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White Entomology

birdface — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:12:17 +0000

We are holding an open weekend where I work at BV Studios next month from the 14th-16th October. More details on that to follow – but here are some pics I have of a couple of pieces I will be showing over the weekend…

Laser cut wedding invitations ♡

birdface — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 12:48:05 +0000

Here are some invitation designs I did for some friends of ours. I was pleased with how they turned out – I love having a play with laser cutting and it appears to be fast becoming my default wedding invitation style. I find it’s a good way of having a super-posh looking invite without it costing the earth. The only printing on here is on the inserts, so I just had to source the plain card in the right colour to send to the cutters. The inserts were done at a local print shop and I bought the self-adhesive gems from eBay. I think the whole lot came at about £175 for 100 invites and good quality envelopes (excluding design time and hand-finishing) – not a bad price for such a personal and unique invitation, eh?

It’s going to be an autumn wedding. The bridesmaids and the groomsmen’s ties are going to be in blue and they are planning to have lots of pumpkins around for decoration, so the colours should work well I think. Lovely.

Cocktail umbrella wreath tutorial

birdface — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:10:22 +0000

Mmmmmm Pinterest…

I have been spending what is probably far more time than is healthy drooling over this site for the last few weeks. It was my friend Carolyn’s birthday last weekend and I had seen on her account that she liked these cocktail umbrella wreaths. Thinking I was the queen of genius, I proceeded to make said cocktail umbrella wreath as a gift for her. I rocked up to her party brandishing an enormous box with the wreath in it and gave it to her. Only then did I discover that she had already blummin’ made one to decorate her house for the party!
BAH! My wreath giving high promptly crashed down in flames.

Should I have asked if she had made herself one already?
Is this new Pinterest etiquette that I am not aware of?
AND…
Surely this situation begs the question (*Carrie Bradshaw voice*) – How many cocktail umbrella wreaths is enough?

I am hoping the answer to that is “At least two”!
Here’s a little tutorial for how I made it:

Observer Ethical Awards 2011 – official pics of trophies :)

birdface — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:24:32 +0000

I have been sent through a few of the official images from the Observer Ethical Awards last month, so I thought I’d post some of them up…

Setting up the Dome Room at the V&A before the guests arrived.

All the trophies lined up on the stage with the butterfly backdrop. (the trophies had to be arranged sideways so the winners weren’t revealed too early!)

We put the white pieces in the main room of the ceremony as they seemed to fit in better with the decor and the lighting. The other pieces I showed with the colourful marble papers were better suited in the entrance hall.

Lily Cole presenting the Conservation award to Thurrock Thameside Nature Park.

Livia Firth (that’s The Firth’s wife to you and I) presenting the Global Campaigner award to Greg Valerio.
Greg invited Colombian gold miner Luis Americo Mosquera to accept the award alongside him, so it was a really lovely moment. Americo represents the Oro Verde mining group – one of the first groups certified against the Fairtrade and Fairmined Standards.
It was the Oro Verde mine which supplied the gold for Livia Firth’s Oscar jewellery, which she wore on the red carpet when husband Colin accepted his Academy Award for Best Actor, so it was fitting that she presented the award on the night.

Lola Young (baroness and ambassador for Ethical Fashion Forum and MADE-BY) presenting the Blog award to Shirahime.

Photos: Katherine Rose

Paper Entomology at Art Hamptons

birdface — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:06:15 +0000

You know the Hamptons?
Yeah, that’s the one – the one that’s in New Freaking Yoik?!
Well, I’ve got some work up for sale in a show there this weekend – just sayin’…

The show will be on from the 8th-10th July with the Private View on the Thursday 7th from 6-9pm at: Sayre Park, 154 Snake Hollow Road, Bridgehampton, NY 11976.

More info about the show can be found here.

As is now the norm with any exciting international art show that I am involved with, I will not be attending. I will instead be going to a four year old’s birthday party on a farm near Yeovil – which I think will probably be a much more glamourous affair!

Design for The Observer Ethical Awards 2011 trophies

birdface — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:00:37 +0000

You know every so often stuff happens in your life that is just outrageously cool? Well, this happened to me recently when I was asked to make the trophies for this years’ Observer Ethical Awards – woo-hoo!!

The theme of the event this year was butterflies and each award was to be a box of butterflies made from recycled papers. There were 12 trophies to be made in all and each one was designed specifically with the recipient in mind. This was SUCH a lovely job to work on as I did loads of research on each of the winners and it was so nice to be able to make things for such a deserving bunch – hurrah!
Here are some pics of each of the trophies:

This larger award was for the Lifetime Achievement Award, which went to James Lovelock. He got gold leaf in his too for being so clever!

Here is a little film of Mr. Lovelock receiving his award
(I didn’t even pay him to say that!)

The award ceremony was held at the V&A Museum in London. It was a super-cool night and I was very honoured to be asked to show some of my work during the event. Here are some pics:

Me and Leigh Tunnadine (who did all my beautiful framing for me) before the event started.

Me with one of the smaller pieces of work that I had on show. All my stuff looked SO tiny once we got it into the museum, it was ridiculous!

All the trophies lined up and ready to be handed out.

Leigh with one of the white pieces.

Us with James and Seb from the Bristol Bike Project, highly deserved winners of the Grassroots Award!
(massive well done, Bristol chums!!)

With the inspirational Carry Somers, founder of Pachacuti and winner of the Fashion and Accessories Award, sponsored by Vogue.com.

With Greg Valerio, ethical jeweller and winner of the Global Campaigner Award.

All in all, it was pretty blummin’ marvellous!
Props to Gilly Woo for dressing me in all her handmade finery and preventing me from looking like a hobo in my hour of need!!

More official photos are to follow…

Commission with Maps

birdface — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:43:54 +0000

Here are some images of a commission that I finished a few weeks ago. The piece was made as a present from a man to his wife for a special birthday. I was given a list of references for Google Maps that represented special places in the couple’s life, like where they got married, where their children were born and memorable holidays. I scoured the local second hand shops, charity shops and car boot sales to find a selection of different maps that were all a bit different and which fitted in well together.
The pictures show the final result. I used a few new butterfly shapes so that the silhouettes would be relevant to that place and tried to match up each shape with an appropriate place as far as I could.

I thought the finished piece looked great and apparently it became a very well received gift, which is lovely to know!

Chicago Art Fair

birdface — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:40:10 +0000

Holy moly – this is an exciting one!
I will have work for sale in the Chicago Art Fair starting next week from April 29th – May 2nd at: 222 Merchandise Mart Plaza, Chicago, IL 60654

Just to get an idea of how awesomely cool that is, here is a pic of the place it’s being held in:

- WOWZERS – that’s one helluva building!

As is now the tradition with any exciting sounding exhibition that I am involved with, I will not be attending the show and shall remain at home with the fam. It’s just as well this time though, as the show is on at the same time as the royal wedding – one will surely be very busy hanging around under some bunting, eating cucumber sandwiches and quaffing gin from a teacup…

Let me know if you go – I’d love to know what it’s like!

Screen Print

birdface — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 22:23:17 +0000

Here are a couple of pics of a screen print I have had made for my Helen Ward Studio project.
The print will be available soon through my new shop on notonthehighstreet.com – YAY!

One Sixth of Tommy

birdface — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:42:56 +0000

I have been doing a spot of design work for the peeps over at Helium Records.
Here is some artwork for the debut single to be released by new band One Sixth of Tommy:

Album artwork is to follow.
To hear the single “For Always”, you can grab yourself an exclusive free download over here.