DON'T QUOTE ME

Jem the sweet girl I sit next to at work just showed me these wonderful posters. You can buy them at zazzle.com. After pay day I might treat myself to the poverty of ambition one, what a great line.

SHOW AND TELL

It was my turn to do ‘show and tell’ at work last week and I brought in my Dad’s 1986 Mexico World Cup ticket. I really like the graphics and colours. It very much reminds me of the amazing 1968 Mexico Olympics logo designed by Lance Wyman.

BOOK FOR FIONA

I found this lovely vintage (well second hand) book in a great junk shop up the road from my work. It's called "Dances of Scotland". I just had to buy it for my friend Fi who was my Dance partner for many Scottish dance classes when I lived in Edinburgh. I'm a tall girl so was always the man, I don't think I would stand a chance if I had to do the ladies steps. I think she'll really like the music and songs included alongside the dance steps. I just like the pretty pictures...
Fi if you're reading this, the books in the post!

PAPER DRESS

I spent the beautiful spring weekend moving house, so didn't get to enjoy much sun shine. I did however, get a brief trip out to buy some bubble wrap and found this amazing display in a gift shop window. Believe it or not this dress is made from wrapping paper. I'm sorry about the poor quality photo, iPhones really have rubbish cameras...

HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY

One of my favourite shops, Lazy Oaf, are selling amazing St. Patricks day cards. I couldn't think of anyone to send it to (I'm now wishing that I'd sent it to myself!). Lazy Oaf do a great card sending service, filling in the message and sorting out the post. I use them a lot as I love to send letter but don't always have the time. They also sale lots of other great things...

MOVING UP

Very very stiff today after a weekend of shifting furniture and junk. Hopefully it will all be worth it, I can just about see the attic room pulling together. I scrubbed the breeze block wall at the end of the room and have white washed it. Surprisingly it does look quite New York studio. I even have a little built in shelf to keep some small books. 

On Friday I made a quick dash around ikea to buy a desk (I can't say how happy I am to have a work space again). In the bargain section I found these A2 drawers. It was not easy getting them up into the attic, they will have to stay there forever. I'll post pictures or the space next weekend.

BUTTON BOOK

Here's a like sneak peek at the first Crafty Fox project I'm working on. It's a little kit full of ideas of projects to do with old buttons. I've drawn the button using illustrator and I think they look quite realistic. Hopefully I will have a whole kit to show in a few weeks time.

GRAPHIC THOUGHT FACILITY

I just wanted to add a quick post about a talk that I went to on Wednesday night by Graphic Thought Facility. What a wonderful agency with a great work ethic and beautiful work (they designed the habitat "love your home" mark).


I'm still mid sorting out the attic. I haven't done very much this weekend apart from a trip to the tip. I've been eyeing up desks on the Ikea web site to help me feel inspired. I found this lovely glass topped number, which is just about in budget!

BABY GIRL

Sorry for the delay in posting, it's been a busy couple of weeks and I have so much I would like to share. The big news is that one of my oldest most loved friends Karen gave birth to a baby girl last Tuesday. It's been a tough road at times for Karen and her husband Bob but I couldn't be more pleased for them both. Baby Emily and Karen are both doing well. I'm now keeping my eyes open for the perfect gift. I'm a bit in love with this corduroy dog but I also think the graphic designer in Karen will like these number lights (both from habitat)

SHACK UP

I can't stop thinking about studio sheds, again. Now I've cleared the attic and it's still very dark and I'm just a bit to tall, I wonder if Plan A was better after all. It's also a bit on the creepy side. 

I've just found this beautiful shed designed by Wayne Hemingway and his wife Geraldine. It's called SHACKUP and I really want one. I can't choose between the porthole or the large french doors. One would be good for light and one would be better for keeping warm. Both would have to be water proofed.

SPRING WATCH

We're still up to our necks in snow and ice in the south west but I can't help looking forward to spring. I like to keep a little window box on my tiny window seel in my very small room (which as of next month will no longer be mine. Big gulp and worried bite of lip). Last year I grow a very respectable crop of basil. This year I'm hoping to build on the success and turn my hand to a few different herbs. Here's a picture of my new tin plant pot. I'll keep you updated as to how the plans do. By the way My GOCCO PG-11 arrived last weekend but I haven't made space or time to use it yet... I blame the snow.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

What a nice surprise I had on Thursday when I got invited to a talk at the new Bristol Howies shop. I love a lecture so I agreed to go without even asking who the speaker was. The talk turned out to be an informal presentation about the life and work of Barney Bubbles a pioneering graphic designer who acted as a mentor to big names like Neville Brody. He also designed some of the most iconic record sleeves of the New Wave era. I enjoyed the talk very much but the real highlight of the evening was getting to see the amazing shop. I love this illustration.

SNOW DAYS AND NEW GLOVES

What a week. Never have I felt more like a Russian peasant than I did this morning braving the blizzard and walking the three slippy miles to work. I'm not keen on icy pavements but even the Lawrence Hill ghetto looked beautiful under a dusting of snow. I risked life and limb (well camera and handbag) to take the picture below.

As the weather has been so cold and I've been so good at getting out and about, I thought it would be OK to treat myself to these great gloves from howies. They're called victory gloves but I think we all know what they are really for. (mine are grey with blue fingers.)

I got to visit howies great new Bristol store tonight, but that's a blog in it's self and will wait until the weekend.

BRAND OBAMA

I’ve just been reading a great article about how advertisers are using some of the Obama magic to sale their products. I got shown a funny Veet hair remover ad last week, It’s just a simple strap line that says “Goodbye Bush” it was in the metro under a piece about the inauguration (did anyone even know that word before last week). The best use of Obama can be found helping to shift ice cream. Ben & Jerry’s have released a flavour called “Yes, Pecan!” Political Marketing doesn’t get better than this.

WELCOME BACK JONATHAN ROSS

I just can't let today pass without saying how pleased I am to have Jonathan Ross's Radio 2 show back. Saturday mornings just haven't been the same without him, even if it does hamper cleaning as I'll only hoover when the songs are on (not that I did any hoovering today).

I had I lovely surprise tonight when my dear friend Gilly phoned. She lives in NewZealand so catching up is a real treat. Her time is also quite precious now as she's the proud Mum of two beautiful twin girls, who I can't wait to meet later on in the year.

I'm very glad it's the weekend after a long week at work. I think it's time I started a count down until I get to wave goodbye to my job. It's all a bit scary but mostly I can't wait. I'm now thinking about making a space to work from. at the moment I spend my weeks in a small but beautiful flat in Clifton and my weekends out in the country-side with my family. I don't really have a work space in either location. I firstly thought about a office shed but now have settled on cleaning up the attic, this will of cause mean sharing my office with a few rats, but hey it can be lonely working from home. The pictures below shows the attic full of stuff and a picture of how I would like it to be... I don't think I'm quite going to be able to achieve this single handed. To be frank I'll be happy if I can just make the space white with a big desk and a couple of lights. I'm now planning to spend Sunday down the trip binning or recycling half the junk you can see in the photo.
One last thing. I thought I would just update you in regard to my GOCCO printer. I got some inks and bulbs in the post this week... very quick as they came from Japan, the inks look wonderful. I'm still waiting on the printer and I'm still very excited.

GO GOCCO

After a quite week in work, (which left me with plenty of time to do web research) I have bought a GOCCO printer. I'm so excited and can't wait for it to fly in from Japan. I discovered them when reading up on how to screen print from home and this seems to be the first step and ideal for people working from just one room. One day I'll have a studio with room for grown up screen printing or just swinging a cat, until then this little Japanese toy will do me just fine. If you would like to find out more then watch this great little film from etsy. I also recommend this really funny film about silk screening. From what I've read GOCCOs are not being made anymore, so are getting harder to buy. I found one on ebay without to much fuss but it did cost just over £100 plus post. The bulbs are also around a pound each and are only single use, but I really think it's going to be worth it. I'll let you know once it arrives.


Also this weekend my KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON POSTER, arrived I know they are everywhere at the moment but it's just so smart. It was a real bargain at only £10 for a screen print. It now lives with all my other beautiful prints and photographs waiting to be framed. This must go to the top of my to do list.

OLD JUNK OR TREASURE?

I found the must beautiful story in last Saturday's guardian, by a journalist called Christine Finn. whilst clearing her families home after the death of her parents she stopped to take a picture of their mantelpiece, she then had it framed and it now hangs over her fireplace. I hope you can just about make out the image I've scanned in from the news paper.

I wish I had had the forsight to do this with my Granddads home. I did keep a small 50s' ashtray which sat above the electric fire, I always loved this as a child, as it was covered in brightly coloured glass beads which looked like boiled sweets. I still think it's a lovely thing and keep meaning to get it box framed.

You can still read the artical on the guardians web site.

WELCOME TO THE CRAFTY FOX BLOG

HELLO, this is my first blog entry. I have been working really hard to get the crafty fox web site and this blog page up and running. It's great to finally see it all coming together. this blog will be at the heart of the crafty fox site, acting as a message board for up and coming shows in our online gallery.

I'm also a big fan of news paper clippings and it's going to be great to finally have a space to share all the useless yet charming snip bits I've collected over the past few years. Please drop by and visit us again soon. xx