UK Handmade Valentine's Gift Guide

Yay! I made it into UK Handmade's Valentine's Day Gift Guide this week! I love the virtual magazine format that UK Handmade produces – and I like it even better when I'm featured in all my glory on Page 3 :D

Have a click through and check out the magazine, it's full of great ideas for Valentine's Day!

A huge thank you to everyone involved!

Feature Round-Up!

A massive, massive thank you to everyone who has featured my work this past week…just click on the images if you want a closer look!

First up, the very fantastic Unni Strand who picked her favourite items from my Etsy shop and gave I Love Handmade a very welcome plug. Unni has an amazing shop on Etsy, you can visit it here.

Next, the wonderful MrsGKnits, with a very romantic selection of beautiful things from Folksy. She featured my red 'Button Heart' print. You can visit MrsG's shop here.

And last but certainly not least, also featuring my red 'Button Heart' is hjmart. Helen has also picked a very romantic selection – this time from Etsy. You can visit hjmart's Etsy shop here.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I really appreciate the mention on all your brilliant blogs!

Etsy Storque

My Button Heart has been featured in the Etsy Storque today, in the Calling All n00bs post. You can read the post, and hopefully spot my work here (it's WAY down near the bottom! :D)

Mydeco update

All my current giclée prints are now on sale in the mydeco design boutique. A huge thank you for the 'we love' stamp on my Button Heart design! I'm very flattered – thank you!

The same print has also been adapted and used as a web button for the valentine gifts section of the site.

Feature Round-Up!

A big, big thank you to Bright, Bold and Beautiful and Papertastic for featuring my work this week!

Bright, Bold and Beautiful is a US blog that promotes "bright ideas…bold vision…beautiful living" and is well worth a look. You can visit here.

Papertastic "lovely things in paper" featured my Movers & Shakers card in a Best Moving Cards article! What an honour – I'm flattered! You can visit here.

Thank you to both sites for the mention!

Kate Banazi Blog Prize

I found out a couple of weeks ago that I'd won October's Mailing List prize from the very talented and fantastic silkscreen print illustrator, Kate Banazi.

Well…the said prize arrived yesterday, a stunning signed A4 print on hefty board (shown above). It's absolutely beautiful! I'm very, very happy! The pic above doesn't really give a proper idea of the vibrancy and the number of intricate layers that have been overlaid. So lovely!

Not only that, Kate had also put in two additional stunning prints :O

I've managed to find a shot of one of them, 'Smoke' which is shown below.

What can I say?!? I really can't thank Kate enough, it has made my week - a stunning and very unexpected surprise! I'm going out to get new frames this weekend!

If you've never heard of Kate before, here's the bio from her site:

"I am an illustrator and silkscreen printer from London, currently based in Sydney, Australia.

I have a BA hons degree in fashion from Central St Martins and am rather deft with a pair of shears, a cotton reel and a slice of cake.

I am brown eyed, right handed and very often melancholy.

I am very good at multi tasking.

You will often find me eating, talking, drinking and drawing, all at the same time.

I think I make the perfect Yorkshire puddings, but I am more than willing to try yours."

I make a mean Yorkshire pud, but they may not survive in the mail! Otherwise you'd be inundated with them Kate!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Find out more:

Kate's Website

Kate's Shop

Kate's Blog

New Shop!

Hurrah! A new venture finally opened it's (virtual) doors yesterday! Please say a big hello to Ruby&Dig.

It started out as a way of destashing some of Ruby Spirit's huge mountain of beads, and has slowly started to spiral out of control!!!

So…if you are looking for jewellery supplies, destash and assorted ephemera please pay us a visit!

We (or should I say Ruby!) started listing some beautiful seed beads in our Folksy shop yesterday – with LOTS more to follow! We will also be stocking an Etsy shop in the next few days for anyone who prefers to pay in dollars.

Just out of interest, it would be very useful to know if anyone who reads this blog from outside of the UK would even consider buying from Folksy, or is Etsy the only way to go?

Here are some of the first goodies that have already been photographed and listed:

There's plenty more to come! Why not add Ruby&Dig to your favourite shops in Folksy and Etsy!

Monkey Mania!! Special Offer!!

Everyone loves clockwork monkeys right? Well so it seems! My 'Together' greetings card has been one of my bestsellers, since it's introduction last January, and it's now available as a beautiful A4 giclée print.

SO…I've another special offer for you over in my Big Cartel shop, 'Together No.1' (the image from the greeting card) is available at the special price of just £10 until January 24th 2010. A very special saving of £2! You can read more about this print by clicking here.

What do you mean you'd rather look at their little white wind up tails? OK, here you go! Available for the first time, may I present 'Together No.2' – a never before seen out-take from the 'Together' photo shoot, just for you.

Again 'Together No.2' is available for just £10 until January 24th 2010 – only from Big Cartel. Bargain!!! I'm sure you'll agree!

Make sure you keep checking my Big Cartel shop for very special limited offers! Lots more to come! Watch this space!

Blog Feature!

A HUGE and massive thank you to Sophie over at jodii for featuring loads of my items on the jodiijodii blog today. It's great to see your items shown in a different environment, they take on a different feel! Fantastic!

jodiijodii is a blog after my own heart: updated daily to "promote everything handmade from Europe. It's made for people, who want to avoid mass-produced articles. It shares new ideas, designs, trends and inspiration." I can highly recommend it, it's a great blog – why not head over and become a new follower today!

Trend Bible

Hello! Exciting news today…some of my work has been featured in the new Trend Bible (Kid’s Lifestyle Trends for the Home, Spring Summer 2011).

Here's what Trend Bible say about themselves (sorry for the cut and paste, but they can say it far better than me anyway!):

"Trend Bible is a trend forecasting consultancy based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, forecasting future trends and building ranges for retailers and brands in the home interior, food, automotive and electronics industries.

Over the past few months we have seen many brands and retailers become casualties of the recession: brands that didnt look far enough ahead, listen to their customers, who weren't prepared to change, or who weren't responsive enough. Trying to shape a picture of what the future will look like is essential to stay ahead.

We help brands envisage this picture of the future, evidencing what the future concerns of consumers will be and helping our clients develop ranges that reflect these needs.

We've been busy helping some of the worlds strongest brands anticipate future consumer behaviour, increase market share, develop new product lines and create inspiring and commercially successful product ranges.

Trend Publications: We product two unique biannual trend publications: Lifestyle Trends for the Home and Kids Lifestyle Trends. Our publications are available in 18 countries through our network agents.

Consultancy: We work with retailers and brands in the home interior, consumer electronics, beauty and food sectors to help align product ranges, forecast future consumer influences and interpret colour, material and product trends. Clients include Tesco, Nokia, Pottery Barn, Next, Mothercare, JC Penney, LG and many others."

I've been sent these PDFs from the final book – it's quite interesting to see my Hoopla Notecards reinterpreted as a duvet cover!!! If any bedding manufacturer out there is interested… ;)

Here's my Carousel Card design featured in the Print Direction section…

A big thank you to Trend Bible for using my work – I will let you all know if anything comes from it!

You can read more about Trend Bible here on their blog.