First up, Matryoshka cushions…

Mini matryoshka key rings / bag ornaments…

Mini matryoskhkas on strings of beads….

Matryoshka postcards and vintage kimono cards…

Purses / make-up bags made from fabric printed with my own designs…

Kimono Felt Craft kits…

Individual packs of kimono felt…

Kimono Paper Craft kits…

Kimono Bunting Flags…

Crafty sewing kits…

Needle cases…

Strings of birds and beads…

And stamped brown paper bags ready to be filled….!

Hello again blogland! It’s good to be back.
Lucy x

1. Matryoshka Kimono Dolls, 2. Colour palette: Green, 3. Tamarillo chutney, 4. Cutest of cute hats!, 5. West Coast adventure, 6. Hands-on dog food!, 7. Pirates treasure bag PART TWO, 8. Autumn, 9. My new crafting space, 10. Friendly cat toys, 11. Birthday pancakes, 12. Magical toadstools, 13. Bush bath bliss, 14. Coral, shell and bone, 15. Autumn Blues, 16. Big skies, 17. Garden meditation, 18. The joy of wood, 19. Gratitude, 20. Birthday bunny

 1. My shop is now open!, 2. Cosy Friday evening, 3. Kimono paper tape PREVIEW!, 4. Happy weekend papercut, 5. Colour palette: Red, 6. Tin can lanterns, 7. Shop update: Tom Cats, 8. Spring love: magnolia blossoms, 9. Poultry PS, 10. …and the winner is…, 11. Display jars for treasures, 12. Pin board inspiration, 13. Monday’s inspiration: Honour, 14. Happy Equinox!, 15. Fresh start and a GIVEAWAY!, 16. Paper Fan Inspiration Cards, 17. Morocco on my mind, 18. Midwinter mandarin lanterns, 19. Rainbow eggs and a basket of flowers, 20. Vintage kimono palette

1. London by night, 2. Travelling feet, 3. Poultry Show, 4. Kimono paper tape PREVIEW!, 5. New things, 6. A new season…, 7. Hand carved stamps: lanterns and blossoms, 8. Monday’s Inspiration: Creativity, 9. Rob Ryan’s shop on Columbia Road, 10. Happy Christmas!, 11. Happy New Year!, 12. Plant skeletons, 13. Header artwork, 14. Paper Fan Inspiration Cards, 15. Earth Hour 2010, 16. Contact me, 17. Monday’s inspiration: Communication, 18. Pirate’s treasure bag, 19. More gratitude, 20. Olive Harvesting

Wishing you all a very happy 2011!

Thank you to each of you for visiting my blog and sharing this journey with me over the past months. Blogging has brought a huge amount of creativity, joy, community and fun into my life, and I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for you all. So thank you again.

I look forward to sharing many new things with you this coming year: I still have loads to show you from my trip to Morocco, the UK and Germany, plus some exciting creative projects I’m working on, and who knows what else will happen in 2011…

I hope the new year brings you all much joy, success, contentment and new adventures.

Greetings to you all from Summery New Zealand!
Lucy x

Blax belongs to a little flock of chickens we call ‘the Xs’. There’s Blax, Frex, Beatrix and the rooster, who’s called…um…Spandex. (He’s a very flashy fellow.) The eggs that Blax has been sitting on are all rare breeds. This little chick is a Barnevelder. Barnevelders lay eggs that are a dark orangey-brown, often with freckles. They look a little like they’ve been spray tanned!

The other new thing in my life today is a fresh, blank notebook. I just finished my first blogging notebook, and have been hunting for perfect notebook number two. It turns out I’m very fussy when it comes to choosing notebooks… I like them to be un-lined (for illustrations as well as writing), to be about A5 in size (to fit easily into my handbag), not to be spiral bound (so pages don’t rip out), and to be fairly thick. Turns out there aren’t so many notebooks out there that tick all those boxes.

Today I finally found one (yay!), and decorated the cover with an illustration made out of cut up kimono fabric photocopies (test prints from when I was creating my Kimono Paper Tape). I think I’m going to have to explore this way of working with paper some more, I really enjoyed it.

Yay! I’m so happy to be back blogging again! Over the next few weeks (I have a lot of photos to show you!) I’ll share some of my recent adventures in the UK, Morocco and Germany, but in the meantime, here are the results of my first ever foray into hand carved stamps – printing Christmas cards and envelopes.

I’ve been wanting to try making my own stamps for a while now. I’ve been particularly inspired by Geninne’s Art Blog and her use of hand carved stamps (Geninne is crazy talented, if you don’t already follow her blog, you should!). Geninne has a great ‘hand carved stamps tutorial’ which I found really useful. Thanks, Geninne! 

I’ve also been really inspired by the stamp sets created by Yellow Owl Workshop. I want, want, want! (Do scroll sideways through all their stamp sets, I especially love the ‘landscape’ ones at the end.) What’s so clever about Yellow Owl Workshop’s sets is how, with just a few stamps, you can create detailed scenes by overlaying and repeating different elements. As you can see, that’s the same approach I’ve taken with my illustrations here: building up layers of branches and blossoms using just two very simple stamps.

The first stamps I carved where out of linolium (the branches, blossoms, moon and green/orange lantern). I then carved a second lantern out of an eraser. I found both the lino and eraser to be surprisingly easy to carve, but the eraser stamp had a couple of definite plusses going for it: It seems to take the ink better and so gives a more even print, and it’s easier to hold when you’re stamping because it’s that much thicker than the lino.

I love all the little imperfections and rough edges you get with stamping. So different from digital graphics.

If you’ve been doing any stamping yourself, do post your links in the comments sections, or if you have any particular stamping inspiration, I’d love to see it!

I’ve been busy sorting out my shipping and shop policies and getting all the visuals prepared for my listings…not to mention actually uploading each listing onto Etsy inself. It’s been a great learning curve for me, I can tell you! Here’s a bit of a montage of some of my shop images for you to look at. I’d love to hear any feedback you have about how I’ve put my listings together. It’s all new territory for me! : )

My Kimono Paper Tape which comes in a HOT or COOL selection…

Vintage kimono postcards which are printed on 100% recycled card…

And of course my Paper Fan Inspiration Cards…

Have a great week!
Lucy x

CONGRATULATIONS to April Yedinak who has won the giveaway! 

Here’s what April had to say about where she lives and what she’s loving about this time of year: “I live in Hodgenville, KY. Birthplace of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. It is a small town with great people. We have finally had a break in the scorching heat and now it is sunny, breezy and beautiful. We have a long weekend for Labor Day and I intend to enjoy it as much as possible.”

Email me with your address, April, and your prize will be winging its way to you shortly.

Thank you so much to all of you who entered my very first giveaway. It was such a joy to read your comments each day. I felt really touched by how many of you stopped by – from all over the world – and shared a little bit of what you’re loving about this time of year. I wish each and every one of you could have won! : )

I hope you’re having a happy day wherever you are.
Lucy x

Thank you to all you lovely people who hung in there and kept coming back to check in on me, leaving me comments and sending me messages, letting me know you missed my posts and were wondering what had happened to me. You’re wonderful!

Well, Spring is here, the season of fresh starts, and I’m beginning my blog Spring with a competition giveaway as a way of thanking you all for joining me on this (sometimes rocky) blog journey I’m on. 

The competition prize contains one set of my Paper Fan Inspiration Cards (in the little black purse), one pack of my Kimono Paper Tape, two sets of my vintage kimono postcards, and a fan-shaped decoration I made out of a piece of a 1930s brightly coloured girl’s kimono.

To enter: simply leave a comment by the morning of Tuesday 7th September (New Zealand time), saying where in the world you are, and something that you’re loving right now about this time of year. I’ll choose a winner at random and am happy to send the prize anywhere in the world. Good luck! Here’s a few more pics of what’s in the giveaway.

The set of Paper Fan Inspiration Cards (below) comes in this black, salmon, ochre and sky blue kimono fabric purse.

The Kimono Paper Tape is a pack of ten different strips of lusciously coloured sticky tape printed with real vintage kimono fabric prints.

The giveaway also contains two sets of these 100% recycled postcards. Each set has three different vintage kimono designs. 

Over the next few days I’m going to be showing you some things I’m loving about this time of year, and I look forward to reading your comments and finding out what you’re enjoying wherever you are.

Oh it’s good to be back in blogland! Till tomorrow…. Lucy x

I created a simple little papercut this week and it’s winging its way to each of you to wish you a happy weekend. However busy or quiet your weekend is, I hope you find some carefree moments of bird joyfulness along the way! : )

I love paper art and here are some of my favourite master paper cutters:

Rob Ryan
Jayme McGowan / Roadside Projects
Elsa Mora

If you have a favourite paper artist or do paper cutting yourself, do post a link in the comments.

Have a great weekend!
Lucy x

This evening I’ve had the house to myself and it’s been wonderful just to collect my thoughts, take a deep breath…and suddenly find what I wanted to post about.

Winter has definitely arrived and this past couple of weeks have been extremely stormy and changeable. I’ve been admiring all the different graphic shapes and silhouettes of bare northern hemisphere trees…

…and this evening they made me think of a box of leaf skeletons that had belonged to my great-grandfather that I recently rediscovered.

My great-grandfather Heinz spent a lot of time in India in the ’60s, I think, and he must have got these leaves there. The large, heart-shaped leaves are from the same kind of sacred fig tree that Buddha attained enlightenment beneath. They’re so perfectly, delecately gauzy and papery.

Two of the leaves have illustrations on them. Painstaking work! They both look like they’ve been drawn in pen first, and then the woman’s been coloured in. I love them. Like paintings on a butterfly’s wing or drawings on a cloud!

And while we’re looking at leaf and tree skeletons, here are some photos I took of the most recent full moon silhouetting trees like shadow puppet scenery.