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

I’m afraid I went a little overboard with the photos! So many beautiful birds and amazing colours and lighting – the bright red of combs and wattles against the muted greys and greens of the shed… And feathers! Iridescent black, burnished copper, silver and gold….

Mostly the birds seemed remarkably calm about being temporarily caged for the show. This one looked like it had had enough of being stared at though!

And this prize winning bantam looks so small and alone!

Some of the birds were like fashion models. This little Silkie looks like she’s wearing a Russian fur hat and pearl earrings!

And how elegant is this one with its windswept fur stole!

Some weren’t quite so stylish though…

We have Araucanas ourselves (they’re the ones who lay the blue and green eggs), but ours don’t look nearly as silly as this one!

How beautiful is this guy though? He’s a Silver Spangled Hamburg. I love the black dots at the ends of his feathers.

I was mostly interested in the chickens but there were some beautiful ducks, doves and pigeons too. I love this duck’s little tufty hat and the ripple feathers on its sides. Not to mention the stunning colour of its beak.

Check out the chest on this guy! All he needs is a top hat and walking stick to complete the look!

And finally, how beautiful is this dove’s tail? Particularly with the light catching it like that.

This post is dedicated to Christine Chitnis who led the fight (and won!) to make backyard chicken keeping legal in Providence, Rhode Island. Well done, Christine! (And good luck with the upcoming birth of your first child!)

My half-sister and I went to the ancient Moroccan city of Fez a few years ago and had the most amazing time together. It was such a special trip. These are some photos from our time there.

So much inspiration everywhere. Lovely, lovely people, spectacular architecture… The tiles! Such beautiful colours and designs. Donkeys and mules wearing little rubber shoes to stop them from slipping on the steep cobbled streets… The heavenly hammam (public bath house), the food… and the shopping. Oh boy. Carpets and pottery, lanterns and brass tray tables, leather slippers and bags and pouffes…..

I’ve got Morocco well and truly on my mind at the moment. Sighhh!

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.

Old red stamps: cherries and ping pong; Christmas prayers and Communist workers; a dragon, a lion, a horse and an ox.

Red toy vehicles from our childhood: Toy trains powered by steam, electricity and small hands; a double decker London bus with most of its paint worn off; a digger, with dirt still in its caterpillar treads; and a battered, repainted truck.

Origami paper, a Chinese paper cut, vintage kimono badges and a geisha coaster.

Games pieces: Various counters and dice, a Rummy number 7, a Mastermind peg, a tiddlywinks wink, a carrom puck, a battleship and a biplane.

Red heads.  Royalty, politics and history.

Vintage buttons, a crochet hook, a 1950s (or maybe ’80s?) buckle, and a spool of thread.

A handmade book from Udaipur, Rajasthan which my mother kept as a diary in 1990 during the 8 months my family and I spent in India; an old book about the artist Albrecht Dürer, a small Japanese notebook covered in washi paper, coloured pencils and a letter A.

Red odds and ends: a ball of cotton; a plastic bangle that looks like carved coral at a glance; an old pendant made from coins and beads that my father picked up in Morocco in the early ’70s; a small German glass jar with roses painted on its lid and old glass buttons inside; a vintage brooch bought at Spitalfields market in London; a paper mache toadstool and a vintage buckle.

The good news is that I’m still mostly feeling upbeat and happy, the bad news is that everything I was planning on doing at the moment has now had to be put on hold. So I was going to be launching my shop today, but instead I’ll show you some pics I took the other day of the pin board above my computer (and the shop will open soon, but just not today!). As you can see I’m at least up and about this evening, but moving s-l-o-w-l-y!

We made the pin board by covering a sheet of fibre board with hessian / burlap. At the moment I’ve mostly got bits and pieces of things to do with products for my almost-open shop pinned up there, mixed in with other odds and ends.

This first picture shows some more mini bunting made out of my kimono paper tape, this time using the cool colour range. The bunting is hanging over a Murobond paint palette, and below that is a letter I sent from Sri Lanka when I was 17 years-old to a school friend of mine  (she lent me the letter recently  to re-read) – ah the writings of a teenage girl! : )

Words of wisdom from Yogi Tea.

My mini bunting again and more of the Murobond paint palette, one of my new vintage kimono cards which will be in my shop, and an information card about my Paper Fan Inspiration Cards.

The photo of the man in the top right corner is one I took in Ladakh, North India when I was 19 years old. I asked him if I could take his photo (which I later sent to him) and he posed with his friend for me. I love the combination of his jewellery (including mother-of-pearl button ear ornaments) and his suit jacket. Great moustache too!

The cut-out face is for one of my Matryoshka kimono doll cushions.

The photo in the top left is from the same trip to Ladakh when I was 19. That’s me in the purple Tibetan dress, playing knuckle bones with the kids. We were staying in a tiny remote village, sleeping on the roof of a beautiful two-story mud house under an incredibly bright full moon. This particular day my friends and I spent hanging out with the kids, eating mulberries off the tree, swapping songs, and playing games. One of the most simple, joyful days of my life.

A swatch of one of the fabrics I use for making the little purses for my Paper Fan cards; old stamps that I used in my Colour palette: Green, and Coral, shell and bone posts; and a black and white photo taken by a photographer in India of my brother, Beren (hi, B!), and two little street girls we made friends with.

Another photo of a woman in Ladakh that I took, and two vintage kimono decorations that I made a couple of years ago.

What’s on your notice board? If you’ve posted about it on your blog, do link to it in your comments. I’d love to see.

I thought I’d show you some pictures from the very first bundle of vintage kimono fabrics that I ever bought over the internet, direct from a seller in Japan. 

It was a mixed lot of about 30 pieces, each cut neatly into a rectangle not much bigger than a post card. Many of those pieces are now long gone, made into purses or lavender wheat pillows and sold at markets in London or at Reiki events that I went to, but I took photos of each of those pieces and still use them as inspiration or the basis of designs and prints that I’m working on now. Such a beautiful range of pattern and style and colour.

Later I also bought many whole kimonos. Each time a new one arrived in the post I’d lovingly hang it up in our home for awhile so I could admire it whole, before painstakingly unpicking all the hand-sewn seams and sewing the fabric into new creations.

I love the colours – scarlet, yellow and jade, pale pink, florescent orange and green, all on that brilliant blue satin. And how great is the tail?!

Look at those eyebrows and the three little teeth! Not forgetting lovely Arlo inside the hat, of course! : ) All together now: Ohhhhhh!

Bamboo bangles, calligraphy brush and clothes pegs. Gourds intricately etched with fabulous tales: Monkey flying through the clouds with his sword, and an ethereal lady poised in front of a mountain.

Practical kitchen items. Some, sadly not so common any more. A butter pat (one of a pair), bamboo tongs, a salt spoon, large multi-purpose wooden spoon, an Indian pastry brush, a Japanese polished spoon, one of a pair of salad servers bought in a flea market, and my child-sized rolling pin from when I was little. 

Wooden buttons and toggles. So many colours, textures, shapes and uses. And a wooden thimble to save fingers from getting pricked.

Wooden animals from my childhood. Some of them given to us as hand-ons from other families. Many made in Camphill Communities by intellectually disabled people, others bought in a Steiner shop in Germany when I was five. Foxes sitting and on the move, a hippo, a chicken, a donkey, two bear cubs, a camel, a rhino, horses, leaping squirrels, pigs and a curly horned ram.

Wooden pencils for colouring and sketching, bamboo paint brushes, an elephant bookmark and a giraffe that belonged to my grandfather that lives on my desk.

Pattern makers. A block for printing Tibetan prayer flags. Smaller block prints from Rajasthan. A rolling pin and square, both carved with birds, flowers, fruit and animals, used for making German Springerle cookies. Two bamboos pierced with a pattern of holes, used for making the elaborate kolam designs outside of South Indian homes (although in reality they’re mostly done precisely by hand). And an old Tibetan press, perhaps for decorating butter torma sculptures.

Prayer beads from India. Carved sandalwood separated with orange knots, rudraksha malas, and polished rosewood-coloured beads.

Small mother-of-pearl buttons sewn onto a card of silver foil. Large carved buttons from someone else’s elderly German aunts. A delicately detailed brooch set in Bethlehem silver. Two broken pieces of jewellery, both from my Grandmother’s youth: a string of beads and an elephant brooch, brought together fifty years later into a treasured necklace.

Tropical fish swim over vintage coral on Australian and Singaporean stamps.

Coral toenails on a floor of timber off-cuts.

Vintage buckles of bone and old plastic, Tibetan skull beads, antique orphaned domino, a Fijian cowrie shell found on an island once owned by the Mafia, a small cowrie shell from a piece of Rajasthani embroidery, and shell beads from Afghanistan.

Tiny sunset-shaded scallop shells from a New Zealand beach.