UK etsy street team

I am a member of the UK street team for etsy and the members have been working hard to give the blog a fresh new look. I have just writen an article about summery things to buy on etsy, just click here to read it. My favourite item is by the very talented Cherrypips, she makes the most beautiful brooches and this mimosa one is just one of many I could have picked.

White

I have always loved colour and hardly ever use white in my work or infact have anything white in my house. For my day2day photos this week I decided I wasnt to look at the texture and light in my photographs rather than the acutal image or item in them. Last month we moved into a different flat in our building and this flat is full of orignal victorian features. So in these photos you can see all the white features in the architecture of our building. Quite different from my last set which were all about nature, but that is the whole point of experimenting with my photography skills.

Dying beauty

So in my last post I said about this new flickr group which I have joined to hopefully help improve my photography. Well it is the end of the first week and so I have finished my first set of 5 photos. I am actually really pleased with how they came out. I normally take about 30 photos just to get one which I am happy with so with these I decided that I would allow myself a maximum of 5 per image just to allow for my shaking hand.

Well judge for yourself, they are all based on dead or dying plant life. Suprising beauty in ordinary places is the theme of the group so I hope you like my representation of this. Just have to think what I will do next week now.

Day2Day

I have decided to take part in a new flickr group set up by Abi Bansal which consists of taking a group of 5 photos during the week of everyday things. I really like this idea as I like natural photos and like the idea of a non stressful way of improving my photography. I think that too often we miss some of the most beautiful things as they are items that we might see or use all the time. I am hoping that this group will give me motivation to find inspiration in other areas and futher my design work as well as my photographs.

So the photo above is my first entry, a deadheaded rose from my balcony. I decided to look at nature, a common inspiration to my work, but in a different way. I love this time of year when all the flowers are appearing, but they do not last for long. This week I will be photographing the beauty and sadness of dead or dying nature. We will see where it goes as it is totally unplaned and none of the photos will be styled in anyway. I hope you like it. Take a look at the rest of the photos from other artists, there are some lovely ones.

veggies

So this year I thought I would be really good and grow some of our own veggies and herbs. So as it has now decided to stop raining I thought I would get out in the garden on my day off yesterday and plant some seeds. I planted some rocket and cos leaves plus some tomatoes and carrots. I also planted some tarragon, sweet basil, rosemary, oregano and thyme together in one pot. They currently don't look like much, as you can see, but hopefully by the end of the week I should have some little shoots and can start to thin them out and eat the shoots. YUMMY!

I havent been able to blog much recently as I have been super busy but I am hoping to get back into it regularly soon. Hopefully with photos of lots of veggies

Belated birthday post

So it was my birthday on tuesday and I was spoilt as usual. Richard got me this amazing chest of drawers and a super wicked lamp. I also got my yearly update of shoes, clothes, books and new perfume which was handy as mine ran out tuesday morning. Rich also got me a cupcake with a little bear on top and wrapped my vans up in the coolest darn Petra Bowse paper. Aren't I a lucky one!

I have also had a good week of making things and have new bags and brooches to send to stockists and put into my etsy shop. There is one sneaking in the background of the photo of my new lamp. So all in all a good birthday week, plus it didnt rain which is a first.

good mistakes

Isnt it strange sometimes how things are arent quite right or not what you were expecting are really nice. I was taking photos in the garden today of my new bags and I really love how these shots came out. It wasnt the right angle and the colours are slightly wrong but I love them. I especially like the sky in the second one.

Good mistakes are nice suprises.

one leggy

My parents love birds and do a lot to attract them into their garden. One of my favourite birds, who has been there for a few years, is the one leggy blackbird. It is so fun watching him hop around the garden. He can't go onto the bird feeder as he can't balance very well so he eats the berrys and seeds which have fallen on the floor. Having grown up around my dad who loves nature and especially birds I love them and think it is so relaxing sitting in my parents dining room watching them. Soon they will have all the babies around too which is lovely to watch. I bought my dad a birdhouse for christmas last year and they had bluetits in there within a few months, which is very unusual. It obviously make a cosy home as they seem to have some back again this year.

As we have three cats we don't really get that many birds in our garden so I miss them.

I love you more than rock and roll

So I have a few loves in my life and this photo represents three of them, Tea, Rock and Roll and Richard. I bought this mug for him for Valentines day last year and I thought it was really romantic. I have had the whole music discussion with many people recently and it is amazing how important it is in relationships. Richard has one of the largest vinyl and cd collections I have ever seen. Although we have a few favourite bands in common we mostly like quite different genres. The most important thing is that we both love music though and I think unless you both love something the same amount it is very difficult to understand how much of your life can be taken up by that thing. If I didn't love music I think I would feel quite jealous of all the space it takes up in our flat and all the time it takes up in our lives.

Oh and plus we both love tea so that is good too.

Just like buses

Ok so I know this is my second post today but I am on the front page of etsy again! I like today it is a good day. I am now starting to feel sleepy though as I got up a 7.15 today, earlier than I have been up in months. I am not a morning person.

Thanks to villadesigns for including me in their treasury and thanks to siansburys for the photo.

Front Page of etsy and I miss it!

Typically the first time I am in a treasury on etsy and that treasury is on the front page and I bloody miss it. Oh well luckily it was made by a UKer and lots of people had copies. Richard said how can you have missed it you are on etsy 24 hours a days. This however isn't true I am only on there a little bit of the day but I probably would have been on there this morning to see it but I was walking back home from Catford. My bus was cancelled and I had to walk my bus route home which was a pain in the butt.

A treasury, by the way, is a group of items chosen by one person on etsy which shows off some of there favourite items. You should go and check them out on http://www.etsy.com/ as some people put together such beautiful combinations. They are like mini exhibitions of lovely stuffs. I am currently in two, the one above is the one which was featured on the front page and was put together by the lovely Curiosity killed the cat, whose wicked stuff can be found at http://curiositykilled.etsy.com/. She is also the only other person I know, outside of uni, who is crazy enought to be a weaver like I was. Thanks to Kala for the image.

Tonight I am meeting up with some of the girls from etsy so lets hope the day just keeps getting better.

I have had these shoes for a while now wondering what to do with them. They are so cute, I bought three pairs when we were in Colombia last year. Whilst I was making some more of my simple rose purses I thought the same design would look really cute on the shoes, and I think I was right. I have black, red and yellow with contrasting roses on the fronts. I am actually tempted to keep them myself but I am gonna be good and list them in my shop. I will see if I can get some more so that I can offer other sizes and also maybe make myself a pair. I love it when you are making something else and you get that light bulb in your head. I got out my sketch book out last night and drew up a new slouchy bag design to go with this range, I will make up some prototypes today. So even though they hurt my fingers a lot hand sewing the roses onto the shoes, I hope they sell well so I can invest in a thimble and make many more.

a good weekend

I had a wicked couple of day for a change. On sat we had a friend round and went out for dins which was nice. On sunday the family came round and I cooked a lovely lunch and then we played on the wii. Yesterday I went to help richard test his experiment for his final project so he took me for lunch at bloomsbury bowling lanes and we watched some students bowl, then we went and bought too many comics and then went to see Jimmy eat world at the roundhouse. I really like the roundhouse as I feel like I am at the theatre and feel all growned up.

I like days like these, I wish we were rich and that richard didnt have to go to work. We would have so much fun.

greenwich

Today was not such a nice day, grey, rainy and altogether a bit crappy. I still went into Greenwich with my friend Sini for lunch and a mooch around the antiques market. There was one stall with the sweetest vintage dress on it, unfortunately the only one I could afford was too small. It has inspired me to start making my own clothes again though. I have a ton of fabric so maybe I will extend my line of designs to include some dresses and seperates. I also dropped off some new designs in the shop I sell in there, Red door. It is a sweet little shop which mostly sells handmade local items and also has a gallery at the back which shows the work of local artists.

We also went to my favourite fabric shop in Lewisham to get some fabric for a trade I am doing. Sini also makes bags with her friend Sanna so I knew she wouldnt get bored with my fabric shopping like most other people I know. You can see their shop on etsy to, http://siniandsanna.etsy.com/ , it is beautiful. As it was such a horrible day I didnt even get my camara out of my bag incase it got rained on. Instead you can look at a photo of Sini and my favourite bag in her shop.

why I love blackheath

So yesterday in the etsy forum I was telling GUGAW why I love living in Blackheath. So when I was in my garden this morning and heard the lovely noise I have heard many times before I ran inside to get my camara. Lots of people dont know but there are thousands of wild parrots living in the south of London and down into bits of Kent. They are wicked awesome and I love seeing them. I normally only see them in Greenwich park or in a garden on my way to the post office easting from bird feeders. So this is why I love living in Blackheath, not only do you have the benifits of living really close to London city centre but you have fantastic wildlife. There are of course more reasons why blackheath is lovely like the fact that it is really a village so it has a great community spirit that you dont get in many places nowadays. Plus most of the shops are independant, not all to my taste but I support that they are not all chain stores. The only downsides are that is bloody expensive to live here and also that there are so many estate agents and chain coffee shops but this seems to be following the trend of most places. I wouldnt choose to live anywhere else in London though.

photography

So I love photography and love taking photos but I get very frustrated when trying to take photos for my etsy listings. I have been out in the chilly garden taking photos nearly all morning so my hands were almost frozen. I filled up my memory card and wore out my battery but I think I got some good ones. Plus I wasn't alone, my boy was there to keep me company. As most people who know me know I have three cats. Spencer basically follows me around most of the time, I think really he is a dog. Whenever I go out to take photos he tries to sit on top of everything. As it was really sunny today he just sat next to me at did some sunbathing.

I am new to this so be gentle

So I finally got one of these blogspot thingymagiggies. I seemed to have spent all day on the computer today sorting out photos and sorting out blogs. I managed to get a little bit of sewing done and take a few photos before the sun went behind the clouds.

Anyways this is a tester post to see if I can figure this out. I am going to put in a photo to see if I can work that bit out too. This is the purse that I added to my etsy shop today, more to come in other colours too.

I am excited now to blog here. I promise they will be far more interesting in the future.