Giftware Inspiration

This past week I had some time off of work and have been all around the country, visiting some uni friends in Plymouth, family in Cornwall and then up to Birmingham today for the Autumn Fair trade show! This post is just a few photos of some of the lovely things I stumbled upon!

I went with my family to Port Isaac, a seaside town in Cornwall where they film the programme "Doc Martin" (if you like random trivia). There were loads of gorgeous little gift shops including a pottery gallery in this amazing building:

Where you could look down over from the top level into the space below. They had some amazing hand painted pottery.

There were also loads of beautiful gifts and decorations:

And today I went to Birmingham for my first ever trade show (as a visitor rather than exhibiting) to see what it was all about and get inspired by other peoples work.

The NEC in Birmingham is a huuge place, there were 5 halls filled with all sorts of commercial goods, mainly types of giftware, greetings and homeware. I stumbled upon some fun things, and we also watched a popcorn making demonstration and found a dinosaur! 

All in all a very fun day with too many amazing things to see and take in at once, some beautiful displays with varying levels of sparkliness and lights, suck uk was quite extreme:

T-rex!

Dancing sandyclaws!!!

Oh and a little inspiration for any fellow graduates who are freaking out about life right now, if this is too cringy just imagine Dory from Finding Nemo "just keep swimming" ;)

The Snowman workshop

So today I was helping with a workshop at Plymouth university alongside a screening of "The Snowman" with Jo Larsen Burnett and   Katie Keith. 

The theme was obviously quite christmassy-we made a large snow scene for the kids to add their own objects and decorations to. 

We got them to make trees, snowmen and reindeer to go on the background. They could also make shadow puppets and draw images onto acetate to project onto the scene and move around. 

I loved how pretty all the shadows were, we all had a play around as well creating shadow monsters eating the reindeers (well that was just me) 

I also had a nosy at the Peninsula arts exhibit, which has a giant wall for people to draw on :) the kids put up a christmas message!

We pinned up all the things the kids have made to stay there over christmas. Was really fun in the end, I think I am secretly a child at heart I want to make more shadow puppets!

Waves and sunsets and things

Actually got a fair bit done today:

Put my final design onto iron on transfer paper.

Made a coin purse with it, will be selling a couple of these when I get it all sorted!

Drew up my next final

aaand photoshopped it into another final. 

WOOOOO

and now for food!