Inspiring colours

Helped by the fact that my internet was on the blink this afternoon (= no distraction!) I spent a lovely afternoon immersing myself in beautiful new colour combinations and brain-storming new ideas, colour pallets and designs for 2013. The colours around us at the moment are spectacular and just the drive to pre-school is full of earthy greens, autumnal oranges and woody browns so I'm surrounded by a rich pallet of colours. Armed with lots of photos I've been taking while out and about walking lately I set about picking those colours on the pantone chart and making some lovely combinations.

The wonderful new 6th edition of Wrap magazine arrived on Friday and with a title of 'Nordic Lights' for this edition I snapped it up without hesitation. I've been poring over it at the weekend and it features an inspiring selection of Nordic illustrators and creatives alongside articles on Marimekko and an interview with design duo Darling Clementine. The whole issue has the most beautifully Nordic wintry cosy feel to it and the colours and photography are simply stunning - with midnight blues, pale snowy greyey-turquoises, sage greens, deep purples and  the odd flash of orange or pale pink thrown in it all matches the 'Nordic Lights' feel perfectly.

Have a good week!

Orange

I happened to be re-printing some book covers today which coincidentally perfectly matched the time of year and the weather - a lovely autumnal shade of orange. The sun even obliged giving a fantastic glow to the orange I was printing with. I love all the burnt reds and vivid oranges right now. If I ever find the time to photograph it the tree outside our house is a lovely shade of orange/red at the moment. It makes me want to print everything in these colours.

Seeing colours

At the moment I'm working on new designs and thinking a lot about new colours for these. When I'm doing new designs I start seeing colours and colour combinations everywhere when I'm not even looking or thinking about work; folding the washing, Martha's wax crayon pot.......

Maybe it's because it's been a sunny day but I'm tending towards thinking about some bold and bright palettes. I have salmon pink, lime and olive green and purple going around in my head. Even when I put my olive green converse on with my purple stripy socks - massive fashion error but strangely a lovely colour combination!

I'm busying away on new stuff and also have a great commission to start working on which I'm excited about - more to come on all this soon.

coffee + cake + elle dec

I get very few moments to sit down and look at a magazine these days so when Elle Decoration plops through the letter box every month it's always quite a treat for me. It's a bit of a ritual to save it until I have a minute to look at it properly (preferably with a cup of coffee in my favourite mug and a piece of cake!) I always have a look through the whole thing and then keep re-visiting it to look at different parts. It arrived last week but I'm still looking at it. I love looking at the lovely pics of peoples homes and always find inspiring colours and patterns in there. Having worked in homes/interiors shops for the best part of 6 years before becoming fully self-employed I developed a huge interest in interiors and find it connects with the work I do today. I often see a colour palette, photo of something in someone's home or see a new product which focuses me and keeps me motivated and inspired. And I like to stack them all away for future perusal on an uninspired day.