Little Bits 2 and Painted Patches ~ Shop Update

Some new bits in my shop ^_^
The second issue of Little Bits, always proud to actually do a second of something that had "issue 1" written on the front of it (≧∇≦) and some hand painted (and hand sewn) patches.
Here's the "don't touch" tiger.





Little Bits issue 2 listing.





Patches celebrating all the beautiful tum tums here.

And here's the gif of my zine in colour because colour is best. If you're here from the zine then thank you so much (/ω＼)

Grumpy Sack Of Shit ~ A Tiny Book

The other day I was feeling rubbish and didn't know what to do but I did know that if I did nothing I would feel even worse so I made this little book. It didn't stop me from feeling rubbish but it did what I needed it to do and kept my rubbish-ness where it was.
I'm really bad for stopping myself, over thinking and then not actually doing it or deciding I won't be able to do a good job so not even trying in the first place. If you don't try though, you won't get better. I'm working on breaking this habit because waiting for things gets you no where and is such a waste of my life (not to be over dramatic lol). I need to just do stuff and even if it turns out bad it still got me somewhere and who knows when the good thing is gonna come out, not when I don't even try, that's for sure.

Flower Hair and Bernard Pattern ~ Illustration

I had a pretty productive Sunday, got a lot of work done, watched The Fifth Element for the first time all the way through, worked a bit more then watched Speed for the first time ever (one of those films has aged a lot better than the other...).
I shared the first piece of work yesterday after I'd done it but then just kept going and here are two more pieces. The pattern is inspired by the fluff monster that is Bernard, our rabbit and the girl with the flowers in her hair is another re-worked inktober piece. They are both available in my Society6, RedBubble and Art Rookie shops.

And here's a gif I made because of procrastinating before figuring out the pattern.

I hope you have a good week ^_^

Happy New Year!

So it's halfway through January and here is my first blog post of 2016. Hi there!




The year started with a visit from my parents, a kind of second Christmas/New Year combination and from then I have mostly been tidying, organising, thinking and generally sorting (and currently feeling sorry for myself with a cold). Basically getting totally sorted and on top of where I want to be so I can get right on with the year from a good place because I have lots of plans for it. And I think this weekend (apart from the cold) is the start of that good starting place with all my various notes and mess in much neater piles so I thought I'd come here and have a bit of a ramble about it ^_^




For Christmas I was the luckiest lady in the world because my parents got me a brand new camera. A Canon EOS M3 in fact. I'm in love. It's so much better in dark conditions than any other camera I own, it takes video, the screen pops out at various angles for various clever uses, it's mirrorless which means it's much smaller than my dslr for carrying about and on and on.


It has a fish-eye lens effect option ^_^

Due to my activity so far this year being mostly hermit paperwork and note taking I haven't done anything worthy of the camera so although I have used it every day out of pure love I haven't had a proper chance to play with it anywhere interesting yet. The photos dotted through this post were taken with it though, ain't they pretty.




As well as a new camera I also finally moved from pay as you go to pay monthly and got a new phone (that doesn't have a massive crack in the screen and has emojis on the keyboard!) and I found out we could pay less a month for unlimited downloads on our broadband rather than whatever our limit was before. All of this combined makes me feel all technologically prepared for life and up to date and like I can do anything. Which is a good place to be at the start of the year.



Lilac cat // cream cat // grey cat

I didn't set myself any resolutions this year, just had the usual little thoughts of keep trying hard, be kind, best year yet sort of thing but I have also been thinking a lot about how this year I want to be braver and not hold myself back at all. I question myself so much that I end up not doing things and that is bad. Doing things is always worth it, even if that thing turns out rubbish it can lead somewhere else. Making makes me make more. This will be the year of doing every creative thought possible. I also want to do more things that are creative but nothing to do with work. In honour of this particular non-resolution the other day I had the thought 'day in the life of my face' and then yesterday, at peak grotty cold (always making good choices), I took a photo of my face every hour all day and made a gif. Here is that gif.

I realise it's nothing amazing or even worth sharing, I'm just determined to push myself and I like having everything here for looking back on easily (new resolution - that's the last time I explain/apologise about putting something on my blog). I might actually make more of these through the year, I don't take enough photos of myself, or even look at myself very much so I reckon this can only be a good/interesting thing for me.



















So yeah, ramble over. I hope 2016 is treating you well so far and if you have any favourite podcasts, youtube channels etc that I can use my unlimited downloads on then let me know!

Bernard Bunny

Because there can't be enough Bernard gifs in the world and I'm in the midst of a million half finished projects trying to be ready for markets and general re-stocking and new things and custom orders and then that thing what happens towards the end of the year. Much busy basically. I'm feeling all productive and stuff which is quite nice. I hope you enjoy manic gif version Bernard. It's actually calmer than watching real life Bernard.

By the way, that is a free local magazine thing that came through the door, not some sort of football thing I'd got for myself. Just thought I'd clear that up. Football, ugh.

Days 160 - 166 // 365 2015

Day 160 - Oh so forever jealous of my parent's garden.



Day 161 - Jealous of their house in general.



Day 162 - I always get really excited when I see the jay. I'm gonna make it be my friend.



Day 163 - Saturdays.

Day 164 - Bernard is my constant source of amusement. Why won't he use his hands to lean on the strawberry pot?! Why does he sit so dainty!?



Day 165 - Pretty shells be pretty.



Day 166 - Went to the library.

Thump

Bernard's a funny little thing. He seems pretty happy in general but every now and then something will bother him and he'll have a bit of a thump. Sometimes he'll be nibbling about, do a single thump, then binky away. This was a single thump with no apparent reasoning behind it.
Who knows what's going on in that fuzzy little head.

Day Out!

On Monday we actually both took the same day off and spent some actual time with each other. The whole day in fact. I can't remember the last time we both didn't work all day on the same day. We'd set aside a bit of money and decided to head out into the world for a lovely time.



We tried on glasses at the vintage market and I bought myself a name patch for my jacket that says Harold.



We had a picnic and let everyone in Marks and Spencer know we didn't really belong there by being surprised and excited to find things like tiny brie and laughing when they gave us side eye.



Will took me to a second hand bookshop I'd not been in and we bought a book of Japanese myths. We also went to another awesome bookshop and got a little 80p book of Viking epic.



We found out that Bernard likes Parsley.



And made an aubergine friend.

Obviously this post wouldn't be complete without a gif of Will licking a houmous lid.

Zine ~ Will Loves Food

For my March zine I did a lot of research into different ways of folding paper to make booklets and kind of ran out of time to make any proper content. So, I made this regular zine with some of the many photos I have taken over the years of Will enjoying food. I realise this won't be as funny for anyone other than Will and myself so I haven't bored you with a long post of photos of all the pages and haven't included every page in the gif but it made us laugh so much and I wanted to have every months zine included on the blog in some form or another so here is a peek into Will's love for food. Trust me, it's the best zine ever.

Gif Face Garratt

When trying to take a self portrait for work use when you don't know what to do with your face when there's a camera infront of it, it will inevitably turn into gif fodder.

 

 

 

Yeah, I know, I don't get it either.

 

The Anti-Social Club ~ Shadow

I almost didn't do anything for this weeks Anti-Social Club but then with it being stupidly sunny today I figured I could manage a quick something and I'm glad I did because making gifs is just too fun.

After Dinner Stroll

The cows are back in the meadow! We went for an after dinner stroll to go say hello. (Or hide behind trees and look from afar because I'm too urban for my own good and I think they're going to trample me)



We went over there at just the right time, the light was gorgeous.



This may be blurry but I think that's why I like it.



We found another big shell and some ceramic pieces to add to our jar. I can't remember if I've mentioned the shells here before. We're finding them quite regularly and they're pretty big, we can't work out if they live in the river or if they're rubbish that's being washed up or any other reason for them being there. They're cool though. We find quite a lot of ceramic down there too.

And now for a gif of a cow scratching it's neck.

You're welcome.