Hallo and a Merry Christmas!!

Sitting here in the studio with gales blowing outside I find myself asking 2 questions 1. Does anyone still read my blog??!!! and 2.How is Olive turning 3 tomorrow????!!! 

I have been finding it hard to find time anywhere at the moment with Top Drawer in 3 weeks time but I Drew This is certainly looking forward to Olives party tomorrow along with a week of christmas fun. and relaxing.

Preparations for the show all seem to be good at the moment and I just can't wait to see what the show might bring,  we will be taking 18 new mischief characters along, all of whom are already my special babies.

Above I thought I would post one of my favourite and most popular Christmas designs from this year and take this opportunity to wish everyone in this twisty turny wonderful freelance life a very Merry Christmas and prosperous 2014.

Lots of love I Drew This x x x

Foraging at Laughton woods.

For my birthday this year I asked if I could go on a foraging course and we did on Saturday. I can now identify edible mushrooms and fungi hurrah! for the first half everything I thought looked delicious and edible it turned out wasn't.

 It was lovely to be out in the woods with all the fairies and badgers and deer, we saw a beautiful fawn and young stag, it was really magical.

We collected a decent portion of winter chanterells, brown birch belite and some mushrooms commonly known as hedgehogs and with them all I cooked up a mushroom and garlic soup from the covent garden cook book which was indeed marvellously tasty.

I will definitely be back out in the woods as it is now my mission to find the elusive porcinis but will have to wait until next autumn now for those, next stop berries!!

IGLOO and WATERSTONES!

 What a summer it has been for I Drew This, when I think back to when I first went freelance back at the beginning of 2009 I had no idea what to expect from being freelance and to be honest have found it scary a lot of the time but now I am 5 years down the line I find it incredible the amount I have learnt about what you can do within the industries and how much more there is to learn and I am LOVING it, I wanted to go on a personal journey and here I am I Drew This is going from strength to strength and doing PG Live opened up a lot of doors to new and exciting projects.

It was my birthday on Saturday and we took a day trip up to London to deliver some cards to Igloo, a gorgeous childrens shop on the King's Road and then we popped into the Waterstone's flagship store in Piccadilly who also have I Drew This cards on the shelves.

It is a lovely area and they have a wonderful selection of beautiful and inspiring paper products, worth a trip!

 The fantastic Igloo store below.

wedding pics part 2.

 Our official photos are in and so I couldn't resist posting another lot. Myself, my dad, olive and my bridesmaid went to St Anne's Well Gardens before the ceremony for some pictures, its a park that has become very special to me since having Olive. There is also a great shot of our wedding cakes which a good friend of ours made, we were so lucky there was a lemon drizzle, honey, white chocolate and raspberry and carrot mmm they were incredible!! Love olive having a cheeky peek!!

Our friends reunited their band too for some tracks which was great to hear and we finished up with a DJ for some serious dancing, one AMAZING day!! x

All Photos © adam shaw photography

Wedding day magicalness!!!

I am now a new and spangly MRS, we did it, the whole summer was a heady mix of making, celebrating, laughing, planning and I could wait no longer to post some photos of our big day, it was so great, went in a flash of the most awesome kind!

So for those that don't know, my husband (nice feeling) and I first went out when I was 15 and he was 16 and then in our twenties we drifted apart and I began my career as a designer while he did all the partying for both of us in Australia until eventually we met up again after 7 years out of touch and the rest as they say is history, we made Olive and now have FINALLY tied the knot!!

My flowers were filled with fresh herbs so smelt fabulous, my dress was made by Maureen and was a pattern from a 60's dress of my late Mom's tweaked a little bit and featured original 70's lace under the bust line. 

Maureen made metres and metres of bunting, I stapled and spray painted all the leaves which created our trees, the theme was 'outside inside' I negotiated a good price on the branches with blossom on from our local health food shops window display and the set up was one of the most intense 5 hours of my life!!

 wow didn't realise there was so much to tell!

Think I will need to do another post with some more pics just to indulge myself haha!

and of course am now back in the working game so do be sure to get in touch if you need any work doing and in the meantime I will be working away on some new Mischief characters x x x

I feel so lucky to have been involved with the fairy tale fair, now been going for a year I have been at 4.

This summer I was the first stand in the door and it was lovely to meet and greet regular visitors along with new.

I got some supportive feedback and even got to do half of my wedding place names at the same time, this wedding is creeping up very quickly now!! 2 and a half weeks to go!!!!!!!!!

Bad news and good news :)

Hallo, only 4 weeks until I get married HURRAH!! been thoroughly enjoying the build up, have been stressed a bit too but having just been to 2 weddings in 2 days certainly put us in the mood.

A big congratulations to my friends Amelia & Rob and Ellen & Paul who tied the knot last week.

 In amongst the weddings I learnt that the bad news was I didn't make it into the semi finals of the Lilla Rogers global talent search with my entry above, my journal cover was based on the park that I go to most with Olive, St Annes Well Gardens, but the good news was that 2 lovely people who I have met through my blog have!! Congratulations again to Lizzie Mackay and Dawn Machell. Fingers crossed for the next brief cant wait to see their designs.

So on with a heady mix of work and wedding for me for the next few weeks followed by a honeymoon, yes a holiday, JOY and sparkly happiness coming our way!

One Happy head dress...

Last week I was given the challenge of creating a red indian style head dress for my friend Amelias hen party. I love them anyway so jumped at the challenge and off I went glue gun in hand I stuck, stitched and even found the label I had found with Amelias name on from last year, the perfect finishing touch.

Couldnt resist popping it on Olive too :)

had such a great night singing, dancing and laughing, looking forward to the wedding this week...in fact we have 2 weddings to go to, its going to be a fun week ahead filled with love awwwww!!

Blast from the past.

Out and about yesterday doing some research for a new project and there in WH Smiths were some Kevin and Linda designs I did for CB back in the day, good to see them still going strong!!

Wedding update.

Since the show life has certainly been busy with work but now I have to turn my attention to our wedding or else it will be here before we know it, I cannot believe how quickly the year has gone so far so 2 months is going to fly!

Today I went to see the fantastic Barbara at Miss Moles flower emporium and was delighted to see my designs donning her fabulous card rack and we then went on to discuss SOME of the pretty bits of the day, what I thought would be straight forward (the bouquet) I soon learnt isn't let alone what do the boys wear?!?? So my dress, bridesmaids are now well under way, Matts suit is very dapper, now just have some final touches to get under way along with the honeymoon destination I cannot WAIT for that!!!

Tiny Treasures.

Olive and I went to a big Sainsbury's yesterday and was cool to find a range that I did last year called Tiny Treasures on the shelves :)

Frack off!

A month or so ago I designed some badges for an environmental group called 'Frack off' who I met through Lush, they are raising awareness about fracking which has been given the go ahead in certain areas around the UK and will have serious environmental consequences. To read more about fracking visit http://frack-off.org.uk

PG Live 2013 review.

 I am back to Brighton after what I can only say was one of the best experiences of my design life so far. I Drew This was met with so much amazing positivity, I met lots of lovely fellow exhibitors such a talented bunch, lots of people I have worked alongside from my Watermark Publishing and Carte Blanche days along with lots of new stockists and people to look forward to working with in the future too. 

Having never lived in London I loved being a part of the buzz for a few days, travelling to and from the design centre on the busy squashed tubes!!

The team at PG made me feel very welcome and supported and the lunches lived up to their reputation as well, they were indeed delicious.

Doing the show really helped boost my confidence in my artwork and I will definitely be doing another show soon although I may need to focus on our wedding first haha so in the meantime just create lots of new fresh designs :)

Print Pattern support.

How wonderful to see my cards mentioned on Print Pattern this week really getting excited about the show now, a big thank you to Marie for the support, click here to see the full write up.