I Love Tea

Who doesn't love a cup of tea? Now you can tell the world with these earrings and necklace. These have been in my online shops for a while, but are most popular at markets. Inspired by the traditional willow pattern china.

Finally a rap song I can relate to. (Not being from the hood in the the club...) Beware of strong language!

Seoul Ssamzie-gil Craft and Art shopping centre

Recently on another #FolksyHour on Twitter we shared our inspiring holidays. I wanted to show you a little more behind the photo I shared of Ssamzie-gil a mini craft and art shopping centre in the heart of Seoul. It was an amazing building full of beautiful independent shops and stalls. There was a wide path that sloped in circles around the whole complex through all the floor. Giant plastic flowers climbed up stairwells, walls were covered with art and grafftii, at the top was a pretty tea garden. All in all a very inspiring place to be! This was where the idea of craft as a business first seeded itself in my brain - although it took many years for me to start myself. I talk about being there in my Made in Bristol Blog feature.

 This looks down into the centre of the open air building.

 

Left: Awesome little shop that sold cute porcelain items including wind chimes you can see in the window and necklaces with happy trees! Right: Giant flowers. 

Left: Giant flowers. Centre: A corridor with clocks, cupboards and lights all around. Right: Graffiti and post it note tree (which I added my name too)

Left: Cute shop full of bright and beautiful items. Top right: Handmade cork creatures sold on a stall. Bottom right: Spinning disc wall with cartoon artwork.

Plastic curtain covered in glittery creatures.

View of the little capsule shops , I love how each one was so different, wouldn't this be a great thing to do over here? Just imagine it in somewhere like Bristol full of small arty crafty groups!

I went to Seoul as a small stop over on the way to Japan. I really didn't know what to expect but I loved it! Two days here had a big impact and I'd love to go  back. I will show you more of my holiday pics as they make me happy and inspire my work.

Have you been to South Korea, what did you think of Soeul? Did you go to the Ssamzie-gil centre? Have you been inspired by a place you have traveled to?

My desk

Tuesdays #folksyhour on twitter we shared our desks and talked about what we surrounded ourselves with while we worked.
This photo is cutting out all the draws, shelves and tools that surround my desk but you get a better look at the pretty stuff. I never understand how people in craft people in magazine shoots / on pinterest get by with just a mac computer and a vase of flowers! It was good to see many other people from folksy have the same messy desk equals creative mind approach. I just need everything to hand. I get restless and jump from one task to the next so it helps to have everything i need within reach.

As my computer is on my desk where I work I can't help but be distracted by the internet somtime- but it the main tool for developing my designs and it's where I listen to music so I won't ever switch it of... maybe i should have just a quiet time dedicated to just drawing.

On my desk you can see my latest screen design of a moon bear drawn in pen and ink. This is part of a new project i am working on, more news coming soon!

Clown fish

I've been wanting to draw this for a while. When i was on holiday years ago I had a drawing travel journal. The picture (top right) was drawn after a snorkel in a coral reef (I know! It was a dream come true) I remember the coral was a lovely pink and there was a bright orange fish hiding within it. I thought the doodle was of a badly drawn clown fish and that's what I started to do a full colour version of. As it turned out it was a quite accurate sketch of a skunk clown fish (picture below left) But I stuck to the regular clown fish every one knows and lovely thanks to Finding Nemo.

Photos Left: ? Right: Steve Jones

Sheepish

It's a new Chinese year of the sheep! To celebrate I have made a new set of sheep earrings ( thank you to my Facebook followers who helped me pick a design to go with!) I've also gathered a selection of sheep items from other a Folksy sellers. We'll be seeing lambs soon too, spring is on the way. Enjoy:

From top left: 1 : Needle felt sheep . Sheep painting . 3: Sheep knitting pattern . 4: Sheep Journal . 5: Sheep Mobile . 6: Painting on wood . 7: Sheep Card . 8: Sheep earrings . 9: Sheep Photo print .

Animal earrings

These are the latest earrings listed in my shop, I sold them around markets before Christmas, but now I finally got around to photographing them. I'm trying to put more details into the earrings, which is the great thing about shrink plastic - you can add lots of details. Even thought I'd like to move some of my design to other materials like lazer cut plastic or wood, i think I'll always use this plastic too!

Happy New Year!

Happy new year!  This is a good time to start a fresh and treat yourself with money you may have been lucky enough to receive over Christmas:

There is a sale in my Etsy and Folksy shops from today until 19th January 2015. So you have two weeks to use this coupon code at the checkout to get 15% off all my items including the ones that are already discounted and custom orders!

New year always bring new years resolutions. Even though I don't set out specific resolutions I still tend to look back at last year and hope to do a bit more this year. 2014 was great, but there are a lot of things I would of liked to of done and haven't :{ So i made a simple motto for 2015 "do it today!" because tomorrow can't be bothered, lol.

I had a look at this list of new years resolutions to help animals but generally I think if you write down what you want to do with the year and keep looking at it over the next 12 months you should get some things accomplished!

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to makes some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself". - Neil Gaiman

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.