Deck the Halls...

I bought these vintage sundae dishes, not that long ago, with the view to turning them into hand-poured candles. A project I've fancied doing for a while.

Until I get around to that (hmmm sounds like a lot of my projects!), I thought I would use them as part of my Christmas decorations and put tea lights in them.

They looked really sweet, so I decided to use all four on the mantelpiece and fireplace.

I don’t have much room for many decorations and my Christmas tree is less than two feet tall! But I do like to dress the mantelpiece and fireplace as my main attraction.

I've used a mixture of fake and real greenery, as well as fir cones, large baubles and the sundae dishes. I’m really pleased with the effect and it looks lovely and cosy when the fairy lights are on and the candles are lit.

I’m very much looking forward to Christmas, having some time of work to spend with family and friends.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas too, and I wish you the very best for a happy New Year.

Till next time…

Knit One, Purl One Dishcloths

One of my goals for next year is to combine my love of crafts with my love of vintage collectables, and have a stall at a local homemade and vintage fair.

I have lots of crafty ideas to get me started. One of which is knitting dishcloths, like they did in the olden ‘vintage’ days!

You can still get the dishcloth cotton fairly easily, so there must be more people knitting dishcloths than just me out there!

Part of the fun is being able to make up your own design. I like to knit a heart shape, using moss stitch, in mine.

I’ve knitted these before and had glowing reports on how much nicer they look and more durable they are, compared to bought ones. One friend, told me recently, that her’s is on its last legs now, so a new one would be lovely…

I think I’d better put one in her Christmas stocking!

Till next time...

Postcard Post - Swanage

As you may know, I have a thing for old postcards!

I also like to send old postcards to friends and family. This one of Swanage, is destined for my Aunty Jean.

My Brother and I used to stay with Aunty Jean and Uncle Cliff for a week during our summer school holidays – many moons ago now! They would take us to all sorts of places in and around Dorset, where they lived. Swanage was one such place where we went to see a huge stone globe on the coastal parkland nearby.

When I’m sending an old postcard, I usually just tuck it in a letter or pop it in an envelope. Then I had the idea to come up with a folding card design which can temporarily mount the postcard on the outside, and have space to write your own message on the inside. This is what I came up with…

By cutting a couple of shaped slots in opposite corners, the postcard can sit quite happily in place, ready to be posted and enjoyed all over again.

 Till next time…

A Birthday Make Over

Well it's a bit belated, but I've decided to give my blog a birthday make over.

I've been blogging for a year now, and although I've not always been very attentive, I have enjoyed this last year sharing my designs and doodles with you.

For this next year, I hope to share more postcard posts and crafty designs, but I also want to share with you, some of the vintage treasures that I love to pick up from flea markets and collector's fairs.

Talking of vintage, here's a classic! A photo of me, on the beach, aged about 2 or 3. What a cheeky chops!

Till next time...

Busy Busy Busy

Where has the time gone?!

I've been so busy lately. My house had become wedding stationery central, whilst I designed and produced a varied library of invitation samples as well as producing a large display frame of matching 'save the date' designs.

These were met with plenty of positive ooohs and aahhhs at a recent, local wedding fayre. A first for the Pure Grace team. We had a very enjoyable and busy day! Thank you to all of you who stopped by our table, its was great meeting you.

A report and more pics of the day can be found here at Design and Elegance.

Gill x

Can Can Girls!

I've recently started keeping a journal again. This was something that I used to do, but gradually got out of the habit, and it lapsed.

It sounds quite posh calling it a journal, basically its a note book where I jot down my mind chatter and somewhere to doodle and sketch and try out some ideas. It also acts as a scrapbook for anything that takes my interest, whether its ideas for home decor or inspiration from other artists found in magazines.

Quite often I will happily copy someone else's art work. I don't apologise for this, as its all art practice for me. Something in their art work has inspired me enough to pick up my art materials and do something!

While I'm busy using computer graphics for the majority of my art work, simply copying a drawing or watercolour allows me to enjoy drawing and painting as a way to relax as well as practicing my art skills.

I did a little favour for a friend recently. She had a greetings card which featured a line of can can girls, illustrated on the front. She wanted it enlarging and then framing. Unfortunately, I didn't take note of the artist's name so I'm sorry but I can't credit the below image.

I thought the image was great fun and I couldn't resist doing my own version of the first can can girl, in my journal. Here she is.

I hope to post a few more of my journal extracts soon.

Its Been A While!

Hello again! Yes it's been a while since I last posted here.

This is mainly due to being a bit mad busy with my sister blog Design and Elegance. I have been creating different sample wedding invites so that I could build up a small portfolio of designs. I've also had the opportunity to create some bespoke samples for, what I'm hoping will be future clients. It's all been quite exciting.

Things have finally calmed down a bit and I've enjoyed a week away on holiday too.

On my return from holiday, my creative side was itching to do something. I fancied soothing that itch with a bit of colouring-in. It's probably my way of kicking back from all the computer graphics that I've been doing lately, it's also very therapeutic too.

I have a little sketch book just for this sort of thing, it's only small so nothing in it can take very long to complete. On a clean page, I doodled some simple flowers. Once these were drawn I could get on with the fun of colouring them in. Sunday morning was blissful.

You're Invited!

I am very pleased to announce and invite you to my sister blog, Design and Elegance.

Due to the success of my designs for Emma and Leigh's wedding stationery, I now have a second commission! A guest at the wedding is getting married in June and has asked me, if I would like to design and produce their wedding stationery.

This is giving me so much pleasure that I have started a sister blog dedicated to wedding and special occasion stationery. Here, I will be able to showcase designs that have been used for weddings and special occasions, with the client's permission, as well as bring you new designs and idea samples for hopeful future clients and occasions.

Please click on the invitation.

Happy Mother's Day

A very happy Mother's day to all you Mums out there. I hope you are having a lovely day and enjoying some sunshine. The clocks have gone forward too, so that we can start to enjoy some lighter nights and look forward to summer.

I think all Mums like a homemade card whatever age you are, well that's what they tell us anyway, so I've doodled one for my Mum....this is how it went...

a doodle

with some text added

and a bit of colouring-in.

Happy Mother's Day, Mum x

Crafty Moods and Artist Trading Cards

Recently my crafty mood has just wanted to play.

I think this stemmed from watching too much create and craft when I was ill and off work for a few days. I was itching to get out my craft supplies and watercolours! When this sort of mood takes hold, I generally end up creating Artist Trading Cards.

Artist Trading Cards or ATCs are tiny 2.5 x 3.5 inch card featuring original art work on one side and the artist name and date of creation on the other. The only rules with an ATC is its size, after that you are free to use any media, technique or materials you desire to create little masterpieces. I find creating these are great if you want to experiment with different ideas or use different materials.

Here are a few that I've done recently...

I generally start off with a particular stamp in mind.

 Then create some sort of background using craft papers.

The image is then, either stamped directly onto the background or onto another piece of paper and added to the background.

Colour is added by way of different craft papers or watercolour.

And then, I usually add something else as a finishing touch. e.g. the button to the dress makers dummy, pearls to the blossom and even a glossy varnish to the ladybird's shell.

Because of their size ATCs do not take long to create and a few can be done in an afternoon, giving you chance to try a few different ideas and satisfy that crafty mood!

Butterflies at the Wedding

Thankfully, not too many of the nervous kind!

As promised here are a few photos from the recent wedding. Emma and Leigh made a lovely Bride and Groom, and everyone enjoyed sharing and celebrating their special day. The setting was quite magical, the wedding venue overlooked a quiet lake and we were lucky enough to have sunshine on a chilly February day.

The wedding breakfast room was set out beautifully and my stationary looked the part. I know Emma was very pleased with it, which pleased me immensely.

We did, however, have a small laugh together when we saw the alternative way that the place name butterflies had been placed on the glasses. We didn't worry, they still worked well and impressed the guests.

The food was scrumptious, the wine and bubbly flowed, we all enjoyed the speeches and toasted the happy couple.

It certainly was, a lovely day to remember.

Spring Blossom

Now, I'm no gardener and my recognition of different flowers is very few, but that does not take away the pleasure of pretty gardens, wonderful woods and trees with beautiful spring blossom.
I mentioned, in the last post, the lovely blossom of a couple of trees at the front of my house. I decided it was too lovely not to share a photo with you.

By the way, its some sort of crab-apple tree!

Postcard Post - Getting Better

May I first say sorry for the delay since my last post. Things were busy in the run up to the wedding of my partner's Daughter, and since then I've been suffering quite a nasty chest infection. Today is the first day that I'm feeling a little bit better, and have the energy to do things again. The wedding went extremely well, and everyone had a great time. I have taken some photos and will post those at a later date.

At last, I do feel like spring is finally in the air. Sunshine has brought out the first blossoms on a couple of trees at the front of my house. That, along with feeling better, has lifted my mood. I feel like I could spring clean the whole house from top to bottom, although I know I don't have the energy for this yet! I did, however, have a little sort through of my old postcards and arty things and in amongst the postcards was this one. Which I thought was quite appropriate for the way I was feeling, and I had to share it with you.

I remember seeing it in an antique and collectors type of place, and I thought the picture was lovely. I then turned it over, not really expecting it to be written on, thinking it would have been bought just for the pretty picture. I had a real (out loud) ahhhh moment, when I had read what was on the back. The postcard was totally sold on me.

It reads:
Dear Miss Addis
Harold and I are nearly better now, and hope to go down stairs tomorrow from,
Wilfred

I bet Miss Addis, too, had an out loud ahhhh moment when she received this in the post.

Postcard Post - Thank You Doodle

I just wanted to say a big thank you to my friends and family who have been so lovely with their comments about my designs and doodles and this blog. So, I thought what better way to do it than to design a doodle postcard for you.

I love to do the kind of doodle that starts with a dot, then a circle, followed by another, a few lines and then it just evolves from there. Its very therapeutic and you can just loose yourself in the flow of lines.

Once the lines are done, what's better than a spot of colouring in! A bit of type and a groovy background, to set the scene.

Flowers and leaves to bring to life....

And a pop of colour, to give it a finishing touch.

Thank you, to you all xx

Anyone for Tea?

The wedding stationary is just about done and I have to say I’m very pleased with it, and so is the Bride and Groom. I’m looking forward to seeing the wedding breakfast room dressed in all its glory. I’ll be sure to post a few photos after the big day.

Now, my thoughts turn to my friends, especially those whom I haven’t seen since before Christmas. We love nothing more than a good cup of tea and a catch-up natter, oh, and a generous slice of cake is always welcome!

With this in mind I doodled a teacup, similar to one of the ones my Nan used to use.

It’s a china one, with a pretty pattern – tea always tastes better in a pretty china cup!

I, originally, decided to set it in a simple, squared shaped, background using different shades of the coral colour, used in the teacup pattern.

I wasn’t too sure about the square format, so I tried a rectangle in landscape orientation, and a different style  of text.

Also, a change of background colour.

 Much more preferable! Just a couple of things missing now…

 a good friend and a generous slice of cake!