Preparing to turn 40

Hello everyone!  Good to see the sun and blue skies back again, what a glorious weekend we've just had! ...and with the clocks changing over the weekend, it feels great to see the back of winter, I love this time of year when the daffodils come out and colour starts popping into our lives again!

Firstly, I'm sorry it's been a while since my last blog post.  Time is flying by at this end and I'm experiencing very busy times.  It's so busy in fact that some of you may have noticed the sign below cropping up on my sites...

...I've had to take the difficult decision to close my order book early before Easter, as it is absolutely booked solid until the beginning of July and I really need time to get the orders I have in done.  The past few weeks I'd been spending lots of time answering email enquiries and taking briefs for jobs in the early summer months when I really needed to be working on the designs booked in for this month.  Basically, something had to give as I only have limited hours in the week to work on things due to having a 3 year old daughter at home with me most of the week.     

I must admit, I've been completely blown away by the level of enquiries I've had in the past 3 months...and to be honest and I was totally unprepared for it ...but I am so very appreciative to all those who have had to wait and those who are waiting for designs from me - your patience and understanding amazes me, I am so grateful to you all and am genuinely humbled!

Since closing the order book, its made things much easier to get on track with all the orders.   I also needed the time to review things and make sure I'm prepared for how to handle things in the future in a way that restores some balance to my life!...

...but, as you can see from the title of this post, it's not just design orders that are keeping me busy at the moment.  I have two very important birthday celebrations to prepare for.   In the Easter holidays, my eldest daughter will be 6 years old, so there are pretty girly party plans to be put in place.  Also in the Easter Hols, I'll be celebrating my *cough, cough, splutter* 40th birthday! YIKES!where did those years go?!!...

I'm totally in denial about my age as I still feel about 14 in my mind!...anyhow, having a creative mind helps me get over the age issue - simply put a crayon in my hand and I'm in a happy place!

A few weeks ago, I created this little image as a new illustration print to sell on my online shops...

...the thing about this house print is that creating it turned out to be a bit of therapy for me as its helped me comes to terms with my pending 40'ness...it's basically a warm and fuzzy recollection of my childhood in the '70s ...and I really enjoyed creating it.  It sort of reminds me of BBC's Playschool and some flowery cushions we used to have on the sofa back then.  This print is one of those 'put your own photo's in the windows' ones as I've cut apertures out of the windows and it's now listed in my Folksy shop, Etsy Shop and on my website.

The order book may be shut for a few weeks, but my shops are still very much open:

http://www.artworkbyangie.com/ 

http://folksy.com/shops/artworkbyangie 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/artworkbyangie 

Before I sign off, I'd like to leave you with this jolly tune to put a spring in your step now the days are getting longer.  This tune has been playing in my head ever since I saw it on one of those late night repeats of Top of the Pops from the 1970s (again its all part of my turning 40 therapy - please bear with me, 

normal service will be resumed shortly!!).  

I found this clip of that TOTP episode on You Tube.  It's a song by the Detroit Spinners called 'Rubberband Man' and it features the dance group  Ruby Flipper.... it basically sums up everything that makes me smile about that era of my life and takes me back to being a 4 year old dancing around the living room to TOTP (in my heart I'm still very much there!)...I just love the carefree dancing in stripy jumpers and knickers combos and the explosion of colours - it's guaranteed to raise a smile, so click the link and enjoy! :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfA6wW75gEg 

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine too!

Have a great week

Angie :-)

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