Thought I'd share ten pretty useful tools for all of my drawing and jewellery making needs! :)
1. Pencils in all hardnesses. Softer for shading, harder for outlines, and even harder for sketching light lines.
2. I love these pencils. They have soft leads and the drawing can be brushed over with water to make a watercolour effect.
3. Black small tipped pens in a range of sizes from teeny weeny hairline and thicker. 0.7 is about as big as I go.
4. Soft bristle paintbrushes, round heads for washes and pointed ones for details.
5. Craft scissors for general use and pointed hair-cutting scissors for detailed cutting (and stabbing dried glue out of the top of the tube..)
6. Pliers x 2, I use both of them at once to open jump rings and things.
7. A wooden centimetre/millimetre ruler, and a paper inch one from Ikea that I always have to consult when buying supllies in inch measurments.
8. Watercolour paints, and gouche for heavier painting.
9. A jar of wood stain. I hand-stain all the wooden pieces of my jewellery with a darker wood stain made up from powder.
10. A tiny notebook (from Liberty... I love...) thats the perfect size to go everywhere with me, and holds notes about supply stores to visit, hand-drawn maps, and to do lists.
xo
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I recently finished up a logo and blog design for Fiona MacNeill, a lovely photographer in Scotland. She contacted me through Freckled Nest, as she wanted a new logo to for her photography business that was modern, chic and matched her fun and loving personality. She also wanted a new online space where she could share her work and thoughts with friends and clients.
And here it is! A design using a combination of a creamy Bokeh background, layered paper, typewriter & handwriting style fonts (to evoke thoughts of little love notes!) and sweet pastel icons. I'm really happy how it turned out, the whole look makes me think of a luxurious-cupcake-love & sweetness-celebration! (That's a thing...)
I'd love it if you popped over to have a look, and say hi to Fiona while you're there, I know she'd love love love to hear from you :)
I'll be sharing a few more design projects in the next little while, stay tuned! xo
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Amazing photos of Auditions For A Black Cat via Lovelorn Unicorn
Supercool paintings of Pixellated Animals by Laura Bifano (via Design Taxi)
Cute to the max Washi Tape Keyboard Makeover by Minifanfan Eng (via Poppytalk)
The prettiest Strawberry Manicure by The Dainty Squid!
Also, lovely Leigh-Ann wrote such a sweet post about my Pretty Zoo Jewellery, and miss Kelly-Ann featured a wee interview with moi yesterday! Yay! I love these ladies!
xo
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Yay, cards! Thought I'd share a little peek into some of the card designs I'm having printed. I'm going to see how they go at Renegade London next weekend, then maybe pop them online too. I love how they came out, they're printed onto really nice textured recycled card which holds the pencil work well. (Can I just say that I'm loving my floor to photograph things on! It's so old and wooden and weathered and delicious! In a visual way, I wouldn't lick it.)
I'm also trying out a new glaze for my porcelain pieces, it's a shiny, thick coating that should protect the images better and create an even nicer look. These are the ones I coated yesterday, all laid out to dry! Can't wait til they're done!
xo
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I have a new blog feature I'd like to introduce, it's called the Covet List, and is pretty self-explanatory... it's a visual list of things I'm coveting, and pretty much an excuse to look at lovely things and lay them out in circular shapes. Hope you'll enjoy!
Yesterday I spent some time in Anthropologie, wishing I could live there. The boy met me there and I proceeded to take him by the elbow and lead him around pointing at wall displays and things, saying 'That, and that!' It lasted about 10 seconds before he laughed at me saying 'You're just pointing at things!' And then got preoccupied with his iphone. Obviously because the things I'm pointing at are so pretty, and I need you to see them, and I don't have to say anything about them because you should just soak up the awesomness with your eyes. Silly boy.
Anyway, these are some of the things I coveted. I refuse to feel like an adult just because I'm admiring kitchenware, please know that I'd never use them for what they're intended for, but only to put pretty things on/in and to play make believe tea parties with. I LOVE the idea of those beetle and frog dessert plates.
xo
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A couple of weeks ago I finally got to meet Lesley- a fellow traveller, who I 'met' through our blogs while living in Germany. Lesley and her husband Adam moved to Holland from Canada this year and we got to chatting over twitter, email and skype as we shared foreign circumstances and the same time zone!
Lesley is an amazing photographer and she was popping over to London to do an engagement shoot for her friends, and she kindly agreed to take some photos of us! (Steve and I 'turned five' recently and thought it would be cool to get some pictures!)
It was so much fun to meet up with Lesley and chat in person over coffee, then Steve met us and we strolled around Angel while Lesley snapped away! She got some great shots and it was a fun new thing to try for us, so thank you so much lady! Can't wait to see you again in London soon! xo
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These Autumny dresses by The Velvet Bird (above) and Vanilla and Lace (below)
This amazing map lightshade! (I love the book one too!)
Emma shared some gorgeous photographs she discovered.
Elsie's Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate recipe looks delicious!
Last but not least, I've been busy making jewellery for Renegade London! How excited am I?! The lovely Lily of FrillybyLily offered to go halvies in a stall and of course I said yes! She makes gorgeous jewellery out of vintage and upcycled bits and pieces, I can't wait! :)
Hope you've had a great week! xo
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I love these three works by Terry Fan, the muted colours and moodiness are so pretty. He has a lot more prints available similar to these which are definitely worth checking out.
Rudy Faber's style is a bit different to the art I usually like but I love his use of colour and the subjects are right up my art alley!
I discovered these artists while browsing prints on Society 6, they have free shipping until Sunday and it's taking all my will-power not to buy any! I may cave.
xo
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Okay, so that picture doesn't really sell it's deliciousness, but I made a soup on Sunday that the boy dubbed 'The Soup Win'. He went to Whole Foods on Monday and came home to tell me my soup was better than theirs (fist pump!) It's the perfect soup for if you're feeling a bit sniffly or you're coming down with something, a bowl of it will make you feel all warm and healthy and like you can kick any colds butt! (I'm not bragging, that's just how I felt!)
**I think if you're vegetarian it would still be delicious if you take out the chicken and just use vege stock.
I made it the recipe up to my taste, which means LOTS of garlic and stock and herby tastiness, so it's definitely tweakable to taste.
Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
2 tsp mixed dried herbs
1 cup chopped fresh coriander
400gm chicken breast, cut into small chunks
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 small head of brocolli, chopped small
1 small leek, chopped small
1 cup baby corn, chopped
250gms cooked egg noodles
2 litres chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
What to do with it all:
Cook onion for 2 mins, then add chilli powder, cumin, mixed herbs and 3 cloves of choped/crushed garlic. Cook it all until its soft. Add chicken and cook until its sealed (white on the outside, pink in the middle don't cook it right through or it'll be tough) Transfer all of that from the pan and put it aside for a little while. Add oil to pan (don't rinse it first! You wanna keep the pan flavours!) cook brocolli, mushrooms, leek, corn and 1 clove chopped garlic until all soft.
In a massive pot, bring your stock to boil, then add chicken mix, vegetable mix, your fresh coriander, salt and pepper, and if you want, a couple more garlic cloves. Simmer for 10 minutes, then add cooked noodles. Simmer for another 10 mins, taste it, add more stuff if you want. Then pour it into a huge mug (making sure to get lots of noodles and chicken and veges!) and go sit on the couch with a big blanket and watch some trashy tv.
xo
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I filled up my new letterpress tray ~slash shadowbox ~slash jewellery display last night! Doesn't it look pretty? Then I shone (shined? shone?) the lamp towards it to take some photos, they came out pretty harsh of course but I think it looks dramatic ;)
So there's a little sneak peek into one of the areas in our room I started decorating! And below it is my clothes hanger that (seeing as I have a huuuge wardrobe now) has been repurposed into a Pretty Zoo Pendant Hanger! It's handy to just hang pieces up as I make them, and I can always see exactly what I have. I do wish it was wood and wasn't so ugly and chrome-y... but it's okay for a makeshift hanger!
When I find the sun shining into our room again I'll make sure to take some pictures of the two other areas I've been working on.... :)
Now I'm going to go have my 5th cup of tea and try not to think about having a cold!
P.S. I'm so excited to be featured on Danielle's lovely blog Sometime's Sweet today!! It's Tattoo Tuesday! ;)
xo
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