See you next year!

What a year it has been!  For me it has been about family, creative growth, continually learning and catching far off glimpses of what it might be like to reach my dreams.

I want to thank each and every one of you that has stopped by here.  Having this space and you reading, commenting and emailing means so much to me.  Seriously, this whole experience is slowly but surely life changing.

I wish you all a wonderful and warm Christmas.

I will be back early in the new year. 

Verity xo

Making Mondays: Sweet Butter Biscuit Cabins

These week we made some of these very cute butter biscuit cabins - perfect for getting in the mood for Christmas.  Yashar and I go to an informal weekly playgroup where each of the mothers take it it turn hosting, we each bring some food and the kids get to play while we all have a chance to have a coffee, talk about life and eat some yummy food...a perfect arrangement!  This week's lovely host had organised this little activity and it was great! 

It was quick and easy - perfect for toddlers...although admittedly Yashar did spend most of the time trying to stuff all the decorations in his mouth rather than on the house :)  ...ok I may have eaten some too.

The butter biscuit houses were stuck together using rectangular butter biscuits and icing.   Four biscuits for the walls, one on top for the ceiling, and two on a slope for the roof.   I'm not sure which frosting was used, but there is a recipe for one online   here.  Basically you need a thick royal icing that will stay in place so that the decorations won't slide off.  The houses were all prepared beforehand which I think is an excellent idea, especially when doing this with toddlers!

Then bowls and piping bags of icing were put on the table, along with little bowls of various sweets.  The Mums helped put on the icing and the kids got creative with the placing the sweets on top.  I think they turned out so sweet and Yashar was so proud to show his Baba when he got home.

A little secret...

I posted briefly about Secrets of a Butterfly a while back and then this week I checked in there again and was astounded all over again by all the beautiful things on this blog!  So much so I decided I had to write about it properly!

Kat, who writes the blog and finds all the beautiful things on it, is one inspiring woman!   She has struggled with illness for a long time, which you can read about more here, and, it seems to me, is slowly but surely triumphing over it.   As she puts it, she is on a healing journey.

Kat has a very strong aesthetic.  You know that when you visit with her you will find special things that are dreamy, delicate and beautiful.  Her palette is soft and gentle...which you might have guessed is what I am naturally drawn to in my own illustrations.  I have recently found myself wandering over to her site for colour inspiration for an original I am working on.

And now she has a gorgeous book!  The book is a personal project of hers that she very kindly shared.  The book is for 'looking at in moments of quiet reflection'.    The photographs are all her own, taken in and around her house.  I think it looks just beautiful.

So if you have a moment, take a break, and visit her site.  I promise you will leave feeling calmer and inspired.

Thank you so much Kat for allowing me to share this.

I'm Bringing Crafty Back: From the archives

I was looking through some photos from the past year for a little Christmas present I am working on and it reminded me of so many of the projects I had posted here way back.  Like a nice trip down memory lane without having to see bad hair cuts and long yellow v neck sweaters with tights ;)

So I thought I would share some with you now and then. This was a fave of mine - a terrarium made using the instructions over at SmoothPebble (found via Maya*Made).  This was fun to make with Yashar!  I will definitely be resurrecting it this year (it kinda went all yellowish during Summer so I ended up throwing the moss back in the garden.) 

You can read the full post here if you are interested.

Making Mondays: Christmas Decorations to make with Toddlers

This week we made some decorations for Christmas!  This was such a nice little project to get Yashar involved with. 

 Looking back, one of the most wonderful things that both of my parents did as I was growing up was to be proud and encouraging of what ever I was doing.  What an amazing and strong support to have.  I'm so happy to be able to do this for Yashar too.  At the end of any creative project we always put it somewhere special and I tell him how wonderful it is.  When we hung these up you should have seen the look on his face...he is so proud!

The decorations were easy and involved ripping things up and sticking things - a perfect project for toddlers.  This is what we did:

1.  I got some pieces of card and we ripped up scrap pieces of wrapping paper I had.  Then Yashar put some glue over the paper with a glue stick and we stuck the pieces on to the card.

2.  We hung that up to dry then later I cut out some Christmas shapes while we talked about what they were.  Yashar (with very close guidance) punched a hole in the top of each decorations.

3.  I had some spare little pieces of ribbon that I cut into lengths and used the opportunity to teach Yashar how to thread the pieces of ribbon through the hole he punched.

4.  We tied them up together.  It was so much fun!

PS Another little project we did during the week was some painting.  Since it was in blue and green, after it dried, I cut it out in a fish shape and added a little face.  I think it turned out pretty cute!

Hanging out with Yashar

Last week we went with one of Yashar's little friends to see the ponies!  Yashar loved it (although you can see a little trepidation in the top right photo!).  And I loved the little velvet helmets they wore!  It had me thinking of this 'living in' post on Design*Sponge about the film National Velvet.  Cute!  Who wants a pony for Christmas?

Your inner Christmas craftyness...

I love Christmas time!  Spending time with family (I will be missing them so much this Christmas - we will be staying in Istanbul), then there's the food, the decorations, the music...   Christmas time also seems to bring out the inner craftyness in a lot of us - which is great!  What could be nicer than a handmade gift?  I still have and treasure the little decoration my Mum made for me many years ago.  I love pulling it out of the box each year and remembering.

So here are some gorgeous Christmas crafts for those in the mood...

Templates and instructions for these cute little fabric trees from The Small Object

Miniature Flower Garland from Once Wed (via Hop Skip Jump).  I especially like Fiona from Hop Skip Jump's version using larger petals and fewer flowers.  I'm all about instant crafty gratification.

I love these DIY ornaments from Amy Merrick on design*sponge...if only I could find any of these materials!

Find the free download and instructions for this very cute little house at Twelve22.

Oooh, by the way - the eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed another addition to the side bar... I am so happy that the Light Garden cards and gift tags are now available at the Peoria Art Guild in central Illinois!  I have been having fun looking at maps of where my little cards are going to!  Peoria Art Guild is a non-profit community art center dedicated to education, exhibits, and community service.  The cards and gift tags are available in the Gallery store alongside beautiful jewelry, ceramics, sculpture and hundreds of oils, acrylics, watercolors, etchings, photographs, and pastels.  It is such an honour to have some of my goods there!

Image above is from the Peoria Art Guild website.  All other images are from the respective sites linked to.

Making Mondays

I was going to wait until after Christmas but I couldn't resist designating these as our Making Mondays project this week!  These are made using the pattern in Softies: 22 friends for you to sew, knit and crochet.  I couldn't find the book on amazon, but the new book 'More Softies: 22 New Friends for you to Sew and Crochet' is available on amazon here.  You can also find more about these gorgeous books here and I noticed there is a very very cute free pattern on the site here.

This particular pattern was designed by Sarah Bowe, who also has a quietly beautiful blog Red Felt Flower.  And if you have been around here for a while you might remember I finished off some for Yashar here.  The pattern was inspired by the simplicity of Japanese design and I think the linen and the red and blue fabrics suit this well.  Although I don't think I quite do the pattern justice...some of these look a little more ... hmm... handmade... than others. 

But these are destined for some very cute little people that I don't think will mind!!

Hello Bluebird!

It has been a busy week around here!  Here are a couple of exciting bits of news:

The Light Garden matted prints, cards and gift tags are now available at Hello Bluebird the gorgeous brick and mortar store and gallery in the historic business district of West Reading, Pennsylvania.    They hold exhibitions often - there was an opening reception for the latest one 'Sewing Circle: Modern Expressions of Needle and Thread' just last night.  The shop is full of gorgeous and unique goods.  I wish I could visit!  So if you live in the area I definitely recommend stopping in and saying hello to the lovely and inspiring woman behind it all - Alexandra McCarty.  You can also read about the journey leading up to her opening the shop here.  Thank you Hello Bluebird!

And woohoo!  The Light Garden is currently featured on print and pattern!

The hugely popular site is maintained by UK designer and trend forecaster 'bowiestyle' and catalogues textiles, cards, gift wrap, stationery, wallpaper, tableware, books and illustration.   Bowiestyle also has a book Print and Pattern coming soon (currently available for pre-order).  Yikes!  It was a total thrill to be featured here.   Thank you and welcome to all the new readers stopping by.

Gifts for your man friend

Ok, I have a confession, I managed to forget my husband's birthday and our anniversary... when he told me it was his birthday that day I even insisted that he was wrong and that it was tomorrow! And our anniversary was on the day of the Christmas Bazaar...he told me on the way home and said that he didn't say anything because he knew I was busy and didn't want me to worry about it!

So I want to find something really special for him for Christmas...the pressure is on.  Here are some of my finds along the way.

Leather ipod sleeve from Squirrellicious $31.50,  wild deer cufflinks from UK based makeit $32, Blok pendant light (olive wood) from Workerman $80.


Grey wool and leather laptop sleeve from Byrd and Belle $72, secret message cufflinks from Smashing $85, Vintage French clock from Sadie Olive $48.

Yikes I had better get organised!

Pre-Christmas Print Sale

Oops!  I've been so busy lately that I forgot to tell you all that I'm having a pre-Christmas sale of 20% off prints in the Light Garden shop at the moment (not including custom or mounted prints)...I'm thinking of it as a little early Christmas present for all my lovely customers.  The sale ends on December 4 (this Friday!) so that I can make sure they are all sent in good time for Christmas.