Spring birdy lino print / design

Hello friends! Sharing a print I made earlier this week which I quite like, and which looks quite pretty transformed into a pattern for interior furnishings..

Hand-pulling the design!

Et voila the final print!

Surface Pattern Design development for homeware and furnishing.

Click on the images below to see a few more of my recent linoprint designs..

          

Handmade Winter Rose Soap

A project which I made as Christmas gifts for family and friends and totally enjoyed. Excuse this being a bit of a long old post but it took a long old while to make it and get it right. I had some, or rather a lot of help from some lovely friends Miriam and Jake who feature here too!

We used the Nerdy Farm Wife's Winter Rose Soap which can be found here...

The story and how to ...
Our lovely ingredients to start with (for full list, click here)

I am not going to copy out the recipe, just use this as a visual prompt for the process as we made it! See links above for the step by step guide.

Here goes, not forgetting to introduce my partners in crime, Miriam and Jake!!

 It all started very intently with some serious goggles and studious following of recipe!

Making the delicious smelling rose tea.

 Adding the lovely moisturising shea butter and oils.

 Looks disgusting, but this was the start of heating the oils, and temperature checking...

 Blending the rose petals to add.

Adding the Lye..
So this looks a bit bonkers, but Lye is very corrosive caustic soda and requires serious attention and some protective eyewear (and face wear - we got a little paranoid!!)


Stirring in the colouring and dried rose petals below..

Spooning the mixture into the moulds (kindly made by Jake's fair hands..)

The final set batches..

The packaging...

1. I started wrapping with cellophane cello bags so seal in the lovely scent and oils.
2. Next, wrapped with brown paper
3. Finally covered with strips of patterned paper I have designed and printed out. For more details of my designs and to get in touch, please visit my website www.claretherese.com

 Tied with brown string, and labelled with the list of all the lovely pure ingredients.

New card making for Furniture Magpie

I'm getting stuck in making cards to sell at Furniture Magpie in Barnstaple and loving it! Here they are mixing it up a little with floral retro fabric, and inspired by the lovely furniture..

 

Retro inspired children's cards..

Can you tell I've been in London for the weekend?

Please get in touch if you're interested in  a commission!x

Handmade wedding chutney favours..

I don't have any pics of the works in progress of these little numbers but I thought it was worth sharing a I think the result was really pretty.

DIY...

1) Firstly, I hand wrote out the label, (lots and lots of times till I got it right!)
2) Scanned it in, and reworked in photoshop to produce a design which I then....
3) Had made into a little stamper (just on vista print!).
4) I bought some cute brown labels on ebay and then handstamped the labels.

If anyone really liked, or really wants the recipe - get in touch, it's my mama's and I have it to hand somewhere in my kitchen!

The final design:

Secondly, my mama made vats of delicious homemade apple chutney, and we spooned this into sterilised mini jars (also from ebay). Last but not least, we cut out hundreds of little pastel coloured fabric circles and tied them on with some thin brown twine.

Et voila.. the finished favours!

 Copyright: Francesca Secolonovo Photography

  Copyright: Francesca Secolonovo Photography

My very first sugar roses

Well this week I made.. sugar roses as cake decorations! Very kitsch I know, but totally addictive and enjoyable! Don't judge please, this was my very first time..!

The hilarious cake it was intended for at work!

Birthday wrapping

I do like to collect amazing images of perfect present wrapping, and this was pretty up there in the nicest I have ever received from my sister for my 27th Birthday!