Kiss Kiss Molly's Lips!

 Isn't it just magic when you get to a certain age and your friends all of a sudden start getting married and getting pregnant? It's like there's part of you that doesn't feel old enough (when will we ever!) but then you stop and think 'oh yeah, we aren't 20 anymore!'

This magic seems to be happening to me at the moment, and far from being scary (well most of the time) I'm actually excited about it. It's like one party is over (the party where you stay up till dawn and still have energy for carrying on the fun) and the next party is starting (the one where you all stay in to watch X-factor cos the kids have to be in bed at 8pm and you're too tired from doing kid-stuff all day.) Man how the times have changed.

The other weekend, we proved our age by having such a 'party' at my friend Liam's house in Manchester. My friend of a whole decade ago, Miss Tie came down from Glasgow with her newly formed family in tow, Mister Jeffory and little miss Molly the new baby! Friends living so far away really does suck so we all decided to meet in the middle (thanks Liam!) and even my old housemate Lizzy Bee was there!

We went for a wander in Gatley where Liam lives and he was keen to show this old cafe that has seemingly stayed in a time warp from the 60's.....how cool!? It even had an old meat slicer and vintage radio on top of the rickety fridge. I do hope this place stays true like this forever.

So anyway...onto the baby cuddling! Molly is quite simply the cutest baby I have ever seen - I mean look at that hair! Apparently her hair is so thick that it even showed up on the ultrasound, and you literally cannot make it go down, it is permanently thrust in a funky little quiff! 

She also has the best eyes that get permanently fixed on mysteriously nothing behind you...it's what was cracking me and Mr Phil up in this picture, and just about when I realised who she reminded me of - a Monchichi! Do you remember those?

In honour of Miss Molly's blessed arrival in our lives, I decided it was only proper that she should have her own custom baby plate!

Having known her parents for many a year I knew straight away how I'd like the composition to go - it HAD to be musical themed (I don't think I know anyone more into their music than them) I got sketching, would you like to see how I design these plates? Well I'm going to show you!

I was thinking straight away of having the family dancing around a record player so start to block out where I want the figures to go - it always starts with simple shapes so I can plot/rub out/plot/ rub out to get it just right. I like to work within the size of the plate from the beginning too...it can be a slightly restrictive shape so best to always have it in mind.

The same basic drawing gets added to on top of the sketch and I'm now starting to add more details like outfits, where the text will go and I'm starting to think about the colours I might use too.

Because I want my drawings to have a 'screen printed' feel to them, even when I don't screen print I still work in the same way. I photocopy the original sketch (always good to keep the original safe just in case) and block out where I want the colours to go. I decided for this drawing to keep it to a simple 3 colour plan - grey, mint green and pink.

Next is the good old tracing paper stage - I go over each colour layer with a trusty black fineliner, making each part of the image into a black 'blob'. After this I scan in and reform the image back together using photoshop and illustrator. Illustrator is really handy if you like to make changes later on, like change a colour or add detail.

I added a few subtle shades of the mint and pink and some texture in the background. There are also some personal hints to their life as a couple - like the Mr Brightside record sleeve, a song that was big when they were starting their life together :)

And here it is...the finished plate before it was shipped off up to Glasgow! 

I think I love this design the best of any I've done yet, as they are so special to me and I (hope) think I have captured who they are quite well!

I can't wait to go up to Glasgow this weekend to see it on Miss Molly's wall :)

The Little Peach xx

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Peachers!

What are you up to for it? We had a smashing Halloween party last weekend (which I still feel like I'm paying for!) and a house full of zombies, mummies, chucky's and generally bizarre looking folk helped us get our ghoul on till the wee small hours.

 Me and the Mr decided to go as the twins from the shining (we look so alike don't you think?!) but in general it is always Halloween in our house with these two rascals running around!

And I'll leave you with a blast from the past - this was the first EVER EVER single I bought on cd, like even before I have my own CD player and had to play it on the desk-sized hi-fi stack system in the front room! Oh the hours of fun we had jumping around to this! What was your first single?

The Little Peach xx

Lots of Giggling

Now then, I don't know how many of you know but my wonder and extremely talented sister Mrs Biddle (she's a theatre director don't ya know!) lives in Bath and although this makes me very happy as could you ask for a nicer place to go an visit?! It also mean though that she is about 3 hours drive away from me :( Big Boo!

Over the past 10 years we've always been off on our own gallivanting adventures around the country - me in and around London and Amy...well where ever a theatre calls her to really! But now that there's all sorts of grown up things going on like babies, I suddenly feel the need to be nearer. It's like my nesting instinct is starting to kick in and my big sister bird is a long flight away.

So, to make the most of my school holidays (working in a school definitely has it's perks!) I decided to go and stay for a few lazy, non-event days with her, her wonderful fella and her mini-one Bertman

We did a lot of hanging out at home which was a nice change to the usual rushed visits. Amy's garden has a wonderful light in the evenings and we supped on some white wine whilst deciding what movie to rent (there's a movie shop in Bath that is so old school they write what you take out on a library card, I'd highly recommend it, it's by the weir!)

Mr Bert has grown so much since I last saw him and he's now a fully fledged giggler!

On one of the days we went to Lacock Abbey, a National Trust property near Chippenham. The village nearby is really famous for being in lots of period dramas like Cranford, and although being very beautiful I didn't envy the residents what with umpteen tourists oooing and ahhing around their picturesque streets all day!

 
The Abby itself has some lovely cloisters that you can walk around, including some bits that were used in the Harry Potter bits apparently.

Bertie was really enjoying his very recently new shoes by testing out his walking skills in and around the Abbey, he's a little whippet I tell thee!

He also nicked the end of my ice cream...what a cheek!

I took Bertie swimming and to feed the ducks on the canal on another day and we watched lots of the Olympics too (who knew we'd all be so in to it!)

I can't wait for my next trip! :D And if anyone invents a teleporter do tell them to get in touch...

The Little Peach xx

Happy Daddy Day!

My dad LOVES his motorhome, in fact him and his wife have taken in recent years to practically living most of the year round in it. They set off southwards after the weather has started to improve a bit at the beginning of the year and tootle along till the land runs out. And who can blame them with the weather in Britain living up to it's usual reputation (I mean it feels like September outside and it's bloomin' June for flips sake!
He's been in Portugal for quite a while now but has recently set off to bring the home on wheels back to England, last seen somewhere near Biarritz in France (I'm not jealous at all!) so for today's Father Day, and as I'm pretty sure the postman can't keep up with him, I have made him this little animated gif, Happy Father's Day Dad!

And as I said, as the weather's so pants and we have 2 Dads here to celebrate (Mr Phil and GGG - Grumpy Grandad Graham!) I have a shoulder of pork sizzling away - it's had 3 our it's 6 hour roast YUM!

Hope you have a great Father's Day wherever you are :)

The Little Peach xx

Talk to the Hand

Ahh, lying in bed on a Saturday morning, refusing to get up or dressed and catching up with iplayer, there's nothing better is there?

Just watched this wonderfully moving documentary about Ventriloquism - Nina Conti learnt her trade from mentor Ken Campbell and after his death she takes his bereaved puppets on their a pilgrimage to their final resting place - to talking dummy heaven.

You can catch up with it if you'd like, it's on the BBC iplayer here

Watching it also reminded me of another puppet-related documentary I'm super excited to see - Being Elmo which has just got a bi pre-order on Amazon from me :) There's just something about really strong human emotions coming from a non-human object that gets me every time...it's like I see things clearer that way. I guess it's the same feeling I get when I've drawn something, like a rawness that is easier to read.

I will get up at some point though I promise, although the British weather isn't helping the motivation! I'm really excited/nervous about my first Little Peach market next week - The Designer/Makers at Spitalfields! I've got some brand new prints to launch there as well as the first set, and some new baby plates too. Do come along if you're in London :)

Wotcha!

Baba Biddle calling to cheer up his Aunt...'it's fish fingers for tea don't ya know?'

Poorly Geek Time

Today I am poorly in bed, with two black fluffy kitties for company and a wealth of internet tutorials before me.

Between the sneezes, and the 'lets play with the computer cable' game Daisy keeps attempting, I have worked out how to do this:

Pretty snazzy huh?! And all in photoshop too...genius! 

 In other news I have been getting rather overly excited about the prospect of getting going on my all new (to me) screen printing table!

 

Now I am one very lucky girl in that my charming other half not only puts up with my space-encompassing passion by letting me take over the Outhouse out the back of our house, but that he also buys me the tools to help me achieve printing equilibrium - including this vacuum table :) What a fine fella I've got right?!

 We collected the table from an old University buddy of mine, Chris from We Three Club who along with his lovely Mrs, Alex, design some amazing posters and apparel for too many clients to mention!

 They also run a stupidly fun live poster printing/gig watching experience Poster Roast where you can simultaneously watch the gig posters being screen printed by the artist whilst also watching that band perform, legendary right?!

Well I hope that some of the printing heritage that oozes from this table will help me along in my screen printing adventure, I feel as if I have inherited a warrior! (and I promise to treat her good Chris and Alex!)

One of the great things about this table is that it has a vacuum built into the table - you see all those tiny holes? Well under there is a powerful vacuum that will hold my paper in place when I've finished a pull. Before this I used to just use some screen clamps attached to a bit of board, and the paper would always be stuck to the under side of my screen when I had printed, meaning an extra movement in every print.

The other bonus is that the table has a weight balance on the back, meaning that I can simply lift the screen gently and it will just float in the air above me. Now this isn't something that would be that exciting to most, but when you're doing a run of 200 two colour invites (i.e. 800 prints inside and out) these little bonuses will save my grandma back enormously!

The other new bit of kit that is signaling my beginning of my self-sufficiency is my exposure unit.

Now to 'expose' your screen means to make a stencil for you to print through. 

Very simply put you: 1. Coat your screen in a light sensitive emulsion (the green goop!) 2. Place an acetate of your design on top and 3. Leave under a UV light to harden.

The new exposure unit is proving a trial and error beast to tame, as I'm used to using the hyper-fast expensive machine at the print studio, but I'll get there and will soon be able to print on a daily basis....HEAVEN!

I have been beavering away on new designs this past week and am super stoked to soon be able to be printing them all in the Outhouse. I have so many ideas in my head of things I want to print and now it will be so much easier to achieve them. 

There are also some all new baby plates to treat your new-parent friends with...here a couple of the circus design I made up for an order this week, do get in touch if you'd like one too :)

And finally, a little bit of down time was spent yesterday (before the lurgy really took hold)with a trip to East Carlton Park, near Corby.

The park used to be part of British Steel and Iron, and still has a museum there (and an amazing dolls house shop!) but this magnificent building has now been turned into flats, can you imagine living there, it's like the Addams Family's house!

We took the picnic set I got for Mr Phil for Christmas (a £2.50 bobby bargain from a charity shop!) and he made his signature homemade scotch eggs...yum!

Hope you are all having a nice start to your week and have managed to make it out of bed!

The Little Peach x