50 - Christmas Cards

Every year I make something a bit different for the Christmas cards that we send. This year I decided to do a card/gift combo and created a recipe card that had a cookie cutter attached. We sent the posted ones in a clear box to give the postman...

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49 - Shaun of the Dead Extra

I've been under the weather to say the least over the past three or four weeks. Most days I've looked and felt like an extra for Shaun of the Dead (ah, how I do love Simon Pegg). I feel better today. So much better in fact, that I decided to get in...

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48 - What "work" looks like

Last week was a great week. Most specifically Thursday. I got to dress up in my "me" uniform rather than my "mama" uniform and head off to London for a private view at a shop that is stocking some of my Christmas cards (SMUG - read about it here and here).

On the train, speeding away from Leeds to London I looked down at my beautifully blood red nails glinting in the sun that was pouring through the window and fully evaluated that moment in time. I think to myself, I'm on a sunny train, wearing my kind of clothes, dressed how I like to dress, mixing business (private view) with pleasure (catching up with my long time friend who I haven't seen for a good number of years). I had a realisation in that moment "this is how work looks like for me, this is how a dream job (MY dream job) unfolds". Even now I sit writing (partially as a part of my "job" and partly for me) with blogger open in one window and a live stream of the Hunger Games premiere in another (regular readers will know of my love for J-Law and the Hunger Games) and I know that I am building my dream, I am in control of my path and my destination. Life is by no means perfect and I have a long way to go before I reach my goals, but the journey, it's a big part of it. I've been on a train speeding along to get things done before and started to realise I was missing the getting there. I love to travel and this is just an extension of that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, take care of your journey, its just as important as your destination.

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47 - Alfies Studio for SMUG / 007

I have the good fortune to have eyes like a hawk for great finds when it comes to Pinterest and spotted a call for submissions from the lovely people at SMUG for their Christmas pop up shop. You can buy this exclusive for SMUG colour way online (click...

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46 - Take a Look - United Visual Artists

Chorus from United Visual Artists on Vimeo. My love affair with UVA (United Visual Artists) began back in 2003 (wow, ten years ago) in an airfield in Liverpool as they headlined Creamfields. I was blown away by their collaboration with Massive Attack...

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45 - Talking to... Baker and Bell

The (reasonable) camping season is coming to a close for this year sadly. As I'm already daydreaming of next years adventures and creating a wish list the length of my arm of camping gear for our adventures, I want to kick off my new series "Talking...

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44 - North Wales Roundup

A few final images from our North Wales trip in the summer. The beach. Sailing adventures. An enchanted tree. A tram to town. Natural stone terrariums found on a ramble. Moments of discovery. Hills, mountains, sea...

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43 - Growing The Sorting Office

Hello there. Again its been a while since my last post. I'm trying something new you see. I realised that I am in charge. I've forgotten that a lot over the past couple of years (when I've been up til 2am for a self imposed personal project deadline...

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42 - Conwy Castle / Catch-up

We visited Conwy Castle on our second day of holiday. It is both vast and perfectly placed and in many ways, quite humbling. The second image is taken from high up in the castle, what a beautiful vista to look out on. I've been a bit lax lately...

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41 - Holiday

We spent a week in North Wales at the beginning of the summer holidays. Its taken me this long to post about it. I have been laid up with a pretty savage chest infection for the best part of a month and am only just starting to feel better. Violin...

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40 - Explorers

We are heading off to the coast tomorrow for a week. I feel very fortunate that the weather is holding out and that our not very long at all drive to Wales may take us to a holiday that feels a little more further afield. This past week or so I've loved...

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39 - Dream collaboration

mmm... skyscraper i love you - Tomato/Underworld I featured in a post over at iamthelab.com (link here) on Monday and one of the questions posed was do I have a dream collaborator. I wanted to elaborate on my choices (having skimmed my answer for...

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38 - Base Camp

Welcome to our newest addition. We plan on calling this fella home over the coming summer weekends...

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37 - Camp - 3am.

Yesterday after probably a year of "shall we/shan't we" we finally got up the courage to go camping. No big deal to most and it never used to be to us. The last time we camped was at Glastonbury 2007. Pre-children and pre having a worry or care...

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36.2 - Birthday / Stationery

The tent seems to hover as if by magic. The day itself was a blur of tiny figures streaking across the park, and enjoying the sunshine between making sure everyone was fed/watered and not wandering off from the party when they shouldn't be - 16...

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36.1 - Birthday / Stationery

I wanted to capture a feel of cowboys and indians meets teddy bears picnic for a boyish rather than babyish aesthetic. As well as invites I created Thank You's, colouring cards, badges and bingo cards that had activities to do in the park that had...

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35 - Party Bags

Party bags are often filled with items that never seem to last the car ride home or are sugar loaded and set us up for a nightmare time of getting the kids to go to sleep, I figured it was about time there was a stylish and easy to buy alternative that...

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34 - Mixing it up

This past week was the Mr's 33rd birthday and to mark the occasion I thought I'd do something I don't do very often - paint. I decided to paint his birthday card. I very rarely put paintbrush to paper these days but actually found the whole thing very...

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33 - GREAT GATSBY

I'm so looking forward to seeing "The Great Gatsby" and so over excited by the very Baz Luhrmann-ness of the whole thing that I designed a set (or two) of stationery in honour (and bought a new typeface - any excuse). I took the general look of the era...

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32 - Party House

Today I am featuring a house designed specifically with parties and live music recording in mind. As far as houses on the market go, there aren't many cooler than this. Since I got married in 2006 I have always had it in my mind that I'd like to...

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31 - Narrative

I've known since the days of sitting on river banks colouring in with my Nan whilst my Dad and Granddad were fishing that I wanted to do something creative with my life. I've been a graphic designer for a decade now (wowzers) and that feeling has never...

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30 - New Blog Theme!

Hello one and all! I have a new blog theme! I'm pretty excited about it but as with all new things it needs a few tweaks and changes that I need to figure out and the images that I have previously placed are not quite a perfect fit, going forward I...

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29 - How Alfies Studio came to be...

Image taken from "No Matter What" by Debi Gliori (found on notsupermum.com) I often find that when networking and meeting new people when I mention what I do and I introduce Alfies Studio I am often asked "Why Alfies Studio?". They want to know where...

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28 - 7 YEARS!

Image from impretend.tumblr.com (my view wasn't quite this amazing) The past couple of weeks have been pretty amazing (read as busy and amazing). I've been working on some branding (which I'll be sharing soon) and some birth announcements (which...

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27 - The Season of Love - Eames and the Unknown

I can't stop gushing about chairs. It turns out that in this house we are chair obsessed to the point of having chairs in storage in the attic - its a crazy thing we are trying to break free from but here I find myself lusting after.... more chairs! Not...

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26 - The Season of Love - Young and Norgate

The season of love is upon us with Valentines drawing ever near and rather than get mushy and gushy about the man in my life I've decided to share a few things I love. First up are Young and Norgate. I love everything starting with their brand (one...

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25 - Huraaaaahh!

Have hit 100 followers on Pinterest... hurrah! ...

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24 - Girl on Fire

I have already spent a portion of this year wondering what I do, who I do it for and the worth in all of that. I feel that in a pecking order of things that are important to people (in England, I have a feeling it is very different in the US from...

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23 - Hello 2013!

Happy New Year! Christmas for us was all over the place as ever trying to fit everyone in and do all that we wanted to. Its very different now Dominic is in school (nursery) and we have to stick to term dates rather than setting off to do the rounds...

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