in the Etsy shop - hand printed letter writing set.

Oh my, the weeks really are escaping me.  I can't believe it has been over a week since I wrote in this little space.  Faelen has discovered new games such as I'm going to throw everything off the highchair and cry until you pick it up and his continuing favourite everytime you look at something that is not me I am going to emit a shrill scream until you look back.  Impressive but time consuming! 

In bitesize sessions between these games, I have managed to finally put together these letter writing sets and upload them to Etsy.   I am really thrilled with how they turned out.  For a brief moment (when Faelen woke with a start and I got yellow ink in my eye) I thought about abandoning the project, but through primrose coloured tears I finished.  I am so glad I did - I have already sent a several envelopes out into the big wide world.

Now I have to go and retrieve various drooled on animals from the floor!  Yummy.

lino carved letter writing paper.

Having got a bit excited about hand stamped letter writing paper a couple weeks ago, I couldn't get the idea out my head.  I have always loved sets of writing paper; my pocket money (and later my student loan) was often spent on packs of beautiful papers with matching envelopes and, if I was very lucky, coordinated stickers.  

I suffer from postal vanity - too often I run out of paper or envelopes and A4 printer paper with plain white business envelopes lack that magic.  
So whilst sat at the table in the dining room last week, with Faelen finally dozing upstairs in his cot (seriously, breakthrough!) I started doodling an idea for writing paper.  I wanted something with a cute motif and slightly wobbly lines, something a bit rough and ready but still special.  I wanted my perfect personalised writing paper.  And this idea was born.

A couple of lovely evenings chatting with James, drinking tea and listening to the radio with a lino carver in hand and it turned out just how I imagined.  Is it smug to say, I am thrilled with it? The magic porridge pot of unending writing paper!  Now I am just waiting for nap time to draw out some matching envelopes.

imaginopolis and playing with typography.

When I was about 8 years old, Father Christmas bought me a computer CD called Creative Writer.  It was a word processor set in the Imaginopolis - an improbably tall building with many levels, each for a different writing skill.  
On the first floor was story writing - the resident Mr McZee provided hilarious prompts (well, to the average eight year old) for story writing inspiration on topics as diverse and mature as monsters, bogies and underpants.  
My favourite was the third floor - the poster floor.  McZee provided fonts and templates to make the ultimate poster.  I spent a long time designing posters and invitations for the penny sales I would host (selling particularly shiny conkers, my 'art' and other junk found around my bedroom) for the family to peruse.  
The real challenge was to use as many fonts as possible on a single page!

Sadly, these days I host fewer penny sales so I have to think of new ways to channel my inner Imaginopolis!



So I had a play at typographical drawing.  This is a quote from my mother.  If you ever mention the words deja vu, unfailingly she will add all over again.  And then laugh.  Every. Time.  

hand stamped letter sets.

Saying I like getting post feels a little redundant, it is a little like saying I like chocolate or holidays.  Who doesn't?  But I also love sending post.  I have a compulsion that means I never leave an arts/crafts/tourist shop without at least one new card to add to my just in case collection.  

I have recently started writing to an old friend again.  We met in an airport when I was 16 and we wrote on and off for several years but then life, new friendships and relationships got in the way for both of us and the letters tapered off and texting just seemed peasier.  Then a couple months ago I got a letter in the post, a bundle of office papers with that familiar text scrawled all over and I got that same thrill leafing through the pages, composing my reply in my head as I read.

I started my reply on a card but then the letters spilled out onto pages torn out from a .55p cheapo reporters notepad found somewhere in the depths of my desk.  It looked pretty...scabby?  So once I returned from the post office I got cracking on a new project - hand stamped letter writing paper!



The supplies came from Love Sprouts - home of the nicest supplies and some of the most incredible hand carved stamps.  

I carved the stamps over a couple evenings using lino carving tools and then used VersaCraft stamping inks to stamp the pages of a PaperChase letter writing paper and matching envelopes.  The clouds are my favourite, they were so simple to carve and the silvery blue is just light enough to enable scrawling over the top without it interfering with the legibility.  

new cards and very little else.

I thought I would write a lot this week as James is around to help with the wee boy.  But it turns out having James around is just too much fun!  We have had coffee mornings, walking dates and afternoons exploring (between the rain showers) leaving very little time for sitting at the computer (or washing up or doing laundry)!  I have however managed to update the shop with a couple new cards.  Success!  
I will be more productive next week.  Maybe.

insect doodles.

Slightly gloomy pictures (blame the endless rain) of current doodles.  James has a week off from work this week and I am making the most of his baby holding abilities to doodle and draw (....and shower).  I have been told by my Nonna (one of the two people guaranteed to read this space - Hi Mum!  Hi Nonna!) that I should draw something a 'bit nicer, perhaps like butterflies'.  But I think there is something nice about honouring the less favoured of the beasties, butterflies get enough attention, hence this, retaliation, slug.

And with the rest of James' week off we have tremendously exciting plans such as; go to IKEA to buy nursery storage and clean the bathroom.  I know, life on the edge.

a small project for those rare moments my babe sleeps.

As the title suggests, I have been using the brief moments that Faelen sleeps to start a new project.  I have opened a small Etsy shop - Jai's tea for bohemia.  It contains a few hand pulled lino prints and the start of a collection of hand illustrated cards that I have drawn in snatched moments.  I would love it if you could go and have a peek :)

on moments of sanity (and lino printing).

After writing about how time has eluded me since Faelen's arrival, James gave me the gift of an uninterrupted hour.  He took Faelen to the room next door where they bonded over jingly toys and a jungle play mat whilst I revelled in the silence and space of an hour to myself.  

I pulled out my inks, rollers and Japanese papers and laid paper down on the table.  Whilst these fishies have been carved in snatched moments over several weeks, the oily inks and the time required for printing had put them on the backburner.  Finally being able to burnish the print, watching the designs seep through the paper, I was filled with quiet contentment.  Then, what felt like mere seconds later, Faelen cried and my hours' serenity was broken and, leaving a pile of Mackerel and Plaice drying, I went to snuggle with my family on the sofa.

I love a good weekend.

printing in oils for a mackerel supper.

James is on call this weekend so the weekend, much like the week, is quiet.  And we are still eagerly awaiting this baby to make his appearance.  

I have used the time to fall in love with oil based lino printing inks.  After the postman arrived conveniently at the crack of dawn, I spent the morning getting my fingers stained in blues and greys and watching my carved designs appear on paper in a way I had previously only hoped they would.  The difference between the blotchy gloop of water based inks and the tight crispness of the oils is unbelievable.  The hum of the radio whilst burnishing the thin Japanese paper against the lino and watching the image appear proved hypnotic and, for once, my day ran away with me.  It was blissful.

The lighting has been terrible all day due to endless rain clouds, so I only have a couple pictures of one print to share for now, but I hope to be able to photograph the rest tomorrow.  
I wish you all a cosy Saturday evening :)

around here and weevil biscuits.

Quiet mornings, listening to the rain, enjoying halloween cookies and finally getting some time to sit with my watercolour set.  I am remembering to savour these last moments with bump however uncomfortable they sometimes feel.  This is one time in my life I will never have again - the next time I am this size, bump will be a real person in my life.

wonky stitch lines and inventive sewing techniques.

I have been lucky enough to be given a whole pile of crumb sacks.  Literally fabric sacks that contain the crumb (like bread crumb) used for adding to the filling of ravioli to wick up the moisture and hold all the other ingredients.  My parents get through tonnes of these sacks for the pasta business but they have such a lovely print on them that no one can ever bring themselves to throw them away.

So now I have a pile of them on my desk and, aside from adding a zipper to make an instant pillow case, I have been struggling to think of ways to use them.  Plus there is no way around it; I am a horrific seamstress.  Patterns are a foreign language to me and my stitching tends to look a little drunken.  Today was particularly successful - I spent a good long time (genuinely over thirty minutes) getting very stressed (inclusive of hormonal foot stamping) at the tension dial on the sewing machine before realising I simply hadn't threaded the machine right.  Standard. 

But, several hours later and multiple consoling cups of tea - I created this!  I cannot explain how huge this is for me.  A genuine, functioning pen-roll!  Despite the wonky thread lines (and my apparent inability to trim threads before photographing), it actually works!

I sewed wadding into the pen roll to add some support but it made it a little too puffy.  Next time I think using a thicker fabric to act as support would probably work better.  If there will be a next time.  James is on nights at the moment and for the sake of him getting any sleep in the day, it might be an idea for me to abandon sewing machine plans for this week at least.

for quiet fridays.

Everyone is at work again today so I am making the most of the quiet in the garden to sit and draw the ravioli labels for tomorrow's market.  Even writing out the names I am struggling not to drool - squid ink pasta with smoked salmon and prawn ravioli would go down perfectly right about now.
Happy hungry Friday all x 

Sketchbook peeks: bats and lino carving.

This is my attempt at a speedy lino carving.  My last few lino carvings were more complicated and I just wanted to try something with crisp and clean lines.  Initially when I finished and printed this one I was really underwhelmed, so it sat in my sketchbook for a week being ignored.  Coming back to it today I don't mind it quite so much but I'm not sure I like the 'blockier' look.

Random fact about yours truly; when I had a tendency to take environmental plights to heart, especially that of the bat.  When I was ten I convinced my mother to take me to the local bat training group and I completed the two-weekends training to become a fully qualified bat worker.  As I was under 18 I technically only had the license as long as my mother was in attendance, so my new found skills were never actually put into practice, but I was pretty proud nonetheless!  I guess it was inevitable that at some point a bat feature in my lino carving attempts.

Ramblings and Sketchbook peeks: more lino printing.

Before I start on the actual aim of my post I just want to ramble a moment.
Yesterday was strange day.  

It was James' last day before starting his first, full-time job as a Doctor and he spent hours skittering around the house with nervous energy.  
There were thunder and lightening storms from dawn to dusk and the cowardly hounds spent much of their day also skittering with nervous energy or trying to convince us they could be lapdogs (they are not small critters).  
At midday I left the nervous nest and braved monsoon rains to go to an appointment at the job center and was basically told, that with my sizeable baby bump, the chance of them finding me work is close to zero.  The woman was lovely, she suggested some places that might offer me temp work if I was lucky and then, in a lowered voice, whispered 'enjoy it, you might never have free time again once the baby arrives'.  

So I came home and spent an hour feeling a little lost.  Many years of juggling part time jobs, volunteering and studying has given me a need to schedule every hour of many day, to always have an aim and to always have a clear idea of what the next step is going to be.  Not always aims and steps I have liked, don't get me wrong, finish the dissertation or get through finals or get the store cupboard at work organised in time for the inspection have not exactly nourished my soul!  But they were present nonetheless.

After this hour, I stood up, boiled the kettle, put the chicken back in her roost, set the bath running and decided:

oh my gosh, this is going to be awesome

Until baby comes in November I am both goal-less and aimless.  And the next step involves meeting baby boy.  I don't think there could be a better next step.

I said it was a strange day.



Anyway, here is my latest lino print.  The pears were from a drawing I made some time ago in an old sketchbook; I adapted them from a piece of artwork I saw on the internet of which I am completely unable to recall.  So if they look familiar, please please let me know the name of the artist as I am desperate to rediscover his/her work!

This weeks 'lesson learnt' was regarding the quality of the ink.  
Whilst I find the carving side of this process satisfying and therapeutic, until yesterday I found the printing side somewhat less enjoyable.  I tend to focus to highly on the imperfections of the print and get frustrated when the inks aren't exactly even.  Yesterday I tried printing in a different colour (the green print) and the quality of the print immediately improved, I think you can see the difference in the top picture.

The lesson learnt: don't buy the cheapest ink, it ain't worth it!

(If you are UK based, the high quality inks are made by Seawhite of Brighton)

Sketchbook peeks: lino carving and The Pearce Sisters.

Since moving back to Somerset life has been pleasantly busy; returning to the homeland has meant catching up with the friends and family I have shamefully neglected over the last, manic year in Cardiff.  It has also meant however that I have had little time for my usually unending pile of projects.  Today I am hoping I will be able to make some time to sit in the garden with my sketchbook as apparently our heatwave is due to end and be replaced with storms in the near future.

I thought I would share this (admittedly horrific quality photograph as the original resides in storage) of a quick lino print I made in Cardiff.  As I hadn't played with lino since my last attempt back in December and it was a rainy afternoon, it felt about time to flex the lino-carving-muscles once more.  This is a doodle taken from my favourite short film; The Pearce Sisters (please, please watch below, it is wonderfully dark).  I am still getting my head round the coarseness of using lino; usually my drawings tend towards the small and fiddly, so lino carving feels fairly counter intuitive.  I am not usually one for 'embracing imperfections', but something about picking out long slithers of lino is so disgustingly satisfying, it keeps me trying!  I do believe this is going to be a long learning curve....so again, any hints or tips anyone can impart are most welcome!

Learning lino-printing.

So I have finally learnt to manage the whole scheduling posts in advance malarkey (hence my organisation with all my Christmas projects) however it has left me feeling like a strange automaton has taken over my small corner of the internet.  So this is my rebellion, an impromptu post as I procrastinate from writing my assignment!

Apologies for the shoddy photograph, I completely forgot to take a proper picture when I was done so I just pulled this one off of my phone.  This is my first properly finished lino-print of my mother's very handsome dog!  There are a million mistakes and imperfections and there are a lot of changes I wish I could make (the permanent nature of printing to a girl who lives with one hand on the Ctrl+z short cut and has an industrial eraser in her bag at all times takes some adapting to) but I do like it.

Have any of you guys tried lino printing?  Any advice you could impart for next time?

Projects // Photocopies.

I recently bought 'A Stolen Sharpie Revolution' which re-awakened in me the magic of the lowly photocopier.  Having gone through a slightly tragic, punk aspiring phase (think sex pistols patches sewn onto bags, cutting holes in perfectly good tee-shirts and a misplaced belief that safety pins look 'sick' as earings) I still believe that the punk gig flyer is the best kind of advertisment.  So, whilst it might be a little early in the year, James and I spent a morning making a flyer inspired invitation for this year's halloween party.

I feel pretty pleased with the end result.  If you are curious, the fonts were all downloaded from DaFont and the hatched background is the inside of a security envelope which once held our water bill.  

James and I went to the nearest library to use their photocopier which just so happens to be the Law Library.  I must admit that photocopying sheets of paper emblazoned with 'Black Death', whilst the hardworking student behind me waits patiently with her serious volume on investment law, made me feel a little silly, but the end result was totally worth it.  I just cannot wait for Halloween now!