Anona

I am so in love with print design studio Anona. The print designs are so beautiful and the studio focuses on hand-drawn, hand-painted pieces which is right up my street. I love creating designs by hand with a paint palette before working with them digitally. I think the way these samples have been photographed is really crisp and professional too. 

Maddy Nye / Min & Co

I am loving these prints by Min & Co. They were inspired by Moroccan rag rugs and are available in the form of framed art prints, stretched canvases, stationary cards, iphone cases and ipod skins. The colours and patterns stood out to me and you can find them here along with several other wonderful art prints.

Lacock

I recently went to a village called Lackock, which dates from the 13th century. There are many stone and half-timbered houses there which made the village a suitable location for filming productions to include Pride and Prejudice and the Harry Potter films amongst others. I spent the day walking around admiring the feel of this ancient settlement and wandering the shops like a true flaneur!

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Like Crazy

Has anyone seen the movie Like Crazy? Yes it's a beautiful chick flick and although it's a fairly simple story it includes wonderful details that relationships understand. A British student is studying in LA and falls for an American guy. She outstays her visa and is denied re-entry into America after returning home to London for the summer. Through this obstacle their story is about the determination of love going the distance, literally.

  

Party Time

It was recently my boyfriend's birthday and we celebrated by throwing him a party. We had wonderful live music to include a girl and her guitar, plenty of cider and triangle sandwiches and a whole lot of cake! It was a lovely day which progressed to a fun evening. 

I made these cards above because there were two new baby boys who attended the party and I stitched miniature bunting to the card to add some texture.

 I was told that sweeties were a must and my mum came up with the fabulous idea of arranging the sweets in plastic martini glasses.

 An abundance of cup cakes were available and the ones iced with ice blue icing were very popular, although I liked the carrot & banana cake. I hosted a craft evening during the week and some of my friends made some miniature flags with cocktail sticks and coloured paper that I used to decorate the food.

 We also painted pasta and tied it to some string to make garlands. This was lots of fun and really effective.

But my favourite crafting activity was creating these fairy lights. We painted some cups neon pink on the inside and powder blue on the outside and they looked so pretty hung around the room.

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Bennison Fabrics

I would like to make some repeat prints soon and I felt that I needed some inspiration to help me. I recently discovered Bennison Fabrics, I think the designs have been beautifully repeated and I think the florals are both traditional yet wonderful.

 Atlanta on oyster linen

 Daisy Chain pink green on oyster linen

 Faded Floral on oyster linen

 Hollyhock blue on oyster linen

Roses lipstick pink on oyster linen

Thumbnails

Thumbnails, has anybody tried them? I took some photographs of the beautiful ceramics at the V&A museum. I mounted the photographs onto a board and drew little doodles and designs inspired by my photographs. These doodles/miniature designs are known as thumbnails.

I then proceeded to create more thumbnails inspired by the ceramics and Sonia Delaunay. This has really helped my design work because I now have a direction and some information to refer to when I am printing.

I really recommend this form of design practice. I promise it is fun too!

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