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.