Party Time!

It is a friend's birthday on Saturday so I have made her this card. She is quite girly, but not over the top, so I used my feminine patterns to create a more contemporary design with a traditional twist.

Holland Paper Biennial

                                          

                                          

                                           

                                           

                                           

I have recently exhibited a few cards at the Eighth Holland Paper Biennial. I collaged floral designs onto the cards in the same way that I designed during my degree work.

Click the post title to link to the Biennial website.

Happy Camping

It was my VW Campervan-fanatic Aunty's birthday on Saturday & what better way for her to celebrate than hire a campervan (and fancy dress!) for the weekend! I thought the VW would be the perfect theme for her card :)

scherenschnitte patterns

Today I had a quick go and creating some more scherenschnitte patterns. Last time, I traced details from architecture in my photographs, to laser cut for cards. Today I traced iconic silhouettes from my photographs to make a row of images to repeat. If I were to spend a bit more time on them, I think they could be really good. I would like to use the same method with other subject matter, like tea & cakes or flowers & plants, and try alternative colour ways. I think the ones with more feminine subject matter will turn out looking like lace, which is always a good thing!

...watch this space!

(images: man playing alpine horn, pocket watch, chalet, fork sculpture as seen in the lake at Vevey, Swiss Army knife, Chapel Bridge in Luzern, mountain flowers.)

Experimenting with a continuation of my florals.

Recently I have been playing around with Illustrator, to convert some of my collaged designs into vector images. I thought this would be a good experimentation, and although I will lose the hand-made qualities that I loved about the originals, I can now easily change my colourways.

Pretty cover letter.

I have applied to a few jobs recently, using this as my covering letter paper. I used some of my disperse dyed florals to create a traditional looking letter head in the style of the personalised note cards which you can buy. I thought this kept nicely with my overall stationery theme.

better late then never.

Here are a few more photographs which I took of my show.

Scherenschnitte patterns in Switzerland.

I have just returned from a trip to Switzerland where I saw lots of scherenschnitte designs, including this mural in Lausanne. It has inspired me to return to my Switzerland project and expand on my similar designs.

brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things :)

i have mastered paper bows i can't wait to make some with the scraps of my pretty prints :)

I'm glad they liked it :)

My Mum, Dad, Sisters and me at my show.

final decisions for the show.

These 5 gift wraps will sit together as a complimentary set within my show.

This set will be the special or luxury wraps with added stitch onto some of them to coordinating with the simple spot and stripe wraps.

I also have my length of wallpaper, some cards and 3 gift bags which all coordinate and compliment each other.

the end is nigh...

currently in the process of working out which prints work best together but it is too hard!

wallpaper

I have created a wallpaper design that uses elements of my gift wrap designs but plays with scale and alternative uses of colour to fit as a wallpaper. The length still has a handcrafted feel due to the texture and colour given from the lining paper on which it is printed, and the flowers are scans of intricate paper collages.

Repeat patterns.

starting to repeat using the cross stitch motifs.

cross stitch is fun.

i have been doing some cross stitch like i did in my Italian project. for this project i have used the motifs that i made from collage, and with the scans i have used photoshop to create counted cross stitch charts to work from. i am happy with these so far, especially the colours.

development of 2nd collection.

i have started to repeat the heat pressed prints and adding areas of stitch.

i like lining paper and newsprint.

(unsure about this one)

a little bit of what i have been up to over the last 2 weeks. primarily these prints are designed for gift wrap.i have printed them A2 size onto lining paper to give a cream/off white background.

(they look so much nicer without all the white)

sneak preview.

a screen shot of a selection of images from my current project, that i am going to submit with my press release.

thank you.

a postcard that i sent out to friends and relatives as a thank you for all my birthday gifts :)

it is taken from the development of my current, and final project at university :(

Montage of Memoirs: Bella Italia.

as a last minute experiment i placed my 2 design styles in a repeat and printed them on cheap lining paper (to get the right shade of off-white like newsprint). i printed them A2 to see how they would work as wrapping paper.