Hearts filled with joy & sadness

I never know what I am going to be asked for next. A customer from Ireland ordered over 20 hearts to give to members of her family to help celebrate her wedding anniversary, with a big surprise party for everyone. I hope they all enjoyed themselves.
A while ago I painted some hearts for a customer who's brother had sadly died. I had to paint his favorite can of beer on the heart. I forgot all about it until  I got a call from a lady who had met my customer in a graveyard & had been been given my number. She had seen the painted heart by the graveside & enquired where it was from. She wanted a little something special for her children to put on their Grandad's grave. The children were quite young & it reminded me that my children lost their grandad when they were 2 & 4 which is very young to have any memories. I am glad that I could help out in a small way because as they grow up you realise how precious childhood is & how much they & their grandad have lost in time that could have been spent together.

I should be working

I have not got much work done this week as I have been too busy re-doing all of my website. The old one had a lot of problems with speed & links not working, so I have changed to this site. Hopefully there will be less problems & it will be easier to choose the designs required.
Christmas is coming & I am not working enough, it is hard to get into the right mood when the weather is so nice for October.Once I get on the computer time seems to fly, even more than when I am painting. I keep having to remind myself that within a month I will be attending Christmas craft shows. so I will have to restrict my computer time before my husband chucks the laptop in the bin. He do'es not consider sorting out the website as work. He thinks that unless I have a piping bag or paint brush in hand I am not working. He forgets about all the other jobs that need doing when you run a business. Sometimes I feel like doing anything but painting! I enjoy all the other jobs that need doing, like applying for shows, replying to customers emails, looking for supplies & even accounts. I swear that one day he will tie me to my desk with a paint brush in my hand & a coffee drip in my arm. Although on second thoughts, if we are ever going to have enough stock ready for the christmas shows  I think I had better go & find some rope now!

Take the dog for a walk

I don't take the dog for a walk as often as I should as I am always working, but one sunny evening it was her lucky night & we set off down the river. For once I did remember to take my camera & I ended up down the river for hours taking photos of flowers & creeping up on Butterflys & Bees, which is not easy when you have a dog running around like a mad thing. I managed to capture a photo of this butterfly which I had never seen before. On returning home I discovered it was a Ringlet Butterfly which is more common in southern England so it was my lucky night too. Especially as it inspired me to do this new design which I really love.

Missed it

I am somewhat of a slow burner, I think it is because I try to do so much I end up running around like a headless chicken. For years I have said to myself I should try & get into magazines but I never quite got round to it. I would put it of till I had more time in January (& because I don't like rejection) & every year the month would come & go without me doing all the little jobs I had stored in my head.
But this year I actually got round to it. I send off emails & pictures to about five different home magazines & to my surprise I actually got a reply from Period Homes & Interiors. They said they would put me in the May or June issue. So I got on with life, then in May I went to the newsagent to see if we were in, & we were not. So I waited till June & made the trip to the shop all excited thinking it is going to be in this time, but it was not! I ended up ringing the magazine to see what had happened, their reply was that I had appeared in the May issue, which of course had come out in April so I had missed it! Typical I missed out on telling all the mums at the school gate & hovering about in the newsagents so I could exclaim loudly to everyone who would listen that I had some of my work in a magazine. Oh well there is always the doctors or dentists surgery, it is bound to turn up in some of the old magazines piles somewhere. So next time you have an appointment keep an eye out!

Shabby Chic

I had never heard of Shabby Chic until a couple of years ago when I spent that long on Ebay I came across it. Now I am a big fan, I love the rustic, old look I just never had a name for it. So I am so glad I can now join in with it all. We are now doing ceramic tiles in shabby chic frames & I love them. I did start off puting my tiles onto Canvas but they never quite worked but now at last I think I've got there, it always takes me a while.
The only problem with the framed tiles is they cost me a fortune in spray paint (for the background to mount the tile on). I think I've got spray paint all over the attic floor & almost passed out when I forgot to open a window before I started spraying but it is worth it, well it will be if they sell well!

Fairy

A change is as good as a rest, I tend to over work so when I cannot face painting another flower I need a new challenge. So I set about painting some Fairies. My mam is very ill in hospital & she always loved fairies so they always remind me of her. She wrote many fairy stories when I was young which she did eventually get made into a small booklet especially for all her many grandchildren. My favourite fairy charactor was "Fairy Wobble" she got knocked out of a flower by a bad tempered boy when she was a baby fairy so she walked with a wobble. She spent her life getting her own back on the little boy by pulling his hair & pinching him & of course he did not know what was happening. When I was little my Mam told me that story over & over again & I still love it.

I now have two daughters of my own but I am afraid I do not have my mam's story telling skills, so I guess I will have to stick to painting them instead.

I got my daughters to pose for me I have taken lots of photos so I can turn them into fairy's the next time I need a challenge which knowing me won't be long.

Coronation Street

I recently sent a email about my ceramics off to a few different magazines. A few days later I got a phone call from someone who wanted me to do a special order for the Ideal Home Exhibition. So I just assumed it was the magazine who had called me, so of course I'd agree to anything. In actual fact it was nothing to do with any magazine it was a product buyer who wanted a copy of a spoon & fork from a Coronation Street set from years ago. She had been looking all over & had come across my website. I agreed to make the ceramics for her, we already have a spoon rest we could use so we had to make a spoon then cut it up to look like a fork. Because it was such a rush we had the fork & spoon drying by the fire last weekend. I finally got to paint them which I was dreading as I had to copy the original designs which are nothing like my work, but I managed it & got them sent of on time. So if you are going to the Ideal Home Exhibiton this March see if you can spy my Spoon & Fork on the Coronation Street set