Days together

Sometimes I wish I could bottle days like these.

Kilns and planters

This week my mum was getting ready for the RHS Show in London and I was there when she opened the kiln. Her kiln is a big beast that runs on gas and swallows money every time it fires. But being a giant, it can take some really big pots. In this firing there were a couple of garden seats - you can just spy them in the top picture - and this white planter which I'd love to call my own. She makes birdbaths and soda-fired planters too and I've got a few of these in our garden which are so beautiful that they manage to completely divert attention from my dead plants and thriving weeds.

She only really sells through galleries or in her studio. I'm trying to persuade her to sell online too but she hates the whole selling part of making. I'll keep trying...

.......

Big News

She can ride a bike now. No stabilisers or anything. That's big news around these parts. 

---

If I had this bike I could cycle with her. But which colour saddle, and which colour wheels? 

Head popping and empty spaces

// Behind the scenes at Anya Hindmarch's AW campaign //

I hope you've enjoyed all my recent posts. A particular favourite of mine was the one about monoprinting with the children, and the one with the hot foiled business cards. Although the one with my sister's wedding was quite special too. And I really enjoyed sharing my recipe for Danish cinnamon buns. Oh, and I almost forgot the one about Revealing Craft book has to be up there, as well as the linen table runner and placemats I designed and printed with the girls for our Christmas table.

Oh no, wait, that's right. I never wrote them. But I planned them all in my head, and even took photos for some of them. Surely that counts for something.

Instead, here are some images from Anya Hindmarch's Autumn/Winter campaign, which is so bursting with inspirational ideas my brain may actually pop.

I first saw this video back in the summer, so if we can just reset this blog back to August, I can pretend none of these blank empty spaces happened and carry on as usual.

// Behind-the-scenes video of the campaign //

Toot toot!

Officially Red magazine's best cushion.
From Howkapow btw.
Toot toot.

Saturday plans

If you need me this weekend, this is where I'll be.

Mamoko

I love getting post. I clearly remember the morning my Weetabix Club membership arrived when I was eight. Even getting a 'Brains' badge instead of a 'Bixie' badge didn't spoil the thrill of a parcel arriving at our house, addressed to me.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever grow up and stop feeling surges of giddy Weetabix Gang excitement when parcels or letters arrive in my letterbox. (Bills and junk mail please note, this does not apply to you.) There's no sign of that yet, especially when someone sends me a parcel filled with pictures, stories and adventures. Which is what happened when Mamoko came through my door.

Each page in Mamoko is filled from corner to corner with characters and clues, which you uncover to tell the story. The first page introduces the players, but this is the only time words are used – the rest of the story is all told through Daniel Mizielinski's maze of brilliantly simple illustrations. So you find out that Clyde Snatchit (the cat) has been up to not good and it's down to Claude van Clue (the rat) to solve the crime. Then you follow Clyde's pink-and-green striped socks through the pages to uncover their tales/tails. (I won't spoil it for you, but it involves a famous Expressionist painting by an anxious Norwegian.) Or you start with Otto Trump the elephant and roller-skate with him all the way to the fair.  Or the aliens visiting from outer-space. Or Magical Miss Chubb and her mystery box.

Mamoko is a little bit like one of my all-time favourite books The Great Green Mouse Disaster, but with extra effort because you need to scour each page to find the character and learn the next bit of their story. It needs you to look, remember and imagine. And in return it gives you hundreds of stories rolled into sixteen pages, with a new place to begin and a new ending every time you pick it up.

I love this book with all my heart because the illustrations are allowed to tell the story. The pictures aren't just there to enhance the story, they are the story. And I imagine that no matter how many times I read it, I'll probably still find another story to tell.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

PS. Big Picture Press, you are even better than a Bixie badge.