Change of scenery

These are some photos from our weekend in London. It was a refreshing and inspiring change of scenery and chance to see some bits of London we'd never seen before. It was Martha's first trip to London and she seemed to like the excitement of it all and the London buses in particular!

Exploring Columbia Road flower market and the shops along Columbia Road on Sunday was a highlight for me. I was very excited to see the Word Maps given such prominence in Treacle (including the new London Map in the window) and there's many other great shops along there like Elphick and Keeping House. We squeezed in a morning coffee and almond croissant (my absolute favourite) at a Spanish café along there too.

We'd also managed to get pre-booked tickets for the Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy (thanks go to my husbands brother and wife who we stayed with) and the exhibition didn't disappoint. We were particularly intrigued to see it as the East Yorkshire landscapes and villages he's based his work around and explored in the past 7 years are a stones-throw from us - i.e as close as 5 miles away - and the landscapes he paints are the ones so familiar to us.

A good (if tiring) weekend.

Craft Business Heroes

Last summer I was contacted by Alison McNicol author of several craft books and a craft entrepreneur herself. She wanted to interview me about my business; what I do and how I set it up with advice for others wanting to set up a craft/design/handmade business.

It sounded very interesting so I obliged by answering all the questions Alison sent. I found it quite an insightful experience as I actually got the chance to step back for a moment and realise what I've done and how I got here. I've been carried along by events and trade fairs and orders over the past few years I hadn't realised the momentum I'd achieved and certainly didn't realise that it could be helpful to others to hear how I set up, work and run the business day-to-day.

It's also really interesting to read how other people got to where they are today and their working practices and stories.

The resulting book 'Craft Business Heroes' is available from Amazon along with it's sister book

'The Craft Business Handbook'.

Jolly cold

Brrrr. It's a cold day. The first properly cold day we've had for a while. I love the sunny frosty days but the heating has had to be constantly in my studio so far today to keep me toasty while I'm sat at the computer doing a bit of designing.

The fantastic photos above are unfortunately not mine and are curtesy of a new-found blog 'Souvenirs' (via The Seventy Tree Feb links). Niina is in Finland and it looks even chillier over there at the moment - but very pretty. I love her photographs - the colours in them are amazing and she looks like she's rather fond of a coffee and sweet treat same as me!