new products

I like to use any profits from my open studio event for new products, last year it was wallpaper, this year something a little easier! And, great excitement, prototypes of my rocking horse design as a tray and cutting mat arrived in the post today. Now I have to make decisions (this I am not good at!). Should I split the order and do this in teal as well? Should I do two designs? I would like a tray in the Logpile design and a cutting mat just so that I can call it 'chop chop'. I hope to have production in place before my Summer holiday ready for Autumn. (I can't believe summer is racing away before it has even started here in the UK, we are back to skies the colour of tin buckets today)

father's day

I was prompted by Francesca's father's day post to write this one. Here's my dad taken when suitable wear for a summer holiday in Rome was a tweed sports jacket and neat parting.
And a bit about him, he:

- doesn't believe in fathers day

- famously read Proust on the beach while my mum coped with four children under six

- has never cooked a meal in his life but makes the perfect Mojito

- still takes my mum to the same restaurant in Paris where they have been going to for over 60 years (sadly closed down this year - now a Japanese take-out).

- occasionally hangs out at the Groucho Club

- is a great 'Pa' to nine grandchildren

And the other important dad in our lives, here's Robert with Charlie, taken some time ago I have to say, but I love this picture. I have thought about re-creating it but I think it would freak me out as Charlie is now a good head taller than his dad.
And a bit about him, he:
- left Wales aged 22 with just a rucksack and £200 in his pocket to seek his fortune in London

- four years later when everyone else was raving it up in muddy fields he was father of twins

- has passed down his amazingly long eyelash gene to Lucy and his dyslexia to Charlie

- helps Charlie a lot

- makes Lucy laugh just by wearing his jeans

- has filled our garage with zip-up rubbery outfits, hooks and harnesses (kite-surfing kit, honest!!)

- will stand on a beach in a gale with his wind monitor 'checking the wind'

- is rubbish at DIY

- cooks the best sunday lunch

- has fixed my computer!

Happy Fathers day!

****!

Isn't it annoying when you spend a lot of money on a new computer and within a month you can't use the fancy new wireless keyboard and mouse because the bluetooth stops working grr...

(The picture from The Story of William Tell with illustrations by Aliki published in 1960)

by the sea

Some images from our weekend, we got away from the London madness and escaped to the seaside.  Twister cushion found a new home in my sister Clare's house among her collection of studio pottery and delicate paper sculptures, some destined for her latest book due to be published in the Autumn. We hung around Margate old town for a bit, amongst the vintage shops and bank holiday mods and rockers (all looking a bit vintage as well these days) and saw the beautiful Tracey Emin exhibition at the Turner Contemporary, not many mods and rockers there, a different bunch of people altogether.

flag waving

London is festooned with bunting and union jacks for the Jubilee weekend, awash with rain too, as we would expect for an English bank holiday.

Here's a flag waving crab, this months horoscope illustration for Red Magazine, thought I would go a bit topical with this one. Happy birthday to all cancers, hip hip hooray!

We will be having crab sandwiches and Victoria sponge this weekend, looking forward to lion steaks next month!

they're grrreat!

A very good side effect of the jubilee nostalgia fest going on at the moment are the limited edition Kelloggs cereal packs. Familiar faces are back on the shelves including the snap, crackle and pop kids, the coco pops monkey and tony the tiger, all appearing on special diamond jubilee packs.
Even with my son back from art college (and coco pops seems to be cereal of choice for most students) there is a limit to the amount of sugar coated flakes we can eat so I settled for a pack of Frosties, they're grrreat!.

diamond planter

I found this fashionably faceted white planter in a local secondhand shop, here it is on our balcony containing a fab hole-free hosta (the snails haven't found a way up there yet). The planter was originally from Habitat, first brought out a few years ago in the '90s which just shows how on trend Habitat was, I really miss it from our high streets. The planter is on sale on the Habitat Website but seems to be out of stock.

p.s. I seem to be over-using the phrase 'on trend' it's really annoying! my excuse is having a daughter in the PR biz where being on trend is all important!