Button watch

Bead fair at Kempton

Last weekend I helped work on a stool at the Rock Gem 'n' Bead show at Kempton Park racecourse. This is my second time helping out small family business Beadbuyer, who sell beautiful semi-precious stone beads. It was really good fun actually and completely opens your eyes to a whole market that no one knows about, I cannot believe the amount of money some people spend on beads!! Although, some amazing jewellery could be made, especially if combined with the 98% pure silver beads and pendants that are also for sale on the stool.

who wants a moleskine?...

...when you can make your own! 
I have spent this morning and yesterday afternoon making this journal. I will probably use it when I go back to Uni in September. I used spare pages from an un-used Moleskine cahier and 1m card and book cloth for the covers. I also managed to teach myself how to add decorative inside covers and an elasticised fastening!

le petit paris post

Bonjour! Yes I am back from Paris and had a wonderful time, I took hundreds of photos as promised (400) but here is a mere 12 of them..

Le grande arch - amazing!!

The view from our hotel roof

The view from Tour Montparnasse

Excitement!

I'm off to Paris on Monday for a few nights, and I can't wait! I've been once but barely remember it so I'm expecting myself to take hundreds of photos. I made (ok customised) this little book to take with me as a kind of travel journal. The cover is vintage French wrapping paper with little stickers that I found in Accessorize. There's some cute stationary in there at the moment!

Back in a few days with a million photos of the Eiffel Tower no doubt!!

B if for...Buildings!!!

For some reason I've always had a fascination with tall things and skyscrapers (a geeky fact about me). Last week on a visit to London I finally decided to take some photos of Canary Wharf, okay they're not that tall, but currently the tallest in this country!!

B is for...Bunting!!

These are some photos I took (on my phone) on a walk along the Thames in Kingston on a lovely summers evening. There was bunting hung along the whole stretch of all the restaurants and bars on the river, I thought it made it seem so summery and happy!

I kind of want to make some of my own bunting out of scraps of fabric, very random I know but it has a certain cute village fete feel to it!

Living in the forest

I had a lovely time camping in the New Forest last month. The most nature-y holiday I've ever been on! Here are a few snaps.

I found being being amongst the nature really inspiring, so I did a few arty bits. The campsite was filled with chaffinches so using my British Birds book I painted one. I never seem to add much colour to my illustrations so it made a nice change. I also found an up-rooted tree that had shed all of it's bark, so I stole some for collages!