Cornwall Candids or Celestine's Boating Adventures

I recently for some reason (I can't remember why) looked back through lots of the photos I took last year when we went to Cornwall. I discovered a few photos I hadn't posted here before which I rather like. They're kind of candids as they have hands and things in them but I quite like that! 

Oh I love Cornwall so much!!! 

One evening Celestine wanted to go boating down the stream on the beach so my friend Sian and I went down there to take photos of her. That's Sian's hand in the picture, setting the boat into the stream. It's a very nice, quite gentle stream with some rapid-y btits and it goes all the way down to the sea. It's a lot of fun for a tiny person such as Celestine!

Here she is on the same stream in a different (safer!) boat.

On this day we spent all day on the next beach over, sitting in the sunshine and surfing and picnicing. One of our friends dug a hole so deep that when he stood in it it was over his head! Henry did his essay and got a sandy laptop. I remember it being a nice day.

in the evening Henry and I walked back over the cliffs while the others went back in the car...

We stopped for a while at a different beach on the way home and Celestine did some more boating. Here I am putting her and her boat in the stream at the very top of the beach.

Here's a small rock pool (below) which was Celestine's favourite swimming spot. Just perfect for a tiny person. It was her own personal miniature lagoon!

And now here is a fiercer, deeper stream on the next beach over. Celestine had to use her more sturdy boat so as not to capsize- though she almost did anyway. It was a faster, rockier ride with rapids. She looks a little trepadated/suspicious about it (below)

I can't wait to come back here again!!! It's my favourite place ever!

My Hen Party

Saturday afternoon was my hen party. My sister cleverly organised the whole fabulous event. And it was exactly the kind of thing I would have wanted for a hen do. Family and close friends, piña colada's in tea cups, glitter, fairies, cake and games.

The whole thing was held at my grandparents house and I am in awe of how my sister managed to organise the whole thing so well. There were fairies hanging from the ceiling, a tower of cupcakes on the table along with a big marbled chocolate gateaux cake and some cake pops. Her boyfriends mum kindly made all the cakes for us. 

In the evening my sister organised an amazing meal starting with artichoke cups filled with parma ham and quails eggs- I know, fancy! Then we had asparagus and asparagus wrapped in parma ham, cucumber sticks and carrot sticks, cheese fondue with toasted bread, steak fondue and then chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows and pink merengues made by my aunt. There were a lot of fondues involved.

We played some funny games and at the end my bridesmaids gave me a really nice book with nice stuff written in it and photos etc- it's got loads of space left in it so will be the guest book for the wedding too.

Also at the end some of us went swimming in my grandparents pool. It wasn't the best weather but it meant that the pool felt warmer. In fact it was so chilly that there was steam coming off the water! Zoe (my cousin) looked like a mermaid because she had so much blue glitter and gems around her eyes.

Celestine made an appearance in her bridesmaids dress. I have made her one exactly the same as one of the real bridesmaid dresses! She had a tiny teacup of piña colada and nibbled at a cupcake both of which she very much enjoyed.

It was a lovely afternoon and evening and I am very lucky to have a sister to organize such a nice party for me! :) (she's the one in the daisy crown below!)

Princess Kitchen and Bathroom

Here's something I worked on very recently. They are replicas of existing sets I did at the end of last year. I think they are going to be used as examples to sell the titles. It was quite strange to just do an outright copy of something I have already made once. It was quite a nice job to do actually as I didn't have to think too much about it, especially as my brain is quite occupied with wedding thoughts and dummy booking (for a different book) at the moment.

You may have seen this kitchen set on here before but this time it has characters in it. And I don't think I ever posted much of the bathroom one anyway.

Oh to have a real life bathroom like this one! Celestine is quite jealous of it and very miffed that it is only made of paper and has to be sent away.

What I like about these Princess books is that I can put as much glitter and gems and sparkles on things as I want. Golden glittery floor tiles? Why not. Gems round the toilet seat? Of course!

I think the cabinet is my favourite thing in the bathroom. I wonder what expensive and royal potions and lotions are inside all those crystal bottles...

Some Things

It been a while since I did an inventory photo of Celestine's clothes. She sure has a lot of them! This is actually only half of them.

The yellow coat is still my favourite.

Things have been very busy and wedding-planning crazy lately. I am so excited about the wedding now- I can't believe it is so close!

Below:  That is a penguin I made for my craft club kids. Got the idea from here on Pinterest.  I have made lots of fimo animals before but I thought a penguin was probably the easiest one for kids to start with making. 

Celestine went to the beach and I painted a picture of her there though I wasn't very pleased with it so have only put it in small on here! Need to practice my flat illustration.

Peak District

This was a few weeks ago now (just before Easter) but I never got my act together to post any pictures. We visited Henry's mum in Derby and took a trip into the Peak District. It was sooo nice. I loved it!! I think I really really love nature haha. It always makes me so happy to be out in nature.

I just love big rolling hills and streams and the place we went to (Dovedale park) had both. Henry and I climbed up the biggest hill we could see which had what felt like an almost vertical side! We had to hold onto the grass to get up to the top.

Celestine enjoyed it too. She wished she had brought her little boat as there was a very nice stream. And the sun was all shining and nice and made the water sparkly. She almost dove right in for a swim!  There were stepping stones across the stream which we walked across.

We also had lunch at a pub nearby which was just bang right in the middle of countryside with stone walls around it and hills all around. It was in such a stereotypical picturesque spot that I almost felt like it couldn't be real. Pie, chips and mozzarella sticks.

I want to go back!

Here's another picture I never posted- Celestine at Easter. She had a gold egg of course. Gold is her favourite colour. It took her quite a while to eat as it was solid all the way through unlike our eggs. She managed it though. What a chore it must have been for her...

forget me not

Celestine loves the flowers...

Buttercups are her favourite but forget me nots come a close second as they're just the right size for her.

The bigger flowers she can pick and use as parasols.

And the really big ones she can climb inside and sit in!

Also two films I've watched and loved so far this year:

The Sea Prince and the Fire Child. Beautiful visuals. Very magical.

Ernest et Celestine. Just such a lovely (if a little bonkers) film. I LOVED it! Will definitely be watching it again at some point. Celestine is such an adorable and characterful little mouse. Great visuals too of course! Highly recommended.

Fairies and Goblins

I wrote a while back about how I was going to make lots of fairies and goblins for decorations at my wedding this year. Well, I finally got around to making them all. It was actually a couple of months ago that I made them all but only just got around to photographing them. I think I made around twenty something in the end- my original plan was to make hundreds but yeah...that was never going to happen haha.

I don't think these fairies will be a big feature or anything at the wedding- there's not enough of them and they're not big enough but I hope they will be a nice little detail that people will notice. 

Now I just want to put a disclaimer here as well: a couple of the poses the fairies are in are blatantly copied/heavily inspired from other poses/fairies I've seen by artists on the internet. But it's not like I'm selling these or anything, I just made them for my own personal use for the wedding so I figured that was ok.

Those were some of my favourite ones that I made.

Here they are all together:

And some more details:

It was a good excercise in trying out some different ways of drawing eyes actually.

Let's hope they all stay in their box and don't fly away before the wedding on midsummers day!