New Childrens Cards

I have been playing with some new childrens birthday card designs, as I don't have many of them, especially boys cards.

I am quite fond of this little monster.

 

Baked goods

I few photos of some recent baked items I have created recently. 

Below is some chocolate fudge cupcakes, for a bake sale; 

a pecan pie, which was delicious, even if it did overflow over its pastry case;

A loaf of foccaccia bread... it turned out beautifully, but less oily than I had imagined. More olive oil next time maybe.

I am hoping to start pushing my baking skills further and trying new things, so I am thinking of working though a few of my baking books.

I will make sure I show my progress on here, with some more 'baking in process' photos.

Bake - Banana loaf

Baking is a passion of mine. I write about it alot of twitter and instgram, but thought I would start sharing about it on here. 
Wierdly I cant cook to save my life, but I am not too shabby at baking.
I have an NVQ in Craft Bakery, which I gained whilst working in a sugar room making sugar cake decorations a few years ago. Was a great job and loved learning all the skills to create beautiful cakey decorations. The products we made were like little illustrations but made out of sugar paste and royal icing. 
I still work for the company now, but on non-edible designs. 

So although not the prettiest of baked goods, Banana bread IS scrummy, easy to make and clearly at least one of your 5 a day right? 

I have put some photos together of the process.... Just to show how easy it is! 
Unfortunately I was so eager to dig into the loaf, I forgot to take a photo of it as it came out of the oven!

Bake - Peppa Pig

I made and decorated this cake a little while ago for a little girl that my mum used to childmind. 

She LOVED Peppa Pig, so I made this Peppa cake for her. She knew it was Peppa straight away, so thats always a good sign.

Chicago

So this week I have been working on a little illustration of my own between other bits of work.

I thought I would finally start doing some things inspired by my amazing road trip across America last year.

So here is a little Chicago illustration. 

Hoping to do some more, maybe using different materials.

I also added it to my Society6 shop. You can get it printed onto all kinds of things over there so go take a look.
I also made my fox and bird print available as PILLOWS! 

                   

2013

So first of all, Happy new year! (I know I am 8 days late on saying it)

Just realised how much of a failure my 'daily drawing month' was back in October! 3 posts? rubbish. 

Well, back in October things got pretty busy. 
In June, I took on a part time job at a lovely dressage stables, as I needed a bit extra income etc. 
It was nice to have that security and nice spending lots of time outside...even though it has mainly rained non-stop since June! 

Anyway, I finished my lovely little part time job last Friday. My design work has been picking up and I need the extra time to spend on that, as I was struggling to fit everything in and running out of energy.
I am hoping that I will not need another source of income, and hope that I can build my freelance design and illustration business this year.
I am really going to go for it in 2013!!!

Last year was quite a roller coaster.
There was a lot of sadness as we lost a few friends and nearly lost Pepper.
Some big decisions had to be made also.

I did however have an amazing adventure travelling around America on a road trip with Chris. Gained some unforgettable memories.
Also got to go to the Olympics and experience the amazing Team GB owning the eventing!

2012 felt like a year that just took you a long with it. It flew by, and only looking back now, I realise how much happened.

2013 is a year that I am determined to have much more control over.

Not sure if any of that makes sense.

Lets see what happens!