Stuart Brown TEDtalk about the importance of playing.

Brilliant talk about the importance of playing and how it affects your intelligence, creativity and social skills. I love his description of playing through your body and how it's not just humans who feel better after doing a little dance or skipping down the street. My rabbit, Mr Rufus, (seen here in all his fluffy glory)

likes to do these strange little hops and backflips when he's let out in the garden for a run. I can think of no logical explanation for them, except that he's having fun, like a kid trying to do a cartwheel.

Special little bunny!

Life Outdoors.







I come from a fairly outdoorsy family; most people view our lifestyle as a similar one to the couple in that old TV show 'The Good Life'. We're pretty certain that our neighbours, although interested by us and our various animals, are also slightly ashamed of our house and its lack-of-keeping with the rest of the street. I'm starting to think that when they say, "Isn't it lovely to hear the sound of a rooster in the middle of town!", what they really mean is, "If that rooster wakes me up at 5am one more time I will set the cat on it and hurl eggs at your house!"

 

Anyway this love of the outdoors extended to myself and my sister when we took up jobs at our local Botanical Gardens. This is a quick pen and watercolour sketch I did of Ness Gardens, where I used to work in the tearooms. We would often serve wedding parties down in this secluded spot and it holds fond memories for me, midges and wasps aside!

 

Vintage to a Tea

This was a pencil drawing of three of my vintage teacups stacked together, which I then photographed and edited so the image looks more aged than it is. Hopefully some photoshop tutorials at uni will mean I'll get better at the editing side!

Afternoon Tea for Two



Afternoon tea with the homemade cakes, scones, vintage china and real tea leaves is something truly British that I absolutely love. For me, there is no nicer way to spend an afternoon than by finding a quirky little café in which to indulge yourself, people watch or read a good book.

This teacup was drawn in biro using a continuous line technique and then stitched into on my sewing machine and coloured using fine tipped pens. Holding it up to the light gives it a lovely magical sparkle. :)

My drawing was based on these vintage teacups given to me by a lovely lady who I used to wok with. She collected loads for her wedding and then gave some to me to save them from gathering dust in her loft.

Hello Technology!

Having always been scared of anything technological I've finally decided to give this online doo-dah a go, so bear with...

To begin... This is Mr Whale. (Say Hellooooo)

 

Mr Whale is a relic from my days working in a café with some pretty amazing but terrifyingly freaky people. (We all used to greet each other with a "Hello Mr Whale" and now I forget why, it's just how it was.)

 

Being around cake all day, but not being allowed to eat it will send some people a bit doolally.