Nice Illustrator Alphabet

A colaboration by loads of well known illustrators to produce an awesome alphabet..dreamy!
I'm a big fan of Oliver Jeffers and he produced the yummy letter A pictured. Check it out at http://thesmallprint.ie/projects/illustrated-alphabet/

Handwritten calligraphy wedding cards soon available on www.notonthehighstreet.com. Written in Walnut ink and opaque white on 100% recycled card.

Halloween Pumpkins

The newest addition to our leaf and bike strewn garden are these fetching fellows. I'm a bit 'bah humbug' about the over commercialisation of 'events' like halloween but there's a little bit of pagan deep in my soul which loves the celebration of a season change. We visit The National Arboretum at Westonbirt a couple of times a week and the smell of the muddy, wet leaves as well as the astounding colours at the moment are a wonderful assault on the senses!
Our Halloween this year was spent wandering, several times, around our little village with a small, half-naked pumpkin (she refused to wear the matching tights), an SAS soldier-come-schoolboy, and a 'dead' school girl who had real pencils sticking out of her face stuck on with special FX wax and fake blood!!!! We have no street lighting where we live so it is always exciting and we usually come across a few other ghouls and ghosties! I do love seeing all the carved pumpkins, they make me smile.

Tea Bag Rockets

In a continued attempt to draw The Big Boy away from a screen, we embarked on some science experiments over the weekend. This one was quite interesting. You need a few of those tea bags which have tags attached (we choose some disgusting licorice ones from the back of our cupboard). Open the bag out, get rid of the tag and string then empty the contents. Open it out into a tube shape, standup on a tin tray and set fire to the top. It burns down quickly then the ghostly ember flys up into the air much to the fasination of the children. The Big Boy, who's a bit good a science, tells me it all to do with convection currents, or something like that, but it's all too much for my little arty brain.

Autumness

There's that lovely whiff of autumn in the air. A damp, golden chilliness which is so beautiful until it turns muddy and wet (incidentally the muddy wetness ends up being dragged across our kitchen floor when a child crosses the threshold).
This half term we fully intend to mark it with pumpkin soup, spooky cakes, kite flying and general chaos.
So far we have enjoyed visiting the Arboretum at Westonbirt and collected acorns and pinecones and bags full of leaves. The children have been digging up lost potaoes and carrots in the veg patch and cooking them on homemade campfires.

Only Words Exhibition

I was really inspired by the lovely exhibition on at the New Brewery Arts in Cirencester at the moment. I always like wordy art as words really add another dimension to a piece and are given weight by the way the are presented. I especially like these lovely pieces made with pins and thread and a gorgeous snippet of handwriting that looks almost like ribbon.

Pictures from Italy