Bird house workshop at Homemade London

Big thanks to Bosch and Cherry Healey for putting on this fab workshop, and to Homemade London for hosting the event!

What a lovely way to spend an evening - surrounded by crafty-ness (people and stuff alike!) fuelled by drinks and nibbles and the chance to play with DIY tools.  Bosch has recently launched a range of power tools that seem to be very 'woman friendly'.  They're small (compact) and light weight (no longer too feeble to hold a drill) and perfect for crafty projects you want to do at home.

I took along my friend and fellow illustrator Viktorija of 'andsmile' and we had a fab evening!  We tested out the 'Glue pen' in the traditional method of decorating a birdhouse.  It's cordless, which made a huge difference to the glue gun experience!  We didn't have to sit within distance of a plug, therefore were able to be spread out nicely around a table whilst we each got on with our decorating.

Viktorija's birdhouse

My birdhouse

On the night, we were also able to try out the sander - so light! so easy to use! gets into small nooks and crannies!

Do you have a power tool that you can recommend?  I'll be looking for projects left, right and centre to use my glue pen for!

Drum roll please...!

HURRAH!

Thank you all for your entries, your RT's (re-tweets) on Twitter, the shout outs, passing it on, spreading the word...etc etc etc.  I really appreciate it.  My little online shop has been a bit 'bish bash bosh' since I first opened it, and to be honest I've found it hard to get people to let me know what they think.

Therefore, I have loved reading your valid points you've shared with me and look forward to putting it all into action.  Thankfully a lot of the points boil down to the same thing,.  Otherwise I would have 15+ different areas to work on within one little shop and that may of broken me (I would of got there eventually of course!) but two main issues, is what I've summed up and that's great.

I am proud to announce the winners - woohoo!

The grand winner is Jodi of Art by Wiley.

My lovely runner up's are Juliet of 'The Crafty Green Poet', Audra of 'Audra James' and Jasmin of 'A Couple of Photos'.

I'll be working closely with Jodi to complete the illustration she wants and the runners up will be sent goodie bags in the post this week.  One of which will contain a lovely necklace by Naida Crystal.

I was going to share with you all what I put in the goody bags but got so excited with my new packaging that I completely forgot to take photos - drat! 

It's nearly the 7th Manchester Artist's Book Fair!

Not long to go now - YIKES I best get on with making books so I have something to sell!  Every year I think I should of had time to get up to Manchester so I could screen print a 'Manchester' book.  Yet again, I have not!  However, I will hopefully have one ready of York which is at least in the right direction eh?

Oh and also Lisbon, which is a newbie and an old favourite, my '(Delft) Blue' Amsterdam book will be available too.  I will also have some pocket mirrors, screen prints, limited edition prints of watercolour illustrations and a few cards too.