Christmas Project in the Making!

I blogged this a while ago and am now giving it an airing!
A little review of some playtime......
I had a great morning during the summer hols with Stanley and his little friend Elodie. We were doing a play day swap so that both mums could catch up on some work.
For my turn, I offered to do a tee shirt printing workshop with Elodie and she was a top rate student!
First we did some drawings together, then I photocopied them and we cut them out. Next was laying them on the tee and finally a big pull of the screen with a little help from me and voila! I was so pleased with the outcome and the big wow that followed after we lifted up the screen. Even Stanley had a pull on it, with not a smudge in sight.
It was hard to leave it drying in the studio while we went home for more fun but it was safely delivered the next day, ironed and ready to wear. I even got her mum to model the bag I made for her. Both gorgeous but shy girls so they've been dutifully cropped!Since it all went so well, I've decided to do a mini bag printing workshop leading up to Christmas. Mums / Dads / carers / friends are in charge of organising drawings by their little ones, with a view to posting / dropping / emailing them off to me. I then turn them into a printed bag for Christmas, hopefully stuffed with goodies, I'm not offering that part though! All for the small sum of fifteen pounds! (plus postage) I may do an impromptu print session at some point but the logistics and legalities of having kids in my studio is a bit of a problem
Tee shirts are too complicated as children tend to come in all shapes and sizes, so I'm sticking with bags.
Anyone interested please get in touch. I think it will be a fun project and a nice surprise at Christmas for all! I'll be helping kids along and getting them started at our Open Studio Weekend, now set for the 28/29th November.
There will be more postings about this on the run up to the weekend I'm sure.
I must be mad!
Adding to this.... the results of Stanley's nursery print workshop to follow soon.

My Secret Life!

I seem to be leading a double life at the moment. One is attempting to promote my work, which, thankfully is slowly starting to pay off. The other is having a sneaky holiday in Benidorm! For the last four days I've been soaking up the son with my little boy, his dad, his Granny and his Uncle.
It was a bit of a last minute thing and a lovely gift from Granny June.
It wouldn't be my first choice of holiday destinations, but having said that, the weather was fantastic, sea gorgeous and Stanley seemed to survive being one of only about a handful of small people in our 11 story hotel, full of holiday makers of the much older variety. My weak Yorkshire accent, from living in London for nearly 20 years has now been rejuvenated. An extremely friendly place and a great little break. We left Uncle Paul out there with Granny June and we've been receiving regular updates of bingo, dancin', entertainments and such. I think she's being well looked after!
Stanley's favourite place by far was the beach and preferably with his head down a hole!
Time to get back to work.....

Giveaway ends 26th October

Just a quickie to say that my Papernstitch showcase ends on the 26th October and so will my giveaway. With just 3 entries so far, I have to admit I'm a bit dissapointed, but not put off as I have had some great comments and made lots of sales!
Brittni the super, friendly lady behind Papernstitch has blogged me up on her daily favourites today, which is all very exciting!

To enter the giveaway, just sign up to Papernstitch (takes just a few clicks) , leave a comment under one of the items you like in the exhibition, then leave a comment here on my giveaway post and that's it.
What you will get......A little goodie bag, a hand printed tea towel, a bundle of printed squares, lavender key ring and maybe more, depends how much I can cram in the bag!

One more thing, I'll be switching back to my regular shipping fees tonight, so be quick to look in my Etsy Shop if you want a good deal.

Re Picture: The big flower cushion never made it to my shop, instead it ended up in France, lounging on a red leather sofa. Wish I was there now!

Papernstitch and my first Giveaway!

Thank you to Brittni from Papernstitch for including me in her showcase this month. I also got a very nice slot on her blog yesterday which you can see here I've only just spotted it as I've had a two day spell of total 4 year old indulgence! Yep, Stanley is now 4! We celebrated with a trip to the brilliantly mad Anish Kapoor Exhibition, then a quick dash back home for a mini tea party. Today I've been printing all day with Stanley and his pals, as I did a print workshop at their nursery. The results were fantastic, it's pure joy to work with such an enthusiastic bunch! I'll blog about this more when I get a chance. Having said that, 20 printed bags later, my back is killing me!
Anyway, back to what I'm meant to be blogging about.......

The Papernstitch contest, join in and you could win a prize....oh and one for me too!

......and just to add to the hype, I'll try a mini giveaway:
Leave a comment on any of my products on the papernstitch site, then leave a comment here saying something supernice about my work and what would you like to see more of. I'll do a random pick from all the comments here and the lucky winner will get one of my party bags with a few surprises inside!
Here's the blurb from papernstitch

October marks our one year anniversary for the papernstitch exhibition site! It is hard to believe its already been a year for the site, and well over a year for the blog. To celebrate we'll be running a contest from now through October 25th on the pns site.

Some of you may know that each individual product in a pns shop can be commented on by anyone who is logged in to their account. The exhibitor who receives the most votes in their shop will win a prize and you can win too! Win your favorite product on papernstitch!

How do you enter?

Simple. Visit the papernstitch site, browse your favorite shops and comment on any product that you would like to win. Why do you love that item or that shop? Tell us in the comments section. Just don't forget you have to be logged in to comment. You may enter an unlimited number of times, but can only comment on each product one time. Each comment is an entry.

I will select three winners total from the comments pool for the entire site and those three commenters will win the product they commented on! Pretty cool, huh? Visit the site now to enter the contest. Don't have a free account yet? Get one here (it takes 5 seconds, literally).

Just Made!

Yesterday's Makes.

Square Day

I had a great time today chopping up some of my printed panels. I have a romantic vision of making a big quilt for our bedroom, but whether I'll ever get round to it is another matter. I'd like to think that someone else might want to buy some of my fabrics and show me how it can be done!!!! I'm not quite sure how I'm going to market that one though, I may offer small groups of nine like the one below or a discount mix pack of the 4 piece panels to cut up yourself. It's easy to spend hours enjoyable messing around with the juxtaposition, I'd probably go mad.
I did get round to making some more lavender squares and a mini patchwork cushion, but the light was so rubbish by the time I'd finished, I'll leave that until tomorrow.
More fabrics are being listed in my Etsy shop as I write, I'm just waiting for the photos to load up. There's a neat little trick on Etsyhacks if you download Greasemonkey you can load up all your photos in one go! It takes a while to load, but at least you're not sitting and waiting to do them one by one.
look out for the new prints in my shop and here's a peek of the squares I chose for my little cushion.....
Pebble, Petal and Cirlces

Cut Flower in Buttercup Yellow

Circles in Zingy Lime Green

Circles in Light Mushroom

Better Late than Never

Well I finally got it all done, the important bits anyway!
The panels have gone off today, so I'm hoping to get boxes full of twinkly lampshades back very soon.
The bike is still at the bike shop and the tie is still a piece of fabric, but Granny June enjoyed the photos.
Wedding was a great success and I feel rejuvinated having spent some quality time with my family, including a wonderful walk to Hathersage, through fields of cows and sheep on a glorious Autumn day.
I have high expectations of myself today, but I won't bore you with the detail this time!
Even got in a spot of Morris Dancing!

A Day in the Life Of.......

Today is quite a challenge for me so I'm writing about it in the hope that I might be more successful if it is documented!
I have a banging headache and am full of cold. The back to school nursery germs seemed to have taken a running jump at me and are well settled.
I've just dropped Stanley off after a bit of a morning struggle to get him dressed and am now looking at the total chaos in my studio. I have fits of tidying which lifts my spirits massively and then the messiness gradually creeps in. I was the tidiest little girl imaginable and then when I hit 13 it all went down hill. I remember once, my dad could only get his arm through the gap in my bedroom door (he was brilliant at bringing tea for the whole family every morning) because of all the clothes and stuff wedged against it! So here I am a good few years later and I can't fully open my studio door for all the screens and stuff wedged against it.
SO..... today I have all these shades to sew. I've been printing like mad and now I HAVE TO SEW them TODAY as we are off to Sheffield tomorrow for a family wedding. I have orders pending so this MUST be done.
Other things on my list: (Small writing so it doesn't look so long...)
Clear a space for my poor old Bernina so I can crack on with sewing
Make a tie for Stanley for the wedding
Pick up bike from Spitafiellds, needed new wheel after being rammed by a car (not a good day)
Get photos developed for Stanley's Gran
Pick up Stanley and then dry cleaning.
All by 3pm
It is now 10.47am
Wish me luck!

Can't Wait to See Mr Kapoor

We went to the Royal Academy yesterday, to see the final touches being put on Anish Kapoor's massive pile of silver balls in the central courtyard!!!!!
I can't wait to see the rest, I love his work and we even spotted him having a cup of tea between tweeks!
Stanley thought a monster was about to come out of the main room as we gazed into a heavily pigment dark hole.
Starts next week I think.

A great article in the Guardian http://www.anishkapoor.com/

"Not going in there mum!"

Just a Little Note....

Thank you to Sam at Inklore for her supernice inclusion of my inspiration post on her journal/blog. She makes beautiful eco conscious stuff and I love the block printing!