book art

After months of snipping and folding and living with tiny bits of paper glued to her fingers, my sisters new book is out today! Book Art by Clare Youngs published by Cico books, is full of inspirational ideas for creating magical and delicate objects from old books and manuscripts. The book is simply but beautifully designed and styled and has a suitably traditional cloth binding.
Clare is keen to point out that no precious books were harmed in the process! She has foraged for battered and torn volumes from boot sales and charity shops, saving unloved and forgotten books from disposal and transforming them into puppets, dolls, flowers, tiny houses, birds and nests.

Still no sign of a blog from Clare yet, but she tells me it's on its way, I will be the first to link to it!

for arts sake

I went to see the Damien Hirst exhibition at Tate Modern. I have always felt that DH was a bit of a fraudster but I have to say I thought the exhibition was quite amazing. Seeing this amount of his work in one place was pretty impressive. I was shocked, amused, disgusted, fascinated, charmed, the lot - don't miss it.

When I visit Tate Modern, I always go across the road to Marcus Campbell art bookshop. Second hand art books ancient and modern, and a huge and varied range of old exhibition catalogues at just one or two pounds each, always worth browsing through. You can scatter them around at home and make like you are really well travelled and clued up on the international art world!

The rhino is a particular favourite, all in French so not sure what it is all about but I love the illustrations.

wild raspberries

Fashionable food seems to take itself very seriously these days, there's a lot of scandinavian foraging and arranging and fiddling. Here's a book that lifts the spirits! I found it in a charity shop for £1.50, Wild Raspberries by Andy Warhol and Suzy Frankfurt. It was first published in 1959 as a limited edition. (This one is a facsimile obviously or I would be retiring to the seaside and living on nothing but piglet and omelet greta garbo for the rest of my life) It is very funny and camp with charming advice and eccentric hand written recipes garnished with fabulous Andy Warhol illustrations.

on the subject of love

My lovely beautiful daughter is at the 'kissing frogs' stage of life and naturally she comes to me for advice. So I gave her this little book 'the trouble with boyfriends' by anon which I bought for myself many years ago, well it used to make me laugh!

scissors and glue

My sister Clare Youngs has been very busy snipping and gluing and here is her latest book, Stylish Papercraft published by Hamlyn. An inspiring collection of paper projects from simple mobiles and decorations to stunning 3-dimensional objects. Full of ideas and simple step by step instructions to re-use and recycle scraps and ephemera into useful and stylish statements. It is a great celebration of the delights of pattern and endless possibilities in a simple sheet of paper.

cooking is fun

These children's aprons are beautifully made by lovely ladies in a small factory in Lancashire and hand printed by us. I have just put them in my Etsy shop - they would make very cute Christmas presents. More nostalgia, I dug out my old 'My learn to Cook book' for this photo shoot, love the 'roobarb and custard' style illustrations. 

all in the family

My incredibly creative sister has just published her first book! With two more in the pipeline, this first one is called The Perfect Handmade Bag by Clare Youngs published by Cico. It contains 35 wonderful ways to recycle your old clothes, fabrics and textiles into bags and purses both practical and pretty. We had lots of fun spotting our donated cast-offs in the pictures. The instructions are simple and photography inspiring as always with Cico books. 

nearly a collection

I always buy Observers books when I see them in the charity shops, they are such neat little packages. My current favourite is British Architecture, packed full of facts and each illustration is a little gem with lovely bold screenprinty colours