Early this morning

I have been up for hours, sitting at the table at my front room window working on a rush project for my Mum. She popped by last night and asked if I could re do an old product flyer for her company who are attending a big trade show next week. I have been helping her with these for years, back in the day before laptops, digital comeras and photoshop I used to draw all the products and type words on top. They took so much longer to do but between myself, my little bro (who is now a graphic designer!) and my Mum we redid or created many many sheets. Now things are so much easier and I can do so much more and much more quickly. So I worked into the wee hours and was perched back here at 7.45 this morning and I'm nearly finished. I am working on changes that are needed as the request come in.

As I was sitting here this morning I looked out of the window to my little blossoming garden and saw the beautiful glistening rain drops catching the petals of my tulips, and I decided I had to capture them!

Sometimes it is all about noticing the little things.

x

Inspire me Thursday

Polka Dots

I have finally finished 1 of the 2 big projects I have been needing to clear! To keep me going through the number crunching I made some time each morning and evening to make stuff, and I have been having so much fun. Over the next couple of days I show you some of my creations, but in the mean time I have decided to take part in Inspire me Thursday again, to keep me making. I have also been working through Keri Smith's 100 things and I am so surprised at how taking the pressure off has let me begin to create in wonderful ways and mediums.

The ImT theme this week is polka dots and I just couldn't resist using paper! It is almost a collage but nothing stuck down so that it can be a moving instillation when a breeze passes over it, hehe he!

My holiday over

Well that's it, my wonderful holiday has come to an end and I'm back to work tomorrow. I have a commission to do some medical product fitting instructions and a bit of garden design to get stuck into this week. So today I needed to cross some things off my list before normality starts again. I made up all my birthday thank you cards this morning, using some of my favourite flower images of the moment. I got some beautiful flowers for my birthday and took some time today photographing them so that I can work on them later this week.

As I was snapping away today I realised that during this whole holiday I haven't made a thing, I have had loads of ideas, but not sat at this desk and created. I was shocked at first then it dawned on me that some of my favourite things to do are creations of sorts...cooking. And I have done a lot of that this holiday, creating new little concoctions of delight. This amazing bean salad was an adaptation of a receipt I found but was missing lots of the ingredients. So I made it up, and it is yummy and summery. And as a perfect accompaniment my Bo made me amazing wholemeal bread! He has his faults but all is forgiven.

I want to share this with you. I received so many beautiful and thoughtful gifts last week but this little vase or jug is bringing me so much pleasure right now. I love it so much, I love the delicate looking flower and the chunky handle. So it has taken pride of place for me to gaze at and is filled with one of my favourite flowers, freesia.

So, here I am left thinking of what my future holds and what directions I want to go in with my work and creations and try to work out a plan to grow my business to allow me to support myself. All suggestions welcome!

I'm Back

My extended holiday was brilliant and thank you so much for all your kind birthday wishes. I had a great few days eating, reading and walking, and I even got balloons and banners! I have lots of new flower photos but I am still working through them and will be creating from them this weekend. These are a beautiful bunch of Poenies I got and love them so much I decided to use them for my new banner!

On Tuesday I was over at my aunt's house and she showed me this amazing book, "The Young Ladies Journal" an illustrated and bound selections of magazines from 1864. She was given it by a friend who found it in a skip!!!! Who in their right mind would part with a book like this?

This page is a fold out for embroidery patterns. I took photos of 100's of the pages so I'll share them with you over my next few posts.

I can't resist sharing this photo of Pablo with you. I am becoming one of those people who I used to laugh at who took endless photos of their pets. Now I know why they do it. He is such an amazing little creature and I have become so soft.

Well as I have been away for so long I have a lot of catching up in all your blogs to do and need to go and have a good sleep for all the making I plan for this weekend. Happy weekend to you all :)

Shared Hearts - Number 2

"Heart" by Littlebirddesigns

Littlebird is from Scotland and has a degree in Illustration and Printmaking, and there are some beautiful linoprints and other goodies in her shop, so head over for a look. She also has a very lovely blog, verylittlebird. Thank you for sharing your heart lb!



Have have doing a spot of 'well filling' for my inspiration. Which for me invloves taking photographs and gathering stuff! I have decided my inspiration wall space needs updating so I am on the hunt for lovelies, and this for me always begins with my camera. I was at a friend's house on Friday and she has one of the most beautiful gardens I have seen. So many wonderful colours and textures and I got sooo many snaps. I have already made up 3 packs of cards from the flower photos I took! And maybe I'll add them to the shop too, what do you think? So at the moment my desk is clear and bare and I'm off now to work on bits and bobs to get my creativity flowing for a productive week ahead.

Shared Hearts - Number 1

"Liquid Heart" by Sophie

This is the first reader heart to be sent to me, isn't it beautiful. Sophie said her other half noticed it while they out enjoying a cuppa one afternoon! Sophie has a great blog over here. She takes amazing photographs and has a great eye for stunning interior design ideas. Thanks for sharing Sophie!

Here is a fabric heart I made yesterday and I couldn't resist adding a few little sparkles, you know how it is. Keep them coming please and lets Spread Global Love or Hearts!

Gettin to know you

I have been reading lots of blogs lately and some of your wonderful comments here in relation to my competition. (still on going, to be drawn in 5 days now. Mental note, next time I do a comp I will announce it and draw the winner within 1 week, even I'm getting impatient waiting!) And people talk about blogs with personality, and I too really enjoy knowing a little bit more about the person behind the pages. This has got me thinking a lot about the distance I keep from revealing too much and getting too personal, and know I feel ready to to share a bit more.

No, I'm not going to start listing everything I have eaten each day, (I know what your thinking, she'll do anything to reach 100!), just a little bit more about me, not all about the creations.

So here goes......

This is where I am at my happiest, behind my beloved camera. I get such joy from capturing moments, scenes, people, places and most of all flowers. I really started taking photos in college as a part of the cource to get into Art School. Then when I managed to develope my own 'arty' images of my friends hanging from railings, I thought mmmm I really like this and how these turned out. From then on it has brought me such pleasure and photoshop comes a close second. I love the rawness of the initial image and the possibilities that photoshop provides.

These are two little snippits of my desk and some of the images that are inspiring me at the moment. I love eastern delights, the colours, fabrics, jewels, and beautiful painted faces. There is a skirt which I have my eye on from Boden , their clothes are beautifully simple and stylish with bursts of colour. I love my Mark Rothko postcards, "White Center" is the one I have chosen for this week. And my retro radio, a gift from a bestist buddy who was shoked and appalled to hear I didn't have a radio in my bathroom, so much so she gave me this! Needless to say I can't bring myself to leave it in the loo, so it sits beside me on my desk.

So there we are, a little gettin to know me session. I hope it wasn't too much.
Goodnight blogland :)

Tulips

Not much to show today, been re photographing some of jewellery for the shop, working on some new designs and finishing Stefan! But wanted to share this with you, a little sprout in my little garden. I know i know but it is soo exciting, they will be sooo beautiful when they flower and it means summer is on its way.

Look what I found on martha stewart today, if only I have the time!

Pure Heaven

Well I decided I was going to spend some time today making up some inspirational collages for the wall that my desk faces, and here is one of them! Chocolate delight. I have mentioned before how much I love food photography, anything from cupcakes to beautifully styled sandwiches! I think it all started during my final year at art school. My specialism was knitted textiles and one of the schools sponsors was Rennie Yarns. They set us a competition, to use their yarn in an creative and unique way for a display for them to take to an International trade show.

I decided on knitted and felted chocolates and I came 2nd! During my research I spent a lot of time photographing chocolate, reading books on it and it was at the same time that the film "Chocolate", with Jonny Depp and Juliette Binoche was out in the cinema! This is where it all began, I don't really like eating chocolate, but love the smell and how amazing some of them look.

It is coming up to my 100th post so I'm going to run a little competition, I haven't quite decided on the fine details yet but more to come very soon, and I have some very special delights for prizes!!!!!

At last!

Here they are some new earrings up in the shop! I have had them made up for a while now but just haven't got round to photographing them. But the weather was clear and crisp today so I got some good shots. I love these beads, some of them look painted and have little flashes of contrsting colours with are cute.

Well of now to make up some cards from photos I took of snowdrops in my Mum's garden. She wanted some gift packs to give to friends so I have a little bundle to get ready for the morning. Aren't these beautiful?

Photos

I have had a lovely relaxing weekend, I took some time off making and read my book, did some doodleing, made lovely soup and looked through my 'cut out collection'. I started this in my first year at art school for research, and now I can't stop. When ever I find paper, magazine photos, catalogues, newspaper articles that interest me I cut them out and file them. Recently I have been really inspired by wall paper, and interior fabrics so I spent some time on Sunday looking through my files and doodling ideas in my handmade note book/ sketch book/ journal. I made a new one just before christmas, I decided the size I like working best in is A5 so I rummaged through my paper box and cut all different coloured and textured pieces I have and stitched them together with an old cereal box painted white as the back and front covers. I poked holes through the tops of each piece of paper and bound it with wool. Because of the different types of paper I can use different techniques on different surfaces, and I can stitch, draw, punch, paint and stick to my hearts contenet! They are also really interesting to go back and look at and I always have one on the go, and in my bag. It means I can wite down song lyrics, shop names, sketch a scene or person or note down patterns around.

I started doing some funky illustrations last year and got them out again this weekend too. I used my cousins as inspiration, I am the eldest of 14 grandchildren so I have 13 little bundles of inspiration all around! I start off by looking at photographs and highlighting features and stylising them. Then I scan in the images and begin working on them in Illustrator. But some of them that I have tried to upoad the colour is all weird, so I'll need to look into that, or maybe blogspot just doesn't like them!!!

This is Olive, she is based on me! I think I would like to write some stories to match the pics but don't know where to start, so I'll need to give it all some more thought.


I did make the most of the lovely bright day yesterday and re-took some of the earring photographs for my shop. Before they seemed lost on the white backgrounds I was using so I got some advice from Gemmafactrix an amazing jeweller, designer and photographer. She suggested using coloured background and I think they look much better, but still need a bit of work, I need to find the right colours to compliment the pieces. Off now to do some more doodles!

Happy New Year

I am back, holiday is officially over and now it's back to work. I have had a lovely break and am refreshed and full of ideas and things to get making.

I have sorted out my Flickr account and joined some groups this time, I think that was where I went wrong the last time, nobody knew I was out there! I have also been going through my photographs for my new etsy shop and added this the other day.

I got this in a beautiful bouquet of flowers last year for my birthday and don't really know what type of flower it is. I got lots of suggestions on an etsy forum but so many to chose from, so I'm calling it 'Violet Crunch' for now! I got my second treasury yesterday too. http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=21549 , I called it 'Come fly with me'. And I was featured in 2 other treasuries this week too. A big thank you to Kala and Samskiart for including me!

This is 'Key to my heart', a lovely valentine themed bracelet using a combination of rose quartz chips, swarovski crystals, jet bicones and other little gems. I added a key charm I have had for ages but didn't know what to do with before. I have just finished another blue/ aqua bracelet tonight so i'll get that added to the shop tomorrow. I am also working on cards tonight, lots of red and hearts and love!

New Etsy Shop

Hi, hope you all had a fab Christmas!

I'm back to work and really excited about the new creations I have in store for the new year. I set up another etsy shop , laurabailliedesigns2, last week for my art work, photos and boxed prints and started listing today. I am going to be patient this time an list a few items each day, rather than all at one which is what I did when I opened my first shop!

I have new jewellery designs coming into my first shop too, I gotSo tonight I am making up the listings and keeping them inactive so I can list one at a time with out having to sit and create the whole thing. Got a busy week ahead with family gatherings and meeting up with friends so I'm making the most of a quiet day in.

Flowers

This is a photo I took of a pot of flowers at my Mum's house during the summer. She has asked me to make a card for her friend so I was looking through my photo bank and found this and I think she might like it. Looking back over all my flower photos always fills my heart up, I know it sounds really naff but I get so much pleasure from the beauty of plants and flowers. I always feel robbed when I see a flower that stops me in my tracks and I don't have my camera to record its beauty.

I have been out helping my bo at work today and we didn't get home till late so I decided to have a night off making, I have lots to do tomorrow so I don't feel bad about it.

FRAME UPDATE: I was all excited about photographing the finished frames but the black gloss paint round the edges was still wet so we had to wait untill tonight to lay the paper on them. I say we but really mean my bo, I am surfing blog land and he is patiently laying down the sheets. He has just told me they will be ready to photograph tomorrow morning!

Photographs

And now for today after I made up a batch of cards for a gift I did some photoshopping. There is a beautiful florist in Barrhead, my home town who kindly let me photograph their flowers, they also did my wedding boquet and they are called Almond Blossoms. Well I nipped in a couple of weeks ago and got some amazing photos and have only got around to sorting them out this weekend, here are a few.

I already use my photographs for cards and commisioned canvas art pieces but I have noticed quite a few people selling their photographs on esty too, so I'm going to do a bit of research and see if my photos would sell.