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New Year, new ambitions...

I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas break and you are all raring to go with fresh ideas for 2012. I'm not even attempting to think of new year's resolutions this year as I am guranteed to fail but I do have goals and ambitions for the next 12 months. Fate has decided to put a spanner in the works (I won't bore you with personal details) but sometimes life throws you obstacles that just makes you more determined to make the things you have worked hard for and believe in work better for you.

So, goals for 2012: UK Handmade is storming right now, we are all bowled over by the amount of followers and support we have at the moment and the one thing I always dreamed we would do would get the magazine in to print. This is the year we go for it.

The other goal is to get my own business back off the ground; finding that life / work balance is always difficult when there are kids in tow but I am in a place where I feel like this can really happen at long last. Last year I disappeared until a pile of stress and networking and confusion but I am facing 2012 clear and focussed. I know what I want and I am damn well going to get it *stomps foot*.

The book in the pictures is something my poor mum waited 6 months for me to make, I am a bad daughter and she is very forgiving. But it brought home to be that if I don't have time to do these things for the people that matter then something is very wrong. 2012 is going to be about being in control of my life and not letting life control me. Plus I miss making my books and I want to do more. I want to get into the garden once in a while and bake with the kids (something I never do!). 

What are your goals for 2012, what can you do to get your life / work in order?

 

UK Handmade is 3!

Last Saturday UK Handmade celebrated it's third birthday with a party held at the Create Place in Bethnal Green, London, all organised by my fellow partner in crime and editor, Anna Stassen. She had done a wonderful job, with lots and lots and LOTS of cake

Felt Pine Cone Tutorial

Pop over to page 68 on UK Handmade Magazine to see my tutorial for these cute little felt pine cones to hang on your christmas tree. They look great in any colour and very easy. 

The Day Job...

...is taking over! No painting or drawing or blogging whilst UK Handmade takes over my life. But for good reason. It's our third Birthday!! We have a bumper Winter issue of the magazine out http://ukhandmade.co.uk/magazine, the christmas showcase launched today, Anna, our editor, was featured in the mail on sunday

Sketchbook Pages

I've decided to start a new sketchbook, one I've made myself, to keep my hand in between painting droughts which are happening far too often these days! I've been making and selling these indian cotton rag books for years now and to my shame never ever use them! But the paper is

Anglian Skies

I grew up amongst the beautiful rolling landscape of Cotswolds and I grew up wanting to escape. It wasn't until I moved away of course that I fully appreciated just how beautiful it truly was. But I moved to Norwich for 4 years to study Graphic Design and then moved here to Cambridge where I have settled for the last 15 years and I am still

Redouté revisited

You will probably have noticed that I have a soft spot for flowers, so when my good friend and fellow artist Mandy told me the Fitzwilliam museum here in Cambridge had an exhibition of Redouté original paintings I was there within the hour. 

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