Holiday!

I'm off camping to the New Forest now!

Paris bead bracelets

I've known about My Vintage Charms for a while now but never bought anything, but when I found out I'm going to Paris in July (eeee!) I wanted to make a few Parisy bits of jewellery. I ordered 6 mini Eiffel tower charms, in silver and gold, and a large gold one. I also bought these mini spoon charms as they're so cute. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do with them until I remembered the beads I bought from the bead fair I helped at last month. 

So I made these...

I think My Vintage Charms is amazing and such good value (£1.50 for 3 mini Eiffels) You can make your own jewellery so much cheaper, if you can be bothered I suppose. Also the packaging was rather lovely! I was wondering about adding these bracelets to my Becky's Buttons (and beads maybe?!) collection, but they take quite a while to make...hmm...

Work in progress

Last week I took part in the Work in progress show...The first and second year's part of UCA Epsom's Graphics degree show at the Bargehouse in London. I'm so glad I did! It was an amazing experience and I found myself so motivated working in such a creative and raw atmosphere.

Myself, Nat, Clare & Nayd spent 2 days straight working on this giant cross stitch which acted as a sign for the show. I see a 200 x 100cm + piece of peg board and of course I'm going to think cross stitch!! It was tedious but good fun, we hope to finish it one day!

Design Analysis

My last project at Uni was a Design Analysis where i had to investigate the area of the industry that I hope to go into. I chose illustration. It was really exciting and inspiring 4 weeks for me and I got to talk to some amazing people. I learnt a lot about the world of illustration as well as myself.


For my final presentation I decided to illustrate my findings using my own illustrative style, which somehow ended up being a washing line with all my research pegged up...





I really enjoyed drawing lots of pegs!

Pick Me Up

I went to the Pick me up fair at Somerset House twice, as I loved it so much! The reason for me going in the first place was to see some of my favourite designers work such as Claire Scully, Sarah King and Rob Ryan. This show just happened to give me the amazing opportunity to interview some of these for my design analysis project. 

Handmade button sketchbook

I'm going to Scotland tomorrow so I made this sketchbook to take with me for my 3 1/2 hour train journey. Inside it has plain cartridge paper pages and an embossed button on the cover. + a ribbon bookmark.


I also took some photos of all my handmade books together, I'm so pleased with them! I want to start making books with an actual context.

New book - mini notebook

I made this little book whilst procrastinating over my contextual studies essay! It's a little pocket notebook with found paper pages and bird cage paper cover. + a ribbon bookmark.

Lino printing

For the past few Thursday evenings I have been taking part in a relief print workshop, which I signed up for as I had never really done it before. I decided to keep it simple and cut one of my bird illustrations into lino, taking a print each time as I cut more away...

I also tried cutting into a woodblock, which I think takes a lot more practice! (This is supposed to look like tree bark)

I really enjoyed doing this so I will hopefully be experimenting with it more soon.

Book making workshop

Today I took part in a book making workshop run by Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck. I had learnt book binding before but was so excited to make my own hard back book. 
It was a busy day with lots to take in, but I am so happy with the outcome of my first hard back book! I decided to go for a map/envelope/travel theme...

Mono printing

Some experimental prints from a mono-printing workshop.




I created the above image by printing using textured wallpaper.