Christmas Cards

I've been looking back through my Christmas card designs, seems I never stray too far from penguins and polar bears. Good job they never go out of fashion?! I think my 2014 designs are a lot more sophisticated ;) 2009 and 2011 cards were on sale at local events before I opened my shop, but gave me my first taste of selling my own work.

I still have some of the holy cards for purchase message me :) Otherwise see either of my online shops for my most recent designs.

Custom made Christmas tree decorations

I've listed a custom made christmas tree decoration listing in my shop. Send me a picture of your pet and I'll make it into a cute hand painted wood decoration, suitable to display all year around!
 https://www.etsy.com/local/shop/TheCatkinBoutique

Christmas Cards ~ Hand silkscreen printed

 I've made a set of three Christmas cards, hand silkscreen printed in marbled blue inks. I've done a penguin and baby penguin A5 card. And two smaller cards; A6 polar bear and snow hare. My main theme for this season is snow rabbits, I have decorations, sticker, magnet and earrings of the same super cute snow ball - snow hare motif.

3rd Birthday!

Win a bag or piece of jewellery of your choice (not including custom items, sorry) by just by liking and commenting on this pic on my Facebook page.
I'm also offering 20% off any etsy purchase over £10 (ish) / $16  until Tuesday 4th of November 2014 (2 weeks from today) Can be used on any purchase including custom items :)
No, you don't need to get me anything, but if you haven't already please 'like' my page and share with your friends ;) Thank you again for all the lovely support over the years!
Nicky x x

Christmas decorations

 

I'm making more Christmas decorations, what would you like to see on your Christmas tree? I think donkeys are under rated at the moment....

Autumn colours

It has been a lovely sunny couple of weeks recently, but I've been working on some Autumn and Winter items (I know i should of done this in June by retail standards- but just can't do things that far in advance!)

I wanted to make more jewellery like my folk art necklace and rings I did last year. Mixing the simple painted style with autumn animals, or for this set British birds, makes a nice collection of colours and shapes. I hope these will go well with lovely berry knits that I wear as soon as the weather turns a bit nippy. I'm particularly happy with the crested tit on white and the wag tail on yellow.

I've also been using other wintery feeling materials, namely felt. Nomi Makes has a lovely collection of bright coloured felt balls and I've selected lovely jewel and berry colours - and the bag of mini balls I have looks just like autumn leaves! I'm going to mix these with ribbon and embroidery to make some cosy jewellery.

You can see more of my inspirations on my Autumn Pinterest board :)

Colours

I've been reading a few craft and small business books lately- trying to get a more cohesive image of the Catkin Boutique. Craft Show and Sell gave me a few useful hints, like choosing some 'brand colours'. A few colours always stand out to me and Yellow is one of them, this suits a lot of my items too like the cockatiel and parrot designs. I also like pink and bright turquoise...

 I also want to come up with a little slogan, as a few books mention. 'Cute, quirky and beautiful' is my tag line of my shop currently - but a lot of shops would describe there work like that. I thought about my sweet shop style bags and was inspired by a customers tweet "Chose myself a little treat from Catkin_Boutique" ;

A sweet treat from the Catkin Boutique! It sort of rhymes :)

Temporary Tattoo

Here is a selection of the temporary tattoos available in my shop right now. I've looked at traditional style tattoos and made a cute crafty spin on them, with the use of puns and pets! These make great little gifts to go in cards, or treat yourself to a fun tattoo for the week. ;D

 Butterfly Tattoo

 Makers gonna make tattoo

 Black moor , goldfish tattoo.

 Cat Lady tattoo

 Pug life tattoo

English rabbit tattoo

See my Etsy or Folksy shop to buy, (top left buttons)

Tropical Fruit

I've been inspired by the tropical fruit prints seen everywhere at the moment, I love the bright colours and fun designs. Juicy, bright and fun for summer!

Water colour

I sat out in the sun this weekend and painted this. I've had an idea for a book for a while and this is one of the page ideas for it. (Work in progress)

Made in Bristol

I have my work in the made in Bristol pop up shop 'Paper Scissors Stone' and I'm working the odd shift their too. At the moment I just have my jewellery stocked there but I'm going to make some more different items in the next few weeks too.

What used to be a changing room is no the Kingdom of Jess Quinn! Lot's of lovely art and handmade plushie creatures.

Working there is really difficult as I'm tempted to buy things.. and I have caved with this adorable cactus print by Pigeon - this will look great on my wall with my Andy Warhol prints of the same colours! As you may remember I have a bit of thing with Cacti at the mo...and smiley face on inanimate objects is always a win.

Cat stretch sketch

 I love drawing, particularly people and animals. I often draw cats, because we have a few of them and I find them a bit of a challenge - they never stay still for more than 5 minuets. Even when they're asleep. they'll stretch and turn and if they notice you are there they get up and want a stroke. As a result I have many unfinished drawings, but like the 5 minuet warm up sketches you do at the beginning of a life drawing class they're very useful to keep you quick and observant.
I'm planning some prints of cats so I'm drawing a lot more at the moment to try and find a cat shape / pose I want to cut into lino.

Hereford Art Market

I was a the Hereford Art Market this weekend, and had a great time! Bunting necklace were the most popular item again, one of my first designs from when I opened in 2011. I've been moving away from them because so many people make them now, even topshop had their own version (and who can compete with them?!) But on reflection, I think my items are different enough to stand up against others. They're decorated with my own hand drawn patterns and have a fresh colour combination, which is very summery.
I've decided I'll hand draw my other bunting necklace designs, so they all have my signature hand-drawn and handmade from start to finish style.

Bright Beads

I brought some pretty new bed sheets from ikea last weekend! I love all these colours and the modern stencil style print. They're similar to the colours of the matte glass toho beads I'm using at the moment to make necklaces. I'm working on a range of beady jewellery pieces based on tropical birds and plants. I've had loads of beads in a box for years waiting to be used, and this bit of sunny weather over the weekend has inspired me.

International womens day

To celebrate I've been looking at a few videos and reflecting on some articles I've read recently and petitions I have signed.  (See the petition that stuck with me for some time here - warning - not a nice story) There's still a long way to go before gender equality in so many different areas. Some are worse than others.

Happy times for us in the west, we can get educations!

This video is hilarious, I love their expressions. (Oh dear - I do love talking about kittens - there's no hope!)

Home

Here's a little glimpse into the day in the life of me! I'm always interested where other people live and work. At what normal day looks like for people all over the world. This is also for the customers who have asked where I'm based, this is it: Hereford. When the sun is shining I love to go for a walk and blow away the cobwebs. I find getting away from your computer/drawing/accounting refreshing and ensures I do more work. (I'm not so keen when it's raining however)

Spring is starting to pock out of nooks.

Fields are all muddy and flooded at the moment!

I find water very inspiring, look at the reflections in this lovely pond :)

And of course the standard photo of your feet blog shot!

Painting Mugs

I've got a box full of mugs. I was hoping to transfer my butterfly illustrations to them using special ink jet paper, but they did not work out. :[ However I do have a rainbow of porcelain painting pens, and I've started doodling some cute patterns onto them.
Tip: Make sure the surface you are painting is clean and dry before you start drawing and plan to do one side at a time so the colour is facing up while it dries and doesn't dribble down the mug.

I'm personalizing the inside too. Everyone (in the UK at least) has their own idea of a good cup of tea. I'm particularly particular, so this a friendly - bossy, reminder of how I like it!

Cactus

 

Cacti used to remind me of visiting elderly relatives, there was always a small glass entrance to their homes filled with dusty, spiky cacti. Of course I had to touch them as a child - yes, they were all spiky even the ones that looked softand fluffy. (Evil!) 

However I noticed the prickly cactus is looking pretty good these days and I'm currently making a series of drawings inspired by them. I was first swayed by the mini cacti garden bowl above. The colours are lovely and fresh! Below you can see quirky cactus ceramics, highlighting the amazing shaped cacti come in..

1: Mini cactus garden

2: The Jealous Curator on lina cofán

3: Brass earrings - lostarrowadornmentco

4: light and ladder - hex spora

5: Cactus colour palette

Spring 2014 Jewellery

I've gone all floral for my new collection of jewellery designs. Leaving cute animal drawings behind for a moment I've been Inspired by pastel colours and delicate spring and summer flowers. Pinks, yellows, peaches and of whites are the main colours I'm using trying to contrast nicely with greens and blues as you would see in nature. My Pinterest Board 'Spring' best illustrates my ideas and inspirations.

I've also been looking at SS14 fashion shows. They can be a great source of inspiration but I mostly look at them for that fuzzy feeling I get when I see my ideas are 'on trend' (sometimes they're not - *shoulder shrug*) Below are some of the frocks that suit my jewellery ideas the best, I love the super girly prints and embellishments!

Left: Temperley London / Middle: Alberta Ferretti / Right: Mathew Williamson

I'm really hoping to get hold of a lazer cutter next, (I know of a few establishments that have one I can rent) So I'll be doing more designs along the same theme with a more slick finish.  I'll be using different textures and I hope a mature colour palate so my items will be different to a lot of lazer cute accessories out their (which I love- but there's no point in making something that's like everything else)

I will also make a print for bags and scarfs using the floral them, I can't wait to get started and I'm planning to use silk painting, which I've tried in the past along side my silkscreen printing. I'll also be printing my budgies in the spring colours.

On my Pinterest boards you'll also see the next project I'm working on; Tropical summer!