My blog has had a make-over! But note to self..... do not decide to redesign your blog just before you go on holiday! You will have no time to figure out how to make things bigger and like they were before! 

It'll have to do for now! 

I love a nice geranium! 

Know someone who needs to chill? Someone who's always having their fish stolen by another penguin? Then send them my fabulous new card by Jeego. Just download their app right here on to your phone and you're ready to go! Thanks Jeego, I LOVE it xx

Competitive....moi?

Usually when you enter a competition, you just fill out your details, cross your fingers and forget about it. Not so for Lilla Roger's Global Talent Search. You know when you watch 'X Factor' and all the contestants are very OTT emotional about getting through to the next round.... well, I now know where they're coming from. That's how it is, I feel like one of them! But, sadly, Dermot isn't around to give me a hug!

The brief... to design a journal cover for Paperchase using the theme 'Playground'. 

I love Paperchase, it's one of my fave stores.... I love what they do, and I love that they're on a roll these days in the face of all this new technology. I remember going there (back in the 80's with my permed hair) in my early teens and buying stationary sets and notebooks and I admit it is a bit of a dream to have something of mine gracing their shelves one day.

I went down the route of including many characters instead of focusing on just one main icon. Mainly because this is one of the elements I love about Paperchase ranges. How they adapt a set of characters on everything from water bottles to stickers to magnets and so on. 

And I love how when my children get to a new playground, it's like a box of chocolates....there is so much to choose from, they don't know what to go on first so they go double speed on everything. There's this amazing one as you drive into the city of Bath quite near us and the day we finally stopped and went in it, it was awesome. We all sped off in different directions, my hubbie and I included! 

So ta-da, my journal cover...

and a few of the extras peeps that didn't make the final cut...  (there are actually quite a few more) 

Then typically, once I'd finished my final piece and submitted it, I played around some more and came up with this one too. I wanted to see how using one icon would look too. I really like it. Maybe even a little bit more than the other. Sadly you can only submit once but I love her though and the funny little garden she's playing in. 

So, good luck everyone who's entered, especially

all my lovely MATS friends.... even though we're all definitely winners already! Now normal life can resume! Time to play x

I had to go into hospital this week for a small op, and I just wanted to put a little shout out for the lovely nurses that I met in the day surgery at the hospital in Taunton. 

What a caring, sweet bunch they all were. Sometimes they get a bad press in this country for not being so kind (I know everyone has different experiences and this is just my own). But the one's I've met have always done a great job with happiness and generous hearts. So thank you very much. x

Last week, I went to London Town for the day to meet up with my best email buddy and now 'real friend' Dawn Machell. 

She's written such a lovely post about our trip over on her blog that I feel I should send back that bloggy love with a post of my own.

Dawn and I email each other daily. If I worked in an office, she'd be my friend that I'd sit next to and laugh all day with. We support each other, make each other smile when we're feeling down, give each other advice and talk utter rubbish in between. We're thinking Paris would be good for our next important business trip, and then New York, and then maybe Hawaii, (surfing lessons are a very important part of being a designer, ha ha!)

Thanks Dawn for always bringing a smile to my face! 

I looked at the happy bunny done in a hurry late last night and have re-done it.... it was bugging me because I now know (post Lilla) that I can do better, and it's ok to go back and do something again. Sort of a 'before' and 'after'. 

So there we have it, rabbit no:2!

Haven't drawn a happy bunny in weeks so thought I'd try a quick one tonight... post Lila's course. Before Lila's course I was a bit bored of drawing anything happy and anything bunny so this is good! 

There's a hint of hyper lushness going on and I've stepped out of my usual colour palette. I'm happy. If you're in a 'happy bunny rut', hop on over to 'Make Art That Sells'... you won't regret it! 

Last week of class! :-(

So this week was the last of Lilla's school.... and it's like the firework display at the end of a night, time to put everything in to it and finish with a bang. 
This week was all about collections, we had to go round our homes and photograph, draw, paint anything we collected or loved.. all the little bits that go to make up you. This was not hard for me, I'm a complete hoarder, I probably should be on C4's 'Britain's Worst Hoarders'. I go starry eyed when I spot a bric a brac stall and I drag my kids around a lot of charity shops in search of things. I collect a lot of stuff.... I'm a sucker for pretty plates, vintage fabric, china nic-nacs, vintage books, books on birds....loads of things...I've even got my daughter to collect china things just so that I can look for them.

Next, once we had them all together, our assignment was to go 'hyper-lush'on a zipper pouch putting in as much or as little as we liked. 

At first, I had a right jumble on my screen, there were scans and photos flying everywhere and I was stressing but then all of a sudden, I got into it and just did me and I loved it, couldn't stop, went a bit crazy, so I did a co-ord to go with it too, and some cute button badges.. so this is bits of me really, on a zippy bag. 

And I tried to listen to all Lilla's been teaching us over the weeks....about using neutrals, does it look nice as a thumbnail, attention to detail,  all the good stuff that's been sinking in over the weeks. I'm going to miss class and all my classmates, there's some truly amazing artists out there and we've been kicking ass in class every day! Thanks Lilla and Beth for all your hard work and dedication to the school and also to all my class-mates who've taught me so much. You're all awesome and I wish you many many great things to come!! :-))