Friday 28 June 2013

Sooo excited today I have done my first facebook give-away. It is a chance to win a watercolour illustration personalised with a letter and name of your choice. All you have to do is go on my facebook page www.facebook.com/flapdoodledesigns then like and share. If you win I will ask for the letter, name and also the address you which your art work to be sent to.


I hope you enter and I wish you luck.

Enjoying the wonderful weather we are having at the moment, very pleased with the way my front garden is looking. I am a keen gardener, I love traditional English gardens full of wild flowers and plants that encourage bees and butterfly's.


The alliums and lavender really encourage the bees and I really look forward to the budlia flowering for the butterfly's.

Off to Leicester at the weekend to watch my daughter in a dodge ball tournament. I have never seen dodge ball played so I am really looking forward to it, hope they win.



Wednesday 26 June 2013

Been busy this week working on some illustrations for Helen of Bustle & Sew. They are for her new book on making soft toys. Not only is she a talented stitcher but also a good friend and a real help and encouragement for my new business flapdoodledesigns.


The swan stuffing soft toys is one of my favourite's and one of Lionel too! He love's soft toys so when I bought a bag of Helens back to draw he kept trying to steal them. As much as Helen likes Lionel I knew she wouldn't want soggy soft toys. Luckily I have finished them and have been able to hand them back to safety....unless Daisy get's hold of them.


Double trouble above playing in Helen's garden. Lionel looks forward to my meetings with Helen on a Friday as much as I do, especially as she often has bones for him to bring home.
My next project for my shop www.etsy.com/shop/flapdoodledesigns is seed collection envelopes for all the keen gardeners. I will hopefully have more news about them and my facebook competition by the end of the week.




Sunday 23 June 2013

Burgh Island and delicious lunch

Standing on the beach looking across to burgh Island whilst the wind blows sand in my eyes and my ears tingle with the cold....is this really summer? After a lovely lunch with Clive, his mum, my dad, Charlie and Lionel in the award winning pub the Rose and Crown in we headed for the beach. Burgh Island, the inspiration for Agatha Christies 'ten little Indians' was the chosen venue. The tide was coming in so we were lucky to see the sea tractor cross from Bigbury across to the island.


It was lovely to take a break from working to spend some time with the family. I have been particularly busy over the last couple of days working on my 'abc' collection. I have designed 5 downloadable cards and a craft kit for scrap-booking and card making using water colour illustrations.

The above shows A to N, hope you like them and visit my shop www.etsy.com/shop/flapdoodledesigns 
to see the rest of the alphabet. The inspiration came from memories of having to make fancy dress costumes at short notice for my children when they were younger. They had the wonderful habit of telling me it was dressing up day the day before the event, it's amazing what you can put together in a panic even when you are not a stitcher. In a strange way I miss those days.


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Friday 21 June 2013

Luminous vests and ballet dancers

I stood on the side of the the road  this morning with five chaps, two in luminous vests, watching the traffic speed past and thought to myself, "I'm glad I'm not wearing one of those luminous vests!"  I was even gladder later as my friend Helen drove past waving madly and laughing her socks off at our strange little group. Later I was able to tell her, over fresh cherries, fruit scones and tea, that we'd been monitoring traffic speeds through our village and she'd better watch out if she didn't want a speeding ticket!

Helen and I often have lunch on Fridays and talk about our business ventures together.  Helen is the inspiration behind stitching site Bustle & Sew and I've just opened my own shop on Etsy - Flapdoodledesigns where I sell digital downloads of my original watercolour designs.  This is a very new venture for me and I've been busily stocking my shop - this week I added my Little Ballerinas and Super Hero cards and scrap-booking kits.

Purchased art work will not be watermarked

That's the little ballerina's above, the little blonde one is my daughter Harry.  She is all grown up now at university in Warwick studying English Literature. She still enjoy's her dancing but it's a long time since she wore a pink tu too (hope she's not reading this!) 

These days the baby of the family is our small stripy whippet/ bedlington cross called Lionel


More about him another time off to work on my new project, little prince and princess cards ready for the birth of Kate and Williams baby.