Tigerprint Gift Packaging Competition...

I got an email today to say that I have been chosen as one of the runners up in the recent Tigerprint competition. The brief was to design an envelope or kind of gift packaging that would enhance a special occasion. I am beyond chuffed and am awaiting my little prize in the post!

Here are my entries...

See more about the winning designs on their website.

WEC Work Experience...

Front Cover

Double page spread entitled, "How to make a missions noticeboard."

Double page spread entitled, "Networking for Christ in Turkey."

This summer I have been lucky enough to do some voluntary work at the organisation WEC (http://www.wec-int.org.uk) working with their in house graphic designer. She asked me to do a some illustrations for two articles in their quarterly magazine as well as a book cover for a new publication about the history of WEC. The book cover is still in progress but the illustrations have been printed in the next issue of the magazine which I'm going to collect this week. So excited! The people at WEC are truly amazing and I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to work with them.

Many Happy Returns...

A few birthday cards that I have made recently.

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."

It's ages since I have posted anything on my blog. It's not for lack of things, it's for lack of time! I thought I would 'restart' my blogging with the anniversary card that I made for my sister and brother in law at the start of the month. It was their second anniversary and I wanted to celebrate with a beautiful card to say thanks for being such wonderful siblings! I've been really interested in paper cuts for a while now so it only seemed right I do their very own. The glasses and the shoe laces were a tad challenging but in the end they liked it so much they had it framed. The title of the blog is one of my favourite sayings and was the inscription inside. Much love to everyone.

Kat's Flowery Cushion...

My good friend and housemate Kat celebrated her 21st birthday the other day and she's a very crafty lady so I wanted to make her something equally creative for her birthday. I decided to make her a cushion for her room and a hand cut card. The cushion took me a little longer than originally planned, but I got there in the end! Here are the fruits of my labour...

The Cushion...

And the Card...

Happy Birthday Elly...

My housemate Elly turned the grand old age of 20 this June and as she loves animals I made this cheeky little zebra postcard for her.

60th Birthday Card...

A recent paper cut card that I made for a 60th birthday.

Happy Birthday Grandad...

It's my Grandad's birthday tomorrow. Like every year, I have no idea how old he is and this year is no different! I made him a card using bits and pieces from my collage box and it sits on my grandparents bureau waiting to be opened. He's so sweet, the other day he was telling me all about his time in India as a soldier and how on leave, him and his friends went horse riding up into the mountains. I don't think we appreciate the awesomeness of our grandparents sometimes. The lives they led when they were our age and the people they met. Next time I see him he's going to show me all his photographs from India. I can't wait to go back in time with him. Happy Birthday Grandad... you're amazing as ever!

Happy Mother's Day...

Hopefully everyone remembered to send their mums a little something at the weekend for Mother's Day! I wanted to make my mum a really nice card and decided to use my developing knife skills to cut out an intricate pattern. I was just doodling and drew out a rough design and then cut it out with my craft knife. I was really pleased with the result and my mum loved it too!

Dracula is no more...

Well I have just finished and handed in my Book Illustrations Project. I used my photographs and tried out a number of book spreads with different scales and sizes of picture. Here are the final beauties!

Dracula ah ah ah...

Ok so the current brief I'm working on is to produce 5 illustrations based on my favourite novel. Well, for starters I love reading so it was quite hard to choose which book to do. I decided to pick Dracula by Bram Stoker, a classic and something that I knew would be challenging to illustrate! I borrowed my housemates copy and whizzed through all 421 pages of it in two days phew! I wanted to do something completely different to my normal style so started playing around with silhouettes. Having them stuck down made the scenes too flat and lifeless. I decided to take a different approach and went into our little pokey cupboard for photographing and set about hanging the pieces I had cut out up.

I suspended the silhouettes from a pole with invisible thread (brilliant stuff) and then shone an OHP onto them. Straight away the illustrations were brought to life and I was able to play around with the arrangements and more excitingly, the shadows ooooo spooky! I spent 3 whole days setting up and taking photographs and am so so proud of the outcomes. Here are some of my favourite images so far. Enjoy! But watch your neck!

Pattern mad...

I love patterns soooo much! I can't help but just see shapes all around me in buildings, artwork everything! I've finally started to work on some of my own designs using collage and paint that I hope to eventually turn into some postcards or something. Here's just one of my first designs.