cold and crisp

Winter has us firmly in its grip now and as we move towards the last week of advent I am beginning to feel 'christmassy'* at last. There comes a moment every year when I want to sit all by myself, without interruption and with a steaming cup of tea in my hand, and listen to my favourite carol, the piercingly beautiful Bethlehem Down. This I have just done, and there now follows a week of almost brain-burstingly frenetic activity, but I now feel that I am in the right place mentally to get safely through to next weekend.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Whitworth Craft Market yesterday and managed to sell quite a few things, as well as receiving many compliments from visitors. The best bit was seeing one of my teddycats fall into the ownership of the loveliest little rosy cheeked girl I think I have ever seen, who immediately cuddled her very close and tore around showing her to everybody in the room. I was also very pleased to meet Ness Donnelly and Jacky Cardy and see their lovely work, as well as many other gifted artists and makers.

There are still plenty of lovely things left to buy in my shop, including these handpainted tree decorations:


There are also some lovely new vibrant lime green and brown bags, and don't forget you can get a nice 10% discount by entering the code NOTEBOOK at checkout.


I think I am getting better at packaging and presentation now - what do you think?

Over Christmas I hope to continue thinking about the direction my work will go next year, including looking at old sketchbooks, going through my enormous pile of reference material and art/craft books, and doing some new drawings and paintings.



But first, a trip to the post office with the cards...thank goodness for the invention of non-lick stamps.

*Michael McIntyre is so funny about this, but fast forward to about six minutes to avoid the awful John Cleese bit.