Toucan Competition!

Would you like to win a totally tropical toucan brooch?

Of course you would!

This handsome boy is a brand new design from Shark Alley. So new in fact, that he and his chums are not even on the website yet.

By some rare miracle this has actually managed to coincide with a Fashionable Trend. Toucans are everywhere right now, no doubt massively influenced by the forthcoming World Cup in Brazil this summer.  Adidas have even put them on a range of sportswear!

I also found this gorgeous sweatshirt by Frankie Morello.

So as toucans are IT at the moment, it seems like a perfect time to snap one up for yourself by entering my little competition.

All you need to do is head over to the Shark Alley Facebook page and find the photo at the top of the page.  That will be the beautiful Ella modelling one of the toucan brooches.  To be in with a chance of winning, please comment on the photo and tag a friend who you think would really like Shark Alley jewellery or the Shark Alley page, or even just the brooch!  It would be nice if you can like the page too - if you haven't already, of course!  I'll pick a winner at random on Monday 26th May - that's UK Bank Holiday Monday - and they'll win a fabulous orange-beaked toucan worth £18.  Maybe if I'm feeling generous, I'll throw in another brooch of some description for your friend!

Penguin Canapés

This week I saw a great picture that someone had shared on Facebook.  It was a series of little photos showing how to make penguin canapés - and they were AWESOME. As I had to make some nibbles for an Open House private view on the 10th, I was definitely going to try it out!

Here's how I got on.

1: You'll need some soft cheese, pitted black olives, a carrot and some cocktail sticks. The original picture just showed a tiny weeny scoopy kind of spoon full of nondescript soft cheese.  I don't have a little scoopy spoon so I went for goat's cheese, which I knew I could roll into balls by hand.

2: Peel the carrots and cut into slices roughly 4mm thick, then cut out a small triangle 'beak' from each. The larger bit is for the penguins' feet.

3: Pop the beaks into the widest hole of the olives to make the penguins' heads.

4: Spoon out the soft bits of the cheese and roll it (with very clean hands!) into small balls.

5: To make the penguin bodies, cut down one side of an olive.

6: Then insert the small ball of cheese.

7: Put the two olives together on one of the cut-out carrot slices and spear with a cocktail stick. Done!

8: Repeat - et voilá - a whole army of penguins!

I am pleased to report that the penguins went down an absolute storm.  So easy and fun to make - you should definitely try it.  I didn't actually get to taste one though.

Here are the last few remaining penguins in situ at the private view.  Nice blue plate!

It was a fun night - and so busy.  There were a few sales and hopefully people will come back in the day to see things when it's quieter.  If you're in Brighton and want to visit 60 Florence Road yourself, it's open 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th and 25th May from 11am to 5pm.  Sorry there are no penguins left, but there will be tea and cake in the garden!

Original idea and image from Vibration

Brighton Festival Open Houses 2014

Here in Brighton, May means the Brighton Festival - a month filled with all sorts of cultural and artistic shenanigans and these include Artists Open Houses.

This is where local artists open up their homes as galleries every weekend, showcasing their own work as well as that of other local artists. It's a lovely relaxed environment to see all sorts of different art and craft and to meet and chat with the artists who make it.

I'm in two this year - both on the Fiveways Trail - number 13 and number 15.  Fiveways is the area where the Open Houses began and is a really lovely trail to walk around.  The participating houses are all quite close together and the ones that aren't are really lovely to look at as you stroll by.

My creations are equally divided between the two houses, so if you can't see what you want in one, just pop round to the other - they are very close!  Apologies for the slightly blurred nature of the shots below - they were taken with my phone camera in very low light.

Number 13 (hopefully not unlucky 13!) is Delicious Delights at 60 Florence Road.  This house belongs to Kate Lulham, who produces original works of art in tins from tins - and just happens to sit next to me in Cross Street Studios.  Find all sorts of Shark Alley bird brooches here - toucans, birds, owls as well as dove earrings, resin pendants, purses and otters.  The otters are also represented in some brand new postcards and there is a Shark Alley Otter Family Photo Album to leaf through - assembled from the wonderful shots that people have sent in of their otters getting up to various adventures (from the Get Buzzy With The Fuzzy blog).

Otter postcards

Number 15 is Polly Raynes's house at 202 Ditchling Road and features art on a 'patterns and nature' theme. I'm showing my hare and Brighton cat brooches here and introducing brand new puffins and squirrels.  All the resin jewellery is here as well as fox prints, cards, postcards and mugs.

Both houses will also be serving tea and cakes in the garden.  What's not to like?!

City Of Dreams

Thinking about today's blog, it could have been about some new designs I've finished.

Or about preparations for the Brighton Festival Open Houses which start a week today.

Or about the lovely new place we've moved into at work.

But I can't stop thinking about the fact that last night I booked a trip to the city I love most in the world, my most visited foreign destination and (almost) my second home - Palma de Mallorca.

So it's going to be about that instead.

Say Mallorca to most people and hideous visions of sunburnt, drunken youths staggering around and behaving badly spring immediately to mind.  Well, whilst that certainly does happen in some parts of the island (as I can confirm when I was condemned to Magaluf for a fortnight on an 'allocation on arrival' holiday in 1997) the rest is really beautiful - and in so many different ways. Seeing the names of towns is like reading exotic poetry - Puigpunyent, Orient, Marratxi, Son Sardina, Sencelles, Montuïri, Palmanyola.  I get excited when I see them on a map.

My homemade Mallorca poster circa 1999

From Palma you can get across the island and back easily in a day by car - maybe stopping for a mid-morning café con leche in a town almost untouched by tourism, then spend the rest of the day on a pine-fringed beach, swimming in turquoise sea and snaffling up grilled prawns and olives for lunch. On the way back, you could detour up a winding road to the peaceful grounds of a monastery to watch the late afternoon light fall across the flat plain in the centre of the island while the mountains turn smoky blue in the distance, before returning to Palma for either chilled or lively nightlife in any number of lovely bars and restaurants.  Flipping 'eck - I sound like a tourist guide.

The garden of the bar Abaco - so beautiful that grown men have been known to weep.

I've had a pretty crappy six months or so of late and now desperately feel the need to escape - and to have something to look forward to.  Not even my best friends would call me a relaxed and confident traveller, but I am at ease in Palma and that's a great feeling.  I know my way around, I have enough Spanish to get by, I can navigate the public transport system, I can get to a gorgeous beach in about 20 minutes by myself on the bus.  And the buses only cost about €2.

Good old Airbnb has supplied me with a cute little studio loft apartment in an area I know and like and the flights are reasonable at this time of year.

Lot of wide-angle stretchy camera trickery going on here, I have no doubt.

I hope I can fit a chair on this balcony.

The first time I went to Palma, I was about nine and it didn't end well.  I contracted bronchial pneumonia and ended up in hospital.  The second visit to Mallorca was the infamous fortnight in Magaluf, so the fact that I fell so utterly and irrevocably in love with the island during that holiday is quite miraculous.

I have been in Mallorca during every month of the year. I have 'lived' there for a month. I have celebrated a friend's 50th birthday, Easter, Christmas and two unforgettable New Year's Eves there.  I made a friend for life after a spilled drink incident in a bar. I have seen snow on the mountains, experienced the heaviest rain I've ever seen one day in July, and paddled in the sea in a T-shirt on New Year's Day. I also love the fact that you can stumble across lots of unexpected festivals or parades - like the International Dance Festival that just happened to be going on in the tiny square in Sóller, or the extraordinary Parade of the Penitents around Easter time.

Easter and Christmas in Palma

Anyway, just to finish off (before I make you all want to vomit with my sentimentality) here's the famous and beautiful La Seu cathedral - the cathedral by the sea.  This is the first thing I see on the drive into Palma from the airport that makes me catch my breath (or cry), and I always try and catch sight of it from the plane as it takes off to return to the UK (whilst crying).  Part of the interior and the stained glass window were designed by Antoní Gaudí (he of Barcelona mosaics and architecture fame) and it is utterly breathtaking inside.

So roll on May - Palma I'm a-coming to ya!

Park Life

Continuing in the product photography vein, I took some jewellery to my local park, St Ann's Well Gardens for some natural settings.  Bark and tree stumps provided some lovely textures!

Shooting Beauty

This afternoon I visited my friend Liz Pichon and subjected her poor daughter Ella to another extensive Shark Alley photo shoot.  This is for the website and for some more informal, lifestyle-type shots.

Line 'em up

Ella is a true professional and it was a joy to photograph her.  Her poise and beauty are astounding. Here are some of my favourite shots.

And these are a couple of my super super faves.

Meanwhile, Liz is looking out of the studio in her shed and seeing this madness taking place.

Designer, craftswoman, photographer, stylist . . .

After three hours, I'd finally done.  I could have gone on and on, but Ella has a life!  Despite the fact that she REALLY had to work, Liz needed small press to take a break for some tea and a catch-up, which then turned into tea and cake and then actually we just forgot the tea and had cake and a bottle of prosecco instead. NICE.

Love Liz's house - scene of many great parties.

Colour Is The New Black

Double inspiration this week.

Firstly, a happy find on Facebook - a friend shared this:

http://wesandersonpalettes.tumblr.com/

This blog features stills from Wes Anderson films distilled into gorgeous simple colour palettes.  I love it!

Then last weekend, I sat up to watch The Woman In Black on TV.

See - it actually says 'DON'T WATCH IT ALONE'.

Now this, dear reader, is one scary movie if, like me, you fear faces at windows, shadowy distant figures exuding menace and horrid jolting shocks.  As I'd seen it before in the cinema, I stupidly thought I could handle watching it again (alone), but how wrong I was.  I had to change channels three times before eventually giving up altogether and then passed a restless night reliving visions of sinister faces at windows and feeling chronically unable to get up to go to the loo.

When I was able to peer at the screen without going completely batshit, I noticed what a gorgeous colour palette this film had.  Full of cool and murky blues and greens, with loads of black of course, but then unexpected touches of purple, gold and red.  It inspired me to do my own film colour palettes.

So, may I present The Woman In Black - Colour Palettes.

This is a beautiful composition and I love all the variations on grey

Daniel Radcliffe's complexion is also very cool and grey

All the warm colours here come from skin tones, but they are pinging off the greeny blues

Loving this different set of colours - and hurrah for the brilliant Janet McTeer

All the brights here are located only in a couple of spots in the shot, but your eye goes straight to them

This is my favourite - love the shades of purple and violet

I'd definitely given up and gone to bed before this point.

Respect to the people who work so hard to create these beautiful scenes, sets and backgrounds - I'm sure lots of people don't notice them, but subconsciously they must affect the mood of the viewer. This was so much fun - I'm definitely up for doing more if I notice more great colourways on screen.