a big thank you

Today is a special day for all our friends over the pond... a day to give thanks and think about others. So I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very special day and to say thank you for all your support over the last couple of years. It means a great deal to me, it really does! (And a special thank you to this lovely lady, who has been particularly good to me over the past months!)

So after you've stuffed yourself silly with turkey, tomorrow marks the start of the frantic shopping period for Christmas. Why not pop over to my little shop to see if there is anything there you think would make the perfect gift.

I will be giving away an exclusive print on all orders over the weekend - a little snippet of which you can see here - so please check back tomorrow for the big reveal and more details!

work in progress

Way back when... when I started this blog, I promised to share with you a little of my working progress, which I realise to my shame I have never done! So I shall hopefully remedy that a bit by sharing with you a little something that I am currently working on.

I have always loved vintage wallpaper, infact I have a bit of a 'thing' for it. I take a lot of inspiration colourwise from glorious 70s wallpaper, and my recent Home Sweet Home print was based entirely upon this beautiful print. I discovered it had come from this amazing shop, Retro Villa, in Copenhagen. The story behind the shop is great and you must read about it and its wonderful owner, Mette Helena Rasmussen! There I found several more amazing floral prints and they have inspired a whole host of ideas in my head. Following on from my Ampersand print, I am now exploring how to form letters from the elements that make up the wallpaper pattern... this is what I'm doing!

Image: Retro Villa

[Step 1] I find a print I like. I really like the shapes and different sizes of this particular pattern... I know it will work well for what I have in mind!

[Step 2] I then start re-drawing each separate element of the pattern in Illustrator.

[Step 3] I lay out the elements to see what I have and give them a hierarchy in my layers palette. The very smallest flowers I arrange into groups. Then I set about re-colouring the artwork until I find a colourway I like. Sometimes this will just work by accident, other times I will turn to images I've saved on my computer or Pinterest for a bit of inspiration.

[Step 4] I choose a font... for this kind of detailed work, simple bold fonts are best. My favourite is Franklin Gothic Heavy.

[Step 5] I outline the font and make guides.

[Step 6] Then comes the fun bit! I start filling the guides in with the flower shapes. I add a few of the large flowers first to each letter... I'll show you an 'S' as an example.

[Step 7] Then I add some of the second layer flowers...

[Step 8] I continue adding the second and third layer of flowers and finish filling in the gaps with the small filler flower groups. Voila!

I'm going to continue working on the entire alphabet... and then I shall have a good old tweak of each letter! Let's see what I do with it!

desktop friday

It's a little chilly here in Athens today, so I'm thinking thick warm woolly Welsh blankets and hot cocoa in front of a log fire. Wish I had at least one of those things, but a cup of tea will have to do in front of a warm monitor screen wrapped in Welsh blankety goodness. Oh, and two colourways this week so just pop over to my Flickr stream and choose the one you want.

leafy ampersand

My eyes are red and sore because of this little thing I've been working on today... but I'm pleased with how it turned out.