Kudos

Proud to be part of UK Handmade

Posted by Andrea on March 12, 2013
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This morning I received an email from UK Handmade to say that I had been accepted to join their forum and website. I was absolutely delighted.

UK handmade

 

Here’s a little about what they do ..

“UK Handmade is a design-led online magazine committed to showcasing and promoting the best creative talent the UK has to offer. The term ‘handmade’ is an indicator of quality, care and professionalism that is second to none and something that UK Handmade wishes to encourage and celebrate.

UK Handmade began its journey in 2008 when a group of designers and makers, led by web designer and artist Karen Jinks, decided to create a magazine that would reach to the general public and demonstrate that ‘handmade’ was no longer a relic of dusty church halls but a vibrant and viable alternative to the mass produced and imported goods that saturated the high street. With the combined skills and dedication of its team of volunteers, UK Handmade has grown from a small digital magazine and blog, to a large creative community of artists, designers, makers and event organisers, who are all driven by the same vision and passion for handmade.”

I’m looking forward to being part of this wonderful community and am already meeting new like-minded people – exciting times!

The joys of Pinterest

Posted by Andrea on April 11, 2012
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I finally pulled my finger out a few months ago and applied for a Pinterest account; I didn’t really understand what it was all about but had been reliably informed that it was ‘the thing’ to do. So I did it.

After being accepted, I came to my home page and stopped. What on earth was I going to ‘pin’ about? I mean I’ve always kept directories and files of ideas, references, resources and inspiration (these are quite significant in size) but the thought of transferring all that loveliness onto Pinterest was a tad daunting. So I left it alone.

Then a few weeks ago, faced with the reality of moving my business from my home to a new High Street outlet in Harborne, Birmingham, and being put in charge of the shop signage, I finally had a reason to create my first ‘pin board’ …

and so my Traditional Shop Fronts Pin Board was born.

Boy did it make researching shop frontages a joy. So easy just to find a great little image you like and ‘pin it’ straight to the board and such a fab way to display and search through too.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that I was hooked.

Every morning now over a cup of tea I browse the internet for items I love or need to research for a project and take great joy in adding them to my pin boards. It started with Gorgeous Gowns I drooled over at the Oscars, like this fab little number Gwyneth Paltrow is wearing…

progressed to my ever present love of paperart including these amazing papercut and dyed fruits notepads – Kudamemo designed by Masashi Tentaku

and Danish chairs like this curvy high back lounge chair by Peter Hvidt & Orla Molgaard Nielsen (not too dissimilar to the one we’ve renovated at Cherry Tree Interiors)

and finally, this morning I created a ‘Beautiful homes’ board. A place where I can visit and drool endlessly over stunning mid century modern homes whenever the mood takes me.

Raised ‘Soho House’ in the Catalonian countryside, Spain. Designed by Pezo Von Ellrichshausen Architects (Chile)

Heavenly!

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Feeling inspired by Yulia Brodskaya: papergraphics

Posted by Andrea on March 28, 2012
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“Feeling inspired by Yulia Brodskaya’  has been on my FB profile page as my ‘source of inspiration’ for longer than I can remember. From the minute I first discovered her work in Paper: Tear, Fold, Rip, Crease, Cut (Black Dog publishing) along with other great paper artists like Noriko Ambe

Kako Ueda

and Georgia Russell

I have been mesmerised by her work.

Yulia Brodskaya  is an artist and illustrator known for her handcrafted highly detailed and elegant paper illustrations.

She was born in Moscow in 1983 where she produced decorative fine art whilst studying  - she also developed interests in diverse creative practices such as origami and collage and textile painting along with the more traditional fine art practices. She moved to London in 1994 and continued her education, whilst working as a freelance graphic designer,  graduating with an MA in Graphic Communication at the University of Hertfordshire in 2006.

She soon switched to illustration – her graphic design background influencing her art work as most of her pieces have a strong typographic focus:

“Typography is my second love, after paper and I’m really happy that I’ve found a way of combining the two. Having said that, I don’t want to exclude non-typobased designs, I’d like to work on different projects.”

Much of Brodskaya’s work uses the old techniques of paper folding and the 18th Century art form paper quilling in which ribbons of paper are curled and twilled to create intricate designs. Since initially being approached by Orange, who selected a few of her pieces for an advertising campaign, her reputation as an international illustrator has soared – the list of companies that have since commissioned her work is extensive and includes Hermes, Nokia, Cadbury, Cafe Rouge, Penguin Press and The Sunday Times. She has also designed one of the Google Chrome themes …

She was elected a member of the International Society of Typographic Designers in 2006 in recognition of her typographic achievement. She was also was named the ‘breakthrough star’ of the 2009 by Creative review magazine (Dec 2009).

For me though, it is her use of paper and colour that makes her stand out. I have seen paper quilling before but nothing as intricate or as beautiful as this. I love the way she uses the colour and the shadows created by the paper quills to add depth to her work. This recent piece caught my eye on her website, and illustrates my point ….

the folds and bends only seek to add to the movement in the piece. It is intricate, delicate and utterly mesmerising.

I  could stare at it for hours.

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Yulia’s gone and done it again …

Posted by Andrea on April 2, 2011
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Just when I thought I had seen the ultimate in quilling from Yulia Brodskaya (and boy, is there ever much to choose from), a casual visit to her website late one evening, rewarded me with this stunning new piece.


(Image: Yulia Brodskaya)

Babushka is a departure from her earlier work and style, and shows us an artist who is not only comfortable with the medium and the technicalities of quilling but an artist who is evolving and changing the shape and perception of this 18th Century art form. Long gone are the French and Italian nuns quilling book covers and religious items and the European ‘ladies of leisure’ quilling tea caddies, work baskets and jewelry boxes – this is 21st Century quilling with attitude and a serious WOW factor!

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Kuler- simply rock and roll!

Posted by Andrea on March 31, 2011
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There are a few things that rock my design world on a regular basis: paper – preferably patterned, textured and heavyweight, seriously talented paper artists like Jen Stark and Yulia Brodskaya, letterpress projects, retro wallpaper designs (you should see my studio and my dining room!), typography and of course, Kuler.

For those of you not in the know, Kuler is an internet application from Adobe Systems that lets people try out, create and save various color schemes. If you’re creating websites, digital scrapbooking supplies, interior designs, fabric patterns, or any other visual, you can experiment with color variations and browse the thousands of wonderfully named themes from the Kuler community; names such as Tears of a Clownfish, Enchanted Getaway and Bubble Coconut. Not only do they sound wonderful, they are a veritable feast for the eyes – how can this not make you smile?!

It is an invaluable resource for me and can spark my imagination in an instant. If I’m having trouble building a scheme around an old photo, I simply select colours from my photo, make a note of the RGB, CMYK or Hex number, go to Kuler, key in the codes or numbers and it builds schemes for me or suggests pre-designed schemes from the community. If I’m struggling to design a digital scrapbooking paperpack, I can jump to Kuler, select a scheme from the community and build my product around those colours.

My Banyan Tree paper pack for digital scrapbookers is designed around a colour scheme I fell in love with whilst browsing the community on Kuler. It remains one of my favorite colour schemes -  not only forming the basis of my paperpack but also the colour scheme in my bathroom…

Seriously rock ‘n’ roll!

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Investing in ‘Value for money’ products

Posted by Andrea on March 30, 2011
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When my mother suggested to me over 3 years ago, that I try Eve Lom cleanser, a cult classic in the beauty industry, I baulked at the price and could feel my heart stop and my husband’s wallet shriek in despair – £80 for 200ml is an awful lot of money to pay for a product that simply cleans your face. Seeing my reaction she ‘gifted’ me a sample pot one Christmas.

I loved it and was instantly hooked. I bought my first pot in Space NK in Stratford-upon-Avon, came home and marked the bottom of the pot with the date in permanent marker. If I was going to continue using and buying this product, I needed to know how much I needed to save and how often. Fifteen months (yes, fifteen months) later it finally ran out; I calculated the cost (because that’s the way I am) and came to a startling discovery – Eve Lom at £80/200ml is exceptional value for money, and here’s why:

Eve Lom cleanser removes eye-make and face make-up eliminating the need for separate eye make up remover (this is your first saving). You only use it in the evening and only need to wipe your face with a warm cloth in the morning, eliminating the need for a morning cleanser (your second saving). Now for the maths:

£80 over 15 months is equal to 456 days or 65 weeks, or thereabouts. £80/456 days is £0.175 pence a day or £1.23 a week.

Now, my daughter is very fond of eg. Simple face wipes at £3.99/25 (generally considered entry-level for cleansers)- these work out at £0.16 pence each and you usually need 2 to do the job. These are already way more expensive than Eve Lom per day (a saving of £67 a year by the way) and I haven’t even got onto the savings compared to cleansers at the higher end of the market.

This is my justification for continuing to buy this product and yes, it is needed. When you are investing in beauty products (a lot of which, let’s be honest, are a complete rip off) you need to check their ‘value for money’ criteria and this cleanser certainly meets mine!

Read more about Eve Lom cleanser

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PaperArt – Part 2

Posted by Andrea on February 9, 2011
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I have been a huge fan of the likes of Jen Stark and Yulia Brodskaya for as long as I can remember – the things they do with paper makes my heart race, such is the skill involved. I was revisiting Jen Stark’s site last week and this gorgeous piece of paperart caught my eye.

As did this piece …

Now, I can’t even begin to do the maths for these pieces of art but I did have a go at something a little easier at the weekend (with the help of my Cricut Machine of course!) Here are the results… a new PaperArt design!

I’m still a LONG way off the complexity of Jen’s work but it was fun to do and gave me a perfect excuse to use up a lot of old cardstock; it was also surprisingly easy (once I had figured out HOW to do it) and, more importantly has wowed by kids. Sorry, but you just can’t beat that!

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