Tuesday, 3 August 2010

bracelets


Very excited about making bracelets at the moment and I've made one for my fab Goddaughter Phoebe...she's very arty so she might just appreciate that its handmade!
Inspired by the amazing photographer Becky over at vintage fairytales I have made an effort to photograph them with a bit of the ole blur in the background...

Monday, 2 August 2010

a magical bracelet






One cover button is very much like another cover button until you wrap some pretty fabric around it and make it into a bracelet! The fab Jone Hallmark - polkadotponie - showed me this bracelet when she visited last month, and it caught my son's eye, despite being 17 years old and 6ft 2, he immediately fell in love with it and was the proud owner by the time Jone left for America. I wanted to show it to you all here on my blog because it is so wonderful and covered with Jones gorgeous textile designs, but when I looked for it, I realised he must have taken it with him on his world challenge to Africa!!??!! Could it be that he considered this thing of beauty a lucky talisman? We are really missing him here as he is away for 30 days in the depths of Uganda...I hope that the bracelet is working its magic for him!
I have done a quick illustration from memory as I want to make one myself using some illustrations from an amazing find whilst in France of an original edition the french heroine Becassine. I have scanned in the pages and cropped the images ready to cover some buttons. All I have to do is to experiment with printed directly onto silk through my inkjet printer or maybe do a spoonflower order....

Sunday, 1 August 2010

what I did on my holidays








Sailing on my brothers beautiful yacht Soutache proved to be as spectacular as usual, despite the moody weather we all had a wonderful time aboard the floating 5 star boat. We sailed from Inverness past John O' Groats and up to the Orkney Islands. The ever changing seascapes and grey atmospheric mountains made it impossible to let us pass by without an illustration or two! Here are some of my collagey watercolours.....

Monday, 19 July 2010

Billie Spile





July has certainly been eventful, with the beautiful things that I saw while in France providing enough visual stimuli for about 6 months. Billie Spille the incredible artist who is a friend of the Armitages, opened her home to the workshop ladies....look what they brought back with them.....while Billie's work is a amazing as ever, ( I love her industrial chimney pots) her husband Dean had painted these exquisite watercolours on old letters! what a treat to see this work.....

Saturday, 17 July 2010

what I made






I did n't manage to burn the midnight oil on the Julie Arkell workshop, due to the 10.30 lights out curfew, but was still pleased with what I made. I had lots of ideas about what I was going to do, but sitting next to the wonderfully creative Sue and Jone, I ended up experimenting instead. Here are some pics of the mad things I made....

Friday, 9 July 2010

Julie Arkell workshop









A fabulous week at the wonderful Julie Arkell workshop has left me with some great inspiration, not only from the delightful Julie but from some very talented women also on the course......here are some snaps that will continue to make me smile for a long time....
from the top...
1.some beautiful corsages made by Diane
2. Jone's amazing notebook
3.Sue's wonderfully colourful bracelets and bits
4. Katie's stunning papier mache painted pendants
5. Claire's fabulous flowers
3. from left, Julie, Mike, Sue Julie A and Claire
6. Claires stash from the french markets
7. A stunning necklace that I would very much like to own made by Diane

Thursday, 8 July 2010

Petersham Nurseries




Beautiful Petersham Nurseries in Richmond has the most stunning display of wild flowers seen within the M25 and so I took Jone and Sue for a visit before we all went off to France...paper thin poppies, sweetpeas with the heady scent of Jasmine and home baked cake in the air, mmmm...