Inspiration from Cath Kidston

This project has been hanging around for a while and I finally got around to finishing it!Apologies for the awful lighting; it's very dark up here today but I needed a bigger space to display the finished object than I could manage in my studio with its lovely daylight lamp.

I was inspired by the colours that Cath Kidston uses in her styling. I originally started out with lemon yellow and peach in the mix too, but in the end I decided to stick with pale blue, pink, green, white and red.

I added a border of five rounds of the pale blue and a picot edging which gave the blanket slightly fluted appearance.

This blanket will be on its way to a friend next week - happy snuggling!

Although I haven't been blogging for a long while, I have been very busy. Here's a toybox that I painted up for the boys at the end of last year:

I used the book "The Tiger Who Came to Tea" by Judith Kerr as my reference, as it was my favourite book as a child, and the boys love it too.  The picture on the top of the box appears on the back of the book.

This is the side of the box, showing the Tiger drinking all the water from the taps so that Sophie can't have a bath that night (even as a child I knew this wasn't possible, but it didn't spoil the magic of the story!)

On the inside of the box I painted my favourite scene in the book. As the Tiger has eaten everything in the house, there is nothing for dinner, so Sophie puts on her coat and wellingtons over her nightdress and goes out to a cafe with mummy and daddy for sausages and chips and ice cream. As a child, I thought the idea of going out at night after bedtime (particularly in your nightie!) was just magical. As the lid is often open as the boys rummage around for bits of lego, this view is often on display.

Originally I had planned to paint scenes on the sides and back too, and I should really have painted the inside as well as it looks rather shoddy! But I'm afraid I had run out of patience by this point and was desparate to move onto something else! Being a bit of a perfectionist my eye is drawn to all the mistakes, but I am basically fairly pleased with the end result. I find painting furniture very enjoyable!

Happy New Year - Da Cat is BACK!!

Well hello again, what a long time it has been since I blogged! New year, new start I think. I will try and keep up this time!
Although I have had a blogging break, I have not been on a craft break - in fact, it's because I have been so ridiculously busy that I haven't had time to write. So I'm sorry for abandoning you all, and I promise I will make it up to you by wafting around that magical word ... GIVEAWAY ... coming soon to a blog near you!

Anyhoo, re the pictures - this was an ordinary pine kitchen chair, which I stripped, sanded, painted with two coats of pale blue, then dry-brush with some off-white, then painted on the cat picture with acrylics, finishing off with a couple of coats of varnish on the top. Am very pleased that I resisted the urge to overwork the fur and am quite happy with the result! (It evens says "Miaou" on the back of the chair!)
I hope you all had a great Christmas and a good start to 2010 - look forward to catching up with what you are all up to in the near future.

Just for a change ...

... I painted a picture :)My eldest daughter loves Charlie and Lola (don't we all?) so I painted this in acrylics and outlined it in pen. (Unfortunately I rushed it a bit to get it finished before the littlest one woke up and smudged it ... gah)

Caitlin is most thrilled with it though.