Haul!

Although Boyfriend wasn't too keen on the idea of getting up so early on a Sunday, the two of us headed down to the Marina yesterday morning to check out the car boot sale, a Brighton institution. There was the BEST stall selling vintage buttons, thread and ribbon, so I got these three French button cards and the nice bloke running it threw in 6 metres of the purple ribbon for free, as there are some water marks on the first couple, but they can easily be removed.







We then went up to Home for breakfast (I had to bribe him to get out of the house somehow) then into town for a bit of wander about. We didn't get back til nearly 3pm - six hours out of the house! But I got this awesome 1971 book from the Oxfam Bookshop on Kensington Gardens. Fab limited palette:







We even managed to finish painting the hallway, so all I have left to paint is the loo, which I plan to do on Thursday. The whole flat painted! It only took all of 14 months. Jeez.

Awesome weekend, though.

Fan FLIPPIN' tastic Book Covers

Just came across this set of redesigned Lemony Snicket covers by corleyms on Flickr. Truly, truly awesome, and so inspiring.

Awesome Alphabet

I found this alphabet today through Print & Pattern by Bukubuku:


Bukubuku is also known as Silvia Portella, a Spanish illustrator living in Berlin. She produced this A-Z poster for L'Affiche Moderne, an AWESOME website with other fantastic prints, including other French alphabets. I'm particularly digging the little Pluie raindrop and the Escargot. Gives me lots of ideas for alphabets in other languages and putting the whole A-Z on one poster. Hmmmm...

PS MORE new prints up at screeningbluemurder NOW.

Mmmmm, cake.

Dave McKean Stamps

I bought myself a set of the new AWESOME Dave McKean fantasy stamps:







Fabulous packaging; almost even better than the stamps themselves!

More New Prints Up in Da Shawp

K is for King, Q is for Queen, H is For Haunted House and WANTED are up NOW NOW NOW at screeningbluemurder:

New Yarn...

...is a wonderful thing.

New Prints Uploaded!

I've uploaded Cinderella and Little Red to my new Etsy shop, ScreeningBlueMurder. You can see I have a little Etsy Mini down on the right hand side there. I'm hoping to upload a couple each day until they're all up and for sale and I've also put a couple up in my Folksy shop. Go make me some pocket money!

Bah

Yesterday, naturally just before I was about to leave for work, I discovered that you can add your own artwork to your iTunes playlists that don't have any. I know, how behind the times am I? But it was a very exciting discovery. I spent all of yesterday evening consolidating and adding artwork to everything, particularly my audiobooks. I went to bed near 1am, and even though I left SnB early last night to...ahem...get my ironing under control, I didn't even touch the ironing basket.



Now everything is all neat and tidy and labelled. I am such a Virgo. And I learned something new! I have to add, though, that I was only trying to distract myself from the fact my external hardrive seems to have divorced my computer. I can see and hear the damn thing working, but I'll be jiggered if I can get my computer to bloody well recognise it. I'm hoping it's just a power issue and that I can just get a new adaptor and problem solved. If not, it means I've got to get a nice man to data-retrive everything for me as ALL my work is on there. This is bad. You think you're doing all the right thing with backing it all up externally, but really you need to back up the back up! I'm going to get a large stack of blank DVDs ASAP.

Crochet Project no1 Completed

I finished my first full crochet project this weekend. It took me a week in all. Wow, them there hooks are fast! So I hereby present The Massive Yellow Shawl:





In the words of the Lovely Kate: Holy Crap, it's HUGE. Sure is! But I was using up stash yarn and wanted to use all of it. I've already embarked on another shawl, but this time it won't be quite so mahoosive.

In other news, I have again changed my hair colour. Something a little more like my natural colour. Boyfriend helped me do it Saturday night, and, 48 hours later, after going out to work and everything, no one has yet noticed or commented. I suppose that means it suits me!



I'm off to the print studio again tomorrow. King and Queen are ready to go and my apron is packed! Hopefully if the light is still good by the time I get back I will have photos. I've not yet put the other prints up in my various shops, but I'm aiming for the weekend.

Q is for Queen

Home Made Bread...

...that I'm just scoffing the last of now. Hom nom.

Fairytale Alphabet - The Beginnings

As summer was here for a bit today I was finally able to take some photos, so, without further ado, here are my prints from Tuesday:





C is for Cinderella.





L is for Little Red.

They will be up in my Folksy shop and my secondary Etsy shop ASAP. (I hope tomorrow, but my List Of Stuff To Do For Friday is already at 8 items and counting.)

Next week's prints will be "Queen" and "King", hopefully followed by "Unicorn" and "Wicked Witch" if I have enough moolah to go back to the print studio the week after, too. The plan is to keep to the same colour scheme, with the two shades of cyan alternating with the red and the pale grey. I printed these on A3 (although the image itself fits on A4) but seeing them here in the frames I may print on A2, with the option of cutting them down for a smaller frame if required.

Decisions, decisions....

Oh, and if anyone can think of anything relevant starting with "X" or "Z", please let me know!

New Nails, New Shoes

I went for a pedicure last Wednesday. Never been for one before, but it was lovely. Felt a bit too girly for me to make it a regular occurrence, though! So here I am modelling new, red, sparkly nails with new, red, shiny flip-flops. A present from Boyfriend. He does do good, that one.

Anyhooooo, after all that retro inspiration last week, I came up with ideas for a new Fairytale alphabet. OK, OK, so I haven't actually completed the last one I started (you know, the Spooky one), but I think having two similar yet contrasting projects on the go will make it all the more interesting. (As long as I don't mix them up, of course. That would be very, very wrong.) I was at the print studio earlier today and printed up "C" and "L". No photos as yet, as the light here is rubbish this afternoon, but I plan to take some outside on Thursday if the summer returns. In the mean time, here's a sneaky peak of just a little corner:

Retrotastic Illos

Instead of actually putting my ideas down on paper today, I've been completely caught up in looking through all 150 pages of the AWESOME "Retro Kid" Flickr group. SO much inspiration there; I'm actually really excited and dying to get scribbling!

Here are some of my faves from the group:


1. Story-A-Day, 2. Dealer News, 3. The Man Who Invented the Helicopter, 4. Fun With Mind Reading 2, 5. Fun With Mind Reading 1, 6. What's the Good Word?, 7. Dan Lawler 2, 8. Dan Lawler 1, 9. Bookmobile, 10. New Sun, 11. Out of this World, 12. Zombie Girl, 13. Pan-Am, 14. Lehigh Cements, 15. Merkin Magician, 16. Naiad 3, 17. Naiad 2, 18. Naiad 1, 19. True Goes Shopping, 20. Lowell Hess 1, 21. Golden Magazine 1, 22. Camel 1, 23. Sauerkraut!, 24. Doctor's Diary, 25. Lowell Hess 2

All these were uploaded by Glen Mullaly, who appears to have exactly the same taste in vintage illustration as I do, the dude.

I have a session booked in the print studio for this Tuesday coming, so I can't wait to get in there and produce something inspired by all this research.

Crochet, Here I Come!

As I said last week, on Saturday we went off to Yarn Over in Eastbourne, and while we were there Lovely Annie taught me how to crochet. So far I have managed a few blocks, a slightly floppy circle, and wait, for it, this AWESOME granny square:



OK, granted, it doesn't look like much, but this is a huge step forward for me. I tried to learn to crochet last year, but my brain wasn't having any of it. This time, it's making sense to me. I even understand the diagrams better than the written instructions, which defintely doesn't happen when I read knitting patterns! It's loads of fun, though. (I must try to remember I have a knitted cardi on the go, and not to abandon it in this flurry of new excitement). My aim is to have crocheted a shawl to wear to Sam's wedding in slightly under two months, so I'd better get a bit more practice in!

Star Pirates Unleashed!

The two pirates books I was working on at the end of last year/beginning of this year are out in the shops today!

Check 'em out:















It is the first time I've done black and white work, and I really really enjoyed it. Can't wait to do more junior fiction titles in the future. I'm really quite chuffed with the finished books (although I think the paper could've been thicker to make the illos brighter, but that's just me being picky), especially with that last spread, which is my overall favourite. Out in the ships* today! Woo!

* Unintentional typo, but thought I'd leave it in as it was rather appropriate!