Here’s another egg hunt that we did one Spring Equinox.

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

Our ‘tree’ this year was a big bunch of native New Zealand flax flowers. Our decorations are an eclectic mixture: old favourites from my childhood (the orange bird, the egg, the horse in the background); Maori tiki; origami cranes (made by me); vintage crystal chandelier pieces that I bought in a London market; and traditional Swedish straw stars. 

For gift wrap I used Chinese rice paper decorated with off-cuts of vintage kimono fabric photocopies from a previous project.

…A big bunch of hydrangea flowers from our garden. Love the colours!

A lot of yummy things have been cooked and eaten over the last two days. This is a bitter chocolate and almond tart with whipped cream and fresh raspberries made by my man. His first ever attempt at homemade short crust pastry and it was to die for.

I hope you’ve had (are having or will have!) a very happy Christmas wherever in the world you are!

Lots of love,
Lucy x

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!

We’d had some friends come to visit and decided to have a sort of “Easter egg hunt” for the kids to celebrate Spring. It’s funny living in the Southern Hemisphere where lots of seasonal celebrations have come from Northern Hemisphere traditions and so are out of synch with the seasons in our part of the world: Eggs and baby chicks at Easter when it’s actually harvest time…. Fake snow, reindeer and holly in the middle of Summer…. 

Here we were celebrating all the beautiful Spring flowers in our garden at this time of year, plus we’d just acquired 10 new baby chickens as I remember. We’d decided to do a Spring Treat Hunt at the last minute and had picked up whatever goodies we could from our local shop. I had great fun hiding them around the garden, matching them with different coloured flowers or appropriate locations. Hence the goldfish in the pond!

A bumble bee in the hollyhocks and an elephant in the allysum!

These might just be cheap, artificial sweets, but they colour-matched the irises perfectly!

Happy Equinox wherever you are – Spring or Autumn/Fall. Fingers crossed that the storm blows itself out for our weekend…

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

Here are two more things I’m loving about Spring right now:

Rainbow eggs again! Once the Winter solstice has passed, our chooks steadily come back on the lay (having taken their annual holiday to moult and generally spruce up for the year ahead). We have a variety of different kinds of chickens (many of them rare breeds) and get a wonderful, pastel array of eggs, from palest blue and green (laid by our araucanas), to china white, and subtle shades of fawn and terracotta.

A basket of flowers from our garden. Daffodils, freesias and iris, magnolia, camellia, manuka and breath of heaven. I love the blending of pinks, yellows, purples and pale greens, with bold strokes of deep crimson…the perfect Spring palette!

These flowers are for the people of Christchurch and the Canterbury region of New Zealand which was hit by a big earthquake yesterday. You are in our thoughts.

Here’s one of my biggest Spring loves: magnolia blossoms.

Sunrise-shaded bud bejewelled with morning dew drops….

Layers of origami petals unfolding…

…palest pinky-white to deepest fuchsia with a russet crown at its centre.

So beautiful!

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