Thursday, October 30, 2014

repeat patterns


I'm keeping things light, bright and breezy!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

"The Ministry of Flowers" flower shop












As you already know if you've been following me recently, my sister has been working very, very hard on her dream project, to open a flower shop in her now amazingly renovated garage in our little village Eastbourne here in Wellington, New Zealand. Many many hours have gone into painting, fixing, creating and festooning.
She has named it "The Ministry of Flowers" apart from a mind bogglingly beautiful array of flowers, she is also selling locally crafted gift items such as handmade wooden pens, little tussie-mussie pottery vases, hand made cards and more.
I'm so proud of her!
If you live in our area, please come along for a visit!
click here for open times.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

cupcakes and cake



phew! finished!  200 cupcakes and 2 cakes all ready for my sisters big flower shop opening tomorrow, all I have to do now is hope it doesn't rain!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Cinderella illustration

another little fairytale illustration!
if only I could tell her thing will work out great!

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Sugar Flowers








In one week my darling sister will be starting a new and wonderful chapter in her life.
Tragedy struck at the end of last year. her lovely husband and father to her 2 teenage sons died so very suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. She was so very devistated and searched for a way forward without her best friend.
As a way of healing, she immersed herself in her passion~ Flowers. Since then she has bought a cottage with the dream to turn the garage into a flowers shop. Jutta is an amazing florist. She is completely self taught and what makes her so unique is that she doesn't follow rules. As an artist she creates as she paints by layering colours and textures.
I am having so much fun contributing to her venture in my own small way, with cards and bags and cupcakes!
We decided that any nibbles for her grand opening (which is next Monday, Labour weekend, from 11-3pm, 105 Muritai Road in Eastbourne, come along your very welcome!) should have a floral theme, so I have decided to try my hand at making molded sugar flowers.
What fun! after a bit of trial and error here they are, I will post again later this week to show you the finished cupcakes!

I have a few tips if you want to give these a go:
Mix your own colours as much as possible, using a white fondant base and gel colours, available at your local cake decorating store), the premixed icing colours are not so nice.
Mix little amounts of different hues in each colour and combine in each flower/leaf to create more depth.
(I discovered this as I went along as you can see!)


Don't use too much cornflower to dust your mold (you can buy the silicon molds online and retail, there are lots of lovely shapes!)
Don't bother scraping the access of with a knife, you will get a feeling quickly as to how much to squish into the mold, you don't have to make them perfect! just have fun like I have!

Friday, October 17, 2014

Little Red Riding Hood

My take on a lovely old classic!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Lilac flowers




As you have seen if you follow my various passions you will know that flowers are right up there!
I have a few that I adore not only for their look but also for their AMAZING scent!
The Lilac flower is one of these, I found these growing wild and to my delight my whole studio is filled with its wonderfully, fresh, old fashioned, girly scent. 


Wednesday, October 15, 2014

card designs






I was hunting through my ever growing mountain of folders and stumbled upon these designs I created some time ago for a greeting company, its interesting viewing designs from a fresh perspective. I quite like the 2 little characters, I might have to use them again sometime.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Printed fabric
















It's always such a treat to receive a batch of printed fabric, seeing my design on the computer is one thing, there's something lovely about the texture and movement of fabric, especially when the colours are wonderfully vibrant too!