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.