Isadora Moon gets into Trouble

Today is the day Isadora Moon gets into Trouble is published!

I really enjoyed writing this book and I think it is one of my favourite Isadora Moon stories so far. I love it because it includes a dolls house, a baby dragon and a witch. I think it's the sort of story I would have loved to read myself as a child. 

this (below) is part of one of my favourite spreads from the book. It is Isadora Moon's dolls house. 

* Spoiler alert *

*** I love that Isadora and her cousin Mirabelle make a magic potion to miniaturize themselves and go and play inside the dolls house themselves. They have fun whizzing down the twisty slide but it all ends in disastrous consequences. That part is actually my favourite of the book! I also really love that at the end they sit and make their own miniature dolls house dolls out of scraps and fabric and things. That's exactly the sort of thing I used to when I was young. Actually I suppose I still do that now! Another thing I used to do was make food for my dolls but it had to all be real food. I included that in the book too. Isadora makes teeny tiny sandwiches and sets out bowls of cake sprinkles which her and Mirabelle eat. ***

I feel like this book reflects most the games I used to play as a child. That's basically my bedroom floor right there! Covered in dolls and tiny clothes and furniture. 

You can buy Isadora Moon gets into Trouble in all good book shops! 

.✮*¨*•★•*¨*✮Happy reading!✮*¨*•☆•*¨*•.

Isadora Moon dress up doll and other things

One of the things I really enjoyed doing in the lead up to the release of the Isadora Moon books was creating this dress up doll sheet below. I have always, always had a thing for paper cut out dolls - I think they are so charming - so I was very eager to create one for Isadora Moon. Besides, she has a fabulous wardrobe of clothes and I wanted to show them off!

All of the outfits on the sheet can be found somewhere in the books.

I couldn't resist trying out the cut out doll for myself once it was finished!

These sheets were available at some of my events but if you want to download one yourself then I'll leave a full res one here (below.) You SHOULD be able to open it in a new tab and it will be full size so you can download it!

I also created two colouring sheets for Isadora Moon.

Over half term I was very busy because I did seven Isadora Moon events in various Waterstone's and libraries. I had not done a lot of events before so it was interesting to see what worked and what didn't work and I think I learned a lot doing them. Here are some photos from the Hitchin event which I think was my favourite. Because I am from Hitchin, lots of people who I knew came so it felt more like a launch party which was really nice. There were spiderwebs and pink and black balloons and the whole thing went really well.

Here I am reading an extract from my book to the children:

And signing books! We did a wand making craft activity at this event which went down well with the children.

My mum made some vampire and fairy shaped star biscuits:

There were a few Pink Rabbits (the children came dressed up) but I was especially impressed with this one because the little girl's mum had even sewn black and white stripes into the ears!

I'll leave you now with a little picture of baby Honeyblossom

Bye for now! X

Collecting Berries

Another picture of Vinetta, collecting berries. It was a beautiful November morning today.

Isadora Moon, my birthday and school visits

It's high time for an update on this blog! 

So let's start with a picture of Isadora Moon celebrating her birthday. I am currently in the middle of sketching out and painting the illustrations for 'Isadora Moon has a Birthday.' It is quite fitting as my own birthday was this week. I turned twenty eight on Tuesday.

I didn't really do anything for my birthday this year but I did get some nice presents. I got a miniature necklace and a miniature dragon! I am not sure why I have such an obsession with miniature jewellery but I just love it. It's like fairy jewellery. 

The necklace is tiny, only about the size of a penny. And it is SO sparkly. I only wish I could photograph it better. It is made by Nalladris on Etsy,

I also love the tiny crochet dragon. It goes perfectly in my castle as Celestine has a collection of miniature dragons. I was amazed when it arrived - it looked better in real life than in the photo! It is really amazing actually. Made by SuAmi on Etsy. I wish I knew how to crochet.

Other things that have happened recently: I received a proof copy in the post of the first Isadora Moon book a little while ago which was really exciting. So cool to see it in proper book form! I just love Isadora Moon sooooo much and love every second of working on the books. It's such a dream project of mine.

I did this little picture of her just for fun the other day. She is making flower crowns with Pink Rabbit and looking forward to spring! I guess they are maybe blossom flowers or maybe magic flowers.

Isadora Moon loves Pink Rabbit!

So yes, I am currently in the middle of illustrating Isadora Moon book three. I absolutely love working on them as I have said but I am also reeeeally excited (and a bit nervous) for these books to be out in the shops! They will be released in September but you can pre order them if you wish.

Another thing I did recently was two school visits for world book week. One of them was at an infant school and the other one was actually at my old school, talking to the year 8 and 9's. I haven't had a lot of experience doing school visits before so this was quite new to me. I really enjoyed both of the visits though and it was really interesting to go back to my old school.

I actually made it into the paper for one of the school visits so that was pretty cool. I only found out because my aunt spotted it and texted me to tell me. 

I'll finish up with a picture of me showing my Witch's Cat sets to the children at Highbury Infant School in Hitchin. Photo taken by the school.

And that concludes my update!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend.

X

Celestine at the pool (+ my instagram account!)

Yesterday was such a nice sunny day, so we decided to go swimming.

Celestine refused to come unless I made her a pair of sunglasses to match her swimsuit. Honestly! (roll eyes) She does insist on being fashionable at all times. I tell you, it can get quite exhausting.

So I quickly made this pair of yellow sunglasses and she perched them on her head. The lenses are made from a ginger beer bottle!

She enjoyed floating about in her new rubber ring.

Love Celestine

X

what is this magic?

it's that time of year again...

Celestine does enjoy to feel festive. She's been planning her Christmas outfit too lately. She wants a red satin dress with red tulle under the skirt and a holly and berry hair decoration to match.

 

An October Activity

Quite a while back I designed an activity to go along with Witch's Cat. It is a guide for how to make your own little paper diorama based on the kitchen scene in the book. If you have kids maybe it is something they would enjoy as an autumn/Halloweeny activity.

HERE is the link to where you can print out a pdf of the activity. I would suggest printing it out on card if possible.

This is what is included:

A little Witch's Cat character with lots of kitchen items, some of them left blank for you to draw in your own things. 

The table with the red spotted table cloth as seen in the book:

And lots of food boxes which can be cut out and constructed.

A chair:
A saucepan:

 And also the background which you can print out and set behind the character if you so wish.

Harpercollins actually made a little video showing how to make the diorama which is on twitter. This is how theirs looked at the end:

★★★★★★★★★ 

Princess Ballroom!

Last week I made a ballroom for the princess books.  It ended up being the biggest room set I have ever made! I thought it ought to be big though as it was a royal ballroom.

It was requested that the floor should be wooden which was something I had to think about how to make- because the floor was so big . In the end I found some very thin sheets of wood, cut them into individual miniature planks and stuck them down one by one. It didn't take as long as I thought it would and I was really pleased with the effect so that was all good!

Here's a close up of the floor:

It was also suggested that a grand piano could be included in the ballroom. I was very taken with that idea so went right ahead and created a gold glittery piano fit for a princess.

Here's how the whole ballroom looked. The pillars and panels were another challenge- something I had not tried before. I was pleased with how they came out though. I also used a string of fairy lights poked through the walls to create lighting round the edge of the room.

Again the flowers were another little challenge. I bought some cheap ones and then spent quite a while painting them (with Henry's help!) different shades of purple and then glittering them up.

I took a few shots without daylight to show how the lights on the walls light up. I think it looks more atmospheric this way. 

Here come some princesses!

 I especially like their glittery skirts:

I am looking forward to seeing how all this will look once it's photographed professionally and put into one of the books!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★