As you have probably noticed, I have a split personality where my work is concerned.

Blueberry Park originally started as an online showcase for British Artists, but as the months, years have gone on I have been doing more and more of my own creating.

I really love sourcing the talent that we have here in the UK and providing a platform to make the work accessible for everyone. I get a real buzz from seeking out and meeting wonderful artists at Trade Fairs and the like.

As time has gone on and I have been spending more and more time on my own work, I have found this harder and harder to do and after a year of soul searching and trying desperately to do both sides of Blueberry Park, I have come to the decision that if I am to continue on my own personal creative journey then something has to give.

Whilst I am desperately disappointed that I can no longer devote time to sourcing wonderful new work and continue working relationships with existing Artists, I am very excited about where I am personally heading. As you know, I have fallen in love with Screen Printing and this is going to allow me to go in a new and exciting direction with my work.

So Blueberry Park as we know it is due for quite a change. The good news for you is that in order for this to happen Blueberry Park is offering a Sale Extravaganza!

For you, dear readers, enter KL50 at the checkout to receive 50% off your entire order of remaining Blueberry Park goodies.

So put your feet up, the kettle on, and continue with me and see where my journey takes me next.

I've been enjoying some sketching this weekend in preparation for next week's Screen Printing class.

Last week we started on colour alignment - printing a 2 colour design and aligning up the second colour on top of the first. We used a design that Gina brought and next week we are to bring a 2 layer design of our own.

My sketchbook is full to brimming of all sorts of doodles and designs and I'm trying to narrow down which I will do next week. I think I'm down to one of these 2.

Again, I'm trying to not get too caught up in getting the perfect design, but using something that will allow me to experiment with the process.

I've drawn the second layer on tracing paper and I actually love seeing the design split in two. I am excited about next week's class and experimenting with a 2 layer print and looking forward to experimenting with more of the designs in my sketchbook.

Fun, fun, fun...

I know I'm a bit of a fabricaholic - I'll be the first to admit I have a teensy problem - but really, who could resist buying these wonderful scrap bags from Skinny Laminx?

Like the majority of my fabric purchases I had no specific project in mind, but when Heather listed them, it was more a question of "I want those, I NEED them!"

I had no idea whether there would be large enough pieces to make something in it's entirety, but quite frankly, even a little patch of Heather's fab designs would shine in a project. The next question was "Grey? Or Red?"

Ok, so I'm rubbish at decisions.

When they arrived yesterday, I was overcome by how gorgeous they were. Not that I doubted they wouldn't be, but like all hand-printed fabrics they look and feel even better in the flesh.

Not only that, these sure were not scraps...with pieces measuring over 25 x 50cm, I was able to rustle up a couple of wash-bags toute suite...

...perfect for the guys, hey?

(they are available here now...)

We are very lucky to have The Bowery in Leeds. The Bowery is that great combination of gallery, workshop, gifts and cafe.

It's a great place to meet friends for a coffee and it's always nice to have beautiful contemporary Artists' work on display to have a little peruse at after.

I have bought quite a few cards and gifts from here and currently have my eye on a lampshade that I keep seeing. One day soon I think I'll not be able to resist any longer...

As well as being lucky enough to live close by to The Bowery, I am also lucky enough to call them a Stockist. They came to see me at BCTF last month and it seems that other people must be as fond of the place as I am as things are selling really well and today I delivered my second box of goodies.

I haven't been in since delivering the first pieces and so hadn't seen the display. I have to say I was chuffed to bits to see all my things looking so bright and eye-catching. I am so pleased my things are doing so well here.

The only thing that isn't going too well, however, is my camera...the lead to my Mac is playing up and so am having to take photos on my iphone and as you can tell, it isn't quite cutting it. It was a pretty grey day too which didn't help much.

If you live near to The Bowery (it's in Headingley, Leeds) and haven't yet managed a trip, you won't be disappointed. And bear in mind it looks more tempting than it does in my dreary photos...

I think I must be becoming extremely transparent. I must be becoming very predictable with my likes.

Courtney of Seamstar sent me the following samples of some new linens she has just started stocking...

Do they have my name written all over them or what??

And just to illustrate the point further (just in case you aren't quite convinced) here they are with my pencil case and purse, both of which I carry about with me at all times.

I'm going to have to start being more creative with my colour palette. Who knows, I may surprise you one day with my choices...

I'm having a bit of a dotty thing going on at the moment.

Normally I line my pouches with Liberty fabric or shirting fabric, both of which i really love using, but today some relatively new Robert Kaufman purchases got a look in.

It all started when I was looking for a fabric to line one of my Summerville Pouches.

Perfect! More than a little ray of sunshine on this dismal day!

Having remembered that I had actually bought this fabric for this particular purpose, I decided to use them as linings for the other pouches that I've been making for a stockist today.

I really love them and just hope the stockist and customers do too!

Screen Printing Course Lesson 3...

For the first time since starting the course, I initially came away from today's session feeling despondent. Fortunately I quickly put the nail on the head as to why this was. Each lesson is just 2 hours but we pack so much into it. In the previous 2 weeks we focussed on learning and using one skill and for the first time today, we had to use what we had learnt in those sessions whilst learning a new skill.

I'm really pleased that (yet again) I have quickly learnt that it is such early days (impatient? moi?) and it is going to take so much time to master and be able to perform all these skills naturally.

Since last week's lesson I knew I wanted to experiment with photographs and also text, so I have spent most of the week photographing flowers and then cutting around them. I had no idea what the effects of these were going to be, but hey, it's all about the process isn't it? (I learnt that last week). Again, with the text, it didn't matter too much what was written, more seeing the effects when turned into a screen-print. (Go to the top of the class, Karen.) I used a couple of the different font stamps that I have, as I wanted to see the effects of these and found a quote from my favourite children's book...I'm sure you know where it's from...

When we got to class, the focus of the lesson was Paper Stencils. As well as producing a screen with photo emulsion, you can produce a crude screen from cutting shapes from paper and fixing this to the screen. This method is great for block colours as a base for printing something else over.

As usual I was astounded by the effects of something so simple. Here's Gina's example below. A simple rectangle was cut out and then with the use of 2 or 3 colours an amazing background to use in a design has been produced.

I forgot to take a photo of my paper stencil print, but from the screen above, you can see what I set out to do. I cut a large rectangle for the flowers to sit on and then cut 2 smaller 'windows' to highlight the larger text. First print was of the yellow (the one I forgot to take) and then when that had dried I printed over with my screen with the text and photos.

I should at this point tell you that whilst all this was going on we had to prepare our screen, the photo emulsion way, to use for the second layer. And this is where I started to take my eye off the boil. This process is one that we have done for the past 2 weeks, but in isolation, focussing on just that. This week it was a by-product within the lessons objectives. I didn't have any problems with the actual screen, but where I did fall into difficulties and realise was an area I need to focus on, was the actual printing motion. I'm quite relieved to know that this is all very natural and next week, whilst learning yet another new technique, we are going to put emphasis on the actual printing. Hurrah!

Whilst I'm not overly happy with how the flowers have turned out (the bottom left didn't take at all) I love the effects of using this idea and particularly love the use of stamped text. And even more so with the paper stencil block printing highlighting areas. This is definitely something that I will be pursuing.

Lots done already and still HEAPS to learn and do...