button magnets

a couple more items for my shop

today is sunny & nice

a silk flower i picked up at a vintage flea market.

i posted out my pay it forward packages yesterday. i hope they arrive ok.

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shopping

these two items have just been added to my shop.


they are hand painted wooden parrots that i picked up in a local flea market & transformed into brooches.
a yellow parrot & a blue one!

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etsy

I've just added a couple of new items to my etsy shop.


I picked up these dominoes in a charity shop the other day and decided to make some magnets and pin badges with them.
I thought they'd make good birthday gifts (for ages 1-66).

Here's hoping they sell.

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thank you very kindly

as promised here are some pictures of the wonderful pay it forward packaged i received last week from sue over at sooziebee.



the package included a beautiful stitched card and framed illustration - thanks again sue. (and i'm not sure if i'll ever get around to sending the card as i think i'd rather keep it for myself!)

yesterday i went for tea with my friend eleanor and we ended up jumping on the train to Lewes to visit The Old Needlemakers, which has a vintage flea market full to the brim of lovely finds (and there was a half price sale on too!). I picked up this hair clip for 50p - how very cheap.


and here's a picture of the pile of crocheted granny squares i am gradually accumulating - soon i'll have made enough for a blanket! I'll just have to wait for winter to come around again then, as I'm pretty sure the summer is almost here - splendid.


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A is for

pay it forward

earlier this week i received the most wonderful package in the post from sooziebee as part of her pay it forward idea (pictures to follow shortly).

so now it's my turn to return pass on the favour. here's how it works:

“I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this pay it forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, which is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

so there we go, that's it. I'm awaiting your comments!

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fish & chips

on wednesday i went to the sealife centre.




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knit knit knit

Last week I paid a visit to cardigan which is a studio/shop run by Kate Jenkins (a graduate of Brighton university) and dedicated to knitted creations.

There were so many lovely little items for sale - here are a couple of postcards i picked up:



The knitted food objects on display are delightful and the project entitled comfort food - a collection of framed knitted meals - is amazing, very delicate and colourful. Unfortunately there weren't any in the shop for me to look at when I went as they were in a exhibition in another part of Brighton.

However, when I was talking to Kate she was telling me that she is currently working on creating a knitted garden installation in her studio as part of the artists open houses festival in may. So I've noted that down in my diary and would recommend it if any of you happen to be in brighton around the same time.

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very musical

story time

We had a book day at university the other day, which basically involved us each bringing in 6 books we like and then spending some time looking at and discussing what others had brought in. (I took in this & this amongst others).

There was an amazing selection of things to see and by the end of the day I had a huge list of books I wanted to own myself.

One of the books was this - The Happy Hocky Family by Lane Smith.


It's so nice that I couldn't resist buying it straight away.
It's full of very short, rather funny little stories and the illustrations are truly delightful. I especially like the paper used for the pages which I think compliments the imagery perfectly.


so very nice.

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typography

recently i've been really interested in hand drawn type and have been playing around with drawing letterforms.
here's a little alphabet i created the other day.


i think some letters work better than others but it was just nice to have a play and a doodle.


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good day to you

bits & pieces

I feel I haven't been very wordy of late and am going to try and write more on my blog from now on, as well as posting images.
I've got some bits & bobs to share today - firstly, is this new magazine I've subscribed to:


It's called okido and is aimed at children aged 2-7 which means it has some really lovely illustrations within it. I thought it would inspire me as I'm interested in creating an illustrated childrens book as part of my MA course.
Here are some sneak peeks of what is inside issue 3:



Some other things i'd like to share:

• a swedish horse magnet from the lovely rachel.
• some crochet i'm working on
• a nice toy tin pecking bird I picked up at the museum of childhood when I took a trip to london the other week.


I'd definitely recommend a visit to the museum of childhood if you're ever in the bethnal green area. It's FULL of amazing vintage toys (as well as more modern creations) and the gift shop is also pretty special.
While I was in london I also visited the V&A where they had an exhibiton entitled 'Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft'.


There was some great work there and I particularly liked the installation piece by Anne Wilson which was created using hundreds of pieces of lace and crocheted thread, all very intricate and tiny.


It was definitely worth a peek.

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orange pepper

more post

LOOK what came in the post today:


yes, that's right, a lovely copy of 'the alphabet series' from lazy soosan. It's a new zine created by lucy and laura and is based around letters of the alphabet (so the 1st issue is all about the letter A). just have a look at some of the lovely illustrations...


super stuff. i can't wait for the 'B' issue.

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h e l l o

in my room

i do like the postman

look what i got in the post this week:



a desk calendar from the very talented rob ryan.
he's been mailing them out to anyone who sends him a stamp addressed envelope so get in quick if you want one (check out his blog for more information)

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happy snaps

it's my brother's birthday on wednesday so i've made him a card.
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