Archive for the ‘Paper’ Category
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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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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January 24, 2010
Hurrah and Huzzah!
After a somewhat baby orientated few weeks, I am back to work-town this month with some of my paper entomology pieces being exhibited in the new Papercuts exhibition at the Rostra Gallery in Bath.
This is an excellent turn of events as Rostra is a lovely, lovely gallery and I am very pleased to be exhibiting with them.
…to make matters even more spectacular, I will be showing alongside a bevy of girly paper artists including the wonderous Helen Musselwhite (whom I worship and adore!).
Other artists that will be involved in the show are: Laura Williams, Rebecca Coles and Frea Buckler
Papercuts will be on display at Rostra from the 29th January to the 23rd Fabruary.
Tags:Paper, exhibition, rostra, rostra and rooksmoor galleries, gallery, helen musselwhite, frea buckler, rebecca coles
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November 23, 2009
Oh my outrageously busy weekend…
It was the Totterdown Art Trail this weekend and as ever, it was blummin’ ace!
It was a real mission to get everything sorted this year with the little one here too, but having worked my socks off for the last couple of weeks, it all came together and I was really pleased with how my exhibition looked in the end. Jet proved to be entirely useless at helping me to get everything ready, but I think she did a good job of wooing all the punters during opening hours!
Here’s some lovely pics courtesy of the old ball and chain:
More details after the jump…
(more…)
Tags:2009, Bristol, christmas decorations, exhibition, Frontroom, Helen Ward, kusudama, Paper, Paper Entomology, totterdown, Totterdown Art Trail
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October 8, 2009
In the interests of cutting things ridiculously fine, I agreed to take on a commission for some artwork last week. Here is the finished piece, fresh back from the framers:
I am really pleased with it – sometimes it’s so great to get a commission on the go as it’s a good chance to do something a bit different that you perhaps wouldn’t have thought of before…
This client wanted something that would look good in her living room, so she brought me round a sample of fabric from her Marimekko curtains which look like this and we talked about how she has a few things that are covered in gold leaf.
All the butterflies are colours to match in with the curtains and I added in one large butterfly in gold leaf for good measure – lovely!
Tags:beetles, butterflies, entomology, gold leaf, insects, moths, Paper
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August 27, 2009
…hmmm, don’t mind if I do, thanks very much!
So, the man and I are having a pre-baby hol in lovely, sunny Mallorca at the mo and by wonderful coincidence, it turns out that my old school friend Nina is just down the road in Puerto Portals where she is working as a hostess on Super-Yacht ‘TV’.
Not only was it very cool to met up with Nina, but it gave us a great opportunity to go and have a good old nose around the yacht – which was especially brilliant as I had done a bit of work for it last year designing all the on-board stationery and whatnots (a job I feel very fortunate to have got through Nina).
Turns out anyone out there with a spare €30 million can go out and get themselves one of these bad boys:
- that’s 45 meters of luxury cruising – or a €250,000 a week holiday, if you’re not so sure about the commitment of boat ownership…
We got a tour of the whole boat, which was absolutely beautiful and a look at the stationery I had deigned ‘in situ’ (sadly I can’t show any pics of the inside of the boat on here as it is privately owned property).
Each of the cabins had a leather box with all the stationery items inside:
The V.I.P. cabin had stationery in the beautiful wooden bureau:
Boat info all printed onto the stationery is placed on each of the beds before the guests arrive:
Tim and I poncing around on the Quay-side:
And… the best thing about super-yachts – MAHOOSIVE jars of Nutella:
Conclusion: super-yachts are good, but Nutella is better 
I’ll post some better pics of the stationery up here when I get home.
Tags:Feadship F45 Vantage, giant nutella, Puerto Portals, stationery, Super yacht, TV
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June 18, 2009
Here are some pics of a commission I finished recently for super-ace Bristol artist Kathryn Thomas.
Katheryn got in touch with me through the recent Nature’s Way exhibition I did at the Grant Bradley Gallery in Bristol. She wanted a piece specially made for her then fiance as a surprise wedding present. It was a fantastic brief to work on – Katheryn wanted me to use images of her own paintings and a couple of little love notes that her man had written for her within the piece.
I scaled up images of her paintings to appropriate sizes and then had these printed out onto pearlescent paper. Then I scanned in the love notes she had and printed the text from these out onto tracing paper. Then I cut everything up and fixed it all into place in a specially made box frame.
I was really pleased to see the finished results and (thankfully) Husband and Wife were both really stoked with the piece too. It was really interesting for me to see this idea that I have been working on for some time now moved on to the next level using the new subject matters. The images of the paintings seemed to really lend themselves to this new format – which was fantastic considering how delicate all these tiny pieces are and how massive the original paintings are! The pearlescent papers really made the colours of the paintings shine out and they were a great contrast with the very flat looking tracing paper pieces.
- Hurrah!
Tags:commission, craft, entomology, Kathryn Thomas, painting, Paper
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June 15, 2009
I designed these wedding invitations recently for my cousin and his fiancée who are getting married in December.
I was really pleased with the results in the end. They are entirely printed using pearlescent card stock and the envelopes are made from lovely textured metallic papers.
The wedding is going to be held at Castle Leslie – a fantastic venue over in Ireland. The brief was for something traditional that would fit in with the castle theme, without it being too stuffy or old fashioned. They also wanted something that would feel quite christmassy due to the time of year the event is being held, which was why I decided to go for the shinier card stock and metallics.
I think the result is simple but classic. The invitations have been hand finished with the gate fold and the black band around the middle.
Clockwise from the top: Invitation with metallic aubergine envelope, Save the Date cards with metallic black envelope and small details card with a link on the back to the wedding website.
There will be Order of Service sheets printed up nearer the time with a gatefold and black band to match and then I guess the design will be continued through onto the table plan and place settings etc.
Lovely
Tags:castle leslie, metallic, pearlescent, save the dates, wedding invitations
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June 9, 2009
Much joy and celebration was to be had (very soberly) on Friday evening as my entry for the Grafikea competition in this year’s Bristol Design Festival bagged the first blummin’ prize!!
So sure was I that I would not be winning this competition, I missed the awards ceremony due to being at home trying to squeeze my ever expanding form into a variety of different outfits – D’OH! I got a call from a friend to say that I had won whilst I was in the car on my way to the event. I couldn’t believe it!
I was greeted on arrival to the design festival by a lovely trophy and a massive cheque!! (cheque was for £250 – but it was one of those massive ones like you see on telly – cooool!) Official photos were taken which I will post up on here as soon as I get them and I also did a quick ipadio phonecast interview which you can listen to here.
Here are some pics I took with my phone of my entry:
And this is a pic of my favourite entry entitled “Bristol Apple”:
Like a goon, I didn’t make a note of who this table was by – I can remember that his name was Olly. I had wanted to buy it, but some other punter came in and snapped it up before I had time to decide! Props to you Olly – it was super-cool!
For more info about the Grafikea competition and some more pics of the different entries, have a look-see here.
Tags:2009, Bristol Design Festival, butterflies, competition, entomology, Grafikea, insects, Paper, table
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April 16, 2009
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Helen Ward
