Well I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to write about today. I'm in the middle of cutting a wedding invitation design but it would be extremely rude to put the pictures up here before it's been seen by the bride and groom.....

 

So I am thinking that I'll just put up a few photos that I've taken over the week. That might be more interesting than if I drone on about nothing. First off is my daughter's mono print master piece that she did at the living craft exhibition in Hatfield last weekend. Not bad for aged 3!

 

I took the kids into London this week and went to the Aquarium and the Tate Modern. You can probably guess which one the kids preferred. Anyway, we took LOADS of photos. Some of which may inspire my cutting......

 

                        

 

My little Picasso in the making decided that she could do a painting like this one;

So as soon as we got home she did. And decided that it would be improved by an extra stripe. So there.

 

All "Art and Crafted" out

Well, what a busy weekend!

If you have been reading my previous posts or my Facebook page, you'll know that I had a stall at the Arts for Herts Market in St Albans this Saturday. I have to admit that in terms of sales, it was a rather disappointing day..... Despite this, I came away with a new found enthusiasm, tonnes of new ideas and met lots of talented and friendly people.

This is what my stall looked like;

I loved the colours, but I could probably work on my presentation.... I was sat next to a really talented local artist, Josie Fichera. Like me, she has not been selling her work for that long and was her first time at an art & craft fair. This is my favourite of her pieces. 

 

She doesn't have a website yet so I can't link to her contact details unfortunately!

I also ended up buying something, as I knew I would....... I didn't break the bank though (and spent less than I took, which I guess is a bonus) I treated myself to a pair of earrings made in Liberty print fabrics from this truly lovely stall, Made By Bea.

Needless to say, I have plenty of my London prints left, so have a look at my Folksy shop!

I may not have sold much, but it was so nice to get out and about and talk to people! I usually do everything in the evenings in my living room and my only interaction with other people is over the internet (in terms of making pictures, I do have some real life friends...), so it gave me a boost to see some real people look at and say lovely things about my work.

And on that note, I will leave you with words of Jen Roffe. I bumped into Jen at the printers on Friday, and it turns out that she sells her amazing prints at the same shop that has been stocking my cards. Go and have a look at her Etsy shop!

I was planning to regale you all with our family outing the the Living Crafts exhibition at Hatfield House on Sunday, but even I am a little bit tired of hearing about craft fairs for today. So I will leave that treat for you another time:-)



This week I have mostly been.....

.......getting ready for the Arts For Herts Market on 11th May. This is my first ever art & craft fair and I don't really know what to expect. So I've just put my head down, got my scalpel out and I'll fill up my table as much as I can! I am quite taken with my woolly themed trio of papercuts, which you may have seen in progress on my Facebook page. I managed to get them framed this afternoon. If they don't get snapped up at the weekend, then I'll put them on Folksy. I think they'll look rather fetching on my stall!

 

 

 

 

I do love a bit of knitting and crochet. I can't even remember how young I was when I was taught. I can't even remember whether it was my Mum or my Granny who taught me. My Mum ALWAYS had knitting needles in her hands when I was small. I remember her falling asleep on the couch one evening with a jumper on the go. And she just carried on knitting in her sleep. Now, I am far too rubbish to be able to make a jumper in my sleep (see my previous post about how I started to knit a babygrow when I was pregnant with my son. He's 16 months old now and I haven't even made the sleeves yet) but I like to give it a go.

 

I have also finished cutting my London pieces. The originals aren't framed yet, and I wanted to get some professional prints done of them to sell. Unfortunately I've been let down by the printing firm, so I've had to find someone else to do them at the last minute. GRRR!

 

On a completely different subject, I want to show you my most favouristist thing I have ever made ever in the world. I made this for a friend of mine to celebrate the arrival of her little boy. It turned into a bit of a labour of love, as I massively underestimated how long it would take to cut, and I got quite poorly half way through it, but it was worth it in the end. I love it!

 

 

 

Once I am done with the craft fair and my wedding invitations, I will probably put this up on Facebook and Folksy in case anybody wants to commission something similar. And if they don't, I might have to do another one for my own children.......

Wedding Fever.....

.......is here again!

I went along to the St Albans Wedding Fair on Sunday, along with the other members of the 'firm' (aka Heritage Classic Cars ). I didn't take any photos this time, other than one of my sketch book on the stall. I don't really want to post that one up here as I was working on my most recent wedding invite design and the customer in question hasn't seen the draft yet! As usual, there were so many pretty things on show! There was a particularly impressive balloon archway in the entrance hall - I didn't note down the company that made it, so will have to hunt them down and give them a mention!

Seeing as I didn't take any photos myself, I will have to share with you the work of another blogger Anna, at The Dusty Attic who recently shared her own wedding mood board. These images make me think of fairy lights, cider, hay bales and dancing outdoors. I may be well of the mark with that though.... Anyhow, I think it's going to be a beautiful wedding!
 

 

 

 

I also want to share a photo of the wedding dress that the bride whose invitations I am currently designing is having.

 

 

Isn't that gorgeous? In my head, that is the sort of wedding dress that I would have loved to have worn. In reality, I would have looked ridiculous as I do not have the right figure for it AT ALL. Short legs and big bust do not go well with dresses like this. The fact that I was around 20 weeks pregnant on my wedding day would also have meant this dress would have been a big no........

 

This is the dress I actually wore. I don't have any of my wedding photos saved onto my laptop so a photo of this very similar looking model (*cough cough*) will have to do.

 

I spent today's nap time cutting out the heart shaped invitation for my Welsh bride to be and am now watching the littlest Kordel get himself covered in mud in the garden. Thank goodness the sun has come out..... He usually spends Tuesdays and Thursdays looking forlornly at the front door waiting for his big sister to come home from nursery, but he's quite happy pottering around outside in the sun while I sit and watch. Apart from when he falls over in the muck with his mouth open, which has happened 3 times this week already. Oh well. You've got to eat a peck of dirt before you die, as my Granny would have said....



Post-holiday blues

Well, Nice airport wasn't that scary after all that whinging from me last week! We survived the flights and had a lovely time. Even though we were that family that everyone waiting to board the plane prays they are not sitting next to - screaming baby, arguing parents and a small child shouting that they need a wee at the most inappropriate moments. Good job the flight was less than 2 hours.......

 

So, this is the view I had when I sat down with my sketchbook last week;

 

 

 

 

And this is the view I had this morning;

 

 

 

Lovely as our spare (junk) room is, it's no Cote d'Azur........

 

I didn't think it wise to take knife blades with me on an aeroplane, so I've had to save doing any cutting for my return. I managed to get my Ally Pally drawing up to scratch and cut it out this weekend. What do you think?

 

 

 

 

(This one is just my attempt at arty photography. I do like it though!)

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure quite sure how to finish this one off. There is a big expanse of grass infront of the building, so I don't know whether to cut out a bit of grass, or to trim the bottom right down. Or just keep it like this! The more I look at it, the more I like it as it is. Hmm.

 

I am planning on making my London pieces into prints to sell, but my printer is probably not quite up to the job of producing art prints. So, I need to find somewhere to get them made up before I can sell them. I hope you can cope with the wait ;-)

 

Bore da and Au revoir

I thought I would do a quick post before I go 'en vacances' next week. I am really looking forward to it, but there is just a small fly in the ointment - we're flying!

I hate aeroplanes and I haven't been on one since 2008. I've had two children since then and they're coming too. Two of their aunties are on the same flight, which in theory sounds like a good idea. However, I hate flying, my husband hates flying with me, and one of his sisters has to take valium before getting on a plane. I pity the people sitting near us. I keep saying to myself 'it's only a short flight'........  However I was looking for a nice photo of Nice to put up here but have come across this image and now I feel slightly sick.

 

Yes, that's the airport. In the sea.

Anyway, moving on swiftly on. As well as working on my London scenes while I am away, I have a wedding invitation design to be getting on with. In Welsh! Luckily there's not much text and I have been provided with the correct spellings. Here is a sneak preview:

 

 

Medi means September in case you didn't know already! I will show you the rest once it is finished and the invites have been sent out so as not to ruin any surprises.....

 

Right, I am off to find my French dictionary. I actually did a degree in French so I shouldn't need it just for a short holiday, but to my shame, I have barely spoken two words of it since I went to Paris for the weekend in about 2005. Wish me luck:-)

 

See you in a few days!

 

The Shard, Ally Pally and forgetting to concentrate...

Well, this weekend, I am doing a bit of work on my London landmarks "collection". I haven't managed to get very far with it up til now. I'm going to France next weekend and I'm hoping there'll be lots of time to get my ideas down on paper seeing as there will be a whole collection of Kordels available to palm my children off on. I just have to get the ideas in my head first....

 

If you've had a look at my Facebook page then you may have seen the photos I put up a while back of my first London papercut. The idea wasn't really that difficult to come up with. For my Dad's birthday, my brother, sister and I bought him a ticket to go to the top of the Shard. So, I thought I would do a cutting of the Shard! I already had a photo of the view from when we last went into London, I just had to draw it and cut it.

                                   

My next London landmark in progress is Alexandra Palace. If you're not familiar with it (what, you mean you've never been to the Knitting and Stitching show / Darts / the Bonfire night German Beer Festival?!), it is quite a dominant landmark around the part of North London where I used to live. I remember a particularly scary New Year's Eve there about 5 or 6 years ago when we walked up to the top of the hill to try and see all the midnight fireworks from across London, but were instead treated to a group of drunk Polish blokes setting off rockets from their hands about two feet infront of us!!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AlexandraPalace.jpg



It's quite spectacular. Anyway, earlier this week I started sketching out my Ally Pally creation. I spent ages on it! Here it is;

I had a great time getting all the details right, finding loads of photos of this lovely building and the beautiful window. However, I had sudden thought about an hour in. How on EARTH was I going to cut this out?! I'd been merrily scribbling away as if I'd been drawing for drawing's sake, forgetting that I need to cut the thing out. I usually try and pretend that my pencil is a knife so that I don't cut the bits I'm not meant to. Not this time for some reason, so I'll have to go over it again. Good job it's a long weekend......

 

Speaking of which, Happy Easter everyone!