Wise Words: Handmade

With both me and Jamie being big fans of Ed Sheeran, it was inevitable that I would illustrate a quote from one of his new songs! In fact, this is the second one I have done, you can see the other one over on the Bea & Bloom Instagram account. This lyric stood out to me the first time I heard 'Castle on the Hill' and its definitely one of my favourite parts of the song.

No doubt I'll be doing more illustrations like this once the full album is released!

(The illustration is in the style of the Botanica range from Bea & Bloom)

Wise Words: True Friends

I've been working on lots of lovely illustrated romantic quotes over at Bea & Bloom, but its been a while since I worked on one with a different theme. So the first Wise Words illustration of 2017 is all about friendship, and is inspired by the wonderful support I've received from my lovely friends in the last few weeks. Most of my friends live quite a distance from me (including one, my Maid of Honour, in Florida!) so the sentiment of this lovely quote felt very special to me.

Do you have a favourite quote, saying or lyric that you'd like to see me illustrate?

Over & Over: The Moon and the Stars

I'm hoping to get back to more regular posting in 2017, and creating lots of lovely new illustrations to share with you. I thought I'd kick things off with one of my favourite things to create, a new pattern.

This is inspired by the backdrop of the Stargazer illustration I created last year, which turned out to be one of my favourite pieces of work from the 12 months.

Hopefully this will be the first of many new pieces of work I'll be sharing this year!

As always I'm open to some suggestions for some lovely themes and quotes to illustrate.

Hello 2017

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a wonderful festive season.

2017 is a particularly exciting year for me, as it just so happens to be the year I get married! The countdown now really is on to the 23rd September!

Before I get started on all o my plans and goals for the year ahead, I just wanted to take a quick look over some of the highlights of 2016....

- An exciting, inspiring trip around the Baltics with Mum, Dad and Jamie.

- Working with some lovely new clients on some exciting projects.

- The launch of my new venture, Bea & Bloom.

- Wedding panning with my amazing, friends, family and of course my lovely fiancé, Jamie. Highlights include finding my dress, and an evening with my wonderful bridesmaids (one of which came all the way from Florida, so its now often we're all together!)

- Meeting some lovely new people and making some great new friends.

And here's a few of my goals and plans for 2017:

- Continue to find time to work on my own ideas and illustrations.

- Rebrand my little business and design some new business cards and promo materials.

- Work with more lovely clients.

- Design and launch a range of new products.

- Continue to promote Bea & Bloom and gain some lovely new clients there too.

- Enjoy every moment of the wedding planning process and what I'm sure will be the best day of my life with all the people I love.

Wising you all a wonderful 2017!

Caboodle's Diner

Earlier this year I created some fun illustrations for the AW16 issue of Caboodle Magazine, and this week I finally got to see it in the flesh as my copy landed on the doorstep!

The theme for the DIY/craft section of the issue was all things 'Fave food' and the brief mentioned burgers, milkshakes, fries, fizzy pop (along with lots of other yummy foods!) So I came up with an illustration of the Caboodle Diner, which Amy & Kayti used as the title page! I also created a few spot illustrations which have been used within the tutorials. The project was so fun to work on, despite making me hungry when I was looking at all the reference images for donuts, cakes & ice cream sundaes! I had a slight disaster after getting most of the diner drawing done I noticed I'd spelt Caboodle wrong, oops! But I managed to fix it without too much stress, I love how its turned out! And of course its great to get to see my work in a magazine for the first time!

I haven't had a chance to properly read the whole issue yet, but after a quick flick through it certainly looks amazing and I can't wait to delve into it fully!

You can order your copy here.

Custom House Portraits

I've added another new custom listing to the shop: House Portraits!

House portraits are perfect if you're looking for a lovely illustration of your home. Or I can illustrate your wedding venue, favourite hotel, or anything else you can think of!

Special details such as pets, flowers etc. can be included within the image to make it even more personal, and you'll always receive a sketch of your illustration before I work on the final image, so you can make sure you're completely happy with it!

Find out more in my Etsy shop.

Custom maps and portraits are also available.

Jelly Button Jewellery

I've been wanting to share these for a while now as I designed the first one earlier on this year, but I thought I'd wait until the whole selection was ready (although more are on their way now too!)

I designed these enamel pins for the lovely Michelle of Jelly Button Jewellery.

I had so much fun working on these, Michelle's ideas are always so fun to create!

They're all available to buy on her website for £6.50 each (plus P&P), and she has lots of other lovely things available too!

(The little gnome is also available as a pair of earrings for £4.50 here)

Look out for new milkshake and Mr Frosty designs coming soon!

Tallinn Walls

Today I'm sharing an illustration of one of my favourite places from our holiday to the Baltics: Tallinn, Estonia. The whole place felt like we were in the middle of a medieval fairytale, so I of course absolutely loved the entire day!

As you can probably imagine I took hundreds of pictures of these while we were there and they've given me lots of inspiration for new illustration! Starting with these old walls with fairytale turrets that surrounded the old town. 

I'll be working on some more illustrations inspire by Tallinn in the next few weeks :)

Custom Travel Maps

A new product has landed in my Etsy shop:

Custom Travel / Adventure Maps

Pick a selection of your favourite places you've travelled to (or would like to visit in the future) and the landmarks/objects that you associate with them and I'll create you your very own custom travel map! Head to the shop listing for more information on pricing, lead times etc. and get in touch if you have any questions!

Russian Dolls

In all the drawings I'd been doing of our trip around the Baltics, I realised last week that I hadn't yet illustrated one of my favourite things from the whole trip: Matryoshka Dolls (or Russian/nesting dolls)

Of course that had to change immediately, so I've designed a set of 5 dolls inspired by this pattern based on mosaics on the ceilings of the Church of the Savior on Blood.

Here they all are in more detail:

Introducing Bea & Bloom

You may have seen on my various social media profiles that I'm in the process of starting up a brand new business. Bea & Bloom will be launching soon selling a range of illustrated wedding stationery, all designed by me.

A temporary homepage is now set up at beaandbloom.com, and I've shared a few wedding related posts on the new blog (this is where I'll be sharing my own wedding planning updates from now on so if you're interested in reading about that head over there and give the new blog follow).

To be the first to know when the website launches fully, sign up to the mailing list here.

You can also follow along on Bea & Bloom's own social media pages:

Facebook   |   Twitter   |   Instagram

There I'll be sharing lots of updates on the site, designs in progress and details on our launch date.

Over & Over: From Russia part III

Today I've got the third and final instalment of patterns inspired by the Church of the Savior on Blood. These two are inspired by the impressive mosaics that cover the interior walls of the church. 

Over & Over: From Russia part II

Today I have the second set of patterns inspired mosaics and tiles in the Church of the Savior on Blood in St Petersburg. This pair are based on the floor tiles in the church, as well as some of the patterned borders around the wall mosaics.

Wise Words: Slowly

Our wedding plans are well under way and its all getting very exciting!

I've made a list of all the things I want to design for the wedding, and its looking quite long! Think invites, table numbers, order of the day, posters etc.

This week I've made a start on some illustrated quotes which will form part of the table centre pieces (along with flowers and candles of course)

I don't want to share everything here until after the wedding but I thought I'd share one of them as a little preview! This one features a lovely quote from one of my favourite books 'The Fault in Our Stars"...

Over & Over: From Russia

Continuing with the series of illustrations inspired by our trip to the Baltics, today I have the first set of patterns based on mosaics and tiles in the Church of the Savior on Blood. 

These ones are inspired by a beautiful pattern on the ceiling above the shrine.

Norwegian Folk

Today I have another set of illustrations inspired by my recent trip to the Baltics.

These ones are all inspired by our day at the Norwegian Folk Museum. I've illustrated a series of 5 of the buildings from the museum, and added decoration in the form of patterns we saw in embroidery, on clothing etc.

Postcards from Bruges

Today I have the first of hopefully many posts featuring illustrations inspired by my recent trip to the Baltics (you can read more about it and see the photos here, here and here.)

These three illustrations are based on photos I took on our day in the picturesque town of Bruges. Its quickly becoming one of our favourite places to visit (and not just because of the chocolate) and we can't wait to go again in October (we have a little trip planned for a family celebration)

Have you been to Bruges? What did you think of it?

Next up will be a series inspired by our day at the Norwegian Folk Museum.

Blackjack

While we were away it was Jamie's birthday. I was completely organised and made him a special card the week before we went!

He'd seen my Queen of Hearts playing card design and told me he really like it. I know he's a fan of anything to do with games, and that we'd most likely be spending the evening of his birthday in the casino on the cruise ship. So I designed my own Jack and Ace of Spades playing cards for him!

Here's the finished illustration for the Jack of Spades card:

And here's the card itself! I think he liked it :)

We spent his birthday in Oslo visiting the Norwegian Folk Museum. I woke him up in the morning by throwing balloons at him and shouting Happy Birthday, and surprised him when we got back with a cake waiting in the cabin!

I'll be back later in the week to share lots of pictures form the trip and tell you all about the wonderful places we saw!

Mr. Bear

Continuing with my Animal Portraits series, today I'm sharing Mr. Bear (wearing his favourite stripy jumper of course!)

I think I'll illustrate Mrs. Bear next, and maybe Baby Bear too! What do you think?

Flower Girls

I mentioned last week that I've been trying to include more faces and people in my illustrations. I thought a good way to do this would be to combine them with my favourite thing to draw: flowers and plants. So I came up with an idea for a series entitled Flower Girls; portraits of girls intertwined with nature, such as flowers growing form their hair or branches from their clothing.

Here are the first two illustrations in the series:

Once again I've been trying to experiment a little more within these images, using coloured lines instead of just brown (in their hair, and the background of the first image).

And here's some work in progress shots: