New beginnings, summer and seaside

This post is a bit late coming - it's been a hectic 2 weeks.
We moved house and studio ok. It was all as stressful and emotional as I had expected - not helped by illness of both me and my husband - but we managed somehow and we're here and steadily getting back to some kind of normality. So here's a few very non work-related photos.
My temporary studio is great. The top photo is the view I have from my current studio and the photo below is what is going to be my studio eventually - after a bit of insulating and a few windows. I'm ridiculously excited about this and already planning what will go where. I have images in my head of a lovely light space with big windows, white walls and a big long white bench down one side and plenty of storage space.
Our country life is certainly being punctuated by the sounds of the country. Both me and my husband grew up on farms so we're used to it but I'm sure we have every imaginable animal somewhere within hearing distance - cows, horses, sheep, cockerels, geese, chickens....... we have them all close by.
And the colours are fantastic too. Maybe it's being somewhere new, exciting and different - I guess you see everything more vividly - the pea green (lovely pea plants left in by the previous owners) and bright flowers.

We've been adorning our new house with a bit of mustard coloured Orla Kiely (birthday and house-warming presents) and I'm being inspired by my birthday present from my good friend Jill - Modern Vintage Style by Emily Chalmers - which has led me in the direction of Tim Rundle whose inspirational photos on Pinterest I'm loving.

Lastly a birthday day out to the beach cleared our heads a little and also re-inforced the 'just moved' feel that we're on holiday. Even though we're not having a holiday this summer - moving (without the stress and packing of course) has given life a slightly temporary holiday feel (or maybe it's just down to the good weather we're having!!) Martha had lots of fun doing her beach drawings followed by chocolate ice-creams!

End Of An Era.....

Sums it all up nicely really.
After 5 years of hand screen printing my cards this week I switched over to digitally printed cards (I still have stock left of hand printed cards so the stock in my own shop will continue to be hand printed until this has gone.) It was a huge and much-deliberated decision for me but in the end it was something I had to do in order not to spend every waking moment printing, folding, trimming and packing cards. It was getting a little crazy. Keeping on top of the stock of more than 82 cards was taking all of my time up and not leaving any time to develop as many new ideas as I'd like (and not to mention spend some time with my husband and daughter without working every evening.)
It took many months of colour-matching my originals and getting them 'just so' (I am very fussy - but then I needed to be to keep the quality the same) but in the end I am very happy with the lovely flat colour of the fancy HP indigo digital printer being used. It almost replicates that lovely flat colour I so love about screen printing. (I haven't stopped printing for good though - I plan to do more prints and experiment a bit more with what I print)
So after launching the digitally printed cards at Pulse to a very positive response (most people couldn't tell any difference) this week I received the 10,000 stock of cards to keep me going for now. Hmmmm - where to put them all..........!
......Which leads me to my second part of this 'End Of An Era' blog post. After tomorrow I will be having a 'week off'. I call it a week off but all it means is I won't be able to send out orders and reply to emails as often. What it really is is 'moving week'. After 5 years of our lovely home and my very small garage studio we're moving to pastures new. Quite literally. We're moving out of our small town to an even smaller village. I'll be packing up my studio on Monday and Tuesday and transporting it to a new home and new studio. It will be fun, tiring, sad, happy and exciting all rolled into one very emotional week I imagine. I'll post from my new studio if not before!

New cards

Here are some of my new cards which I recently launched at Pulse. A bit of a mixed bag of occasion, patterned, phrase and Valentines (bit out of season I know -  they sell very well all year round to the old romantics out there!) And there's a nod to the Olympics with the top one - we can only hope!

I'll put some of these in my shop this week and try to have a little re-fresh. It's all a little tricky as I'm gradually getting surrounded by boxes - moving day scheduled for the 11th - next Wednesday. So much to do. I have a whole studio to pack up and transport. Not looking forward to that at all. But I am looking forward to my new bigger studio in the garden. It needs work and I won't be able to re-locate to it just yet (I'm going to be working in the house until I get sorted) but all in good time.

All the new card designs are now on my website.