! Haha! It was really good fun to tell the truth!

New Products! Crystal Forms

I have recently been working on a new line of products based on crystal forms. I've been messing about really with a pattern I really like to see if I like the results. And so far the answer is YES! So i've popped a few in the shop to see if other people agree.

I really love the brooch at the top and also the screen printed fabric all the items here are photographed on. I have made it into a cushion cover but haven't had the fine weather needed to photograph it. You can see bits of it here and more in the previous post too.

All these items are available in the shop and there may be some alternative designs too as i'm still messing about and enjoying it.

Links to the shops are down the side of the page!!

Adventures in Foil

I have recently been working with heat transfer foil. You apply a glue, which you can use with a paint brush straight on to fabric or card or paper if you wish, or you can screen print it. I have also used it with Bondaweb so I thought I would share with you all my results as I know a lot of people screen print i'm sure you would be as excited by the idea of foiling your work as much as I am.

So I have been experimenting with using Bondaweb and the glue screenprinted. I have also been trying to find the best temperature for my iron to get the perfect finish, the perfect surface and the perfect amount of time to apply the heat for. I have now perfected that (what an exciting breakthrough that was) so now I shall share with you the results.

Firstly here is Bondaweb applied to the fabric and then the foil ironed on top with a piece of A4 printer paper between the foil and the iron.

As you can see you get quite a grainy effect because the Bondaweb itself is quite fibrous. This sample has also been washed at 40 degrees inside a pillow case. The print became more bitty and worn away. 

Secondly is screen printed glue with foil ironed on top, on top of a woven surface (not intentional I was using a woven rug to protect the table but it had the effect of giving the foil a texture)

Here you can clearly see the effect the woven rug had on the result. Don't iron on a textured surface people! More on that later! This sample has also been washed at 40 degrees inside a pillow case and again the print degraded slightly.

At this point I started working on a new print design based on crystal forms and wanted to use an irridescent foil that looks like oil on water to compliment the mint green and lilac I used in the prints. 

Here is where the breakthrough came. I screen printed the glue on using a paper stencil. Left it to dry completely. I then used a piece of floor lino (smooth side up) that I use for screen printing on, put the fabric on that, then the foil shiny side up, the A4 piece of paper and set my iron to just below the hottest setting. I ironed the foil, always moving, for 30 seconds and then let it all cool.

Et voila! Super smooth super nice heat transfered foil. I am beyond happy with this. The only thing I would say in terms of washing it is gentle hand wash only, this stuff does not like your washing machine! Here it is printed onto a cushion cover which wouldn't need washing very often.

If you are interested in this process leave me a comment as i'm thinking of getting more of this foil in the future.