A few of my favourite things...

...from Etsy.



P.S. Bro, if you happen to be reading, I know my birthday's not til July but you might want to start getting ideas! hee hee.

I would walk 18 miles...

Self Portrait: somewhere around the 10 mile mark


My friends


Beautiful field

At last...

I've updated my blogger template! Since my 18 mile walk today I've been sitting with my feet up and have been working away on my laptop. Could you do me a favour? Could you let me know if the banner appears ok on your screen? I have a widescreen so it's fine for me but I'm worried it's too wide.

Thank you!

Yay- a pretty necklace for Spring!

Happy Saturday everyone, I finished this necklace last week but I had to get my lovely boyfriend to set up his SLR camera for me last night (and give me a quick lesson) so I could take some photos of it. I think they came out ok:





What do you think? It's in my shop now :)

Hope everyone has a nice weekend. I'm off to a friends for a BBQ this evening then staying over at hers as we're walking 18 miles tomorrow. We've decided to set off at 8.30am as it's predicted to be another hot day. Three weeks today until the MoonWalk! If you'd like to support me, you can sponsor me here or buy anything pink from my shop- 50% of the sale of anything pink is going to the charity.

Another 10 things (part 2)...

Here's the next five:

1. I once won a prize at Brownies for "Best Nails"! I was very proud!


2. I had my appendix removed when I was about 12- can't say I've missed it!


3. When I was little I had an imaginary friend- a dog called Watson after the one from Pigeon Street


4. I have a string of failed "careers" behind me. I started to train as a pharmacist, but hated it so quit. Got a place at uni to study journalism but didn't take it. Now I'm an IT manager and I'm determined to complete my degree this time


5. I dance like a loon when OutKast's Hey Ya comes on the radio

There you go- more information than you ever wanted to know about me!

Another 10 things (part 1)...

I was tagged by lovely lady Rhi so here are another 10 things about me:

1. I have one leg shorter than the other- but I can never remember which one is the short one!


2. I was vegetarian for over 10 years (because I didn't like the taste of meat) but Christmas day 2005 I tucked into turkey, sausages and bacon just because I fancied it. I'd had no craving for meat until that point. I haven't looked back since!


3. I used to collect frogs- not real ones- from the age of 10 til about 24. I still have some but most of my 100+ collection went to car boot sales when I moved out of home.


4. I've just started collecting teacups (especially vintage)- I only have four so far but it's a start!


5. I was once a penguin in a school play

More to follow later, got to go out on walking practice for a bit.

Illustration Friday: Polar

I was totally stuck for ideas on this theme as I can't draw animals! But then inspiration hit- I don't know why Sally feels the need to dress as a polar bear, but she has fun so who am I to question it?

Drawn in black pen in moleskine sketchbook.

New journal page

Here's the first of my new journal pages based on an image from my old one. I've made a set on flickr where I'll be uploading all my pages, both old and new.

Hope everyone had a good weekend, mine involved walking 15 miles, lots of sunshine, watching Ben's motocross races and a roast beef dinner.

A bit of fun...

My blog is worth $6,209.94.
How much is your blog worth?

Another journal page (aged 5)

Going to start on my first "new" art journal page later today hopefully.

My first ever art journal... aged 5?

I don't know how old I was but I've been carrying this around from house to house ever since I first made it. So I thought it was about time I did something with it! I'm not that sentimental about it (despite the fact I've had it so long) so I'm going to take out the pictures and re-make them into a new journal with a mixture of these old pictures and new ones. I will scan it all first though- wait til you see some of the magazine clippings from the 70s!

So here's the front of it...



More soon!

Another new piece!

I suddenly got inspiration and made this while I was working on covering a box with canvas (it's going to be a magazine rack, will show when it's finished).





In my shop now!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Sundays. It's baking hot here today but I've been indoors most of it! I had enough sun yesterday when I was doing my 14 mile practise walk for the MoonWalk. Less than 5 weeks to go until the big night now! Need to decide how we're going to decorate our bras. We discussed it yesterday and came up with pink birds on each boob maybe- Great pink tits- get it? I think maybe we had sunstroke at that point. :)

New cards...

Here are two new additions to my etsy shop.





I currently have a special offer- any two cards for $10 (usually for the two above it would be $12 in total).

Illustration Friday: Fortune

I'm actually posting this weeks illustration on Friday for a change! I drew this in black pen in my moleskine. No colour at the moment but I might add some later.



I'd love to know what you all think :)

10 things about me

Well I was tagged by Sakura Fubuki from the UK etsy gang so I have to tell you 10 things about me. Hmmm, this could be a challenge!

1. I helped raise over £7000 for Great Ormond Street by organising and participating in a skydive. I jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet (or something like that) with a strange man on my back. He knew what he was doing and luckily we landed safely! I screamed most of the way down as I am a wimp. However, after doing that I really can't imagine anything else being as scary so I'm a little braver nowadays.
2. However, I am terrified of the idea of not being able to breathe. Someone once pretended to throttle me and I totally freaked out. I can't bear the thought of going underwater and scuba diving- I'll snorkel up here on the surface thanks, where the oxygen hangs out. Everyone tells me how wonderful diving is (even my Dad), but nope, aint going to happen.
   
3. This is harder than I thought it would be, 10 is a lot! This is a little weird, but I know I'm not the only one, I can't sleep without earplugs. It doesn't matter where I am, the slightest noise will keep me awake.
4. Oh and I also can't get to sleep if I don't read before hand. My boyfriend gets really annoyed at this one.
5. When I was little I was scared that if any part of my body was hanging over the side of the bed, a monster would pull me under it and eat me.
6. Randomness alert: I met Philip Schofield at Jersey zoo when I was a kid- my Mum was very overexcited about the whole thing!
7. More randomness: I was once in the TV audience for the Vanessa Feltz show.
8. I once got so drunk that the taxi driver had to ring the doorbell and get my Dad to come and get me out of the car- it was only 10pm. The shame.
   
9. I only wear make up to go out in the evening- I can't be bothered the rest of the time.
10. I have a green Blue Peter badge- I got it for setting up a door-to-door recycling scheme in my village. My poor Mum had to drive me and my friends around collecting bottles and newspapers. We only did it once though!

I won't tag anyone as I'm sure everyone's already done this, but leave me a comment if you want me to read yours too!

Playing...

I'm messing around with my template so things may look weird for a while!

Illustration Friday: Green

Here's this weeks submission:



I doodled this little fantasy fairy scene where bumble bees are bigger than birds and fairies are green!

Doodled in black pen in my moleskine sketchbook and coloured with pencils.

Latest card- another fabric flower

Made from vintage & modern fabric, a vintage button and machine stitching.



Now in my Etsy shop.

My London adventure

A little later than planned, here's a full report of my day in the big city! I'm a country girl at heart and I love to travel in to London every so often but it makes me realise I could never live there- I'm always happy to see all the fields appearing out of the train window on the way back.

The Victoria & Albert museum was my destination. I started the day with the Kylie exhibition (which is free to visit) and is full of lots of her costumes from various videos and live tours as well as fashion drawings from various designers such as John Galliano. A huge video screen was playing her Greatest Hits. My favourite part of the exhibition was the recreation of her dressing room from her latest tour. I love Kylie and thoroughly recommend the exhibition- it is free after all!



So after Kylie I headed to the Surreal Things exhibition. I had to pay for this one but thanks to my student card, it was only £5 so it wasn't too bad. I loved this exhibition so much! This painting by Leonora Carrington had me transfixed- I could have stared at it all day.


The house opposite, 1945, Leonora Carrington

Other highlights were the Lobster Telephone by Salvador Dali:



and the bird leg table by Meret Oppenheim:



I wandered around several other collections in the museum and saw so many more beautiful items, too many to list here! And then I spent a bit of money in the museum shop ;) After a scone and a latte in the cafe I hit the shops on Kensington High Street. My feet were killing me by this point so I spent a good half hour or so in Waterstones book shop reading craft books and I bought this book. I really like it and will hopefully make something from it soon. I was hunting for a Spring jacket but couldn't find anything in M&S, Warehouse, Jigsaw, Topshop or any of the other shops I walked around. So to console myself I bought this top from Warehouse!

I went home very tired, but very happy with my day out!

Zzzzzzzzzz....

Walking around a museum and then doing some shopping is exhausting! Got lots to write about: lobster telephones :: Kylie :: bird legs :: cute sewing box :: new top :: new craft book :: sore feet :: inspiration

But it will all have to wait until tomorrow! I'm off to bed :)

New Springettes card :)

Two girlie friends off shopping! This card is now available in my shop.

UK sellers on Etsy

More and more sellers seem to be discovering etsy and this is certainly true in the UK.
I've been selling and buying on etsy for a while and here are three of the UK sellers I've bought items from that I think are great and I'm sure to buy from them again soon.

tiinateaspoon
I love tiina's shop, her photography and clothing range is stunning. Be sure to look at her sister's work as well. This photograph is one of my favourites and I am proud to have a copy on my wall.
Sugar Cane
Emma creates beautiful purses and bags in amazing fabrics. I can vouch for them being beautifully made as well, I love the purse I bought from her. This bag is in a fantastic lime colour and is good for the environment as it's perfect for taking shopping- no more plastic bags!



gorjuss
Suzanne creates gorgeous pieces of art and sells both originals and prints in her etsy store. I own a beautiful print and an ACEO- I love them both. I picked out this original to show you all though as it's nice and colourful and reminds me of summer.

To see even more work by great UK artists and crafters check out the UK Etsy sellers blog, there are details there of the special sale many of them are running at the moment with deals such as discounts, free gifts and free shipping.

I hope to feature some more great UK Etsy sellers in the coming weeks so come back soon

Ilustration Friday: Snap

Well this is a bit of a silly one but it was fun to draw...



When I heard the theme I thought of crocodiles and cameras so I put both in this drawing. Not that the crocodile will do much "snapping", he's a bit short on teeth! Little Susie should be careful though, she's too busy taking snaps to notice him.

Drawn by hand and coloured digitally.

Easter goodness...

As promised, here's a round up of Easter links- things to buy and make :)

to buy:

cute bunny :: egg soaps :: funky (and expensive) egg cup

to make:

simnel muffins :: crepe paper bunnies :: pompom bunny :: onion dyed eggs :: bunny

hope you enjoy the links, will be back again later.

EDIT: these are so cute and easy to make: yarn wrapped spool animals

New card...

Here's another new card, now available in my Etsy shop.



I'm not a huge amount better today unfortunately but thank you everyone for your kind comments. Fingers crossed I'll be be on the mend soon.

I'm off into London on Friday for a wander around the V and A museum to see the Surreal things exhibition and a bit of shopping. I'm looking forward to a day of doing exactly what I like!

Anyway, I hope your Monday has been good so far. I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with an Easter links round-up.