10 days to go!

Just checking in with a quick post, I am still beavering away making for the fair!

Plenty of red, white and blue....appropriately enough for this lovely long Jubilee weekend!

 

This jaunty lighthouse is made from driftwood and reclaimed nuts and is loosely based on the one on Plymouth Hoe...

 

More experimenting with text. The colour of the roofs above remind me of the orangey ones in St Ives, so I stamped "As I was going to St Ives" along the bottom....and given the piece some gorgeous blue "sea"

This little row is made from a leftover piece of oak beam we used above our fireplace...

...as was the one above. I have added a new detail: a little birdhouse!

...made from tiny bits of driftwood and a small rusty tack.

Lots of cottages and washing!

Another slightly bigger birdhouse with rusty metal roof.

Plus I have been pricing up stock, tying labels on bags and ordering postcards. I am delighted with these latest ones from moo.com

Well thats all for now. My next post will probably be after the fair, so I will make sure I take plenty of photos of my stand!

TTFN!

We all scream for ice cream!

I have been so busy these last couple of weeks, but it's only now as I sit down to write a blog post that I realised how much I have managed to get done (all for the Contemporary Craft Fair in 4 weeks time!)

I am starting to see cottages in my sleep!

I have my own model village in my studio!

This terrace fits nicely into a display hole in our lounge!

And an idea I had just this morning....it's a pub! Maybe called The Ship...

The sign is made from a tiny print of a painting by my favourite artist Alfred Wallis. I used sellotape over both sides to make it sturdier and to stick it onto the overhead nail.

I was lucky enough to find this perfect little bit of wood at the beach earlier in the week. It really didn't take much effort to turn it into a little boat. Less is sometimes more, don't you know?!

Do you recall the washed-up boat we discovered back here? We are still finding pieces from it on different beaches along the south coast of Cornwall. I decided to use this large piece (quite clearly part of a boat) for the basis of this large piece of work.

It has the same "slipway" as other bits I have used previously..

I love the subtle hues in the paintwork...and the crackleglaze makes it look like stonework.

I scratched a couple of ladders into the varnished section to break it up a little.

I also started experimenting with some text! I bought some metal letter stamps ages ago, but didn't really know at the time what I would use them for.

You may need to click on the above image to read the words!

"Promenade" is closely based on Preston seafront where 61A is located!

And lastly, a little driftwood terrace which takes its title from a Madness song!

Phew, I feel exhausted!! I may take the weekend off. I hope you have a great time, whatever you are doing!

Happy Easter

Leaving it (typically) to the last minute, yesterday I made...

...some tiny driftwood birdhouses...

...some teeny beach huts...

...and decorated some polystyrene eggs with the boys...

...and ta-da!! We have an Easter tree!!
Hope you all have a great Spring break!

Spring has sprung!

It's been a good week and it certainly feels like Spring is on it's way! On Saturday, we headed off to the beach in search of 'treasure' and found quite a bit, so I've been busy crafting with it all!
The fantastic thing about working with driftwood is that you're completely led by the materials.

Solid beach huts are a new thing for me, but I found a piece of wood just the right shape - it was crying out to me to turn it into a couple of beach huts with jolly flags on the roof!

Here's another piece... the mast is actually a piece of bamboo that has obviously been used to stir paint (probably for someone's boat). I thought it matched the colour of the driftwood 'sea' perfectly!
It was sunny and mild sitting on the sand: we whiled away several hours down there! The boys pottered and made pictures from various bits of debris, and Steve even took an impromptu dip! I emptied out all of my found treasure and played around, daydreaming of what I was going to create!

Remember what I said about the materials dictating what you're going to make? We discovered this on the sand...
I have absolutely no idea what it is - it's made from rubber I think, but I thought it would make a great 'hook'... The proportions are clearly completely wrong, but haven't you heard of artistic license, darling?!

Normally, I wouldn't work this big (the hull of this wall-hung boat is nearly 30cm square) but I'm actually rather pleased with the way it's turned out! I'm not going to put this in the shop yet, I want to keep it for myself, at least for a while.

I like the heavy duty washers - nice and chunky for a vessel this size!

I'm delighted to discover that I'm a featured seller on Folksy this week and have also got a new online stockist called Beardog & Joolz. They sell some lovely items - my favourites are the vintage muffin moulds - at very reasonable prices. Check it out!
Happy March everybody!

New product

My recent driftwood beach hut cards have been so popular, I thought I'd go bigger and hopefully better! So here is this collage of scrummy row of huts which has been professionally mounted and framed by the lovely Rob at Studio 4 in Liskeard.
Available now from my online shop at Folksy.
Any feedback would be appreciated!