Feeling Rather Stitchy!...

I've re-discovered my sewing kit and am feeling a bit stitchy at the moment! This recent desire to sew has come about because for a while now, I've been wanting to make some fabric Christmas decorations which my children can lend a hand with.  Imagine my squeals of delight when this gorgeous little parcel above landed on my doorstep yesterday.  Its was a complete surprise from my friend Marna over at Little A Designs (please click the link as she's just started a blog of her own and its lovely!)...

...a couple of weeks ago I designed some instructions to go in Little A Designs, Rosette Kits (that's my doodles in the photo below).  Now I'm the proud owner of a Christmas themed Rosette Kit, complete with everything I need to make a very personalised rosette to hang in my house....

 It all looks nice and simple, I'm sure my eldest daughter will enjoy helping make it.  I'll let you all know how we get on and 'show and tell' the finished rosette on here.

Actually, that's not the only kit I have waiting to be worked on.  A little while ago, I did some design work for the lovely Annie The Felt Fairy  . Whilst doing the work I noticed she had these little kits (see below) - they look great fun and just the kind of project to enjoy with my girls, which they can hang on our Christmas tree when they're done....

 

....When we've made them up, I'll let you all have a look at them on here.  I'm a bit scared of showing and telling my sewing efforts really, as I know many of you blog followers are exceptional at needlecraft (eek!).  Please be gentle with me, don't forget drawing, painting and playing with vector graphics is my thing when all is said and done!...

...of course, last Friday was Children in Need day.  My daughter had to go to school 'showing her spots to raise lots'.  Problem was, she didn't have many spotty things to wear.  So I improvised, got my sewing box out and made this little number for her out of scraps of felt, buttons and embroidery thread - all hand stitched in a hurry (to say it was last minute is an understatement!)...

...still, the smile on her face meant it was worth it! ...

...Its not all about sewing though.  I'm very busy working on a variety of commissions at the moment, most of which can't be revealed yet.  Here's another sneaky peek at work done last week for you.  Can you see, I've been working on some portraits!...I've not done any for a little while and have totally enjoyed doing these.  I do love the challenge of trying to nail the likeness and capture people's expressions.  I'll show all in the New Year as these were commissioned as Christmas Presents.

Its almost the weekend, so have a good one everyone!

Angie

Craft fairs, carnival and a cheeky glimpse of work in progress...

I don't know about you, but I can't quite believe that its Christmas Shopping Fair season already.  I've done two fairs in the past few weeks and have two more to go next week and the week after.  I don't do that many, usually just ones that are linked to causes I care about most.  My theory is, by doing events for causes close to my heart I don't get upset if I don't sell much!....

..that said, usually what happens at these events is when I make a few sales it is swiftly followed by a few purchases from other stalls!  Its not a bad way to start Christmas shopping, but it does sort of defeat the object of having a stall in the first place.  Do you like my new sales assistant? that's my eldest and she's really giving it the hard sell, bless her!...

...Since my last blog post  our town had it's annual Guy Fawkes Carnival.  Bridgwater proudly boasts the biggest illuminated carnival in Europe. Approx 100,000 people lined the procession route to spend about 2 hours watching around 60 stunning carnival floats go by...

...They certainly entertained us with dazzling costumes and well rehearsed moves.  As you can see, some of the carts are like west end shows on wheels...

...Finally,  I've got a few things on the go at the moment commission wise.  I can't really reveal all for a couple of months, but as I'm such a tease I'm letting you have a cheeky peek at some work done last week...

....above is a quick glimpse of my desktop with work in action, these jolly little creatures are Minky Mooo's and they're bits of clip art I've been creating for Daisy Mooo's website (which is coming very soon, so you won't have to wait a couple of months to see those).

Hope you all have a great week,

Angie :-)

Never Give Up On Your Dreams!...

Hello, you've caught me in a 'count my blessings' frame of mind today.  

For all of you lovely loyal blog followers, I think it is time I shared a little bit of background about who I am and how I've ended up doing all that you see on this blog.  So, sit back, relax and enjoy my story...

Once upon a time, back in the days when grunge ruled the radio (no sign of ipods or MP3s) and when anyone under 21 smelled like teen spirit! (there, sort of given away my age!)...a young girl from Somerset had a hand full of drawing pens and a head full of dreams and was busy creating all kinds of illustrative magic for her degree show.  She was particularly fond of decorative illustrations for greetings cards, children's books and she did a fair bit of paper engineered pop up greetings cards for her final show.  All went well, she walked away with her degree and some sweet memories of good times ;-)

She then headed to the bright lights of London to try and find work in the design industry.  Problem was, back in those days, unless you specialised in typography at this particular Uni, you had very little or no access to the adobe design packages you would need to be an attractive prospect to any potential design employers.  So, this young lady ended up getting a sideways career in advertising and brand design, as a client service account manager not a designer.  Not that she'd ever really complain about that, it was a great career to have as a twenty something in swinging 'Brit Pop' London... besides, she learned loads about business, design and marketing...

Still, none of that compared to the thrill she got when, one lunchtime whilst browsing in the National Gallery's shop, she found a 'Drawing Figures' book that had some of her student life drawings in....

...she immediately rang home from a payphone in the Gallery's basement (it was the early to mid 90's, even ad execs didn't have their own mobile phones back then!) ...she squealed down the phone "Dad! dad! my art is in the National Gallery!.....shop!....in a book! ...still, its under the same roof as Gustav Klimt, I've MADE IT!"...

Ahh, but the years went by, and she fully believed she was happy working in advertising...but the drawing and painting drifted away until she barely had a tube of gouache or bottle of masking fluid to her name :-(

Then, as luck would have it, she finally met her prince charming (actually, she knew him all this time, but that's another story).  He had also studied illustration and was known to illustrate cartoon strips on occasion.  He charged into her life brandishing an E Mac complete with Adobe Creative Suite ready installed. She wasted no time and set to work getting herself up to speed on those elusive design programmes.  A few years later, they married and two beautiful daughters blessed their lives.  As her daughters' passion for drawing, painting and being creative grew, she became increasingly inspired - she even began a blog...this blog! :-)...

...So there you have it, my journey to this blog.

What made me write this?  Well, with all the jobs and projects I've been working on recently, I've finally began to feel like I'm doing the job I was born to do, which is why I'm counting my blessings.

Also, the main reason is because a few days ago I had another 'National Gallery' moment!  It was thanks to a phone call from the publishers who are printing and distributing all my Life is Sweet range of greetings cards.  They called to let me know who has placed orders for some of my range.  Amongst the list they gave me was the name of a particular organisation I had in my mind as one of my 'dream' stockists for the cards when I was designing them...I never actually believed I'd get an opportunity for my cards to be stocked in their shops.  I promise to reveal all to you as soon as I've seen the cards in one of their shops, as seeing is believing in my book.  I'm very excited though, as you can imagine! :-)

However, I can let you know that my cards are being stocked in a small chain of greetings card shops called Thoughts Cards, here's their website: http://www.thoughtscards.com/

You'll find my cards on their website scattered amongst the 'blank and friendship cards' category.  My spies have been and checked out the cards in their Bath store, the report I got back was 'looking good' - yay! :-)

So, its happy days for which I'm very grateful.  And, a very big lesson learned, NEVER give up on your dreams!

I hope you'll all ...

Have a great weekend!

Angie x