This week my Etsy shop has been really busy with ‘The Universe is in your Hands Print’. I’m not exactly sure where the traffic is coming from, but obviously I’m over the moon that it’s been doing really well! To those who’ve bought something from my shop I’d like to say a big thank you for your support. It makes me happy knowing that my art makes others happy and this is why I make art.
The print is available in two sizes: A4 (£15.00) and A3 (£25.00).
It’s been a while since I’ve designed a new collection of cards. This seasons collection is all about animals: dogs, birds and cutesy animals. For the very first time I’ve designed a birthday card selection for children- I’m really pleased with the way they’ve turned out.
Children’s Greetings Cards
Birds Birthday Cards
Dogs Greeting Cards
They’ll be up in my Etsy shop very soon, so watch this space!
It’s been a while since I’ve written a post about fashion; I’ve wanted to write one for quite some time now but life at the moment is throwing these fantastic curve balls. All I want to do is hide away and sleep. The reason why my interest in fashion has picked up again is because it’s been my current distraction (in a positive way). I’ve started getting back into reading fashion blogs again (good old Style Bubble) as well as looking through fashion magazines i.e. me standing there at the magazine racks for about half an hour on my own sifting through magazines like there’s no tomorrow. For the past couple of months I’ve been mulling over Gucci’s past and present collections. I’m in love with the whole aesthetic and it’s been my influence in terms of my wedding look. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to spend £600+ on shoes but one can dream- and dream some more. Talking about dreams, I love the fact that Gucci have gone slightly overboard/eccentricity shines through in terms of creating dreamy retro prints and turning it into something modern and youthful fused with 70’s and 80’s glamour. Throw in loads of sequins, beautiful embroidery, bold and clashing colours teamed with over-sized sunglasses.
I’ve always admired designers such as Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Kenzo and Rei Kawakubo who have their own creative vision in that their clothes becomes much more about objects to look at and to admire- almost like a piece of artwork rightly so. Fashion isn’t just about this simplistic idea of wearing clothes for the sake of it (like ‘fast fashion’ for instance), the impulsive need to constantly consume excessive amounts of imitations of things or simply because it’s ‘in’ right now. I’m sorry to say but those massive Fila trainers from Urban Outfitters are awful. AWFUL. Unsightly to say the least.
For me, the art of fashion is about how it can transcend time- going back and forth from the past to the present- this idea that time is stuck in one moment simply isn’t true. The fact that there’s almost no boundary as to where fashion can take you is what inspired me in the first place to dip into fashion illustration. For a long time I used to look through Fruits as a source of inspiration for my work. I think it was the fact that young Japanese folks use fashion as a way to carve out their own identify, their taste in music, other subcultures, the fact that who gives a toss if you don’t ‘fit’ into society.
I suppose I’m getting off onto a tangent here, right? I can see a part two of this post coming very soon!
Gucci has inspired this next series of work which I’m currently work on for a show in May and June. I’ve created three pieces at the moment but I’m planning on making some more for the show. I’ve taken inspiration from the embroidery, patterns and motifs used in Gucci’s clothing. Let’s see where this takes me! It feels great to be making collages again; I’ve pretty much gone and done a circle revisiting old methods I used to use from ten years ago. When I look at my work now it doesn’t look like it’s aged if you see what I mean, as in, it doesn’t refer to any point in time like you see with some styles.
I hope to continue with this theme and I’ll be sharing new work as I’m going.
Thanks again for reading this and I’d love the hear your thoughts on today’s post. Have an awesome day and take care.
I’ve been waiting for so long to write up this post and, well, the moment you’ve all been waiting for folks: the WEDDING INVITE REVEAL! Yes, the day has finally come where I can show you my wedding invites- I’m super excited right now!
It’s been one of the best pieces of works I’ve done, not only because it’s personal and right from the heart, but I think it’s every designers dream to design their own wedding invites. The whole process took me over a month and a half from start to finish- I started it way back at the start of August of last year and kept on editing it over the past couple of months, but had to stop myself from doing anymore to it other I could’ve gone on and on!
The floral design for the background started off as a couple of small paintings and I then digitally edited the final image in Photoshop. I used inspiration from our travels to various National Trust places last summer and I was inspired by all the seasonal flowers during our time at these places.
For the insides of the envelopes I continued with the floral theme and designed an insert, as well as incorporating a floral motif for the wax seals.
Once I had the design I can use it on other things such as the menus, table seatings, table numbers etc. I wanted the text to be quite clear, bold and clean looking so I used a combination of fonts such as Futura, a hand written font for our names and a modern Times font to compliment the overall design.
My Tips for Designing your own Wedding Invites
Have fun with it!
Be creative with your design. Some people choose to opt for an email as printing costs can be quite pricey- go with what you want to do and whatever you feel happy with.
Decide what elements you want (e.g. text) and keep it simple.
Look at what colours go together and choose a couple, too much can look way too busy.
I looked online on how to write the intro but you can obviously make your own one up depending on how you want it to sound.
Look around for design inspiration, ask a friend to help you go over it i.e. spelling mistakes etc. as sometimes it’s quite hard to pick it up when you’ve spent hours on the screen looking at the same thing!
When deciding on the paper I want for something that wasn’t too heavy but still had some texture to it. Minted and Printed both give free samples so you can look at what paper they offer. There are of course lots of other printing companies that offer paper samples, just look around or ask around.
I bought the envelopes separately as I wanted to have a different colour as to what the printers were offering. Go with what you feel is best.
That’s it for now and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this. It’s not long now until the wedding- about six months to go now!
Happy Saturday everyone! We made it through the week! I hope you’re all having a chilled out weekend, or if you’re me, looking up Christmas presents (love doing it right at the last minute). It’s great just to have the weekend to myself as the last couple of weeks have been proper full on, it’s amazing what a couple of days of doing nothing can do for you. I was completely burnt out at work this week due to stress and anxiety. It was pretty unpleasant as I was completely overwhelmed and exhausted by everything, I couldn’t even focus in the morning so I had to go home. It just goes to show that it’s so important to be mindful: you need to take care of yourself, listen to your body and take time over things. In light of this, I’m going to take it easy either by cutting my hours there and start to think about myself more. I follow quite a lot of artists on Instagram and I’ve seen some rather poignant posts about self-care: nourishing your body and mind and slowing down.
In other news, I’m taking part in Blue House Yard’s Christmas Market this year. I did it last year and it was really good- I met loads of people throughout the day and it’s lovely just to chat to people: some who live locally or those passing by. Either way, I stepped up my game this afternoon and designed two new Christmas cards (see below) and redesigned a couple of old ones from a few years ago. There’ll be two collections of cards this year, which I’ve never done before, but I thought it’d be nice to offer some more designs to customers or if they wanted to buy some separately then they can.
More details about the market can be found either on my Facebook page or alternatively you can visit their Facebook page here as well.
Have a great weekend everyone and look after yourself.
