Once upon a time…

…around 200 years ago to be precise, two brothers called Jacob and Wilhelm published a collection of fairy tales – which are now well known as Grimms’ Fairy Tales.  Google today has a great set of illustrations to celebrate the anniversary, which is what reminded me, and none too soon either.

Back in April I started sketching ideas for a series of notebooks inspired by classic fairy tales, and at the beginning of December I posted a sneak peek of the first version of one of these books.  It’s about time I got round to a proper show and tell!

I simplified my original idea and decided to go with a classic quarterbound style for the exterior.  Red fabric teamed with a leather spine.

This first version has the title burned onto the spine, but I think the next incarnation will feature gilding.

The inside of the covers has been lined with grey faux fur – our wolf in hiding!  I’m quite pleased with the way this turned out, but definitely want to refine the idea somewhat so there will be a second version in due course.

If you’re interested in purchasing this piece then please contact me.

Read Full Post »

Wednesday WIP

I’ve not posted a work-in-progress thread since October, mainly because I keep forgetting.  I’ve been busy though, flitting from project to project.  Some of the projects have been mine, but a couple of the most unusual ones have been my friend’s, which I’ve been helping him with on craft nights.  In the past five weeks we’ve made a dressing gown out of a double duvet (yes, really!), and a waistcoat out of an old lumberjack style shirt.  No photos of the finished objects, but he did wear the waistcoat to a party recently so hopefully some photos will surface eventually!

I’ve been adding to my stash of hexipuffs, and at the moment I’m busy using up the lovely mixed lot of Noro yarn I got on eBay a couple of months ago, and I’m nearly done working my way through all the scraps.

I’ve been mucking about with vintage stamps to create stickers, which will be added to my Etsy shop very soon.

I’ve also made a start on a bigger project: fairy tale books.  I posted back in April that I’d been inspired to make notebooks based on classic fairy tales, and since then I’ve been turning the idea over in my head every so often.  The original sketches were a good starting point, but I’ve refined the plan somewhat and have finished the first version of Little Red Riding Hood.  Here’s a sneak peek, but I will be putting up a full blog post on this very soon.

In other notebook-related news I’ve been a bit erratic with my designs.  Not inspired by any one theme, but trying to clear some space in the studio (which is an ongoing battle) by using things up as I unearth them.  This scattergun approach  has led to a rather mixed lot, ranging from Dr Who themed books to this wonderful Scrabble book amongst other things.

Unsurprisingly this sold very quickly at the recent Kensal Flea!  I’ve got more Scrabble tiles stashed away somewhere so there may be another version of this emerging from the studio some time soon.

That’s it for this Wednesday.  I’ll be hard at work in the studio for the rest of this week, and hopefully I’ll have some lovely new books to show off at the Salusbury School Christmas Fair this Saturday.

Read Full Post »

Sunday Sketchblog #13

It’s been a couple of weeks since I added anything to my sketchbook and I was resigned to having nothing to show for a third week running… but yesterday inspiration struck, just in the nick of time.

I’ve been really enjoying watching Grimm on television and I think we can blame that for my rekindled interest in classic fairytales.  I’ve also been feeling the need to create some sculptural pieces lately too, as I’ve not really done anything like that since Ceci n’est pas une porte #1 and #2.

So today’s sketchbook offering is my frantic scribbles from yesterday afternoon outlining some ideas.

I have a very specific idea of how I want these to look, and it’ll take a while to translate them from paper to physical form.  I’m looking forward to the challenge though and hopefully will have something to show in a few months time.

Pop along to Timballoo and see if Jen has continued her Sunday Sketchblog.

Read Full Post »