Archive for the ‘General Ramblings…’ Category
July 21, 2010
Terrari-who now?
Terrarium: A glass container, chiefly or wholly enclosed, for growing and displaying plants.
I have seen these around on blogs for a while now (mostly American ones I think) and I have been thinking that it might be cool to give it a go. I have pretty much zero skill when it comes to plant care and a pretty shoddy track record to boot. Hopefully this project will have a happy ending rather than tuning into a complete plant massacre…
I bought the glass containers from a car boot sale a couple of weeks ago for a grand total of 60p and the alpine plants cost £4.50. I made the little mushroom and the ladybirds from polymer clay. It was fun putting these all together – fingers crossed they’ll stay looking this cute for a while!
Tags:terrarium, alpine, accessories
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June 29, 2010
These boobs were made for walkies,
And that’s just what they’ll do.
One of these days these boobs are gonna…
…walk all over Bristol to help raise money and awareness for breast cancer research and cancer care!
I will be walking the Bristol Sun Walk this Sunday. Everyone who is taking part in the walk gets sent a Wonderbra to decorate and wear on the day. Here is my bra – not the most practical of outfits, but I am looking forward to wearing it all the same (haven’t quite worked out how I am going to get to the starting line without looking like a total goon yet!).
If you are able to sponsor me for this event, that would be AMAZING – even just a couple of quid would be very much appreciated!!
Thanks y’all 
Tags:bra, breast cancer, Bristol, Charity, craft, decorating, puppies, Sun Walk, walk
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June 26, 2010
Got one of these through in the post the other day – whoop!
It’s an invite that I designed for my friends Clare and Andy’s wedding. V. pleased with these as it’s the first proper job that I’ve done using laser cutting – I cannot belieeeeeve how fine the detail is – how blummin’ marvellous!
The design is based on a pattern Clare really liked on a posh bottle of body lotion (whatevs floats your boat!) – I think it looks rather lovely on here…
Hmmm – I wonder how much laser cutters cost¿
I’ll take two, thanks!
Tags:Wedding, invitations, laser cut, laser cutting, black, green
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June 26, 2010
I have been lucky enough in my career to do some work with legendary illustrator Nick Sharratt. When little Jet came along, Nick sent us this lovely card with a little painting of her, which is now up in a frame in the nursery:
I have been waiting for months to get on with this project (we had to wait until she had learned to sit up, apart from anything else!) – we wanted to re-create the drawing and do a photo shoot…
I made Jet a sleep suit to match the one in the picture and then Tim and I did this shoot together – aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – what a CUTIE!!
Here’s the suit:
Tags:nick sharratt
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May 30, 2010
Just thought I’d post up this pic I found from the Foo Fashion show in Bristol last month…
The t-shirt this guy is wearing has a gold logo that I designed for the Dutty shop – nice!
Tags:Bristol, dutty, Foo Fashion show, Foo Magazine, shop dutty
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April 25, 2010
Popped into WH Smith last week to buy some bits and saw that they have a new storage range on sale using the cupcake design that I did for them for xmas 2010. I also found a gift card using the same pattern. This is particularly good news as I guess this means that the products I did for them must have been good sellers – hurrah!
Here are a few product images from the WH Smith website:
Tags:boxes, cupcake, storage, surface pattern, WH Smith, WHS
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March 28, 2010
A couple of years back, I had a job interview with a company called Meri Meri. They are an American company, but they have offices in Cheltenham, which is not so far from where I live in Bristol.
I can’t remember the name of the position that I applied for now, but I do remember that at the time, I was under-qualified for it and decided to just go for it anyway. As a result, I was completely out of my depth during the interview process and I remember finding it very tough going.
I left from the first interview with a big brief from Meredithe, the founder of the company. There was a lot to do and I specifically remember there being a part that required illustrations of gay reindeers(!)… It took me a good couple of weeks to get it all done, but I got there in the end and was satisfied that I had given it my best shot.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get the job – but even though I knew that would be the case, it didn’t stop me from feeling crushed with disappointment at the time. When I look back on it now though, it is with a very positive mind. It was a great experience and I had found the whole process really inspiring. It was particularly good to meet Meredithe. She is a fantastic business woman and had built the whole company herself from scratch. It would have been the wrong decision for me to have gone to work there and I am so happy now working for myself, doing my own thing.
Hurrah for Meredithe and for Meri Meri – but most of all hurrah for finding your own path and doing things that you love! ♥
Here are a couple of bits from the current Meri Meri catalogue that were made from the design work I did for the interview:
- YAY!
You can check out more Meri Meri goodies here.
Tags:Paper, Meri Meri, sneakers, trainers, shoes, greetings card, gift bag
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February 24, 2010
Little Friends was the last range I did for WH Smith 2009 Christmas giftware.
This was fun to work on too as it was a bit different for me. I designed and built the range of around 20 products from scratch, including choosing all the stock photography. There are so many cute pets ranges for tween girls around in the shops at the moment and I really wanted to try and do something a bit different. I chose for a more edgy design with the black and white to stand out from all the other pink and lilac, polka dot and gingham ranges on the market.
- I was really chuffed with the results!
Tags:cute, gifts, giftware, pets, stationery, WH Smith, WHS
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February 23, 2010
Here are some pics from the Cupcakes product range I designed for WHS’s 2009 Christmas gifting selection.
I really enjoyed working on this range. There were 19 products altogether from notebooks and recipe folders to aprons and money boxes.
Tags:cupcakes, gifts, surface patten, WH Smith, WHS
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February 23, 2010
I was really pleased to get the job of designing four of the ranges for the 2009 WH Smith Christmas gift product selection.
I have been hoping to post up some pics of this for a while, but with having a baby and everything, I never quite made it over to the shops to see the product in store for myself and I have no samples. Hopefully I will be able to get some actual examples of the product myself at some point and I will post up some proper pics of these when I do.
The first two ranges I worked on were called Baroque and Milano and were updates of previous designs used for Christmas 2008. I helped to build each of these ranges, finalise the colours for each product and prepare all the files for print.
There were about 30 products for each range that I designed altogether. Here are a couple of examples of each:
Tags:Baroque, gifts, Milano, WH Smith, WHS
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Helen Ward