Café Konrad

My favourite café in Luxembourg is Konrad on Rue du Nord. It's cosy, the staff are always friendly and make a really good cup of coffee. Most importantly it is a non smoking café, it's hard to believe but smoking is still allowed in bars and cafés in Luxembourg! Seems crazy when you live in a country where that has been illegal for years...

I've sold a few prints through the café and when I was back, I hung a new one up on their wall. Beautifully framed by my dad - as usual.

new website

I finally finished my website. It's such a huge weight off my shoulders as I struggled with it for such a long time and there were a lot of other projects that depended on the website being up and running. I first tried building the site in Word Press, but quickly realised that I definitely don't have the patience and that my brain just doesn't work that way. Someone recommended Cargo Collective and I loved using that, so simple and easy to use.

There are still a few things I need to sort out, but I'm happy with the result.

Please let me know if you spot any typos or mistakes!!

I'm Back...

...From a lovely week in Luxembourg!

I went there to visit my family but also to work, I had to meet up with the shops that stock my products, talk to new ones and count and organise my stock (something I've been putting off for much too long). I managed to do it all (with a lot of help from my parents), and that's despite it being 36 degrees Celsius the first few days I was there. I'm not very good with heat, I don't understand how anyone can get things done in hot weather? - everything just seems to go so much slower and you can't sleep either. Luckily we had a couple of big thunderstorms clear the air.



It's nice to be back home in London, it's starting to feel like autumn here and I love autumn.

Alphabet thief

Fabrications is a lovely craft shop just around the corner from me on Broadway Market. Their window displays always make me smile, like this one celebrating the 2012 Canine Games with loads of knitted dogs.



A couple of weeks ago they posted a funny story about how all the shops along Broadway Market had had a letter stolen from their shop front sign! No one had seen or heard anything and suddenly a few months the shops all got their individual letter sign returned through their letter box. No explanation. Read more here.

I love stories like this...

All the photos are from http://fabrications-hackney.blogspot.co.uk/

Yarn bowl

I've decided I'm going to start knitting and crocheting again, I've had a really long break from it, mainly because it's been summer (well sort of summer) and because I've been so busy screen printing, which takes care of my need for making. Ben and I have started watching Mad Men again, and I'm not very good at just watching TV, so then I end up checking my mail, looking at Instagram etc etc. Knitting will put an end to that.

I love these yarn bowls by Little Wren Pottery, they'd definitely give me some extra encouragement.

Hope you're all having a lovely week. Mine's been very productive so far!

3 x Schnauzers

Last week I met Steph for a walk around Victoria Park. During the Olympics the park was buzzing with people; visitors, volunteers and even a few Olympiads jogging around the park. I loved it, going for my run was suddenly a lot more fun and everyone was so friendly and happy. Steph had Ralph and Betty with her and suddenly we were joined by a third Schnauzer called Echo - such a fun little character and he was even wearing a Team GB scarf! It took his owner Rod quite a few takes, and a lot of treats, to get them all in one picture but he managed and he just emailed them to me.

Friends

I recently added this photo to my wall in my office, I'm trying hard to go against the Scandinavian minimalism that's in my genes, and filling my office walls with things that make me happy and remind me of good times. It's a nice way to put things into perspective when you're stressed about work.

The photo was taken 5 years ago or maybe 6 at a friend's birthday party. We all met at my first job in a London design agency ten years ago and have remained friends ever since. So many things have happened in all of our lives since that photo, really good things and really bad things, but we have always been there for each other through all of it. I know it sounds really cheesy, and it certainly goes against my Scandinavian reserved nature to say something like that, but it's nice to be reminded of things like this when you're stressing about your computer being too slow or delayed suppliers.

Panna's Baking Logo

One of my favourite type of client work is designing logos, it's so much fun! The first 'real' logo I was asked to design was for my friend Maria's business: Bake With Maria - you can see the logo here, and since then I've done a few - including my own of course.

Last month I was working on three different logos, including this one for Panna's Baking. Rosie, from Panna's Baking, saw Maria's logo and asked if I could come up with some designs for her new baking business. Her speciality is brownies, which is why I came up with the square shapes in a few of the sketches.


This is the final logo Rosie chose. You can see it in use on her website/blog where you can also read more about her business.

If you're thinking you might like to have a logo designed, please email me for more details.

Gelle Fra Print

I think one of my favourite things about having my own business is when you get compliments and satisfied customers, it's just the best and far outweighs the benefits of having a regular income.

A few weeks ago I received an email from a woman who bought one of my prints from the market I took part in in May, she's had it framed beautifully, I love the orange border around the passe-par-tout. Receiving that email made my day, if not my week, so thank you Maren, I hope you found a nice space for it in your home -and I'm impressed with your photography skills, I always end up with reflections in the glass and here there's none at all!

I still have a few of these Gelle Fra prints available here.

Printing with Maria

Yesterday my friend Maria joined me in the studio for some tea towel screen printing. Maria is a fellow Dane living here in London and she also runs her own business: Bake With Maria check out her website for details on all her baking courses - she's an amazing baker and really fun too, so her baking classes are great.

Yesterday she swapped her baking apron for a printing apron and helped me print the Victoria Sponge Cake tea towels that you guys helped me come up with a few months back. Emily if you're reading, please email me your address and I'll pop one in the post for you next week, as a thank you for giving me the idea.

We had a lot of fun and Maria was a natural at screen printing, I don't think any of the tea towels ended up with mistakes on them. She's 6 months pregnant and I think it was good we didn't wait until next month as her belly barely allowed her to reach the top of the screen!

The tea towels will be available from my shop and from Maria's baking lab as soon as they have been heat cured.

Luxembourg

I had a bad day in the studio yesterday. Nothing worked the way I wanted it to. I had prepared a screen to print the Gromperekichelchen and Bounenschloup tea towels, but it hadn't been exposed right - still not sure quite what happened.

So I decided to print some more Luxembourg prints instead. At least they turned out well and they're now available in my shop.

I'm off to the studio to try to print the tea towels again.