Pretty paper products

Today I just wanted to share a beautiful guide to stationery by UPPERCASE magazine. It's a special online excerpt from Issue 17 of UPPERCASE, which I can't wait to get my hands on.

Image courtesy of UPPERCASE magazine

Click here to open the stationery guide. There are a lot of gorgeous companies featured, and I love the design and layout of the guide too. Enjoy!

Another magazine that I've only recently discovered is Flow magazine.

Issue 2 of the English edition of Flow magazine

Flow is a Dutch magazine that's been going for 5 years, but they've only recently brought out an English edition, thank you Flow! And I was very happy to find the 2nd issue in London. It's a beautiful magazine for paper lovers, full of inspiration, printed on all sorts of different papers, and it always has some paper giveaways in each issue too. You can download a taster iPad version through their website but I highly recommend trying to get your hands on a paper edition if you can too.

That's all for now, just a little post... but I hope to give some updates on my progress with products soon (and there are some paper ones included too). Happy weekend!

A bit of colour on a grey day

Hello, it's been a while! The last month has flown by and I'm afraid I've rather neglected my blog. Although all has been way too quiet on the blog front, I've been very busy behind the scenes, working on new designs, researching and working with manufacturers, and getting work under way on my first products. It's hard work and a long process, but also very exciting! I can't wait to be able to share my new products, but for today I just thought I'd show you a few of the little things around my home that make me smile.

First up, clockwise from top left, some lovely design books, my Faber-Castell Pitt pens, the colourful spines of magazines on my bookshelf, and some pretty Washi tape.

A detail of one of my favourite candlesticks by Ferm Living (I have a mustard yellow one too), cheerful bowls for the kitchen, graphic, colourful tumblers I found at a vintage market and an åry tray by Alabasta.

And finally 2 tiny figurines (they are 2 inches tall) from Chania, Crete. They make me smile these two, and they're a nice reminder of a lovely holiday. A vintage style glass jar from Anthropologie, and a detail of a bowl by Paradis bought in Sweden many moons ago.
Isn't it nice to fill your home with little things that make you smile?

Graphic Hearts

As it's Valentines Day this week I thought it was the perfect time to share two brilliant works by the graphic artist Patrick Thomas. I love these limited edition prints which my husband bought for me. Bold, simple, clever, and a very welcome addition to our home.

Below is 'Geometric Heart #01 CYM,' a 3 ink silkscreen. I love the simple beauty of these overlapping shapes and colours. It's very cleverly executed and I find the end result quite mesmerising.

Geometric Heart #01 CYM © Patrick Thomas 2012

And below is 'Heart Target #03 (flouro red).' This artwork is another limited edition silkscreen which has been printed onto a found target. I love the graphic simplicity and wit in this piece.

Heart/Target #03 (flouro red) © Patrick Thomas 2011

You can find out more about Patrick Thomas, view his other works, or buy a limited edition print for yourself on his website www.patrickthomas.com

The above 2 works are copyright Patrick Thomas. Please do not use without his permission.

Lovely feature on Rachael Taylor's blog

I was thrilled to be featured on the lovely Rachael Taylor's blog today. I can't thank Rachael and Beth enough for the brilliant course I completed last year 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design.' I highly recommend it if you're interested in the world of pattern design. You can see the post here. Thanks Rachael!

Image courtesy of Rachael Taylor Designs

Bloghop 2013!

Hello, and welcome to my blog! If you are on the bloghop today you will have joined me from the wonderful, quirky world of jookiku, the creation of Julianne Hall who is based in Australia. If you've just found the hop you can start from the beginning at Pattern Addict's blog.

I'm a Surface Pattern Designer based in London. I love design from the 50s, Lucienne Day, Miró, Scandinavian design, and am drawn to the colourful and abstract. My patterns invariably contain hand-drawn elements, and simple shapes. At the moment I seem to be slightly obsessed with the triangle, which has a starring role in the mini collection I've created for this bloghop. As you will know by now, the collection was created using Pantone Colour of the Year, Emerald, and based on the theme 'Let's Fly.'

Here they are, I hope you like them!

A little inspiration...

Flying High

The Emerald Forest

Minty

Now, seeing as this hop is a celebration of the new year I thought I'd share a few of my goals for 2013. After launching my website last November I plan to start approaching some of the companies I'd love to work with, and to actively pursue licensing opportunities.
I am also looking to produce my own line of products. I'm currently in the process of researching manufacturers, and I have to say it's exhausting, but exciting!
And I will make sure I do a lot of designing! That is the fun part, and what I love to do, and sometimes it can be easy to forget when you're concentrating on the business side of things.
There, now I have made myself even more accountable :-)
I'm really looking forward to the year ahead, and to seeing what it will bring.

Thank you for visiting! Now to continue on with the hop pop along to Ellie Fidler's blog at http://www.joyfuldogblog.com. Ellie is a designer based in Berkeley, California, and I know she has some lovely designs to show you.

And lastly, a big thank you to Rosie Martinez-Dekker of Believe Creative Studio for curating this bloghop.

The Little White Book

Image courtesy of Gill Eggleston/Pattern Addict

The Little White Book of Surface Pattern Designers is a brand new online resource for agents, manufacturers, and anyone looking for new designers. I'm thrilled to be in it, and you can see the envelope I created for the directory entry below.

The Little White Book was curated by Gill Eggleston of Pattern Addict, whose great idea this was, and who has put so much time and effort into making this directory come together. Thank you Gill!
Click here to browse The Little White Book!

Coming Thursday...

I'm excited to be taking part in a bloghop with around 50 designers from around the world. We will all be creating patterns inspired by Pantone Colour of the Year, Emerald, and the theme 'Let's Fly.' Each designer will create their post and link to the person behind and in front of them enabling you to hop around the world to see what everyone creates. The bloghop starts at 2pm (GMT) this Thursday opening at Pattern Addict's blog. I do hope you'll join us!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! To kick off the new year I thought I'd share a couple of prints I had framed for my niece and nephew this Christmas. Above, a fun design of rockets on their way to the moon for Milo, who loves anything to do with rockets and going to the moon.

And below, I put together a little collection of designs for Madeleine who loves to draw patterns herself, and is very good too!

And here you can see the finished products, I hope you like them!