Lotus and Markers...

 Yesterday I decided, after finishing all my orders for the week, to spend some time drawing. Haven't really had the time lately so it was nice to take a break from the computer and let my mind free on the white paper.

 I decided to use the drawings from the Lotus flower study I did a few weeks ago and it came out as a lovely drawing. At first I planned to do this in Illustrator. It's been so long since I used markers though, so I decided to use them instead.

 I can still make a cool Illustrator pattern out of them later on. And also the Cat face I did the other day for the phone case, really inspired me to use more markers in my work. I think this will look real pretty on a phone case as it is and will probably upload one once I've had it scanned in.

I really need an A3 scanner. I hate working in A4 format, there just aint enough space on the paper. On an A3 on the other hand, you can go wild and work much better with details and such. So I think an A3 scanner will be next on the shopping list. Now I have to wait for my other half to bring this to Uni and scan it there...
Anyways, hope you like it and I will see you again tomorrow! With some updates on the Moon Flower Buck :D

This Week So Far...

 This week so far I've mainly been working hard to get all orders done for the week as we're going away today. It'll be nice with a mini holiday in West Wales for sure. I really really need it now that my belly seems to have reached a massive proportion. It is heaaaaavyyyy!

 As usual it is a mix of things in on the order list, but it keeps me entertained and it's nice not to do the same thing over and over again (which I guess I do anyway...).

 Been trying out some different packaging ideas for MobiLOVE as well. And I think this one is the winner so far. It will obviously be in colour, but my printer toner has run out so I need to sort that out. I want to make a backing sheet as well, but I haven't figured that part out yet. Maybe next week :)

 There is a few new patterns in the making. I was drawing like mad the other day and came up with quite a few ideas. We'll see how they come out when they're finished.

 The Lotus flower study is coming along well too. I enjoyed drawing the lotus leaves and think they will look very pretty once coloured in and put into a pattern. This will probably be the most elaborate pattern I've made so far. It will be a challenge but I am looking forward to it. Just hope I won't mess it up along the way with my zero experience in making patterns hehe.

 This has been a long time coming. I have finally started building a website for myself as an artist and designer. I've wanted it for many years but it is so expensive to hire web-designers these days and personally I know nothing about web. But I found this page called Squarespace.com which is absolutely brilliant for someone like me. It costs about $8.00 /month which is a great price. And they let you build your website and customize it for FREE!

So you can try it all out before you pay and design your whole website to see what it would look like. If you like it, you pay and VOILA! You got your own website. And it is absolutely user friendly, anyone can use it. It gets five gold starts from me!!! I am not finished with it yet and it's not live but I hope to be within the next few weeks and would love your opinion on it once it is finished. It is so hard to write about yourself and try to promote what you do. But I think I'm getting there!

Anyway! I will see you on Monday when I get back from Wales. Hope all of you have a great week and weekend! xxx

Drawings, drawings, drawings...

Happy Monday peoples! Here it is bank holiday today, so another day of rest.... For some anyway. I treat it as a normal working day and I have been working more or less all weekend. I started this pattern that you can see above about a week ago and yesterday I finished it. It was meant for a phone case but I think it is to detailed to come out nice on the actual case. I might make a test print at some point but for now I will keep it as it is. I think it would look cool on tiles funny enough.

I tried it with a black background and a white and I think I like the black the most. Reminds me of an old coffee tin jar.

Tiles for the kitchen maybe?

 I've been drawing quite allot over the weekend. Just trying to get things off my mind and on to paper instead. They're a bit easier to handle once they're on paper. I don't have to think about them anymore then. I've been doing a lotus flower study and I want to create a real nice and floaty pattern out of them. I am thinking in the colours of maroon, mint green, yellow and pink. Need to do a study of the leaves tonight and get some more variations of the flowers in there too.

 This little cutie I drew last night as well. It's been a long long time since I used markers, but I decided that just because one is in to graphic design must not everything be made on the computer. I thought it would make a nice addition to the MobiLOVE phone cases, and it look brilliant on the actual case.

Meow?!

 You can get it for both iPhone 4/4S/5/5S and....

Samsung Galaxy S3/S4...

 I am working hard on giving MobiLOVE an identity at the moment. Right now the shop is in one big mess as I am trying to make the change gradually. It is to much work to be done in one day, and I am still trying to find the right feel for it. I never thought it could be so hard to give something so simple an identity. But maaan I am struggling.

 I am getting a bit closer everyday though and am trying to give it that hand-made feel. And with some rope, a glue gun and a bit of cardboard and a little help from my true companion the computer I think the new Logo looks mint!

What do you think? Does it give you that hand-made feel?
That is that for today. I've got a few orders to finish off today, and on Wednesday we're heading up to west Wales for a few days of rest and rehabilitation. I really need it... Just to get away from the madness of a busy Bournemouth. I can't wait for the silence and the bird song, fields as far as the eye can see and the sea. We're going out on the sea. It will be the first time for me on the actual sea here in the UK. I can't wait and I'll make sure to bring you some juicy pictures from my mini holiday.

Preggy Presents and an overworked mind...

A new week and with new tasks to complete. First of all I have to show you my new collectible: BUBBLES!

My Brother in law and uncle to be Ryan gave me this Dolly Oblong resin toy as a pregnancy present! I've wanted Bubble ever since I saw the preview and it is very limited to only 15 pieces. I couldn't afford him when he was released and I sat there starring at him for a good while hovering over the "Add to Basket" button. However I decided not to as I have more important things to spent my money on at the moment. So yeah was I happy to open my preggy present.... Omg! So HAPPY! I love Bubbles and he fits so well in to the rest of my Dolly Oblong collection! Thank you Ryan!

 Other than me being super excited about Bubbles I haven't been very creative lately. Well I have, in my head, but not physically. And being creative in my head, not finding the time to do anything about it, has drained allot of my energy. I haven't slept much due to a fizzy head. So the other night I decided to just get up in the middle of the night and start drawing.

 I got up around half past two and drew till about 6.00 in the morning. My head was still fizzy though and I only managed to get a few hours sleep. When I got up Ceri told me to sit down and write it all out and I did. Man, did that help. I've researched all the materials I need for this new idea, got prices and stockists sorted, written an action and marketing plan and now all I have to do is wait and save up so that this idea of mine can come true. It will cost allot more to finalize than any of my earlier products and therefore it will take allot longer. But it is a challenge I am well up for and I think it will help me bloom as an artist and business woman. You can see a blurry sketch of my idea in the background of the little fawn creature but that is all I can show you for now.

 I've also been hunting for new better or even luxury quality furs. And I have finally found what I was looking for. THESE FUUUUURS! OMG! They are still fake as I would NEVER work with real fur. But my god do they feel real. I have to put them away, out of sight, or I just can't stop stroking them. They are really something. So there will be new products made out of these furs in the future. They do cost about double the price from what I use at the moment though, so prices will go up. I will however keep the furs I use at the moment to give you guys a good price range and affordable products.

I also had a delivery yesterday. My new Phone Cases! Yes! I can finally offer you the choice of white or black. I've been going mental trying to find black phone cases with white plastic inserts. As most people use sublimation these days it is very hard to find products that are suitable for printing. But now I've got them, and I got them for Samsung Galaxy S4 and S3 as well. Which means I will be able to offer you lot a wider range of phone cases too.

And that is that... Not much fun this week for you to look at, but many things that will mean more fun things to look at in a near future. And I only got three days left in work.... then I am FREE! Oh I can't wait! Prepare yourself for an avalanche of projects and just crazy creativity in general! Starting next week! Until then, have a great week!

A messy desk and some drawings...

 Happy Monday everyone! Yup, new week, new adventures. For me it is loaded with work work work. I wanted to have some new drawings for you today as I started my Sunday with drawing. Unfortunately I ended up with a terrible stomach cramp and weren't able to sit up right. Let's just say I spent most of Sunday horizontally on the couch in front of Grand Designs on 4OD.

 I did however manage to finish of a few drawings. These are to be designs for the iPhone cases and also I wanted to draw all of the characters you can find on Tomodachi Island and make iPhone cases out of them as well.

 So I have started that process that might be a bit of a long one. I love drawing them as I can give them more character and I also plan give you a more detailed introduction of each one of them when they're finished.

 A little photo of my toys that still need a shelf of their own as they're not safe where they are :'(

 I did some test prints of these two during the weekend and they came out lovely too. I am so in to making patterns at the moment that I have to force myself in to doing other things too...

Also need to order some new fur today as the stock is running low. For some reason I got loads of pink though. Seem to never run out of that....
Plans for this week is to get more stock in and to create new stuff for Tomodachi Island as mobiLOVE has had most of my attention lately.
What are your plans for the week???

Inspirational Patterns of the 50's...

Yesterday I thought I'd have a go at creating my own patterns. I haven't finished yet as I need to sit down and read through and watch some tutorials on how to make proper patterns in Illustrator. But I found loads of inspiration from Google Image search. I find myself drawn to 50's and 60's patterns mostly, but I wanted the patterns to have a touch of my style as well of course.

 So after browsing Google Image Search for about half an hour my head was filled with ideas. It is funny how much effort you can put into these seemingly simple designs. Sometimes I find it harder to keep it simple and I was exhausted mentally after drawing these.

 I think I came up with some cool original looking shapes though and can't wait to get started in Illustrator, which will be tomorrows job.

These patterns are for mobiLOVE, so you will see them on phone cases eventually. However if they come out nice I might make some new products out of the too. We'll see. Now I'm off to work! Have a great day all of you!

Aries...

 Here's what I'm working on at the moment. I showed you the photo below the other day and well here's the first completed lineart. The Aries... Yupp they are little eastern styled Zodiacs. I have worked hard on these and decided to come up with a shape that I could use for all of them. When I had found this I just scanned the shape and then had it printed 12 times, one for each zodiac. And here is a little taster of the first one.

I know the picture aint great but I've got allot to do as you can see. These will become little prints and postcards for Tomodachi Island and maybe phone cases too. Haven't decided just yet.

Yesterday I sat down and had a good read through tuns of Etsy posts on how to manage yourself and your business and really got a kick from reading it. Etsy is so amazing for supporting the creative people around the world and helping us out to put things into perspective. I think Etsy is one of the best things to ever happen to me. I feel like I am ready for a new year of business now and that I know how to structure for the future. Thank you Etsy!

The past week...

Hello Monday! A new week with new adventures... But before then I thought I'd tell you about my past week. Spring has finally hit UK after many months of continuous rain and storms. Never before have I appreciated the springs arrival so much. I did get some drawings done yesterday, they are for Tomodachi's first hard phone covers and they're coming out great. Might even make prints and postcards out of them later on. We'll see. Can you guess what they are?

With the spring sun so came my itchy green fingers. I don't have a garden unfortunately, but I had to get something going. So I've decided to get a flower trough for outside our kitchen window. Although I couldn't find any flowers I liked and I couldn't find a trough either. I need to find one online I think.... Anyway, I decided to plant seeds instead since there is just so much more choice. I've never tried this before but it seems to have worked quite well. It's not even been a week and the little seeds have become this already!!! 

Look at all the colour! Can't wait to see there in full bloom outside my window when doing the dishes. I might actually enjoy doing the dishes with these outside. Who knows?!?!

I had a whole two days of planting and re-potting. I decided that the biggest plant I have ever had needed to grow bigger and planted it in an apple box. I hope that it'll just explode now!

Oh and I bought this fluffy looking thing. I don't even know what it is but when I ran my hand over it in the garden center I just squeed! It is really soft and fluffy. Hard to explain but I am in love with this little plant.

My former office storage had to move out when we decided to have a shared office. There was just no room for it. But I think it was for the best, as it looks lush in the living room. So it now holds all of our most precious things, like toys and books....

I think I kept more busy last week than I can remember. I even managed to make six new cushions for our sofa. I've been wanting to do this since before Christmas, but I just haven't found the time. I had so much fabric over after making curtains so I decided to use those for the cushions till I can find that nice fabric I've been looking for for so long. I want something turquoise so it goes with the table. But I am so picky and think I already have the fabric thought out in my head. Which means I will never be able to find it lol.

The spring sun just lights things up so nicely...

Birdies...

Oh and on Friday (even though most of the day decided to be filled with fog) we made it out to Durdle Door. It is part of the Jurassic Coast just 45 minutes away from where we live. I was very angry at first since the fog literally was so thick that you couldn't see anything. We decided to have lunch at the campsite instead and luckily when we got out the fog had cleared slightly. And we could see!!! This is a view you just don't want to miss, and we nearly went home without seeing it. Thank you weather Gods for clearing the fog!