Its nice to get a pat on the back every now and then!...

I did this illustration for Illustration Friday quite a while ago now - the theme was acrobat!...

I've posted it again as it pretty much sums up how I've been feeling lately.  These last few months I've been spinning many plates with having 5 and 3 year old daughters around the house and a business that thankfully, seems to be steadily growing...I don't mind admitting that I've found it exhausting at times and exhilarating at other times.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining as I'm very grateful for my lot. I know its all part of being a mum - especially a self employed mum.  And lets face it, self employment is never an easy path to take.  

So, I simply want to send a massive PAT ON THE BACK to all my fellow self employed followers, particularly those of you who are doing this with 'babies on board' 

 you are all amazing and don't forget it!! :-)...

...Its important to get a pat on the back every now and again as a little morale boost....like the little pat I received last week from my old college friend Jo from Muddy Puddle Crafts , when she awarded me the Liebster Blog award.  Its lovely to receive an award - even sweeter to receive one from a good friend!

By accepting this award, I need to pay it forward to some other lovely blogs - the only condition being that those blogs have less than 200 followers.  

That's a tricky call, as quite a few of my favourite blogs have grown a bit bigger than 200 followers now, as I've been blogging for almost 2 years.  However, I've put my thinking cap on and come up with these 3 beautiful blogs:

Georgia Coote - a fab surface pattern designer with an eye for beautiful colour combinations and very, very pretty designs inspired by nature - just my thing

Pomme De Jour - in their own words 'Pomme de Jour is an eclectic mix of the inspired, original, vintage, and quirky. Based in the south of France, I offer all things vintage with that little touch of va va voom!' - they certainly do and it puts a smile on my face with every blog post.

Helen Hallows - A very talented artist with an inspiring and informative blog which is always a pleasure to read.

Hope you enjoy visiting those blogs as much as I do...

... as well as receiving a blog award, last week I received a runners up prize from Elf Designs giveaway - what a lucky girl I am!

They say the best things come in small packages and I believe that's true as this little dinky package arrived through my letterbox, and now I'm the proud owner of the gorgeous fabric badge below.  

I've decided it will live on the lapel of my jacket :-)

I hope you all have a great week!

Best wishes

Angie

1000 Fb Likes Giveaway - We Have A Lucky Winner!

Good evening everyone!

Thank you all so much for your overwhelming response to my giveaway, 

as I said in my last blog post, I really am truly grateful and welcome you all.

Well the time has come to let the random selector do it's thing!

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED...

All the names of the entries have been added to an excel spread sheet ('cos I'm a bit nerdy like that!)...

...there were 95 names in total once I'd taken into account messages and shares on here, fb and twitter.

I copied and pasted all the names from my excel file into this groovy little random selector tool I found on classtools.net.  I used this tool on my 500 likes giveaway and it made random selecting much more fun! ;-)

...its really rather cute because when you've entered the names, you can hit the 'Fruit Machine' button and then it jumbles all the names up and whizzes them around like a real fruit machine complete with realistic sound effects...and then you get a little cheer when it lands on the winner's name! ...

..And there you have it!...the very lucky winner is Laura at Rococco Creations! YAY! 

CONGRATULATIONS  Laura! :-)

Thank you everyone for taking part.

Laura, I'll be in touch to sort out getting your prize to you soon :-)

Best Wishes

Angie x

I'm One Lucky Lady!...

WOW!!...I hadn't quite realised the response I'd had to my giveaway, its safe to say 

my flabber has been gasted!! :-0!

HELLO to lots of lovely new faces here, It's going to take me a while to get around you all and come and say hello back, but I will do it as soon as I can!

Welcome everyone - its so good to see you all here.  I'm also blown away by the response on facebook, so many new likes and messages in the past few days...again it'll take me a little while but I will come and say hello back soon.  

I'm not the greatest social networker in the world.  Any of my friends will tell you, I've had a mobile phone for over a year with all the touch screen, whizzy social network stuff ...but I still struggle to send a text and don't really know how my phone works!  I was really happy with the old one, but it was getting a bit embarrassing to get it out in public as it was 'dated' to say the least!

That said, put me in front of a computer with a keyboard, mouse and better still, a graphics tablet  - or shove a pen in my hand and ask me to draw and I'm cookin' as I'm in my comfort zone :-)

If you've not entered my giveaway yet there is still time as it closes on Monday night, here's the link to find out all about it: 1000 likers Giveaway

I'm feeling a very lucky lady this week.  With Valentine's Day just gone, I'm definitely feeling that there is love in the air.  Firstly, there's the response the the giveaway.  Secondly, I got some gorgeous roses and was wined and dined by my wonderful husband.  Thirdly, I received an amazing parcel this week as a thank you for some work I did a couple of months ago....

...Some of you may remember that I was helping the fantastic Daisy Mooo set up their website (here it is - please go and have a look, it won't disappoint!:  http://www.daisymooo.com/ ).

I created a whole host of images for them to add to their site.  And, because they were using the same web hosts as my own website, I went and set a lot of the images up on their site so that they had a head start as they had a LOT of lovely products to post up...

...I'm so delighted with how they've put the final site together and how they've used the images I've created.  I really had a great time drawing all their fun and quirky creations as I'm a bit of a fan of theirs.

Imagine how excited I was when I received a parcel this week, as a thank you from Kim & Jess at Daisy Mooo for my efforts, with these gorgeous beach huts in... 

...this one is for my 5 year old daughter - as she loves all colours....

...and this one is for my 3 year old daughter, because only pink will do!...

..Aren't they lovely? they make me want to be beside the seaside with an ice-cream in my hand!

The photos really don't do the colours justice, they are so bright and cheerful and perfectly made - really good quality...and my girls absolutely LOVE them.

So you see, I really am a luck lady and hopefully one of you will be too on Monday evening when my Giveaway closes!!! (he he - see what I did there?)

Good Luck everyone and see you here on Monday to randomly select the winner!

Have a great weekend,

Angie x

Giveaway Time!

Hello, hello, hello!... how very exciting... I checked into facebook today and discovered that over the weekend I’ve reached over 1000 likers, YAY! *punches the air with joy!*...I’ve also reached over 200 followers on twitter and am only a handful away from 100 blog followers.  

Thank you all so, so much for your support, I am truly grateful and welcome each and every one of you!...

Of course this can only mean one thing – IT’S GIVEAWAY TIME!!!

To celebrate my little milestones on fb and twitter, I’m giving away a whopping bundle of 18 of my Life Is Sweet Greetings Cards. Yes, that’s right, 18!...

... basically, I'm offering the lucky winner one of each of the first 18 card designs in the range...

 ...all the cards are printed on premium art card and are completely Eco Friendly, and have been finished with little bits of flitter (that’s that shiny glitter stuff to those of you unfamiliar with flitter)... 

...here are each of the 18 designs.  All the cards are blank inside making them extremely useful to have to hand for those moments when you need to send a little ‘thank you’ or a ‘well done’, or a ‘thinking of you’, or an ‘I’m here for you’ ...or a even just a simple ‘I think your fabulous’

If you fancy getting your mitts on these twinkly, premium quality, eco friendly greetings cards here’s what you do:

How To Enter

To be in with a chance of winning all the items featured above, all you need to do is either follow my blog and leave a comment below to let me know that you do... OR like and share the link on my Facebook page OR retweet on Twitter – it really is as simple as that!   All those who help promote this giveaway are automatically entered.

The giveaway closes at 10pm (GMT) on Monday 20^th February and I’ll enter your names on a list and use a random selector to choose the lucky winner.

Good luck everyone and hope to see you back here next Monday night to announce the winner!  Angie J

It's Show Time!....

As some of you already know, yesterday I went to Spring Fair International at the NEC to see my designs in print on The Heart of a Garden's stand - 4F20 .  The main thing for me was to see my first ever gift wrap designs finally all printed up.  I'm so delighted with the finished result because the paper they're printed on is such wonderful quality and oh, so smooth (I kept having to have a stroke, I couldn't help myself!).

Also, I forgot to mention in my last post that the gift wrap is actually double sided (doh! sorry about that).  The cupcakes gift wrap has a pale pink and ditsy flower pattern on the back. The roses one has a pink with white polka dot back and the teapots one has a blue with white polka dot back - how very versatile...

...Along side the gift wrap sits the rest of my Life is Sweet range, nestled around lots of other gorgeous illustration and photographic cards and gift wrap.  I'm delighted that my designs are sharing shelves next to work by Oliver Lake - check out his gorgeous Etsy Shop -I love those animal duo illustrations...and also fellow Folksy seller Laura Kate Draws here's a link to her lovely, quirky Folksy shop 

....Look, that's my stuff at the NEC...woo hoo!...

...There's the new cards mixed in with the ones from last year....

...Oh, and mustn't forget the new note card designs, very handy indeed - you can never have too many of those in the desk drawer...

...and a there's some more on a spinner along side lots of other wonderful cards...

...but I didn't just hang about stroking gift wrap all day - oh no, no, no!...I was a woman on a mission and inspiration was my goal.  Wow! did I get inspired by the truck load.  If you've never been to the Spring Fair I would describe it a bit like a 3D Pinterest session - you walk around all the most wonderful gorgeous things you can imagine and you want it all! (mmm, must have pretty things!).  

I was particularly taken with Hall 6 -Contemporary Gift and Home.  In here were stands featuring likes of (and here comes a little link list of just some of the ones that caught my eye) : Rice, Bombay Duck, Belle & Boo, Rex International, Disaster Designs, Molly Mac, Nkuku, Pip Studio, Susie Watson Designs, Emma Bridgewater ...and Gisela Graham had created a wonderful area with little themed rooms (Christmas, Easter, little girls room etc) ...you simply wonder around drooling over everything as you go - well, I did anyway, I'm not ashamed to admit that....I could go on listing names, but I'm so tired after yesterday...my little feet still ache, I covered a lot ground in a short space of time.

All in all it was a really worthwhile trip, I'm buzzing with ideas - it's going to take me a few weeks to make sense of them all. 

I hope you're all having a great week too!

Best Wishes

Angie :-)