We Love ... Mucha!

Most of the time I'm engaged with commissions for people, which means I do very little art of myself sometimes!! And as much as I love doing them, sometimes I just want them to finish too!!

Here is a commission I did last year before Christmas ( I still have my massive fairy painting to be going on with, and as I'm getting a brand new shiny camara soon, I will post some pics! )

I absolutely love Art Nouveau, so this work was really a labour of love. One of my favourite artists is Alphonse Mucha, and his works are now out of copywrite. (Which is probably why we see so much of them in Past Times and things nowdays! )  He was a Czech artist born in 1860, and is widely known for his distinctive illustrations of stylised women. Sadly, like many artists, Mucha has achieved far more fame now than during his lifetime. I copied four of his paintings 'The Times of Day' - They were drawn freehand and handpainted too, I used gouche as this is my favourite medium for achieving a vibrant colour. . 

 The originals are about 1 metre high! Anyway I have some very limited edition prints of these now, in both A4 and A3 formats. They are printed on the best quality fadeproof inks, on watercolour paper so they look remarkably like the originals. Once I get them mounted and packaged up they will be winging their way over to my long neglected Folksy and Etsy shops!

I do love Art Nouveau though, my other favourites of the period being Charles Rene Mackintosh and Antoni Gaudi. (  I have a thing for architecture too! ) This is a room in the Mackintosh Willow Tearooms...

And a nave from Gaudi's labour of love, the Sagrada Familia catherdral in Barcelona... if you ever make it over there, Gaudi's naturalistic architecture is wonderful and hard to miss...

I promise to blog again soon , possibly about my new buisness cards which sound exciting and should be arriving any day now !!

Weddings and Favours!

Hello everyone! Now my cousin's wedding is offically over, I can show you what I have been doing with myself for the last month!

A few months back my cousin emailed me to ask if I knew where to get individual tea-bag holders. Rather unwisely, I said I had no idea but sewing up a batch would be easy. My cousin was rather excited at this, she had only seen some cheapish looking plastic ones from America. See the rather sweet idea was to have teabags and china cups as Wedding favours. Anyway a month and 80 individually sewn bags later - here are the results. 

Make a little more sense now? My cousin chose the message -

 'Lizzy & Tom'

'Love is Brewing'

6th May 202

So that part was handstitched in a variety of colours, the bag was made up on the machine, and a drawstring ribbon and handpainted heart tag was added. Phew! They looked gorgeous on the day and all the guests got a china cup and bag gift!

Just to wet yor appetite, here are some more wedding pics

The room had beautiful drapes and fairy lights, and the flower table decorations...And my favourite part...

the desert trio!

I won't post a pic of the bride and groom in case they get embarrased! But both looked stunning and it was an absolutely fabulous day :)

Introducing the Furbabies

In case anyone out there was wondering, there isn't actually any (shh, whisper it) REAL mice or bunnies in Natsnest. There was a bunny, but he was gone a long time ago. Natsnest does have some furbabies though, and I'd like to introduce them all. You see, ever since I was quite small, I've had a passion for hamsters. Fabric hamsters are something I'm planning to introduce to the nest, once I can get the head shape right (and they have tiny little limbs, must not overbalance them!) There are three real live hamsters in the nest right now...

  The first is Mr. Hope, my chubby golden syrian boy... 

 

Mind the Washing on the Line!!

 If I can just chew through this...

Cage Escape!

Mr. Hope is a lovely 14 month old hammy. He was bought from the adoption bit in Pets at Home, and has quite the story to tell. When he first came to the petstore he escaped and got out into the warehouse. He lived there for two whole months before someone finally caught him. After a lot of fattening up, he was put on sale, but nobody wanted him next to the sleak shiny baby hams. So I went in, picked him up and he snuggled right into my arm and wouldn't let go. So really he had to come home with me. He has been a little angel from the start, although he is a rather lazy hammy, and I doubt he would be seen if it wasn't for me waking him up to play! 

The other occupants of the nest are two roborovski hamsters called Shakespeare and Hamlet...

 

Hamlet

We can still see you Shakespeare!

Shakespeare on his wheel.

Roborovski hamsters are quite new to be kept as pets. They are the tiniest hamsters you can buy, measuring only 4-5cm when fully grown. My two are babies, only 7 weeks old! They are super fast hamsters, and are very nervous, though rarely bite. They are not recommended for children as they are so fast and small! Shakepeare happily likes being stroked in his cage, but gets a little bit upset when being picked up. (He gets picked up anyway, poor wee man!) Hamlet instead likes to play a game where he rushes around the cage so you can't grab him, but when he is finally in your arms he is placid as anything. 

So they are the real furbabies of the nest, hope you enjoyed the photos!

Fairy-ality...

Once again I've been neglecting this blog! I have a good reason though, I lost my camara which ment pictures of my work were a little hard to take! I've been painting a very large watercolour as a commission, and as I think pictures of half finished work are sometimes just as lovely as the finished article, I though you might like to see some images of it. Its taken two months so far. Its of fairies having a party...

Here are the mice looking on ...

 

The buffet table with butterfly ( you can see the unpainted sections here, mostly I'm leaving the fairies till last)

 

Another butterfly, some mushrooms, and some half finished fairies..

A couple of bluetits....

At the moment I don't have a full sized picture of it as its rather large altogether! ( I'll just let the suspence build up a bit!)

The problem with me is that I take on half a dozen projects at once, which means nothing gets finished! ( Well, actually I do tend to finish things, they must just take slightly longer!) So alongside my big painting, I have been doing several fabric projects, which you might like.

Here is my Cath Kitson style tapestry cushion...

A cross stitch I have entitled 'Watership Down' ( after re-reading Richard Adam's fantastic book, it really does have beautiful descriptions of the countryside)

And a embroidery cushion of a bluetit

Phew! As you can see I've got a busy few months ahead of me. On top of all this, I have been organising my artwork and getting some professional prints made up, so hopefully my prints will be listed in both my etsy 

and Folksy shops very soon. They will be all absolutely limited edition, so please watch this space!

Where have you gone, dear mice?

Hello Everyone!

Oh dear, since Nat has been having one crazy mad year, the dear mice and bunnies of Nat's Nest have been having a very long break. They will be back, I promise, but for now they are having a bit of a hibernate.

I'm still being a little creative bunny though, so it seems a shame not to update this blog with some of my other work. A while ago Nat's Nest made embroidery's and prints, and luckily I've found an absolutely fabulous local print company, so some of my prints will hopefully be online soon.

My latest work is a painting called 'The Fairy Ball' and I promise to publish my sketches soon! Here is my inspiration ...

Aren't they beautiful Autumn pictures? Watch this space...

I've also discovered a beautiful writer called Kahlil Gibran, who wrote some very inspirational words back in the 1920's. I've always loved poetry and language, and I've always wanted to produce images linked to words... perhaps that will be my next project! This is taken from a writing entitled 'Joy and Sorrow'

''Some of you say ''Joy is greater than sorrow''
and others say ''Nay, sorrow is the greater''
But I say unto you, they are inseparable
Together they come,
and when one sits alone with you at your board,
Remember the other is asleep on your bed''

This year I have had a fair amount of sorrow, I am in hope for the joy.

We Love...Tempest Apparel!

Hello Everyone! I'd love to introduce my new favourite fashion label today to you all ...

''T E M P E S T      A P P A R E L ''

Maybe you know and maybe you don't - previously I studied a fashion design degree in Winchester, and while I was there I lived with Daisy, who is just this amazingly talented, creative girly. She has set up her own design label 'Tempest Apparel' which features her absolutely fab print designs - they are both vintagy but modern looking and oh so, so unique and individual.

In her own words.......

''The signature of the company is to liven up the plain white tee; like a blank canvas cries out to be painted, a white tee craves to be embellished, decorated and printed on''

My favs are the 'Bowie-Tee' (Here in the nest we are secret David Bowie fans - and we like vinyl, not CDs, teehee)

And this lovely 'Alice in Wonderland' Tee

Gorgeous, aren't they? And by buying from Tempest Apparel not only will you have a very unique T-Shirt, but you are supporting British and Handmade! Yay! (Whats not to like about that?)

For you Londonites you can catch Daisy on Sundays at the Sunday Upmarket (The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane)...or if you live out in the country, like me, you can pop over to her website to browse.

I recommend you pop over to Daisy's website anyway actually - she has the most fantastic, inspiring blog full of wonderful images and she really deserves some more followers .

Heehee...heres something Daisy might not thank me for, here we both are grooving at the Lattitude Festival but we do both have Tempest Apparel T-shirts on so I think its justified! Just look at that blue sky - where has summer gone hey?

Ooo, and I've been working on some more embroideries (its lions and foxes at the moment!) ...stay tuned for a peek next time :)

Bunnify Your Life!

Hi Folks! Have you seen this new website yet?

A little while ago I was approached by Anna from Widget & Friends. Being a bunny lover, she had this fab idea to help real - life rabbits, by raising money for the The Rabbit Welfare Association.

To do this she decided to make a completely non - profit website promoting fantastic bunnified handmade things. All the sellers featured on the website make a donation to the Rabbit Welfare Fund rather than pay a membership fee.

Of course I had to support such a wonderful idea!

Go check out all the fab bunny things featured on

THE     HANDMADE     BUNNY!

Over there you can find my curious carrots....

Anna's gorgeous sock bunnies ... ( I have two now - have to restrain myself from buying more!)

Bunny artwork ...

This is by Mimilove on Folksy

And lots of general animal loveliness...

This is by Sarah Birt Jewellry on Etsy (Yes I still have a thing for foxes too!)

So get yourself over there now! And follow the Bunny Blog!

Well done to Anna - she has already raised £277.00 for the RWF, yay!