So far

Goodness, how is it nearly the end of January already?! I think I maybe said the same thing this time last year... Anyway it's been a pretty busy month and in all an alright start to the year. I went to London to take part in the Liberty Best of British Open Call which was quite a surreal but overall a positive experience. I also went for a look around Top Drawer to catch up with a few lovely folk I met when I did Harrogate Home & Gift last July. I also discovered Seeya, and fell in love with their wonderfully innovative and charming greetings cards. The following weekend I exhibited at Scotland's Trade Fair, above is a picture of my stand there. I had a good few days and met loads of independent retailers and secured a few more stockists. I'm now about to embark on a review of my existing ranges, and I'm going to be making lots of new work in the next few weeks so watch this space for brand new things! Oh, and Valentine's cards should be appearing in my etsy shop this week, finally...

Bits & Pieces

Pastel colours on my new Spring cards / new things up on my wall / a little Badger

Happy New Year!

Hurrah, it's the New Year! Here's a sneak peek of a brand new thing ^

I have always found it difficult to really understand why people dislike January so much. I love the fresh start a new year brings, and it's always a month in which I'm filled with inspiration and optimism. I love making plans and thinking about what lies ahead.  To counter-balance this however, I'm not a great believer in New Year's resolutions, and to be honest I get a bit tired of people saying every January how amazing the year ahead will be. Instead of making grand plans to do things I know I'll never do, I enjoy the start of the year for its new-ness and sense of anticipation it affords, and prefer to think about smaller things I can continue to do well. Whatever lies ahead, good, bad or just mediocre, I'm still looking forward to it all. I like to think of myself as a realistic optimist.

In 2012, I feel like I got onto the right tracks with everything, finally, and I'd like 2013 to be all about continuing along these tracks. I think I need to just do more of what I have been doing, and naturally I will improve and develop everything along the way. I've got a load of new ideas in my head, and I am going to try my hardest to draw more. And by draw more I mean actually going out somewhere to draw, just for drawing's sake. Whenever I come to creating new designs I find it really difficult to get to that stage where everything starts to flow naturally, and actually look good. I've become far too lazy with actually going out and drawing from real things and I think if I tried to do it more it'd really help my ideas (and good drawings) to flow more easily. So I guess that's a resolution isn't it.. but a realistic one, at least.

Anyway, I have a busy January ahead with a little trip to London next weekend, and then my next trade show starting on the 20th. More on both of those later...