Celestine's autumn walk

Celestine tries on a new style of autumn hat 'does it suit me?'   :   looking at a small snail hidden in the curl of a leaf

natures autumn rainbow

Celestine enjoyed walking through the crispy orange leaves and kicking them into the air.

red red red

The other day Celestine put on her shiny yellow coat and took herself out on a walk. It was a particularly nice walk because the sun was out and shining through the red leaves and across the wheat fields.  Celestine enjoyed it very much.  She walked through the forest and along by the river and had tea with one of her tiny friends who lives in a secret hollow tree. They ate cinnamon buns and drank cinnamon tea.

Green for Celestine

Happy first day of October everyone! Now I can finally start talking about Halloween related things without feeling that it's too early.  I'm looking forward to a month of pumpkins, dark nights and spooky stories.  In fact I am planning to show case a few of my favourite Halloween related picture books here on my blog in the run up to Halloween.

Anyway that aside, I thought I'd show you a new item of clothing I made for Celestine the other day.  (I know I know I think I have a can't-stop-making-miniature-things disorder) A green cardigan!  I actually made a pink one for her first and then realised that pink wasn't quite her colour but that's a post for another day. 

As you can see it is the perfect cardigan for climbing trees in! Celestine is well camouflaged. 

*I know the buttons are actually quite large on her but I think it gives the cardigan a sort of charm.  I did have some smaller buttons but not in green.*

some green buttons from my miniature button collection. If I see tiny buttons I HAVE to buy them.

A couple of photos from a walk I went on the other day. Meant to post them before but I forgot. They fit well here though!

Today has been full of thinking up story ideas, swimming, taking the dog to the vet and eating cheese and ham toasties.  Celestine went bed shopping.

What have you been up to? xox

Celestine takes a walk

Yesterday Henry, Barney and I went walking in one of our favourite places.  Celestine came too. It was a beautiful day.

Here's Celestine standing on top of the hill. She wore her new shiny yellow coat.

View of the valley.  There's a stream at the bottom.

Henry and I raced wooden boats down the stream.  We wrote our initials in the bottom of them. Henry's boat won.

I love shallow, pebbly streams like this. They inspire me. This one comes from a spring just a bit further up.

Celestine at the bottom of the hills in the valley, just before we walked our way up to the top.

Pattern for Celestine's yellow coat. Very simple.

Yellow coat in all its glory.

 Hopefully we will go back there soon!

What did you do this weekend?

My drawing on the front of the Egmont catalogue!

New Header!

So as you can see I finally got round to making a new header for my blog.  If you hadn't noticed, the one I had before was rather Christmassy themed and so I thought it was high time to change it!

Here are some photos I took whilst in the middle of making my header.  Everything (apart from the glass jar of glitter) is made from paper. Oh and there are a few sequins thrown in of course!

I had great fun making all the tiny fairy sized pink envelopes and the pen pot and the two little books.  

I hope you like it!  Let me know what you think!

3d Illustration

These are a couple of test shots from a 3d illustration I did over the summer.  I have become increasingly interested in 3d illustration recently and will do a post on some of my favourite 3d illustrated books soon!

ps. I know the bottom one is a little fuzzy, I need to get better at photography and get my hands on a better camera!

Christmas in a biscuit tin

These are drawings for an idea I had recently about a tiny character who lives inside a biscuit tin on the kitchen dresser. The story follows her as she gets ready for Christmas.  This came before I started doing all the cut out stuff and in a way is the original story! 

dreaming of sugarplums...

Waking up.  Oh it's Christmas Eve!

yes definitely Christmas Eve, it says so on the calendar...

Better get dressed then...

And stick some candycanes and a teacup in my hair...

Porridge for breakfast?

Now what's on the to do list for today?

Then the story continues with the character leaving her biscuit tin house and exploring the dresser, finding things to help her with her preperation for Chistmas.  If you look carefully at this picture, you can spot her walking along...

Fairies

In December I'm going to be at a craft fair in Flitick selling, among other things, these fairies:

Here are a few of them.  Meet:

The Sugar Plum Fairy

Audrey

Araminta the garden fairy

Robin

Snowflake the Christmas tree fairy

The Snow Queen

Cinder the little gothling fairy

I'm very excited and addicted to making them! They stand at about 5 inches tall and are totally handmade by yours truly! I will also be selling copies of my book 'Victoria Stitch', original water colour paintings and (hopefully) Christmas cards by my friend Sian. 

I will post details about the event nearer the time just in case any one who reads this lives nearby and might like to come along...

Victoria Stitch packs for holiday

Victoria Stitch is packing for her holiday.

She does not travel light!

She has so many very necessary items to bring...

Her striped swimming costume with matching goggles, flippers, hat and swimasaurus rubber ring.

Her Royal travelling crown.  (After all, she is the Queen!)

Her complete art set, including crayons, colouring pencils and paint.

Sunhat and suncream- factor 100!...

Travel sweets and snacks...

A bucket and spade for all those sand Palaces she will order Pink Rabbit to build...

Make up and glitter (very important)...

 Mustn't forget her pink toothbrush!

And that's all before she even packs her clothes!

Illustrated Recipe

I finally got around to making an illustrated recipe for the recipelook blog!  I was meaning to do it for ages.  Here's what I sent in:

Dear Mr Baker man,

There is only one thing that I want you to bake,

and that is a pink and black house made of cake,

with icing and frosting and round silver balls,

and edible wallpaper hung on the walls.

(another page of my book)

Which house would you live in?

The Cupcake Palace

Here's my character again, inside her Cupcake Palace.  This is one of the pages from my book and there's writing to go on it too.  

I got totally inspired over the summer by Scott Hoves Cake Land.  I especially like these shoes:

 

I think my character would have probably have worn shoes like these in her younger days.